Franklin D. Roosevelt Quotes

Franklin D. Roosevelt (January 30, 1882 – April 12, 1945) was the 32nd President of the United States, serving four terms from 1933 until his death in 1945.Franklin Delano Roosevelt was born into a wealthy family in Hyde Park, New York. He attended Harvard University for both his undergraduate and law degrees.Roosevelt came from a prominent political family, and his distant cousin Theodore Roosevelt was also a U.S. President. He is one of the most influential and important political figures in American history, particularly known for his leadership during the Great Depression and World War II.

Franklin D. Roosevelt’s presidency is remembered for his efforts to address economic crises, improve social welfare, and steer the nation through one of its most challenging periods, leaving a lasting legacy on American society and government.

• Freedom Quotes of Franklin D. Roosevelt
• Franklin D. Roosevelt Quotes about Leadership
• Quotes on Strength by Franklin D. Roosevelt
• Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Humanity Quotes
• Quotes about War and Peace by Franklin D. Roosevelt
• Quotes on Opportunity by Franklin D. Roosevelt
• Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Environment Quotes
• Love Quotes by Franklin D. Roosevelt
• Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Goal Quotes

Freedom Quotes of Franklin D. Roosevelt

Men are not prisoners of fate, but only prisoners of their own minds.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Freedom means the supremacy of human rights everywhere. Our support goes to those who struggle to gain those rights or keep them.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Freedom to learn is the first necessity of guaranteeing that man himself shall be self reliant enough to be free.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

In the trust sense, freedom cannot be bestowed; it must be achieved.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerated the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than the democratic state itself. That in its essence is fascism: ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or any controlling private power.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

The real truth of the matter is, as you and I know, that a financial element in the larger centers has owned the Government ever since the days of Andrew Jackson…

Franklin D. Roosevelt

The winds that blow through the wide sky in these mounts, the winds that sweep from Canada to Mexico, from the Pacific to the Atlantic – have always blown on free men.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

True individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence. People who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Franklin D. Roosevelt Quotes about Leadership

Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the assessment that something else is more important than fear.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Go for the moon. If you don’t get it, you’ll still be heading for a star. Happiness lies not in the mere possession of money; it lies in the joy of achievement, in the thrill of the creative effort.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Happiness lies not in the mere possession of money; it lies in the joy of achievement, in the thrill of creative effort.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

If you treat people right they will treat you right… ninety percent of the time.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

The barrier to success is not something which exists in the real world; it is composed purely and simply of doubts about ability.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

We have nothing to fear but fear itself.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

More Leadership Quotes

Quotes on Strength by Franklin D. Roosevelt

Our handicaps exist only in our minds.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Physical strength can never permanently withstand the impact of spiritual force.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

The motto of war is: “Let the strong survive; let the weak die.” The motto of peace is: “Let the strong help the weak to survive.”

Franklin D. Roosevelt

The only sure bulwark of continuing liberty is a government strong enough to protect the interests of the people, and a people strong enough and well enough informed to maintain its sovereign control over the goverment.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

When you see a rattlesnake poised to strike, you do not wait until he has struck to crush him.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Humanity Quotes

Almighty God: Our sons, pride of our Nation, this day have set upon a mighty endeavor, a struggle to preserve our Republic, our religion, and our civilization, and to set free a suffering humanity.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Friendship among nations, as among individuals, calls for constructive efforts to muster the forces of humanity in order that an atmosphere of close understanding and cooperation may be cultivated.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Peace can endure only so long as humanity really insists upon it, and is willing to work for it and sacrifice for it.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Peace, like charity, begins at home.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

There comes a time in the affairs of men when they must prepare to defend not their homes alone but the tenets of faith and humanity on which their churches, their governments and their very foundations are set. The defense of religion, of democracy and of good faith among nations is all the same fight. To save one, we must now make up our minds to save all.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Quotes about War and Peace by Franklin D. Roosevelt

Books can not be killed by fire. People die, but books never die. No man and no force can abolish memory… In this war, we know, books are weapons. And it is a part of your dedication always to make them weapons for man’s freedom.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

December 7, 1941. A date which will live in infamy.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

I have seen war … I hate war.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

In politics, nothing happens by accident. If it happens, you can bet it was planned that way.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

We are a nation of many nationalities, many races, many religions-bound together by a single unity, the unity of freedom and equality. Whoever seeks to set one nationality against another, seeks to degrade all nationalities.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

We had to struggle with the old enemies of peace – business and financial monopoly, speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, sectionalism, war profiteering

