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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

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It Is The Purpose

Franklin D. Roosevelt

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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.

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Friendship Among Nations, As Among Individuals, Calls For Constructive Efforts To Muster The Forces Of Humanity In Order That An Atmosphere Of Close Understanding And Cooperation May Be Cultivated.

I've Fired My Last Shot. I Think I Should Have Another Round In My Belt.

It Is Time To Extend Planning To A Wider Field, In This Instance Comprehending In One Great Project Many States Directly Concerned With The Basin Of One Of Our Greatest Rivers.

If The Fires Of Freedom And Civil Liberties Burn Low In Other Lands They Must Be Made Brighter In Our Own. If In Other Lands The Press And Books And Literature Of All Kinds Are Censored We Must Redouble Our Efforts Here To Keep Them Free. If In Other Lands The Eternal Truths Of The Past Are Threatened By Intolerance We Must Provide A Safe Place For Their Perpetuation.

Peace, Like Charity, Begins At Home.

We Are Fighting To Save A Great And Precious Form Of Government For Ourselves And For The World.

If I Went To Work In A Factory The First Thing I'd Do Is Join A Union.

Organized Labor

There Is One Front And One Battle Where Everyone In The United States-every Man, Woman, And Child-is In Action, And Will Be Privileged To Remain In Action Throughout This War. That Front Is Right Here At Home, In Our Daily Lives, And In Our Daily Tasks.

Democracy Can Thrive Only When It Enlists The Devotion Of Those Whom Lincoln Called The Common People. Democracy Can Hold That Devotion Only When It Adequately Respects Their Dignity By So Ordering Society As To Assure To The Masses Of Men And Women Reasonable Security And Hope For Themselves And For Their Children.

I Have Seen War ... I Hate War.

It Is Fun To Be In The Same Decade With You.

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 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.

Let Us Never Forget That Government Is Ourselves And Not An Alien Power Over Us.

Democracies Have

It Seems To Me That The Dedication Of A Library Is An Act Of Faith. To Bring Together The Resources Of The Past And To House Them In Buildings Where They Will Be Preserved For The Use Of Men And Women In The Future, A Nation Must Believe In Three Things. It Must Believe In The Past. It Must Believe In The Future. It Must, Above All, Believe In The Capacity Of Its Own People So To Learn From The Past That They Can Gain In Judgment In Creating Their Own Future.

I Have A Terrific Pain In The Back Of My Head.

The Future Lies With Those Wise Political Leaders Who Realize That The Great Public Is Interested More In Government Than In Politics.

On Both Sides Of The Line, We Are So Accustomed To An Undefended Boundary Three Thousand Miles Long That We Are Inclined Perhaps To Minimize Its Vast Importance, Not Only To Our Own Continuing Relations But Also To The Example Which It Sets To The Other Nations Of The World.

I Sometimes Think We Consider Too Much The Good Luck Of The Early Bird And Not Enough The Bad Luck Of The Early Worm.

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.

Great Power Involves Great Responsibility

Power And Responsibility

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

Nobody Will Ever Deprive The American People Of The Right To Vote Except The American People Themselves And The Only Way They Could Do This Is By Not Voting.

A Radical Is A Man With Both Feet Firmly Planted-in The Air. A Conservative Is A Man With Two Perfectly Good Legs, Who, However, Has Never Learned To Walk Forward. A Reactionary Is A Somnambulist Walking Backwards. A Liberal Is A Man Who Uses His Legs And Hands At The Behest Of His Head.

Democracy, The Practice Of Self-government, Is A Covenant Among Free Men To Respect The Rights And Liberties Of Their Fellows.

The American People In Their Righteous Might Will Win Through To Absolute Victory.

A Liberal Is A Man Who Uses His Legs And His Hands At The Behest-at The Command-of His Head.

Our Government Is Based On The Belief That A People Can Be Both Strong And Free, That Civilized Men Need No Restraint But That Imposed By Themselves Against Abuse Of Freedom.

Research Is One Of The Nation's Very Greatest Resources And The Role Of The Federal Government In Supporting And Stimulating It Needs To Reexamined.

The American People Want Their Government To Act, And Not Merely To Talk, Whenever And Wherever There Is A Threat To World Peace.

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.

Freedom Of Speech

I Want To Preach A New Doctrine. A Complete Separation Of Business And Government.

