Franklin D. Roosevelt
To a great extent the achievements of invention, of mechanical and of artistic creation, must of necessity, and rightly, be individual rather than governmental. It is the self-reliant pioneer in every enterprise who beats the path along which American civilization has marched. Such individual effort is the glory of America.Collection: Self
The future lies with those wise political leaders who realize that the great public is interested more in Government than in politics. The growing independence of voters, after all, has been proven by the votes in every Presidential election since my childhood and the tendency, frankly, is on the increase.Collection: Wise
Labor Day symbolizes our determination to achieve an economic freedom for the average man which will give his political freedom realty.Collection: Determination
Our handicaps exist only in our minds.Collection: Strength
All that is within me cries out to go back to my home on the Hudson RiverCollection: Home
Let me make it clear that I do not assert that a President and the Congress must on all points agree with each other at all times. Many times in history there has been complete disagreement between the two branches of the Government, and in these disagreements sometimes the Congress has won and sometimes the President has won. But during the Administration of the present President we have had neither agreement nor a clear-cut battle.Collection: Cutting
Okay, you've convinced me. Now go out there and bring pressure on me.Collection: Lobbyists
A great man left a watchword that we can well repeat: "There is no indispensable man"Collection: Men
We have learned that we cannot live alone, at peace; that our own well-being is dependent on the well-being of other nations far away. We have learned that we must live as men, not as ostriches, nor as dogs in the manger.Collection: Dog
(Mariners) have written one of its most brilliant chapters. They have delivered the goods when and where needed in every theater of operations and across every ocean in the biggest, the most difficult and dangerous job ever undertaken. As time goes on, there will be greater public understanding of our merchant's fleet record during this war.Collection: Jobs
The True conservative seeks to protect the system of private property and free enterprise by correcting such injustices and inequalities as arise from it. The most serious threat to our institutions comes from those who refuse to face the need for change. Liberalism becomes the protection for the far-sighted conservative.Collection: Needs
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.Collection: Firsts
We are going to tax and tax, spend and spend, elect and elect.Collection: Liberty
Research is one of the Nation's very greatest resources and the role of the Federal Government in supporting and stimulating it needs to reexamined.Collection: Government
We must be the great arsenal of democracy. For us this is an emergency as serious as war itself. We must apply ourselves to our task with the same resolution, the same sense of urgency, the same spirit of patriotism and sacrifice as we would show were we at war.Collection: War
There is nothing so American as our national parks. The scenery and the wildlife are native. The fundamental idea behind the parks is native. It is, in brief, that the country belongs to the people, that it is in process of making for the enrichment of the lives of all of us. The parks stand as the outward symbal of the great human principle.Collection: Country
I have an unshaken conviction that democracy can never be undermined if we maintain our library resources and a national intelligence capable of utilizing them.Collection: Democracy
The traditional Jeffersonian principle of religious freedom was so broadly democratic that it included the right to have no religion at all - it gave to the individual the right to worship any God he chose or no god.Collection: Religious
No political party has exclusive patent rights on prosperity.Collection: Party
It is a good thing to demand liberty for ourselves and for those who agree with us, but it is a better thing and a rarer thing to give liberty to others who do not agree with us.Collection: Giving
Taxation according to income is the most effective instrument yet devised to obtain just contribution from those best able to bear it and to avoid placing onerous burdens upon the mass of our people.Collection: People
But the challenge is always the same - whether each generation facing its own circumstances can summon the practical devotion to attain and retain that greatest good for the greatest number which this government of the people was created to ensure.Collection: Government
We have faith that future generations will know here, in the middle of the twentieth century, there came a time when men of good will found a way to unite, and produce, and fight to destroy the forces of ignorance, and intolerance, and slavery, and war.Collection: War
There's nothing to fear but a wide receiver who can run a 100-yard dash in under 10 seconds.Collection: Running
The essential qualities of a true Pan Americanism must be the same as those which constitute a good neighbor; namely, mutual understanding, and through such understanding, a sympathetic appeciation of the other's point of view. It is only in this manner that we can hope to build up a system of which confidence, friendship, and good will are the cornerstones.Collection: Views
We know that there are chiselers. At the bottom of every case of criticism and obstruction we have found some selfish interest, some private axe to grind.Collection: Selfish
