Franklin D. Roosevelt
The loneliest feeling in the world is when you think you are leading the parade and turn to find that no one is following you. No president who badly misguesses public opinion will last very long.Collection: Thinking
Change is like fire- if uncontrolled, it will consume us.Collection: Fire
We look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms. The first is freedom of speech and expression. The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way. The third is freedom from want. The fourth is freedom from fear.Collection: Freedom
A good leader can't get too far ahead of his followers.Collection: Leadership
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.Collection: Country
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.Collection: Opportunity
Those who have long enjoyed such privileges as we enjoy forget in time that men have died to win them." - Franklin D. RooseveltCollection: Winning
In these days of difficulty, we Americans everywhere must and shall choose the path of social justice…, the path of faith, the path of hope, and the path of love toward our fellow man.Collection: Men
Hitler built a fortress around Europe, but he forgot to put a roof on it.Collection: Europe
An election cannot give a country a firm sense of direction if it has two or more national parties which merely have different names but are as alike in their principles and aims as peas in the same pod.Collection: Country
Peace, like charity, begins at home.Collection: Family
That, in its essence, is Fascism — ownership of Government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power.Collection: Government
In our democracy officers of the government are the servants, and never the masters of the people.Collection: Government
We had to struggle with the old enemies of peace - business and financial monopoly, speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, sectionalism, war profiteering. They had begun to consider the Government of the United States as a mere appendage to their own affairs. We know now that Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob. Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hate for me - and I welcome their hatred.Collection: War
No democracy can long survive which does not accept as fundamental to its very existence the recognition of the rights of minorities.Collection: Rights
We know now that government by organized money is just as dangerous as government by organized mob.Collection: Government
We may not be able to prepare the future for our children, but we can at least prepare our children for the future.Collection: Children
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.Collection: Inspirational
What America needs now is a drink.Collection: America
The barrier to success is not something which exists in the real world; it is composed purely and simply of doubts about ability.Collection: Inspirational
Freedom of conscience, of education, of speech, of assembly are among the very fundamentals of democracy and all of them would be nullified should freedom of the press ever be successfully challenged.Collection: Presidential
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.Collection: Love
The real safeguard of democracy is education.Collection: Real
We, and all others who believe in freedom as deeply as we do, would rather die on our feet than live on our knees.Collection: Freedom
We must remember that any oppression, any injustice, any hatred, is a wedge designed to attack our civilization.Collection: Civilization
Yesterday, December 7, 1941 a date which will live in infamy the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan... We will gain the inevitable triumph so help us God.Collection: War
New ideas can be good and bad, just the same as old ones.Collection: Ideas
We have learned the simple truth, as Emerson said that the only way to have a friend is to be one. We can gain no lasting peace if we approach it with suspicion or mistrust or with fear.Collection: Friendship
...We now realize as we have never before our interdependence on each other; that we cannot merely take, but we must be willing to sacrifice for the good of a common discipline, because without such discipline, no progress is made, no leadership becomes effective.Collection: Sacrifice
Peace, like war, can succeed only where there is a will to enforce it, and where there is available power to enforce it.Collection: Peace
A radical is a man with both feet firmly planted-in the air.Collection: Men
Great power involves great responsibilityCollection: Responsibility
Hostilities exist. There is no blinking at the fact that our people, our territory and our interests are in grave danger. With confidence in our armed forces, with the unbounding determination of our people, we will gain the inevitable triumph, so help us God.Collection: Determination
All of us in all the Americas will be living at the point of a gun.Collection: Gun
Your boys are not going to be sent into any foreign wars.Collection: War
Do not confuse objectives with methods. When the nation becomes substantially united in favor of planning the broad objectives of civilization, then true leadership must unite thought behind definite methods.Collection: Wisdom
In time of this grave national danger, when all excess income should go to win the war, no American citizen ought to have a net income, after he has paid his taxes, of more than $25,000 a year.Collection: War
In the field of world policy; I would dedicate this nation to the policy of the good neighbor.Collection: Presidential
More than an end to war, we want an end to the beginnings of all wars. Yes, an end to this brutal, inhuman and thoroughly impractical method of settling the differences between Governments. The once powerful malignant Nazi state is crumbling; the Japanese warlords are receiving in their homelands the retribution for which they asked when they attacked Pearl Harbor. But the mere conquest of our enemies is not enough; we must go on to do all in our power to conquer the doubts and the fears, the ignorance and the greed, which made this horror possible.Collection: Peace
You sometimes find something good in the lunatic fringe. In fact, we have got as part of our social and economic government today a whole lot of things which in my boyhood were considered lunatic fringe, and yet they are now part of everyday life.Collection: Government
I am perhaps being a bit facetious but if some of my good Baptist brethren in Georgia had done a little preaching from the pulpitagainst the K.K.K. in the '20s, I would have a little more genuine American respect for their Christianity!Collection: Prejudice
I suggest a nationwide reading of the Holy Scriptures during the period from Thanksgiving Day to Christmas.Collection: Reading
More than just an end to war, we want an end to the beginnings of all wars.Collection: Peace
Every time an artist dies, part of the vision of mankind passes with him.Collection: Motivational
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.Collection: Struggle
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.Collection: Freedom
The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today. Let us move forward with strong and active faith.Collection: Success
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.Collection: History
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.”Collection: Strong