Books Can Not Be Killed By Fire. People Die, But Books Never Die. No Man And No Force Can Abolish Memory... In This War, We Know, Books Are Weapons. And It Is A Part Of Your Dedication Always To Make Them Weapons For Man's Freedom.

The Creed Of Our Democracy Is That Liberty Is Acquired And Kept By Men And Women Who Are Strong And Self-reliant, And Possessed Of Such Wisdom As God Gives Mankind - Men And Women Who Are Just, And Understanding, And Generous To Others - Men And Women Who Are Capable Of Disciplining Themselves. For They Are The Rulers And They Must Rule Themselves.

To Some Generations Much Is Given. Of Other Generations, Much Is Expected.

This Generation

Perfectionism, No Less Than Isolationism Or Imperialism Or Power Politics, May Obstruct The Paths To International Peace. Let Us Not Forget That The Retreat To Isolationism A Quarter Of A Century Ago Was Started Not By A Direct Attack Against International Cooperation But Against The Alleged Imperfections Of The Peace.

It Is Highly Unlikely That An Airplane, Or Fleet Of Them, Could Ever Sink A Fleet Of Navy Vessels Under Battle Conditions.

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.

Put Two Or Three Men In Positions Of Conflicting Authority. This Will Force Them To Work At Loggerheads, Allowing You To Be The Ultimate Arbiter.

The Traditional Jeffersonian Principle Of Religious Freedom Was So Broadly Democratic That It Included The Right To Have No Religion At All - It Gave To The Individual The Right To Worship Any God He Chose Or No God.

In These Days Of Difficulty, We Americans Everywhere Must And Shall Choose The Path Of Social Justice…, The Path Of Faith, The Path Of Hope, And The Path Of Love Toward Our Fellow Man.

I Tell The American People Solemnly That The United States Will Never Survive As A Happy And Fertile Oasis Of Liberty Surrounded By A Cruel Desert Of Dictatorship.

True Wealth Is Not A Static Thing. It Is A Living Thing Made Out Of The Disposition Of Men To Create And Distribute The Good Things Of Life With Rising Standards Of Living.

You Are, I Am Sure, Aware That Genuine Popular Support In The United States Is Required To Carry Out Any Government Policy, Foreign Or Domestic. The American People Make Up Their Own Minds And No Governmental Action Can Change It.

We, Too, Born To Freedom, And Believing In Freedom, Are Willing To Fight To Maintain Freedom. We, And All Others Who Believe As Deeply As We Do, Would Rather Die On Our Feet Than Live On Our Knees.

The Forgotten Man At The Bottom Of The Economic Pyramid.

We Look Forward To A World Founded Upon Four Essential Human Freedoms. The First Is Freedom Of Speech And Expression. The Second Is Freedom Of Every Person To Worship God In His Own Way. The Third Is Freedom From Want. The Fourth Is Freedom From Fear.

We Must Remember That Any Oppression, Any Injustice, Any Hatred, Is A Wedge Designed To Attack Our Civilization.

Peace, Like War, Can Succeed Only Where There Is A Will To Enforce It, And Where There Is Available Power To Enforce It.

All Government Employees Should Realize That The Process Of Collective Bargaining, As Usually Understood, Cannot Be Transplanted Into The Public Service.

A Small Group Had Concentrated Into Their Own Hands An Almost Complete Control Over Other People's Property, Other People's Money, Other People's Labor - Other People's Lives. For Too Many Of Us Life Was No Longer Free; Liberty No Longer Real; Men Could No Longer Follow The Pursuit Of Happiness.

Pursuit Of Happiness

Too Often In Recent History Liberal Governments Have Been Wrecked On Rocks Of Loose Fiscal Policy.

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.

We Had To Struggle With The Old Enemies Of Peace - Business And Financial Monopoly, Speculation, Reckless Banking, Class Antagonism, Sectionalism, War Profiteering. They Had Begun To Consider The Government Of The United States As A Mere Appendage To Their Own Affairs. We Know Now That Government By Organized Money Is Just As Dangerous As Government By Organized Mob. Never Before In All Our History Have These Forces Been So United Against One Candidate As They Stand Today. They Are Unanimous In Their Hate For Me - And I Welcome Their Hatred.

No Greater Blessing Could Come To Our Land Today Than A Revival Of The Spirit Of Religion. I Doubt If There Is Any Problem In The World Today -- Social, Political, Or Economic -- That Would Not Find Happy Solution If Approached In The Spirit Of The Sermon On The Mount.

