Top 350 Franklin D. Roosevelt Quotes (2024 Update)

1. “Calm seas never made a good sailor.”

— Franklin D. Roosevelt

Featured in: Quotes About the Sea

2. “Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the assessment that something else is more important than fear.”

— Franklin D. Roosevelt

Featured in: Courage Quotes

3. “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”

— Franklin D. Roosevelt

4. “We cannot always build the future for our youth, but we can build our youth for the future.”

— Franklin D. Roosevelt

5. “When you get to the end of your rope. Tie a knot and hang on.”

— Franklin D. Roosevelt

Featured in: Perseverance Quotes

6. “Great power involves great responsibility.”

— Franklin D. Roosevelt

7. “There are many ways of going forward, but only one way of standing still.”

— Franklin D. Roosevelt

8. “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

Featured in: Success Quotes

9. “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

10. “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

11. “Happiness lies in the joy of achievement and the thrill of creative effort.”

— Franklin D. Roosevelt

12. “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

13. “Men are not prisoners of fate, but only prisoners of their own minds.”

— Franklin D. Roosevelt

14. “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

Featured in: Real Quotes

15. “I ask you to judge me by the enemies I have made.”

— Franklin D. Roosevelt

16. “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

Featured in: Kindness Quotes, Respect Quotes, Character Quotes

17. “The nation that destroys its soil destroys itself.”

— Franklin D. Roosevelt

18. “Above all, try something.”

— Franklin D. Roosevelt

19. “People acting together as a group can accomplish things which no individual acting alone could ever hope to bring about.”

— Franklin D. Roosevelt

Featured in: Quotes About Acting

20. “Remember, remember always, that all of us, and you and I especially, are descended from immigrants and revolutionists.”

— Franklin D. Roosevelt

21. “In politics, nothing happens by accident. If it happens, you can bet it was planned that way.”

— Franklin D. Roosevelt

22. “Let us move forward with strong and active faith.”

— Franklin D. Roosevelt

Featured in: Strong Quotes, Moving Forward Quotes

23. “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

Featured in: History Quotes, Patriotic Quotes

24. “Labor Day symbolizes our determination to achieve an economic freedom for the average man which will give his political freedom reality.”

— Franklin D. Roosevelt

25. “Never before have we had so little time in which to do so much.”

— Franklin D. Roosevelt

26. “Be sincere; be brief; be seated.”

— Franklin D. Roosevelt

Featured in: Patriotic Quotes

27. “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

Featured in: Carpe Diem Quotes

28. “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

Featured in: Real Quotes

29. “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

30. “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

31. “I’m not the smartest fellow in the world, but I can sure pick smart colleagues.”

— Franklin D. Roosevelt

32. “December 7, 1941. A date which will live in infamy.”

— Franklin D. Roosevelt

33. “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

34. “Rules are not necessarily sacred, principles are.”

— Franklin D. Roosevelt

35. “Presidents are selected, not elected.”

— Franklin D. Roosevelt

36. “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

Featured in: Patriotic Quotes

37. “In the truest sense, freedom cannot be bestowed; it must be achieved.”

— Franklin D. Roosevelt

Featured in: 4th Of July Quotes

38. “To reach a port, we must sail – sail, not tie at anchor – sail, not drift.”

— Franklin D. Roosevelt

39. “Never underestimate a man who overestimates himself.”

— Franklin D. Roosevelt

40. “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

41. “I am a Christian and a Democrat, that’s all.”

— Franklin D. Roosevelt

42. “Do the best you can do and wait the results in peace.”

— Franklin D. Roosevelt

43. “I pledge you, I pledge myself, to a new deal for the American people.”

— Franklin D. Roosevelt

44. “The motto of war is: “Let the strong survive; let the weak die.” The motto of peace is: “Let the strong help the weak to survive.””

— Franklin D. Roosevelt

Featured in: Strong Quotes

45. “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

46. “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

Featured in: Country Quotes

47. “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

48. “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

49. “If you have spent two years in bed trying to wiggle your big toe, everything else seems easy.”

— Franklin D. Roosevelt

50. “Necessitous men are not free men.”

— Franklin D. Roosevelt