159 quotes
The forests are the "lungs" of our land, purifying the air and giving fresh strength to our people.
Are you laboring under the impression that I read these memoranda of yours? I can't even lift them.
On each national day of inauguration since 1789, the people have renewed their sense of dedication to the United States.
If I prove a bad president, I will also likely to prove the last president.
Remark at the time of his first inauguration as quoted in The 168 days (1938)
They are unanimous in their hate for me—and I welcome their hatred.
Address at Madison Square Garden (1936)
We have always known that heedless self-interest was bad morals; we know now that it is bad economics.
I sometimes think we consider too much the good luck of the early bird and not enough the bad luck of the early worm.
I am that kind of conservative because I am that kind of liberal.
Address at the Democratic State Convention, Syracuse, New York (1936)
All Government employees should realize that the process of collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into the public service.
A statesman deals with concrete difficulties — with things which must be done from day to day. Not often can he frame conscious patterns for the far off future.
Address at the dedication of the memorial on the Gettysburg battlefield (1938)
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.
Our revenue laws have operated in many ways to the unfair advantage of the few, and they have done little to prevent an unjust concentration of wealth and economic power.
Message to Congress on tax revision (1935)
A dark old world was devastated by wars between conflicting religions. A dark modern world faces wars between conflicting economic and political fanaticisms in which are intertwined race hatreds.
Address at Chautauqua, New York (1936)
Our national debt after all is an internal debt owed not only by the Nation but to the Nation. If our children have to pay interest on it they will pay that interest to themselves. A reasonable internal debt will not impoverish our children or put the Nation into bankruptcy.
As a nation, we may take pride in the fact that we are soft-hearted; but we cannot afford to be soft-headed.
State of the Union Address — The Four Freedoms (1941)
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.
Address at Chautauqua, New York (1936)
Be sincere, be brief, be seated.
If the spirit of God is not in us, and if we will not prepare to give all that we have and all that we are to preserve Christian civilization in our land, we shall go to destruction.
We Americans of today, together with our allies, are passing through a period of supreme test. It is a test of our courage — of our resolve — of our wisdom — our essential democracy.
Fourth inaugural address (1945)
We must scrupulously guard the civil rights and civil liberties of all our citizens, whatever their background. We must remember that any oppression, any injustice, any hatred, is a wedge designed to attack our civilization.