These Republican Leaders Have Not Been Content With Attacks On Me, On My Wife, Or On My Sons. No, Not Content With That, They Now Include My Little Dog, Fala. Well, Of Course, I Don't Resent Attacks... But Fala Does Resent Them.

Private Enterprise Is Ceasing To Be Free Enterprise. Private Enterprise, Indeed, Became Too Private. It Became Privileged Enterprise, Not Free Enterprise.

Free Enterprise

Private Enterprise

Your Profits Are Going To Be Cut Down To A Reasonably Low Level By Taxation. Your Income Will Be Subject To Higher Taxes. Indeed In These Days, When Every Available Dollar Should Go To The War Effort, I Do Not Think That Any American Citizen Should Have A Net Income In Excess Of $25,000 Per Year After Payment Of Taxes.

Let Me Make It Clear That I Do Not Assert That A President And The Congress Must On All Points Agree With Each Other At All Times. Many Times In History There Has Been Complete Disagreement Between The Two Branches Of The Government, And In These Disagreements Sometimes The Congress Has Won And Sometimes The President Has Won. But During The Administration Of The Present President We Have Had Neither Agreement Nor A Clear-cut Battle.

I Hope That Your Committee Will Not Permit Doubt As To Constitutionality, However Reasonable, To Block The Suggested Legislation

We Are A Nation Of Many Nationalities, Many Races, Many Religions-bound Together By A Single Unity, The Unity Of Freedom And Equality. Whoever Seeks To Set One Nationality Against Another, Seeks To Degrade All Nationalities.

When You See A Rattlesnake Poised To Strike, You Do Not Wait Until He Has Struck To Crush Him.

Failure Is Not An American Habit.

Never Underestimate A Man Who Overestimates Himself.

If You Have Spent Two Years In Bed Trying To Wiggle Your Big Toe, Everything Else Seems Easy.

And Yet Our Distress Comes From No Failure Of Substance. We Are Stricken By No Plague Of Locusts. Compared With The Perils Which Our Forefathers Conquered, Because They Believed And Were Not Afraid, We Have Still Much To Be Thankful For. Nature Still Offers Her Bounty And Human Efforts Have Multiplied It. Plenty Is At Our Doorstep, But A Generous Use Of It Languishes In The Very Sight Of The Supply.

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.

On The European Front The Most Important Development Of The Past Year Has Been The Crushing Offensive Of The Great Armies Of Russia.

Frankly, I Do Not Know How To Effect A Permanency In American Foreign Policy.

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.

Physical Strength Can Never Permanently Withstand The Impact Of Spiritual Force.

We Know That There Are Chiselers. At The Bottom Of Every Case Of Criticism And Obstruction We Have Found Some Selfish Interest, Some Private Axe To Grind.

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.

We Had To Struggle With The Old Enemies Of Peace - Business And Financial Monopoly, Speculation, Reckless Banking, Class Antagonism, Sectionalism, War Profiteering

What I Seek Is The Highest Possible Batting Average.

It Is To The Real Advantage Of Every Producer, Every Manufacturer And Every Merchant To Cooperate In The Improvement Of Working Conditions, Because The Best Customer Of American Industry Is The Well-paid Worker.

There Is Nothing So American As Our National Parks. The Scenery And The Wildlife Are Native. The Fundamental Idea Behind The Parks Is Native. It Is, In Brief, That The Country Belongs To The People, That It Is In Process Of Making For The Enrichment Of The Lives Of All Of Us. The Parks Stand As The Outward Symbal Of The Great Human Principle.

The Country Needs And, Unless I Mistake Its Temper, The Country Demands Bold, Persistent Experimentation .

More Than Just An End To War, We Want An End To The Beginnings Of All Wars.

The Whole World Is One Neighborhood.

You Cannot Organize Civilization Around The Core Of Militarism And At The Same Time Expect Reason To Control Human Destinies.

Resort To Force In The Great War (i) Failed To Bring Tranquillity. Victory And Defeat Alike Were Sterile. That Lesson The World Should Have Learned.

Victory And Defeat

We Can Afford All That We Need; But We Can Not Afford All [that] We Want.

Any Government, Like Any Family, Can For A Year Spend A Little More Than It Earns. But You And I Know That A Continuation Of That Habit Means The Poorhouse.

