A conservative is a man with two perfectly good legs who, however, has never learned how to walk forward.
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

A reactionary is a somnambulist walking backwards.
Franklin D. Roosevelt

Are you laboring under the impression that I read these memoranda of yours? I can't even lift them.
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

Be sincere; be brief; be seated.
Franklin D. Roosevelt

But while they prate of economic laws, men and women are starving. We must lay hold of the fact that economic laws are not made by nature. They are made by human beings.
Franklin D. Roosevelt

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

Confidence... thrives on honesty, on honor, on the sacredness of obligations, on faithful protection and on unselfish performance. Without them it cannot live.
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


Don't forget what I discovered that over ninety percent of all national deficits from 1921 to 1939 were caused by payments for past, present, and future wars.
Franklin D. Roosevelt

Favor comes because for a brief moment in the great space of human change and progress some general human purpose finds in him a satisfactory embodiment.
Franklin D. Roosevelt

Happiness lies in the joy of achievement and the thrill of creative effort.
Franklin D. Roosevelt

Here is my principle: Taxes shall be levied according to ability to pay. That is the only American principle.
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

I am a Christian and a Democrat, that's all.
Franklin D. Roosevelt

I am neither bitter nor cynical but I do wish there was less immaturity in political thinking.
Franklin D. Roosevelt

I ask you to judge me by the enemies I have made.
Franklin D. Roosevelt

I believe that in every country the people themselves are more peaceably and liberally inclined than their governments.
Franklin D. Roosevelt

I do not look upon these United States as a finished product. We are still in the making.
Franklin D. Roosevelt