Top 350 Franklin D. Roosevelt Quotes (2026 Update)
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251. “We have always known that heedless self-interest was bad morals; we know now that it is bad economics. Out of the collapse of a prosperity whose builders boasted their practicality has come the conviction that in the long run economic morality pays.”

— Franklin D. Roosevelt

252. “The hand that held the dagger has struck it into the back of its neighbor.”

— Franklin D. Roosevelt

253. “The constant free flow of communication amount us-enabling the free interchange of ideas-forms the very bloodstream of our nation. It keeps the mind and body of our democracy eternally vital, eternally young.”

— Franklin D. Roosevelt

254. “As a nation, we may take pride in the fact that we are softhearted; but we cannot afford to be soft-headed.”

— Franklin D. Roosevelt

255. “If I were starting life over again, I am inclined to think that I would go into the advertising business in preference to almost any other. The general raising of the standards of modern civilization among all groups of people during the past half ce.”

— Franklin D. Roosevelt

256. “It is the duty of the President to propose and it is the privilege of the Congress to dispose.”

— Franklin D. Roosevelt

257. “There is a mysterious cycle in human events. To some generations much is given. Of other generations much is expected. This generation of Americans has a rendezvous with destiny.”

— Franklin D. Roosevelt

258. “True individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence. People who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made.”

— Franklin D. Roosevelt

259. “I see one-third of a nation ill-housed, ill-clad, ill-nourished.”

— Franklin D. Roosevelt

260. “No realistic American can expect from a dictator’s peace international generosity, or return of true independence, or world disarmament, or freedom of expression, or freedom of religion, or even good business. Such a peace would bring no security for us or for our neighbors. Those, who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.”

— Franklin D. Roosevelt

261. “We have learned the simple truth, as Emerson said that the only way to have a friend is to be one. We can gain no lasting peace if we approach it with suspicion or mistrust or with fear.”

— Franklin D. Roosevelt

262. “We count, in the future as in the past, on the driving power of individual initiative, on the incentive of fair private profit, strengthened of course with the acceptance of those obligations to the public interest which rest upon us all.”

— Franklin D. Roosevelt

263. “You sometimes find something good in the lunatic fringe. In fact, we have got as part of our social and economic government today a whole lot of things which in my boyhood were considered lunatic fringe, and yet they are now part of everyday life.”

— Franklin D. Roosevelt

264. “I am much interested and deeply impressed by what he has accomplished and by his evidenced honest purpose of restoring Italy and seeking to prevent general European trouble.”

— Franklin D. Roosevelt

265. “We have always known that heedless self interest was bad morals, we now know that it is bad economics.”

— Franklin D. Roosevelt

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

— Franklin D. Roosevelt

267. “Not only our future economic soundness but the very soundness of our democratic institutions depends on the determination of our government to give employment to idle men.”

— Franklin D. Roosevelt

268. “Against naked force the only possible defense is naked force. The aggressor makes the rules for such a war; the defenders have no alternative but matching destruction with more destruction, slaughter with greater slaughter.”

— Franklin D. Roosevelt

269. “This nation asks for action, and action now.”

— Franklin D. Roosevelt

270. “A great man left a watchword that we can well repeat: “There is no indispensable man””

— Franklin D. Roosevelt

271. “Employers and employees alike have learned that in union there is strength.”

— Franklin D. Roosevelt

272. “It is an unfortunate human failing that a full pocketbook often groans more loudly than an empty stomach.”

— Franklin D. Roosevelt

273. “I’ve fired my last shot. I think I should have another round in my belt.”

— Franklin D. Roosevelt

274. “It takes a long time to bring the past up to the present.”

— Franklin D. Roosevelt

275. “It is the purpose of the government to see that not only the legitimate interests of the few are protected but that the welfare and rights of the many are conserved.”

— Franklin D. Roosevelt

276. “The true conservative is the man who has a real concern for injustices and takes thought against the day of reckoning.”

— Franklin D. Roosevelt

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277. “All free peoples are deeply impressed by the courage and steadfastness of the Greek nation.”

— Franklin D. Roosevelt

278. “A wise Government seeks to provide the opportunity through which the best of individual achievement can be obtained, while at the same time it seeks to remove such obstruction, such unfairness as springs from selfish human motives.”

— Franklin D. Roosevelt

279. “In the field of world policy; I would dedicate this nation to the policy of the good neighbor.”

— Franklin D. Roosevelt

280. “I regard reduction in Federal spending as one of the most important issues of this campaign. In my opinion, it is the most direct and effective contribution that Government can make to business.”

— Franklin D. Roosevelt

281. “What I seek is the highest possible batting average.”

— Franklin D. Roosevelt

282. “Government cannot close its eyes to the pollution of waters, to the erosion of soil, to the slashing of forests any more than it can close its eyes to the need for slum clearance and schools.”

— Franklin D. Roosevelt

283. “How many people in the United States do you think will be willing to go to war to free Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania?”

— Franklin D. Roosevelt

284. “We must recognize the fundamental rights of man. There can be no true national life in our democracy unless we give unqualified recognition to freedom of religious worship and freedom of education.”

— Franklin D. Roosevelt

285. “Religion, by teaching man his relationship to God, gives the individual a sense of his own dignity and teaches him to respect himself by respecting his neighbors.”

— Franklin D. Roosevelt

286. “Your boys are not going to be sent into any foreign wars.”

— Franklin D. Roosevelt

287. “Man’s desire to be remembered is colossal.”

— Franklin D. Roosevelt

288. “I call for effort, courage, sacrifice, devotion. Granting the love of freedom, all of these are possible. And the love of freedom is still fierce and steady in the nation today. June 10, 1940.”

— Franklin D. Roosevelt

289. “The most difficult place in the world to get a clear and open perspective of the country as a whole is Washington.”

— Franklin D. Roosevelt

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290. “It seems to me to be equally plain that no business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country. By “business” I mean the whole of commerce as well as the whole of industry; by workers I mean all workers, the white collar class as well as the men in overalls; and by living wages I mean more than a bare subsistence level-I mean the wages of decent living.”

— Franklin D. Roosevelt

291. “Too often in recent history liberal governments have been wrecked on rocks of loose fiscal policy.”

— Franklin D. Roosevelt

292. “The ultimate victory of tomorrow is democracy, and through democracy with education, for no people in all the world can be kept eternally ignorant or eternally enslaved.”

— Franklin D. Roosevelt

293. “Failure is not an American habit.”

— Franklin D. Roosevelt

294. “And while I am talking to you mothers and fathers, I give you one more assurance. I have said this before, but I shall say it again and again and again: Your boys are not going to be sent into any foreign wars.”

— Franklin D. Roosevelt

295. “Beware of that profound enemy of the free enterprise system who pays lip-service to free competition, but also labels every antitrust prosecution as a persecution.”

— Franklin D. Roosevelt

296. “Let us never forget that government is ourselves and not an alien power over us.”

— Franklin D. Roosevelt

297. “If we can boondoggle ourselves out of this depression, that word is going to be enshrined in the hearts of the American people for years to come.”

— Franklin D. Roosevelt

298. “An election cannot give a country a firm sense of direction if it has two or more national parties which merely have different names, but are as alike in their principals and aims as two peas in the same pod.”

— Franklin D. Roosevelt

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299. “In this dedication of a Nation we humbly ask the blessing of God. May he protect each and every one of us. May He guide me in the days to come.”

— Franklin D. Roosevelt

300. “In a democratic nation, power must be linked with responsibility, and obliged to defend and justify itself within the framework of the general good.”

— Franklin D. Roosevelt