I Read In A Newspaper That I Was To Be Received With All The Honors Customarily Rendered To A Foreign Ruler. I Am Grateful For The Honors; But Something Within Me Rebelled At That Word 'foreign'. I Say This Because When I Have Been In Canada, I Have Never Heard A Canadian Refer To An American As A 'foreigner'. He Is Just An 'american'. And, In The Same Way, In The United States, Canadians Are Not 'foreigners', They Are 'canadians'. That Simple Little Distinction Illustrates To Me Better Than Anything Else The Relationship Between Our Two Countries.

Concentration Of Wealth And Power Has Been Built Upon Other People's Money, Other People's Business, Other People's Labor. Under This Concentration, Independent Business Has Been A Menace To American Society.

Concentration Of Wealth

All Private Plans, All Private Lives, Have Been In A Sense Repealed By An Overriding Public Danger.

To Bring About Government By Oligarchy, Masquerading As Democracy, It Is Fundamentally Essential That Practically All Authority And Control Be Centralized In Our Federal Government. . . The Individual Sovereignty Of Our States Must First Be Destroyed.

[d]rilling And Arming, When Carried On On A National Scale, Excite Whole Populations To Frenzies Which End In War.

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.

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.

The Social Security Act Offers To All Our Citizens A Workable And Working Method Of Meeting Urgent Present Needs And Of Forestalling Future Need. It Utilizes The Familiar Machinery Of Our Federal-state Government To Promote The Common Welfare And The Economic Stability Of The Nation.

The Hopes Of The Republic Cannot Forever Tolerate Either Undeserved Poverty Or Self-serving Wealth.

We Cannot Read The History Of Our Rise And Development As A Nation, Without Reckoning With The Place The Bible Has Occupied In Shaping The Advances Of The Republic. Where We Have Been The Truest And Most Consistent In Obeying Its Precepts, We Have Attained The Greatest Measure Of Contentment And Prosperity.

To Win This War, We Have Been Forced Into A Strategic Compromise Which Will Most Certainly Offend The Russians.

I Love It--i Just Love It.

The Public Schools Shall Be Free From Sectarian Influences And, Above All, Free From Any Attitude Of Hostility To The Adherents Of Any Particular Creed.

These Economic Royalists Complain That We Seek To Overthrow The Institutions Of America. What They Really Complain Of Is That We Seek To Take Away Their Power. Our Allegiance To American Institutions Requires The Overthrow Of This Kind Of Power. In Vain They Seek To Hide Behind The Flag And The Constitution. In Their Blindness They Forget What The Flag And The Constitution Stand For.

Among American Citizens, There Should Be No Forgotten Men And No Forgotten Races.

No Business Is Above Government; And Government Must Be Empowered To Deal Adequately With Any Business That Tries To Rise Above Government.

Happiness Lies Not In The Mere Possession Of Money; It Lies In The Joy Of Achievement, In The Thrill Of Creative Effort. The Joy And Moral Stimulation Of Work No Longer Must Be Forgotten In The Mad Chase Of Evanescent Profits. These Dark Days Will Be Worth All They Cost Us If They Teach Us That Our True Destiny Is Not To Be Ministered Unto But To Minister To Ourselves And To Our Fellow Men.

We Have The Men--the Skill--the Wealth--and Above All, The Will.... We Must Be The Great Arsenal Of Democracy.

Inside The Polling Booth Every American Man And Woman Stands As The Equal Of Every Other American Man And Woman. There They Have No Superiors. There They Have No Masters Save Their Own Minds And Consciences.

Eternal Truths Will Be Neither True Nor Eternal Unless They Have Fresh Meaning For Every New Social Situation.

Meaning Of Life

The True Conservative Seeks To Protect The System Of Private Property And Free Enterprise By Correcting Such Injustices And Inequalities As Arise From It. The Most Serious Threat To Our Institutions Comes From Those Who Refuse To Face The Need For Change. Liberalism Becomes The Protection For The Far-sighted Conservative.

Continued Dependence On Relief Inducers A Spiritual And Moral Disintegration Fundamentally Destructive To The National Fiber.

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.

Always Will We Remember The Character Of The Onslaught Against Us. No Matter How Long It May Take Us To Overcome This Premeditated Invasion, The American People In Their Righteous Might Will Win Through To Absolute Victory.... We Will Not Only Defend Ourselves To The Uttermost, But Will Make Very Certain That This Form Of Treachery Shall Never Endanger Us Again.

