Franklin D. Roosevelt Quotes
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In this world, is the destiny of mankind controlled by some transcendental entity or law? Is it like the hand of God hovering above? At least it is true that man has no control; even over his own will.
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In our personal ambitions we are individualists. But in our seeking for economic and political progress as a nation, we all go up or else all go down as one people.
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The money changers have fled from their high seats in the temple of our civilization. We may now restore that temple to the ancient truths. The measure of the restoration lies in the extent to which we apply social values more noble than mere monetary profit.
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I just have a hunch that Stalin is not that kind of man. Harry Hopkins says he's not and that he doesn't want anything except security for his own country, and I think that if I give him everything I possibly can and ask nothing from him in return, noblesse oblige, he won't try to annex anything and will work with me for a world of democracy and peace.
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We know it because democracy alone, of all forms of government, enlists the full force of men's enlightened will.
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I pledge you, I pledge myself, to a new deal for the American people.
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I ask that the Congress declare that since the unprovoked and dastardly attack by Japan on Sunday, December 7, 1941, a state of war has existed between the United States and the Japanese Empire
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The United States Constitution has proved itself the most marvelously elastic compilation of rules of government ever written.
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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.
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Many causes produce war. There are ancient hatreds, turbulent frontiers, the 'legacy of old forgotten, far-off things, and battles long ago.' There are new-born fanaticisms. Convictions on the part of certain peoples that they have become the unique depositories of ultimate truth and right.
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In the Americas its impact has been irresistible. 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.
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We are not isolationists except in so far as we seek to isolate ourselves completely from war. Yet we must remember that so long as war exists on earth there will be some danger that even the Nation which most ardently desires peace may be drawn into war.
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If we can boondoggle ourselves out of this depression, that word is going to be enshrined in the hearts of the American people for years to come.
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I'm not the smartest fellow in the world, but I can sure pick smart colleagues.
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A reactionary is a somnambulist walking backwards.
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Art is not a treasure in the past or an importation from another land, but part of the present life of all living and creating peoples.
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Men are not prisoners of fate, but only prisoners of their own minds.
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To us there has come a time, in the midst of swift happenings, to pause for a moment and take stock - to recall what our place in history has been, and to rediscover what we are and what we may be. If we do not, we risk the real peril of inaction.
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I wish I could keep war from all Nations; but that is beyond my power. I can at least make certain that no act of the United States helps to produce or to promote war. I can at least make clear that the conscience of America revolts against war and that any Nation which provokes war forfeits the sympathy of the people of the United States.
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Happiness lies in the joy of achievement and the thrill of creative effort.
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We are committed to the proposition that principles of morality and considerations for our own security will never permit us to acquiesce in a peace dictated by aggressors and sponsored by appeasers. We know that enduring peace cannot be bought at the cost of other people's freedom.
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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.
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In the face of great perils never before encountered, our strong purpose is to protect and to perpetuate the integrity of democracy. For this we muster the spirit of America, and the faith of America. We do not retreat. We are not content to stand still. As Americans, we go forward, in the service of our country, by the will of God.
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The virtues are lost in self-interest as rivers are lost in the sea.