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Chamberlain’s visit to Hitler today may bring things to a head or may result in a temporary postponement of what looks to me likean inevitable conflict within the next five years.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

If civilization is to survive, we must cultivate the science of human relationships – the ability of all peoples, of all kinds, to live together, in the same world at peace.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

More than an end to war, we want an end to the beginning of all wars – yes, an end to this brutal, inhuman and thoroughly impractical method of settling the differences between governments.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

More than just an end to war, we want an end to the beginnings of all wars.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Peace, like war, can succeed only where there is a will to enforce it, and where there is available power to enforce it.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Repetition does not transform a lie into a truth.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

The structure of world peace cannot be the work of one man or one party or one nation. It must be a peace which rests on the cooperative effort of the whole world.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Quotes on Opportunity by Franklin D. Roosevelt

A wise Government seeks to provide the opportunity through which the best of individual achievement can be obtained, while at the same time it seeks to remove such obstruction, such unfairness as springs from selfish human motives.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Liberty requires opportunity to make a living–a living decent according to the standard of the time, a living which gives a man not only enough to live by, but something to live for.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

We know that equality of individual ability has never existed and never will, but we do insist that equality of opportunity still must be sought.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

We stand committed to the proposition that freedom is no half-and-half affair. If the average citizen is guaranteed equal opportunity in the polling place, he must have equal opportunity in the market place.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Environment Quotes

Forests are the lungs of our land.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Government cannot close its eyes to the pollution of waters, to the erosion of soil, to the slashing of forests any more than it can close its eyes to the need for slum clearance and schools.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

The Nation that destroys its soil destroys itself.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

The truth is found when men are free to pursue it.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Love Quotes by Franklin D. Roosevelt

I call for effort, courage, sacrifice, devotion. Granting the love of freedom, all of these are possible. And the love of freedom is still fierce and steady in the nation today. June 10, 1940

Franklin D. Roosevelt

I consider it a public duty to answer falsifications with facts. I will not pretend that I find this an unpleasant duty. I am an old campaigner, and I love a good fight.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Self-interest is the enemy of all true affection.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

The value of love will always be stronger than the value of hate. Any nation or group of nations which employs hatred eventually is torn to pieces by hatred.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Goal Quotes

I do not look upon these United States as a finished product. We are still in the making.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

I sometimes think we consider too much the good luck of the early bird and not enough the bad luck of the early worm.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

There are many ways of going forward, but only one way of standing still.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

There is nothing I love as much as a good fight.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

To reach a port, we must sail – sail, not tie at anchor – sail, not drift.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Famous Quotes of Franklin D. Roosevelt

A world turned into a stereotype, a society converted into a regiment, a life translated into a routine, make it difficult for either art or artists to survive. Crush individuality in society and you crush art as well. Nourish the conditions of a free life and you nourish the arts, too.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Art is not a treasure in the past or an importation from another land, but part of the present life of all living and creating peoples.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Every time an artist dies, part of the vision of mankind passes with him.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Inequality may linger in the world of material things, but great music, great literature, great art and the wonders of science are, and should be, open to all.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

First of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself – nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Our government is based on the belief that a people can be both strong and free, that civilized men need no restraint but that imposed by themselves against abuse of freedom.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

This great nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and will prosper. So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

We have always held to the hope, the belief, the conviction that there is a better life, a better world, beyond the horizon.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Concentration of wealth and power has been built upon other people’s money, other people’s business, other people’s labor. Under this concentration, independent business has been a menace to American society.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

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More striking still, it appeared that, if the process of concentration goes on at the same rate, at the end of another century we shall have all American industry controlled by a dozen corporations and run by perhaps a hundred men. Put plainly, we are steering a steady course toward economic oligarchy, if we are not there already.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

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Democracy cannot succeed unless those who express their choice are prepared to choose wisely. The real safeguard of democracy, therefore, is education.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

The gains in education are never really lost. Books may be burned and cities sacked, but truth, like the yearning for freedom, lives in the hearts of humble men.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

The school is the last expenditure upon which America should be willing to economize.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

The ultimate victory of tomorrow is democracy, and through democracy with education, for no people in all the world can be kept eternally ignorant or eternally enslaved.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

The virtues are lost in self-interest as rivers are lost in the sea.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

We have always known that heedless self interest was bad morals, we now know that it is bad economics.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

We have always known that heedless self-interest was bad morals; we know now that it is bad economics. Out of the collapse of a prosperity whose builders boasted their practicality has come the conviction that in the long run economic morality pays.

Franklin D. Roosevelt