Franklin D. Roosevelt

“Rules are not necessarily sacred, principles are.”

“Here is my principle: Taxes shall be levied according to ability to pay. That is the only American principle.”

“War is a contagion.”

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

“The nation that destroys its soil destroys itself.”

“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.”

“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 little.”

“The school is the last expenditure upon which America should be willing to economize.”

“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.”

“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.”

“It is the purpose of 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.”

“There should be no bitterness or hate where the sole thought is the welfare of the United States of America. No man can occupy the office of President without realizing that he is President of all the people.”

“But while they prate of economic laws, men and women are starving. We must lay hold of the fact that economic laws are not made by nature. They are made by human beings.”

“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 his hands at the behest--at the command--of his head.”

“Happiness is not in the mere possession of money; it lies in the joy of achievement, in the thrill of creative effort.”

“In our seeking for economic and political progress, we all go up - or else we all go down.”

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

“We have always held to the hope, the belief, the conviction that there is a better life, a better world, beyond the horizon.”

“Let us never forget that government is ourselves and not an alien power over us. The ultimate rulers of our democracy are not a President and senators and congressmen and government officials, but the voters of this country.”

“We must lay hold of the fact that economic laws are not made by nature. They are made by human beings.”