Wise And Prudent Men And Intelligent Conservatives Have Long Known That In A Changing World Worthy Institutions Can Be Conserved Only By Adjusting Them To The Changing Time.

Your Boys Are Not Going To Be Sent Into Any Foreign Wars.

Art Is Not A Treasure In The Past Or An Importation From Another Land, But Part Of The Present Life Of All Living And Creating Peoples.

We Know That Equality Of Individual Ability Has Never Existed And Never Will, But We Do Insist That Equality Of Opportunity Still Must Be Sought.

The Nation That Destroys Its Soil Destroys Itself.

A World Turned Into A Stereotype, A Society Converted Into A Regiment, A Life Translated Into A Routine, Make It Difficult For Either Art Or Artists To Survive. Crush Individuality In Society And You Crush Art As Well. Nourish The Conditions Of A Free Life And You Nourish The Arts, Too.

The Future Lies With Those Wise Political Leaders Who Realize That The Great Public Is Interested More In Government Than In Politics. The Growing Independence Of Voters, After All, Has Been Proven By The Votes In Every Presidential Election Since My Childhood And The Tendency, Frankly, Is On The Increase.

A Point Has Been Reached Where The Peoples Of The Americas Must Take Cognizance Of Growing Ill-will, Of Marked Trends Toward Aggression, Of Increasing Armaments, Of Shortening Tempers--a Situation Which Has In It Many Of The Elements That Lead To The Tragedy Of General War.... Peace Is Threatened By Those Who Seek Selfish Power.

Economic Diseases Are Highly Communicable. It Follows Therefore That The Economic Health Of Every Country Is A Proper Matter Of Concern To All Its Neighbors, Near Or Distant.

Do Not Confuse Objectives With Methods. When The Nation Becomes Substantially United In Favor Of Planning The Broad Objectives Of Civilization, Then True Leadership Must Unite Thought Behind Definite Methods.

Inequality May Linger In The World Of Material Things, But Great Music, Great Literature, Great Art And The Wonders Of Science Are, And Should Be, Open To All.

I Pledge You, I Pledge Myself, To A New Deal For The American People.

We Know That Enduring Peace Cannot Be Bought At The Cost Of Other People's Freedom.

The True Conservative Is The Man Who Has A Real Concern For Injustices And Takes Thought Against The Day Of Reckoning.

I Have Seen War. I Have Seen War On Land And Sea. I Have Seen Blood Running From The Wounded. I Have Seen Men Coughing Out Their Gassed Lungs. I Have Seen The Dead In The Mud. I Have Seen Cities Destroyed. I Have Seen 200 Limping, Exhausted Men Come Out Of Line—the Survivors Of A Regiment Of 1,000 That Went Forward 48 Hours Before. I Have Seen Children Starving. I Have Seen The Agony Of Mothers And Wives. I Hate War.

[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.

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.

If You Hold Your Fire Until You See The Whites Of His Eyes, You Will Never Know What Hit You.

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.

I Believe That The Fundamental Proposition Is That We Must Recognize That The Hostilities In Europe, In Africa, And In Asia Are All Parts Of A Single World Conflict. We Must, Consequently, Recognize That Our Interests Are Menaced Both In Europe And In The Far East.

This Nation Asks For Action, And Action Now.

No Group And No Government Can Properly Prescribe Precisely What Should Constitute The Body Of Knowledge With Which True Education Is Concerned.

We Must Save The Constitution From The [supreme] Court And The Court From Itself.

There Can Be Little Doubt That In Many Ways The Story Of Bridge Building Is The Story Of Civilisation. By It We Can Readily Measure An Important Part Of A People's Progress.

History Proves That Dictatorships Do Not Grow Out Of Strong And Successful Governments, But Out Of Weak And Helpless Ones. If By Democratic Methods People Get A Government Strong Enough To Protect Them From Fear And Starvation, Their Democracy Succeeds; But If They Do Not, They Grow Impatient. Therefore, 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 Its Government.

The Only Thing We Have To Fear...is Audiovisual Glitches At Our Annual Event.

Books Cannot Be Killed By Fire.

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.

No Business Which Depends For Existence On Paying Less Than Living Wages To Its Workers Has Any Right To Continue In This Country... By Living Wages I Mean More Than A Bare Subsistence Level - I Mean The Wages Of Decent Living.

