Franklin D. Roosevelt Quotes
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I pledge you, I pledge myself, to a new deal for the American people.
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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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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.
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Men are not prisoners of fate, but only prisoners of their own minds.
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The hopes of the Republic cannot forever tolerate either undeserved poverty or self-serving wealth.
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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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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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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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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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I believe that in every country the people themselves are more peaceably and liberally inclined than their governments.
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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.
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A reactionary is a somnambulist walking backwards.
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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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Happiness lies in the joy of achievement and the thrill of creative effort.
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Hostilities exist. There is no blinking at the fact that our people, our territory and our interests are in grave danger. With confidence in our armed forces, with the unbounding determination of our people, we will gain the inevitable triumph, so help us God.
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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.
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We know that we still have far to go; that we must more greatly build the security and the opportunity and the knowledge of every citizen, in the measure justified by the resources and the capacity of the land.
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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.
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To a great extent the achievements of invention, of mechanical and of artistic creation, must of necessity, and rightly, be individual rather than governmental. It is the self-reliant pioneer in every enterprise who beats the path along which American civilization has marched. Such individual effort is the glory of America.
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It seems to be unfortunately true that 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.
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We have faith that future generations will know that here, in the middle of the twentieth century, there came a time when men of good will found a way to unite, and produce, and fight to destroy the forces of ignorance, and intolerance, and slavery, and war.
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Yesterday, December seventh, 1941, a date which will live in infamy, the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan. We will gain the inevitable triumph, so help us God.
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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.
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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.