Quotes · Skopia

33 quotes

These unhappy times call for the building of plans that... Build from the bottom up and not from the top down, that put their faith once more in the forgotten man at the bottom of the economic pyramid.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

1932

★ 1.9

Radio broadcast · Political speech

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.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

1938

★ 1.9

Speech · Political speech

The money changers have fled from their high seats in the temple of our civilization. We may now restore that temple to the ancient truths. The measure of the restoration lies in the extent to which we apply social values more noble than mere monetary profit.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

First Inaugural Address of Franklin D. Roosevelt · 1933

★ 2.0

Speech · Political speech

It is to be hoped that the normal balance of executive and legislative authority may be wholly equal, wholly adequate to meet the unprecedented task before us. But it may be that an unprecedented demand and need for undelayed action may call for temporary departure from that normal balance of public procedure.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

First Inaugural Address of Franklin D. Roosevelt · 1933

★ 2.0

Speech · Political speech

We are determined to make every American citizen the subject of his country's interest and concern; and we will never regard any faithful, law-abiding group within our borders as superfluous. 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.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Second Inaugural Address of Franklin D. Roosevelt · 1937

★ 2.0

Speech · Political speech

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

1941

★ 2.0

Speech · Political speech

We have learned that we cannot live alone, at peace; that our own well-being is dependent on the well-being of other Nations, far away... We have learned to be citizens of the world, members of the human community.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Fourth Inaugural Address of Franklin D. Roosevelt · 1945

★ 2.0

Speech · Political speech

Things in life will not always run smoothly. Sometimes we will be rising toward the heights—then all will seem to reverse itself and start downward. The great fact to remember is that the trend of civilization itself is forever upward; that a line drawn through the middle of the peaks and the valleys of the centuries always has an upward trend.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Fourth Inaugural Address of Franklin D. Roosevelt · 1945

★ 2.0

Speech · Political speech

We have always known that heedless self-interest was bad morals; we know now that it is bad economics.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Second Inaugural Address of Franklin D. Roosevelt · 1937

★ 2.1

Speech · Political speech

Poverty anywhere constitutes a danger to prosperity everywhere.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

1944

★ 2.1

Speech · Political speech

The first theory is that if we make the rich richer, somehow they will let a part of their prosperity trickle down to the rest of us. The second theory...was the theory that if we make the average of mankind comfortable and secure, their prosperity will rise upward, just as yeast rises up, through the ranks.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

1932

★ 2.8

Speech · Political speech

The Soviet Union, as everybody who has the courage to face the fact knows, is run by a dictatorship as absolute as any other dictatorship in the world.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

1940

★ 2.8

Speech · Political speech

The country needs and, unless I mistake its temper, the country demands bold, persistent experimentation. It is common sense to take a method and try it. If it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

1932

★ 3.6

Speech · Political speech

Better the occasional faults of a government that lives in a spirit of charity than the consistent omissions of a government frozen in the ice of its own indifference.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

1936

★ 3.6

Speech

We all know that books burn-yet we have the greater knowledge that books can not be killed by fire. People die, but books never die. No man and no force can abolish memory. No man and no force can put thought in a concentration camp forever. No man and no force can take from the world the books that embody man's eternal fight against tyranny of every kind. 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.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

1942

★ 3.6

Speech · Political speech

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

1944

★ 3.6

Speech · Political speech

Our Constitution is so simple, so practical that it is possible always to meet extraordinary needs by changes in emphasis and arrangement without loss of essential form.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

First Inaugural Address of Franklin D. Roosevelt · 1933

★ 3.7

Speech · Political speech

In the field of world policy I would dedicate this Nation to the policy of the good neighbor—the neighbor who resolutely respects himself and, because he does so, respects the rights of others.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

First Inaugural Address of Franklin D. Roosevelt · 1933

★ 3.7

Speech · Political speech

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.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

1937

★ 3.7

Speech · Political speech

In every land there are always at work forces that drive men apart and forces that draw men together. In our personal ambitions we are individualists. But in our seeking for economic and political progress as a nation, we all go up, or else we all go down, as one people.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Second Inaugural Address of Franklin D. Roosevelt · 1937

★ 3.7

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