The Presidency is not merely an administrative office. Thats the least of it. It is more than an engineering job, efficient or inefficient. It is pre-eminently a place of moral leadership. All our great Presidents were leaders of thought at times when certain historic ideas in the life of the nation had to be clarified.
—Franklin D. Roosevelt
When you get to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on.
—Franklin D. Roosevelt
Topics: Resolve, Endurance, Persistence, Perseverance
But while they prate of economic laws, men and women are starving. We must lay hold of the fact that economic laws are not made by nature. They are made by human beings.
—Franklin D. Roosevelt
Topics: Economy, Economics
Human kindness has never weakened the stamina or softened the fiber of a free people. A nation does not have to be cruel in order to be tough.
—Franklin D. Roosevelt
Any Government, like any family, can for a year spend a little more than it earns. But you and I know that a continuation of that habit means the poorhouse.
—Franklin D. Roosevelt
Government includes the art of formulating a policy, and using the political technique to attain so much of that policy as will receive general support; persuading, leading, sacrificing, teaching always, because the greatest duty of any statesman is to educate.
—Franklin D. Roosevelt
Topics: Service
I doubt if there is in the world a single problem, whether social, political, or economic, which would not find ready solution if men and nations would rule their lives according to the plain teaching of the Sermon on the Mount.
—Franklin D. Roosevelt
Topics: Christianity
Too often in recent history liberal governments have been wrecked on rocks of loose fiscal policy.
—Franklin D. Roosevelt
Be sincere. Be brief. Be Seated.
—Franklin D. Roosevelt
Today we are faced with the preeminent fact that, 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
Topics: Relationships
There are many ways of going forward, but only one way of standing still.
—Franklin D. Roosevelt
Topics: Progress
We may make mistakes—but they must never be mistakes which result from faintness of heart or abandonment of moral principles.
—Franklin D. Roosevelt
Topics: Mistakes, Risk
Those who have long enjoyed such privileges as we enjoy, forget in time that men have died to win them.
—Franklin D. Roosevelt
It is an unfortunate human failing that a full pocketbook often groans more loudly than an empty stomach.
—Franklin D. Roosevelt
Topics: Money
I see one-third of a nation ill-housed, ill-clad, ill-nourished.
—Franklin D. Roosevelt
Topics: Economics
In the truest sense, freedom cannot be bestowed; it must be achieved.
—Franklin D. Roosevelt
Topics: Freedom, Independence
If we can “boondoggle” ourselves out of this depression, that word is going to be enshrined in the hearts of the American people for years to come.
—Franklin D. Roosevelt
Topics: Economics
The only thing to fear is fear itself.
—Franklin D. Roosevelt
The school is the last expenditure upon which America should be willing to economize.
—Franklin D. Roosevelt
Topics: Education, School
It is a terrible thing to look over your shoulder when you are trying to lead—and find no one there.
—Franklin D. Roosevelt
Topics: Leadership, Leaders
They realize that in thirty-four months we have built up new instruments of public power. In the hands of a peoples Government this power is wholesome and proper. But in the hands of political puppets of an economic autocracy such power would provide shackles for the liberties of the people.
—Franklin D. Roosevelt
There are as many opinions as there are experts.
—Franklin D. Roosevelt
No business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country. By living wages I mean more than a bare subsistence level—I mean the wages of decent living.
—Franklin D. Roosevelt
Topics: Business
Perfectionism, no less than isolationism or imperialism or power politics, may obstruct the paths to international peace. Let us not forget that the retreat to isolationism a quarter of a century ago was started not by a direct attack against international cooperation but against the alleged imperfections of the peace.
—Franklin D. Roosevelt
The Lord’s Prayer is 66 words, the Gettysburg Address is 286 words, there are 1,322 words in the Declaration of Independence, but government regulations on the sale of cabbage total 26,911 words.
—Franklin D. Roosevelt
Topics: Just for Fun, Government
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
Topics: Society, Freedom, Security
I sometimes think that the saving grace of America lies in the fact that the overwhelming majority of Americans are possessed of two great qualities- a sense of humor and a sense of proportion.
—Franklin D. Roosevelt
Topics: America
We must remember that any oppression, any injustice, any hatred, is a wedge designed to attack our civilization.
—Franklin D. Roosevelt
Topics: Oppression, Civilization
Remember, remember always that all of us, and you and I especially, are descended from immigrants and revolutionists.
—Franklin D. Roosevelt
Topics: Ancestry, Xenophobia, Ancestors
Eternal truths will be neither true nor eternal unless they have fresh meaning for every new social situation.
—Franklin D. Roosevelt
Topics: Discovery, Fresh
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
- Theodore Roosevelt American Head of State
- Herbert Hoover American Statesman
- Calvin Coolidge American Head of State
- Bill Clinton American Head of State
- Lyndon B. Johnson American Head of State
- Jimmy Carter American Head of State
- Richard Nixon American Head of State
- William McKinley American Head of State
- John F. Kennedy American Head of State
- John Quincy Adams American Head of State
Leave a Reply