In This Nation I See Tens Of Millions Of Its Citizens, A Substantial Part Of Its Whole Population, Who At This Very Moment Are Denied The Greater Part Of What The Very Lowest Standards Of Today Call The Necessities Of Life. I See One Third Of A Nation Ill-housed, Ill-clad, Ill-nourished. 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.

No Greater Tragedy Exists In Modern Civilization Than The Aged, Worn-out Worker Who After A Life Of Ceaseless Effort And Useful Productivity Must Look Forward For His Declining Years To A Poorhouse. A Modern Social Consciousness Demands A More Humane And Efficient Arrangement.

A Program Whose Basic Thesis Is, Not That The System Of Free Enterprise For Profit Has Failed In This Generation, But That It Has Not Yet Been Tried!

This Generation

I've Never Been Unemployed. I've Never Been Very Fully Employed Either.

Hitler Built A Fortress Around Europe, But He Forgot To Put A Roof On It.

New Ideas Can Be Good And Bad, Just The Same As Old Ones.

Above All, Try Something

The Best Customer Of American Industry Is The Well Paid Worker.

Working Conditions

Every Man Has A Right To Life, And This Means That He Has Also A Right To Make A Comfortable Living.

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.

To A Great Extent The Achievements Of Invention, Of Mechanical And Of Artistic Creation, Must Of Necessity, And Rightly, Be Individual Rather Than Governmental. It Is The Self-reliant Pioneer In Every Enterprise Who Beats The Path Along Which American Civilization Has Marched. Such Individual Effort Is The Glory Of America.

Individual Effort

All Of Us In All The Americas Will Be Living At The Point Of A Gun.

No Man Can Tame A Tiger Into A Kitten By Stroking It.

Pearl Harbor Day

The Only Thing We Have To Fear Is Fear Itself.

In My Inaugural I Laid Down The Simple Proposition That Nobody Is Going To Starve In This Country. 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.

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.

We Must Open Our Eyes And See That Modern Civilization Has Become So Complex And The Lives Of Civilized Men So Interwoven With Thelives Of Other Men In Other Countries As To Make It Impossible To Be In This World And Out Of It.

Slowly, And In Spite Of Anything We Americans Do Or Do Not Do, It Looks A Little As If You And Some Other Good People Are Going To Have To Answer The Old Question Of Whether You Want To Keep Your Country Unshackled By Taking Even More Definite Steps To Do So

Old Women Are The Secret To The Fluffiest Cakes.

There Comes A Time In The Affairs Of Men When They Must Prepare To Defend Not Their Homes Alone But The Tenets Of Faith And Humanity On Which Their Churches, Their Governments And Their Very Foundations Are Set. The Defense Of Religion, Of Democracy And Of Good Faith Among Nations Is All The Same Fight. To Save One, We Must Now Make Up Our Minds To Save All.

We May Make Mistakes-but They Must Never Be Mistakes Which Result From Faintness Of Heart Or Abandonment Of Moral Principle.

To Reach A Port, We Must Sail - Sail, Not Tie At Anchor - Sail, Not Drift.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Calm Seas Never Made A Good Sailor

Happiness Lies Not In The Mere Possession Of Money; It Lies In The Joy Of Achievement, In The Thrill Of Creative Effort.

The Only Thing We Have To Fear Is A Giant Wheelchair-crushing Squid. Well... Uh... Actually, I Guess That's The Only Thing I Have To Fear.

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

I Believe That In Every Country The People Themselves Are More Peaceably And Liberally Inclined Than Their Governments.

I Ask You To Judge Me By The Enemies I Have Made.

The People Of America Are In Agreement In Defending Their Liberties At Any Cost, And The First Line Of That Defense Lies In The Protection Of Economic Security.

The Point In History At Which We Stand Is Full Of Promise And Danger. The World Will Either Move Forward Toward Unity And Widely Shared Prosperity - Or It Will Move Apart.

Labor Day Symbolizes Our Determination To Achieve An Economic Freedom For The Average Man Which Will Give His Political Freedom Realty.

No Political Party Has Exclusive Patent Rights On Prosperity.

Our Handicaps Exist Only In Our Minds.

That, In Its Essence, Is Fascism — Ownership Of Government By An Individual, By A Group, Or By Any Other Controlling Private Power.

All Work Undertaken Should Be Useful - Not Just For A Day, Or A Year, But Useful In The Sense That It Affords Permanent Improvement In Living Conditions Or That It Creates Future New Wealth For The Nation.

