Franklin D. Roosevelt quotes

I’m not the smartest fellow in the world, but I sure can pick smart colleagues.
- Franklin D. Roosevelt

Confidence… thrives on honesty, on honor, on the sacredness of obligations, on faithful protection and on unselfish performance. Without them it cannot live.
- Franklin D. Roosevelt

Human kindness has never weakened the stamina or softened the fiber of a free people.
- Franklin D. Roosevelt

We must especially beware of that small group of selfish men who would clip the wings of the American Eagle in order to feather their own nests.
- 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

Human kindness has never weakened the stamina or softened the fiber of a free people. A nation does not have to be cruel to be tough.
- 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

People acting together as a group can accomplish things which no individual acting alone could ever hope to bring about.
- Franklin D. Roosevelt

Do Something. If it works, do more of it. If it doesn't, do something else.
- Franklin D. Roosevelt

Repetition does not transform a lie into a truth.
- Franklin D. Roosevelt

The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much it is whether we provide enough for those who have little.
- Franklin D. Roosevelt

Let us never forget that government is ourselves and not an alien power over us. The ultimate rulers of our democracy are not a President and Senators and Congressmen and Government officials but the voters of this country.
- Franklin D. Roosevelt

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

The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.
- Franklin D. Roosevelt

Remember, remember always, that all of us, and you and I especially, are descended from immigrants and revolutionists.
- Franklin D. Roosevelt

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

Be sincere; be brief; be seated.
- Franklin D. Roosevelt

Never underestimate a man who overestimates himself.
- Franklin D. Roosevelt

Hitler built a fortress around Europe, but he forgot to put a roof on it.
- Franklin D. Roosevelt

Calm seas never made a good sailor
- Franklin D. Roosevelt

The truth is found when men are free to pursue it.
- 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 limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today.
- Franklin D. Roosevelt

When you come to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on.
- Franklin D. Roosevelt