“I reserve the right to be smarter today than I was yesterday.”
As quoted in Loggers' Handbook Vol. 36 (1976), p. 72; also in North Western Reporter, Second series (1992) https://books.google.com/books?id=I1KaAAAAIAAJ; similar remarks have been attributed to others, including more recent attributions to Adlai Stevenson and Abraham Lincoln.
Variant:
I insist on being smarter today than I was yesterday.
As quoted in How to Win the Meeting (1979) by Frank Snell, p. 3
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Konrad Adenauer 12
German statesman, Federal Chancellor of Germany, politician… 1876–1967Related quotes
“I do not think much of a man who is not wiser today than he was yesterday.”
Included in Portrait-Life of Lincoln (1910) by Francis T Miller
Posthumous attributions
Response to question on his feelings about the atomic bombings, while visiting Japan in 1960.
“Day before yesterday I saw a rabbit, and yesterday a deer, and today, you.”
Source: The Dandelion Girl
“I am in yesterday, today. And tomorrow? In tomorrow I was.”
Estoy en el ayer, en el hoy. ¿Y en mañana? En el mañana estuve.
Voces (1943)
“I am who I am today because of the choices I made yesterday.”
Not by Roosevelt, but from Steven Covey's Seven Habits of Highly Effective People (1989).
Misattributed
“I am not afraid of tomorrow
for I have seen yesterday
and I love today”
“Mother died today. Or maybe yesterday; I can't be sure.”
Aujourd'hui maman est morte. Ou peut-être hier, je ne sais pas.
First sentences of the book; some translations retain the original Maman.
The Stranger (1942)
Speech at the U.N. in which he referred to George W. Bush as the Devil, (September 2006), as quoted in "Chavez's colourful quotations" at BBC News (12 November 2007) http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7090600.stm
2006
“For the yesterdays and todays, and the tomorrows I can hardly wait for - Thank you.”
Source: The Book of Tomorrow