There is one front and one battle where everyone in the United States-every man, woman, and child-is in action, and will be privileged to remain in action throughout this war. That front is right here at home, in our daily lives, and in our daily tasks.Collection: Children
No greater blessing could come to our land today than a revival of the spirit of religion. I doubt if there is any problem in the world today -- social, political, or economic -- that would not find happy solution if approached in the spirit of the Sermon on the Mount.Collection: Blessing
Religion, by teaching man his relationship to God, gives the individual a sense of his own dignity and teaches him to respect himself by respecting his neighbors.Collection: Teaching
Failure is not an American habit.Collection: Habit
A war of ideas can no more be won without books than a naval war can be won without ships. Books, like ships, have the toughest armor, the longest cruising range, and mount the most powerful guns.Collection: Inspirational
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 - and I am not wholly excepting the Administration of W. W. The country is going through a repetition of Jackson's fight with the Bank of the United States - only on a far bigger and broader basis.Collection: Country
It is the habit of the unthinking to turn to the illusions of economic magic. These unhappy times call for the building of plans that put their faith once more in the forgotten man at the bottom of the economic pyramidCollection: Men
Once you've spent two years trying to wiggle one toe, everything is in proportion.Collection: Years
I tell the American people solemnly that the United States will never survive as a happy and fertile oasis of liberty surrounded by a cruel desert of dictatorship.Collection: Oasis
Always will we remember the character of the onslaught against us. No matter how long it may take us to overcome this premeditated invasion, the American people in their righteous might will win through to absolute victory.... we will not only defend ourselves to the uttermost, but will make very certain that this form of treachery shall never endanger us again.Collection: Character
America has been the New World in all tongues, to all peoples, not because this continent was a new-found land, but because all those who came here believed they could create upon this continent a new life -- a life that should be new in freedom.Collection: Land
The forgotten man at the bottom of the economic pyramid.Collection: Men
The chief problem is, of course, whether the marching of the general spirit of things is heading consciously or sub- consciously toward an idea of extension of boundaries.Collection: War
On this tenth day of June, nineteen hundred and forty, the hand that held the dagger has struck it into the back of its neighbor.... In our unity, in our American unity we will pursue two obvious and simultaneous courses; we will extend to the opponents of force the material resources of this nation, and at the same time we will harness and speed up the use of those resources in order that we ourselves in the Americas may have equipment and training equal to the task of any emergency and every defense.Collection: War
We must recognize the fundamental rights of man. There can be no true national life in our democracy unless we give unqualified recognition to freedom of religious worship and freedom of education.Collection: Religious
All work undertaken should be useful - not just for a day, or a year, but useful in the sense that it affords permanent improvement in living conditions or that it creates future new wealth for the Nation.Collection: Years
We can see now that we Americans were caught unprepared, because we were ordinary human beings, following the best advice we had at the time. No one would have guessed in 1941 that we would be attacked in such an unsportsmanlike manner as we were. No one could have visualized Pearl Harbor, either out there or in Washington. But if we had known then what we know now, we would have expected an attack in 1941.Collection: Time
I am much interested and deeply impressed by what he has accomplished and by his evidenced honest purpose of restoring Italy and seeking to prevent general European trouble.Collection: President
While things on the surface seem more quiet than at any time since last summer, I do not like the maintenance of what amounts to almost full mobilization in aggressor countries. Surely they cannot afford it and if they had any definite policy of trying to work out economic salvation (except by arms) they would be showing some signs of cutting military expenditures.Collection: Summer
I do not believe in communism any more than you do but there is nothing wrong with the Communists in this country. Several of the best friends I have got are Communists.Collection: Country
There has been one persistent theme through all Axis propaganda. This theme has been that Americans are admittedly rich, that Americans have considerable industrial power - but that Americans are soft and decadent, that they cannot and will not unite and work and fight. ... Let them tell that to the Marines!Collection: Military
I hope that your committee will not permit doubt as to constitutionality, however reasonable, to block the suggested legislationCollection: Block
Economic diseases are highly communicable. It follows therefore that the economic health of every country is a proper matter of concern to all its neighbors, near or distant.Collection: Country