Top 350 Franklin D. Roosevelt Quotes (2025 Update)
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101. “A conservative is a man with two perfectly good legs who, however, has never learned how to walk forward.”

— Franklin D. Roosevelt

102. “I do not believe in communism any more than you do but there is nothing wrong with the Communists in this country. Several of the best friends I have got are Communists.”

— Franklin D. Roosevelt

103. “Okay, you’ve convinced me. Now go out there and bring pressure on me.”

— Franklin D. Roosevelt

104. “Democracy alone, of all forms of government, enlists the full force of men’s enlightened will.”

— Franklin D. Roosevelt

105. “We want a Supreme Court which will do justice under the Constitution – not over it. In our courts we want a government of laws and not of men.”

— Franklin D. Roosevelt

106. “Unless the peace that follows recognizes that the whole world is one neighborhood and does justice to the whole human race, the germs of another world war will remain as a constant threat to mankind.”

— Franklin D. Roosevelt

107. “We are trying to construct a more inclusive society. We are going to make a country in which no one is left out.”

— Franklin D. Roosevelt

108. “The country needs and, unless I mistake its temper, the country demands bold, persistent experimentation .”

— Franklin D. Roosevelt

109. “We think of our land and water and human resources not as static and sterile possessions but as life giving assets to be directed by wise provisions for future days.”

— Franklin D. Roosevelt

110. “This generation of Americans has a rendezvous with destiny.”

— Franklin D. Roosevelt

111. “The best customer of American industry is the well paid worker.”

— Franklin D. Roosevelt

112. “A war of ideas can no more be won without books than a naval war can be won without ships. Books, like ships, have the toughest armor, the longest cruising range, and mount the most powerful guns.”

— Franklin D. Roosevelt

113. “Eternal truths will be neither true nor eternal unless they have fresh meaning for every new social situation.”

— Franklin D. Roosevelt

114. “Dealing with the State Department is like watching an elephant become pregnant.”

— Franklin D. Roosevelt

115. “On the European Front the most important development of the past year has been the crushing offensive of the Great Armies of Russia...”

— Franklin D. Roosevelt

116. “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.”

— Franklin D. Roosevelt

117. “Democracy is not a static thing. It is an everlasting march.”

— Franklin D. Roosevelt

118. “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

119. “The Nazi danger to our Western world has long ceased to be a mere possibility. The danger is here now – not only from a military enemy but from an enemy of all law, all liberty, all morality, all religion.”

— Franklin D. Roosevelt

120. “Taxes are paid in the sweat of every man who labors.”

— Franklin D. Roosevelt

121. “Freedom to learn is the first necessity of guaranteeing that man himself shall be self reliant enough to be free.”

— Franklin D. Roosevelt

122. “Physical strength can never permanently withstand the impact of spiritual force.”

— Franklin D. Roosevelt

123. “Freedom of speech is of no use to a man who has nothing to say and freedom of worship is of no use to a man who has lost his God.”

— Franklin D. Roosevelt

124. “If you hold your fire until you see the whites of his eyes, you will never know what hit you.”

— Franklin D. Roosevelt

125. “I have a terrific headache.”

— Franklin D. Roosevelt

126. “There are as many opinions as there are experts.”

— Franklin D. Roosevelt

127. “A government can be no better than the public opinion which sustains it.”

— Franklin D. Roosevelt

128. “The only sure bulwark of continuing liberty is a government strong enough to protect the interests of the people, and a people strong enough and well enough informed to maintain its sovereign control over the goverment.”

— Franklin D. Roosevelt

129. “It is fun to be in the same decade with you.”

— Franklin D. Roosevelt

130. “That, in essence is Fascism – ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any controlling private power.”

— Franklin D. Roosevelt

131. “Chamberlain’s visit to Hitler today may bring things to a head or may result in a temporary postponement of what looks to me likean inevitable conflict within the next five years.”

— Franklin D. Roosevelt

132. “The loneliest feeling in the world is when you think you are leading the parade and turn to find that no one is following you. No president who badly misguesses public opinion will last very long.”

— Franklin D. Roosevelt

133. “Lives of nations are determined not by the count of years, but by the lifetime of the human spirit. The life of a man is three-score years and ten: a little more, a little less. The life of a nation is the fullness of the measure of its will to live.”

— Franklin D. Roosevelt

134. “In time of this grave national danger, when all excess income should go to win the war, no American citizen ought to have a net income, after he has paid his taxes, of more than $25,000 a year.”

— Franklin D. Roosevelt

135. “A nation, like a person, has a mind – a mind that must be kept informed and alert, that must know itself, that understands the hopes and needs of its neighbors – all the other nations that live within the narrowing circle of the world.”

— Franklin D. Roosevelt

136. “We must remember that any oppression, any injustice, any hatred, is a wedge designed to attack our civilization.”

— Franklin D. Roosevelt

137. “Prosperous farmers mean more employment, more prosperity for the workers and the business men of every industrial area in the whole country.”

— Franklin D. Roosevelt

138. “In the formative days of the Republic, the directing influence the Bible exercised upon the fathers of the Nation is conspicuously evident...”

— Franklin D. Roosevelt

139. “A Liberal is a man who uses his legs and his hands at the behest-at the command-of his head.”

— Franklin D. Roosevelt

140. “The whole world is one neighborhood.”

— Franklin D. Roosevelt

141. “All of our people all over the country-except the pure-blooded Indians-are immigrants or descendants of immigrants, including even those who came over here on the Mayflower.”

— Franklin D. Roosevelt

142. “Sometimes the best way to keep peace in the family is to keep the members of the family apart for awhile.”

— Franklin D. Roosevelt

143. “More than just an end to war, we want an end to the beginnings of all wars.”

— Franklin D. Roosevelt

144. “No man can tame a tiger into a kitten by stroking it. There can be no appeasement with ruthlessness. There can be no reasoning with an incendiary bomb.”

— Franklin D. Roosevelt

145. “The world order which we seek is the co-operation of free countries, working together in a friendly, civilized society.”

— Franklin D. Roosevelt

146. “I want to preach a new doctrine. A complete separation of business and government.”

— Franklin D. Roosevelt

147. “The success of our whole national program depends, of course, on the cooperation of the public – on its intelligent support and its use of a reliable system.”

— Franklin D. Roosevelt

148. “Organized money hates me – and I welcome their hatred!”

— Franklin D. Roosevelt

149. “There is nothing I love as much as a good fight.”

— Franklin D. Roosevelt

150. “I love it – I just love it.”

— Franklin D. Roosevelt