Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR) was born in 1882 in New York and studied at Harvard and Columbia.
In 1905, he married Eleanor Roosevelt. Inspired by his cousin, Theodore Roosevelt, FDR entered politics as a Democrat, served in the New York Senate and was appointed Assistant Secretary of the Navy.
In 1921, he contracted polio but showed resilience by working to regain mobility.
By 1928, he was New York’s Governor. Elected President in 1932, FDR tackled the Great Depression with his New Deal, introducing reforms like Social Security.
Despite criticism, he was re-elected in 1936. He aimed to strengthen nations threatened by war and sent aid to Britain.
After the Pearl Harbor attack in 1941, he readied the U.S. for war. FDR also championed the United Nations concept.
However, his health failed and he passed away in 1945.
Here is a collection of the most famous quotes by Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Best Franklin D. Roosevelt Quotes
Repetition does not transform a lie into a truth. ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt.
To reach a port, we must sail – sail, not tie at anchor – sail, not drift. ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Never underestimate a man who overestimates himself. ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Presidents are selected, not elected. ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt.
December 7, 1941. A date which will live in infamy. ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Inquisitiveness is the most useful talent. ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt.
The virtues are lost in self-interest as rivers are lost in the sea. ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt.
I think we consider too much the good luck of the early bird and not enough the bad luck of the early worm. ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt.
When peace has been broken anywhere, the peace of all countries is in danger. ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Democracy, the practice of self-government, is a covenant among free men to respect the rights and liberties of their fellows. ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Remember, remember always, that all of us, and you and I especially, are descended from immigrants and revolutionists. ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt.
We can afford all that we need, but we cannot afford all that we want. ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt.
That is the spiral galaxy in Andromeda. It is as large as our Milky Way. It is one of a hundred million galaxies. It consists of one hundred billion suns. Now I think we are small enough. ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Almighty God: Our sons, pride of our Nation, this day have set upon a mighty endeavor, a struggle to preserve our Republic, our religion, and our civilization, and to set free a suffering humanity. ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Peace, like war, can succeed only where there is a will to enforce it, and where there is available power to enforce it. ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt.
I am a Christian and a Democrat, that’s all. ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Famous Franklin D. Roosevelt Quotes
When you get to the end of your rope. Tie a knot and hang on. ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt.
First of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself – nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance. ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt.
The forgotten man at the bottom of the economic pyramid. ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Go for the moon. If you don’t get it, you’ll still be heading for a star. Happiness lies not in the mere possession of money; it lies in the joy of achievement, in the thrill of the creative effort. ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt.
We may make mistakes-but they must never be mistakes which result from faintness of heart or abandonment of moral principle. ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Do the best you can do and wait the results in peace. ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Men are not prisoners of fate, but only prisoners of their own minds. ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt.
No democracy can long survive which does not accept as fundamental to its very existence the recognition of the rights of minorities. ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Every time an artist dies, part of the vision of mankind passes with him. ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt.
No country, however rich, can afford the waste of its human resources. Demoralization caused by vast unemployment is our greatest extravagance. Morally, it is the greatest menace to our social order. ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Never before have we had so little time in which to do so much. ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Top Franklin D. Roosevelt Quotes
Be sincere; be brief; be seated. ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt.
When you see a rattlesnake poised to strike, you do not wait until he has struck to crush him. ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt.
We must especially beware of that small group of selfish men who would clip the wings of the American Eagle in order to feather their own nests. ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt.
It is a terrible thing to look over your shoulder when you are trying to lead – and find no one there. ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Let us move forward with strong and active faith. ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt.
We must lay hold of the fact that economic laws are not made by nature. They are made by human beings. ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt.
I have loved to the point of madness; that which is called madness, that which to me, is the only sensible way to love. ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt.
People acting together as a group can accomplish things which no individual acting alone could ever hope to bring about. ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Freedom of conscience, of education, of speech, of assembly are among the very fundamentals of democracy and all of them would be nullified should freedom of the press ever be successfully challenged. ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Taxes, after all, are dues that we pay for the privileges of membership in an organized society. ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Calm seas never made a good sailor. ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Let us never forget that government is ourselves and not an alien power over us. The ultimate rulers of our democracy are not a President and senators and congressmen and government officials, but the voters of this country. ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt.
