Franklin D. Roosevelt

Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin Delano Roosevelt, commonly known as FDR, was an American statesman and political leader who served as the President of the United States from 1933 to 1945. A Democrat, he won a record four presidential elections and dominated his party after 1932 as a central figure in world events during the mid-20th century, leading the United States during a time of worldwide economic depression and total war. His program for relief, recovery and reform, known as the New Deal, involved...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionUS President
Date of Birth30 January 1882
CityHyde Park, NY
CountryUnited States of America
Franklin D. Roosevelt quotes about
Frankly, I do not like the idea of conversations to define the term "unconditional surrender."The German people can have dinned into their ears what I said in my Christmas Eve speech--in effect, that we have no thought of destroying the German people and that we want them to live through the generations like other European peoples on condition, of course, that they get rid of their present philosophy of conquest.
You'll have to learn that public life takes a lot of sweat; but it doesn't need to worry you. You won't always be right, but you mustn't suffer from being wrong. That's what kills people like us.
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.
Our security is not a matter of weapons alone. The arm that wields them must be strong, the eye that guides them clear, the will that directs them indomitable.
We are going to tax and tax, spend and spend, elect and elect.
Those (who) seek to establish systems of Government based on the regimentation of all Human Beings by a handful of individual rulers...call this a new order. It is not new and it is not order.
[M]y conception of liberty does not permit an individual citizen or a group of citizens to commit acts of depredation against nature in such a way as to harm their neighbors and especially to harm the future generations of Americans. If many years ago we had had the necessary knowledge, and especially the necessary willingness on the part of the Federal Government, we would have saved a sum, a sum of money which has cost the taxpayers of America two billion dollars.
One reason--perhaps the chief--of the virility of the Roosevelts is [their] very democratic spirit. They have never felt that because they were born in a good position they could put their hands in their pockets and succeed. They have felt, rather, that being born in a good position, there is no excuse for them if they did not do their duty by the community.
There has been one persistent theme through all Axis propaganda. This theme has been that Americans are admittedly rich, that Americans have considerable industrial power - but that Americans are soft and decadent, that they cannot and will not unite and work and fight. ... Let them tell that to the Marines!
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.
Of course we will continue to work for cheaper electricity in the homes and on the farms of America; for better and cheaper transportation; for low interest rates; for sounder home financing; for better banking; for the regulation of security issues; for reciprocal trade among nations and for the wiping out of slums. And my friends, for all of these we have only begun to fight.
In our democracy officers of the government are the servants, and never the masters of the people.
It took six weeks of debate in the Senate to get the Arms Embargo Law repealed--and we face other delays during the present session because most of the Members of the Congress are thinking in terms of next Autumn's election. However, that is one of the prices that we who live in democracies have to pay. It is, however, worth paying, if all of us can avoid the type of government under which the unfortunate population of Germany and Russia must exist.
We have our difficulties, true; but we are a wiser and a tougher nation than we were in 1932. Never have there been six years of such far flung internal preparedness in all of history. And this has been done without any dictator's power to command, without conscription of labor or confiscation of capital, without concentration camps and without a scratch on freedom of speech, freedom of the press or the rest of the Bill of Rights.