Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1882-1945) was the only US president to be elected four consecutive times. His program, known as the New Deal, was a response to the Great Depression that turned government into an active instrument of economic and social change. We collect ten of his most brilliant phrases:
“The only thing we should be afraid of is fear itself.”
“In life there is something worse than failure: not having tried anything.”
“Action should always be preferred to criticism.”
“If you treat people right, they’ll treat you right… 99% of the time.”
“It is not enough to want: you must ask yourself what you are going to do to get what you want.”
“The test of our progress is not that those who have a lot have more, but that those who have too little have more.”
“There are as many opinions as there are experts.”
“Men are not prisoners of fate; they are only prisoners of their own minds.”
“The nation that destroys its soil destroys itself.”
“Judge me by the enemies I’ve made.”
“There’s nothing I love as much as a good fight.”
“It takes a long time to bring the past into the present.”
“Leaving people hungry and jobless are the things that are done in dictatorships.”
“When you get to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on.”
“The first truth is that the freedom of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of power in private hands to the point that it becomes something stronger than the democratic state itself. That, in essence, is fascism, the ownership of the state by an individual, a group, or any other that controls private power.
“Do something, and if it doesn’t work, do something else.”
“It’s common sense to pick a method and try it. If it fails, frankly admit it and try another. But, above all, try something”.
“When you see a rattlesnake about to bite, don’t wait until it does to squash it.”
“Joy is the philosopher’s stone that turns everything into gold.”
“I believe in individualism… but only until the individualist begins to thrive at the expense of society.”
“We think too much about the good luck of the bird that leaves early and not enough about the bad luck of the worm that leaves early.”
“It is an unfortunate human flaw that a paperback often groans louder than an empty stomach.”
“We must take into account the fact that economic laws are not made by nature. They are made by human beings.”
“Whenever they ask you if you can do a job, answer yes and start learning how to do it right away.”
“In politics, nothing happens by accident. If it does happen, you can bet it was planned that way.”
“Physical force cannot permanently withstand the impact of spiritual force.”
“The rules are not necessarily sacred, the principles are.”
“No group or government can adequately prescribe what should constitute the body of knowledge with which true education deals.”
“A reactionary is a sleepwalker who goes backwards.”
“For civilization to survive, we must cultivate the science of human relations, the ability for all peoples, of all kinds, to live together in the same world in peace.”
“The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today.”
“Art is not a treasure from the past or an import from another land, but part of the present life of all living and creative peoples.”
“Trust… It thrives on honesty, honor, on the sacredness of obligations, on protection and disinterested fidelity in performance. Without them you cannot live. We have always had the hope, the belief, the conviction, that there is a better life, a better world, beyond the horizon.