Quotes from Franklin Delano Roosevelt

Above all, try something.

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.

Every man has a right to life. That means that he also has a right to make a comfortable living.

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

Get action. Seize the moment. Man was never intended to become an oyster.

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

Never before have we had so little time in which to do so much.

No business which depends for its 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.

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

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.

They (who) seek to establish systems of government based on the regimentation of all human beings by a handful of individual rulers. . . call this a new order. It is not new and it is not order.

We would rather die on our feet than live on our knees.

Presidents are selected, not elected.

Be sincere, Be brief, Be seated.

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

Freedom means the supremacy of human rights everywhere. Our support goes to those who struggle to gain those rights and keep them. Our strength is our unity of purpose. To that high concept there can be no end save victory.

The first truth is that the liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is fascism -- ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power.... Among us today a concentration of private power without equal in history is growing.

The Truth is found when men (and Women) are free to pursue it.

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.

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 government.

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." [ Letter to Herbert Putnam ; in: Waters, Edward N.: Herbert Putnam: the tallest little man in the world ; Quarterly Journal of the Library of Congress 33:2 (April 1976), p. 171]

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.

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

The nation that destroys its soil destroys itself.