We must especially beware of that small group of selfish men who would clip the wings of the American Eagle in order to feather their own nests.
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.
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.
The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerated the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than the democratic state itself. That in its essence is fascism: ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or any controlling private power.
People acting together as a group can accomplish things which no individual acting alone could ever hope to bring about.
Do Something.
If it works, do more of it.
If it doesn’t,
do something else.
Repetition does not transform a lie into a truth.
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.
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.
Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the assessment that something else is more important than fear.
The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.
Remember, remember always, that all of us, and you and I especially, are descended from immigrants and revolutionists.
True individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence. People who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made.
In politics, nothing happens by accident. If it happens, you can bet it was planned that way.
Never underestimate a man who overestimates himself.
Calm seas never made a good sailor
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.
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.
There are many ways of going forward, but only one way of standing still.
When you see a rattlesnake poised to strike, you do not wait until he has struck to crush him.
The presidency is not merely an administrative office…It is pre-eminently a place of moral leadership.
The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today.
The value of love will always be stronger than the value of hate. Any nation or group of nations which employs hatred eventually is torn to pieces by hatred.
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.
We may not be able to prepare the future for our children, but we can at least prepare our children for the future.
