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I believe that in every country the people themselves are more peaceably and liberally inclined than their governments.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
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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.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
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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.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
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A reactionary is a somnambulist walking backwards.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
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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.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
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We shall strive for perfection. We shall not achieve it immediately - but we still shall strive. We may make mistakes - but they must never be mistakes which result from faintness of heart or abandonment of moral principle.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
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I pledge you, I pledge myself, to a new deal for the American people.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
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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.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
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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.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
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The hopes of the Republic cannot forever tolerate either undeserved poverty or self-serving wealth.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
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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.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
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There seems to be no question that Mussolini is really interested in what we are doing and I am much interested and deeply impressed by what he has accomplished and by his evidenced honest purpose of restoring Italy.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
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The United States Constitution has proved itself the most marvelously elastic compilation of rules of government ever written.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
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A nation that destroys its soils destroys itself. Forests are the lungs of our land, purifying the air and giving fresh strength to our people.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
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Prosperous farmers mean more employment, more prosperity for the workers and the business men of every industrial area in the whole country.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
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Happiness lies in the joy of achievement and the thrill of creative effort.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
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Here is my principle: Taxes shall be levied according to ability to pay. That is the only American principle.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
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When you see a rattlesnake poised to strike, you do not wait until he has struck to crush him.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
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It is the duty of the President to propose and it is the privilege of the Congress to dispose.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
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I'm just afraid that I may not have the strength to do this job. After you leave me tonight, Jimmy, I am going to pray. I am going to pray that God will help me, that he will give me the strength and the guidance to do this job and to do it right. I hope that you will pray for me, too, Jimmy.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
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Democracy is not dying. We know it because we have seen it revive - and grow. We know it cannot die - because it is built on the unhampered initiative of individual men and women joined together in a common enterprise - an enterprise undertaken and carried through by the free expression of a free majority.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
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No democracy can long survive which does not accept as fundamental to its very existence the recognition of the rights of its minorities.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
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In the days and in the years that are to come we shall work for a just and honorable peace, a durable peace, as today we work and fight for total victory in war. We can and we will achieve such a peace.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
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I don't mind telling you in confidence that I am keeping in fairly close touch with that admirable Italian gentleman.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