In the truest sense, freedom cannot be bestowed; it must be achieved. ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Popular Franklin D. Roosevelt Quotes
The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today. Let us move forward with strong and active faith. ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Democracy cannot succeed unless those who express their choice are prepared to choose wisely. The real safeguard of democracy, therefore, is education. ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Peace, like charity, begins at home. ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Happiness lies in the joy of achievement and the thrill of creative effort. ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Nobody will ever deprive the American people of the right to vote except the American people themselves and the only way they could do this is by not voting. ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the assessment that something else is more important than fear. ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Above all, try something. ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt.
We have always held to the hope, the belief, the conviction that there is a better life, a better world, beyond the horizon. ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt.
We cannot always build the future for our youth, but we can build our youth for the future. ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt.
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. ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt.
The first twelve years are the hardest. ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt.
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.
It isn’t sufficient just to want – you’ve got to ask yourself what you are going to do to get the things you want. ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Rules are not necessarily sacred, principles are. ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt.
The value of love will always be stronger than the value of hate. Any nation or group of nations which employs hatred eventually is torn to pieces by hatred… ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Human kindness has never weakened the stamina or softened the fiber of a free people. A nation does not have to be cruel to be tough. ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Great Franklin D. Roosevelt Quotes
We had to struggle with the old enemies of peace – business and financial monopoly, speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, sectionalism, war profiteering. ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt.
If you have spent two years in bed trying to wiggle your big toe, everything else seems easy. ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Necessitous men are not free men. ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt.
No man can tame a tiger into a kitten by stroking it. ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt.
To carry adequate life insurance is a moral obligation incumbent upon the great majority of citizens. ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt.
The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little. ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt.
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. ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Democracy alone, of all forms of government, enlists the full force of men’s enlightened will. ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt.
They fight not for the lust of conquest. They fight to end conquest. They fight to liberate. ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt.
The barrier to success is not something which exists in the real world; it is composed purely and simply of doubts about ability. ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Powerful Franklin D. Roosevelt Quotes
Competition has been shown to be useful up to a certain point and no further, but cooperation, which is the thing we must strive for today, begins where competition leaves off. ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt.
It is common sense to take a method and try it. If it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something. ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt.
We have nothing to fear but missing our massage appointment time. ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt.
We are a nation of many nationalities, many races, many religions-bound together by a single unity, the unity of freedom and equality. Whoever seeks to set one nationality against another, seeks to degrade all nationalities. ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt.
I never forget that I live in a house owned by all the American people and that I have been given their trust. ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt.
There are many ways of going forward, but only one way of standing still. ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt.
We know now that government by organized money is just as dangerous as government by organized mob. ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt.
In politics, nothing happens by accident. If it happens, you can bet it was planned that way. ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Real estate cannot be lost or stolen, nor can it be carried away. Purchased with common sense, paid for in full, and managed with reasonable care, it is about the safest investment in the world. ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt.
I pledge you, I pledge myself, to a new deal for the American people. ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Wise Franklin D. Roosevelt Quotes
I’m not the smartest fellow in the world, but I can sure pick smart colleagues. ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Freedom means the supremacy of human rights everywhere. Our support goes to those who struggle to gain those rights or keep them. ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt.
The nation that destroys its soil destroys itself. ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt.
The only thing we have to fear is fear itself. ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt.
If civilization is to survive, we must cultivate the science of human relationships – the ability of all peoples, of all kinds, to live together, in the same world at peace. ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt.
I ask you to judge me by the enemies I have made. ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Labor Day symbolizes our determination to achieve an economic freedom for the average man which will give his political freedom reality. ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Men and nature must work hand in hand. The throwing out of balance of the resources of nature throws out of balance also the lives of men. ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt.
So these were the 88 top Franklin D. Roosevelt quotes and sayings on fear, freedom, democracy, immigration and social security.
If you like these quotes and sayings, then you can also read my other posts on Frank A. Clark quotes and Frank Zappa quotes.
