Quotes from Franklin D. Roosevelt

The United States Constitution has proved itself the most marvelously elastic compilation of rules of government ever written.

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...

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

The throwing out of balance of the resources of nature throws out of balance also the lives of men.

In actual life every great enterprise begins with and takes its first forward step in faith.

The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it comes stronger than their democratic state itself.

Remember, remember always, that all of us, and you and I especially, are descended from immigrations and revolutionists.

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.

The point in history at which we stand is full of promise and danger. The world will either move forward toward unity and widely shared prosperity - or it will move apart.

More than an end to war, we want an end to the beginning of all wars - yes, an end to this brutal, inhuman and thoroughly impractical method of settling the differences between governments.

We must remember that any oppression, any injustice, any hatred, is a wedge designed to attack our civilization

Taxes are paid in the sweat of every man who labors.

The test of our progress is not whether we add to the abundance of those who have much. It is whether we provide enough to those who have little.

I think we consider too much the good luck of the early bird and not enough the bad luck of the early worm.

Put two or three men in positions of conflicting authority. This will force them to work at loggerheads, allowing you to be the ultimate arbiter.

We think of our land and water and human resources not as static and sterile possessions but as life giving assets to be directed by wise provisions for future days.

Freedom of speech is of no use to a man who has nothing to say and freedom of worship is of no use to a man who has lost his God.

We may not be able to prepare the future for our children, but we can at least prepare our children for the future.

We, too, born to freedom, and believing in freedom, are willing to fight to maintain freedom. We, and all others who believe as deeply as we do, would rather die on our feet than live on our knees.

We are trying to construct a more inclusive society. We are going to make a country in which no one is left out.

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.

We are moving forward to greater freedom, to greater security for the average man than he has ever known before in the history of America.

When speaking, be sincere, be brief, and be seated.

The epidemic of world lawlessness is spreading. When an epidemic of physical disease starts to spread, the community approves and joins in a quarantine of the patients in order to protect the health of the community against the spread of the disease.