Coming To Grips With The Reality That Our Planet Is Not The Only One Harboring Intelligent Life The Universe.

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.

For Every Advance That The Japanese Have Made Since They Started Their Frenzied Career Of Conquest, They Have Had To Pay A Very Heavy Toll In Warships, In Transports, In Planes, And In Men. They Are Feeling The Effects Of Those Losses.

The Peoples Of Many Countries Are Being Taxed To The Point Of Poverty And Starvation In Order To Enable Governments To Engage In A Mad Race In Armament Which, If Permitted To Continue, May Well Result In War. This Grave Menace To The Peace Of The World Is Due In No Small Measure To The Uncontrolled Activities Of The Manufacturers And Merchants Of Engines Of Destruction, And It It Must Be Met By The Concerted Actions Of The Peoples Of All Nations.

In Politics, Nothing Happens By Accident. If It Happens, You Can Bet It Was Planned That Way.

The Duty Of The State Toward The Citizen Is The Duty Of The Servant To Its Master.... One Of The Duties Of The State Is That Of Caring For Those Of Its Citizens Who Find Themselves The Victims Of Such Adverse Circumstances As Makes Them Unable To Obtain Even The Necessities For Mere Existence Without The Aid Of Others.... To These Unfortunate Citizens Aid Must Be Extended By Government--not As A Matter Of Charity But As A Matter Of Social Duty.

Older Men Declare War. But It Is Youth That Must Fight And Die. And It Is Youth Who Must Inherit The Tribulation, The Sorrow And The Triumphs That Are The Aftermath Of War.

Inspirational Life

Since I Am Used To Speaking In Public, I Know That It Is Useless.

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.

Yesterday, December 7, 1941 A Date Which Will Live In Infamy The United States Of America Was Suddenly And Deliberately Attacked By Naval And Air Forces Of The Empire Of Japan... We Will Gain The Inevitable Triumph So Help Us God.

If We Do Not Halt This Steady Process Of Building Commissions And Regulatory Bodies And The Special Legislation Like Huge Inverted Pyramids Over Every One Of The Simple Constitutional Provisions, We Shall Soon Be Spending Many Billions Of Dollars More.

This Great Nation Will Endure As It Has Endured, Will Revive And Will Prosper. So, First Of All, Let Me Assert My Firm Belief That The Only Thing We Have To Fear Is Fear Itself.

The Winds That Blow Through The Wide Sky In These Mounts, The Winds That Sweep From Canada To Mexico, From The Pacific To The Atlantic - Have Always Blown On Free Men.

Do The Best You Can Do And Wait The Results In Peace.

Governments Can Err, Presidents Do Make Mistakes, But The Immortal Dante Tells Us That Divine Justice Weighs The Sins Of The Cold-blooded And The Sins Of The Warm-hearted In Different Scales. Better The Occasional Faults Of A Government That Lives In A Spirit Of Charity Than The Constant Omission Of A Government Frozen In The Ice Of Its Own Indifference.

Happiness Is Not Merely Money, Which Is Fun For Effort And Achievement

The Presidency Is Not Merely An Administrative Office...it Is Pre-eminently A Place Of Moral Leadership.

Moral Leadership

Dealing With The State Department Is Like Watching An Elephant Become Pregnant.

This Great Nation Will Endure As It Has Endured, Will Revive And Will Prosper.

Since Becoming President, I Have Come To Know That The Finest Of Americans We Have Abroad Today Are The Missionaries Of The Cross. I Am Humiliated That I Am Not Finding This Out Until This Late Day The Worth Of Foreign Missions And The Nobility Of The Missionaries.

For Three Long Years I Have Been Going Up And Down This Country Preaching That Government . . . Costs Too Much. I Shall Not Stop That Preaching.

I Pledge You, Pledge Myself, To A New Deal For The American People. Let Us All Here Assembled Constitute Ourselves Prophets Of A New Order Of Competence And Of Courage. This Is More Than A Political Campaign; It Is A Call To Arms. Give Me Your Help, Not To Win Votes Alone, But To Win In This Crusade To Restore America To Its Own People.

Competition Has Been Shown To Be Useful Up To A Certain Point And No Further, But Cooperation, Which Is The Thing We Must Strive For Today, Begins Where Competition Leaves Off.

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.

This Generation

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