FDR Quotes

“He lifted himself from a wheelchair to lift the nation from its knees.”
― Jean Edward Smith, FDR

“Liberty requires opportunity to make a living—a living which gives man not only enough to live by, but something to live for. For too many of us the political equality we once had won was meaningless in the face of economic inequality. 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. 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. In vain they seek to hide behind the Flag and the Constitution.”
― Jean Edward Smith, FDR

“I cannot do this," she remembered thinking to herself, but she went anyway. "You must do the thing you think you cannot do," she wrote later, supplying her own emphasis.”
― Jean Edward Smith, FDR

“Not to be overlooked are the four women who played crucial roles in FDR’s life: his mother, Sara; Lucy Mercer, the woman he loved; Missy LeHand, the woman who loved him;”
― Jean Edward Smith, FDR

“The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today. Let us move forward with strong and active faith.”
― Jean Edward Smith, FDR

“The President, moreover, did not explain matters as a professor setting down principles, nor as a politician who flatters passions and interests. It was by light touches that he sketched his notions, so skillfully that it was difficult to contradict this artist, this seducer, in any categorical way.”
― Jean Edward Smith, FDR

“FDR’s veterans legislation “aimed not at restructuring the economy but at empowering individuals. It roared on after 1945 as a kind of afterburner to the engines of social change and upward mobility that the war had ignited, propelling an entire generation along an ascending curve of achievement and affluence that their parents could not have dreamed.”
― Jean Edward Smith, FDR

“I don’t like to see them take off. It makes me far too nervous. If anything happened to that man, I couldn’t stand it. He is the truest friend; he has the farthest vision; he is the greatest man I have ever known.”92”
― Jean Edward Smith, FDR

“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.”
― Jean Edward Smith, FDR

“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. I see millions of families trying to live on incomes so meager that the pall of family disaster hangs over them day by day. I see millions denied education, recreation, and the opportunity to better their lot and the lot of their children. I see millions lacking the means to buy the products of farm and factory and by their poverty denying work and productiveness to many other millions. I see one-third of a nation ill-housed, ill-clad, ill-nourished.”
― Jean Edward Smith, FDR

“The course of modern history, he suggested, had been a struggle for individual liberty. “Today, in Europe and America, the liberty of the individual has been accomplished.” What was now required was a process by which that liberty could be harnessed for the betterment of the community. “Competition has been shown to be useful up to a certain point and no further. Co-operation, which is the thing that we must strive for today, begins where competition leaves off.” FDR avoided the term “community interest” as too socialistic. He eschewed “brotherhood of man” as too sentimental. Instead, he defined cooperation as “the struggle for the liberty of the community rather than the liberty of the individual” and said it was “what the founders of the republic were groping for.” The answer was regulation. But don’t call it regulation, said Roosevelt. “If we call the method regulation, people will hold up their hands in horror and say ‘unAmerican’ or ‘dangerous.’ But if we call the same process co-operation these same old fogeys will cry out ‘well done.’ ”19”
― Jean Edward Smith, FDR

“The United States was a third-rate military power when World War II began. When it ended, America was the most powerful nation in history.”
― Jean Edward Smith, FDR

“two ounces dark rum, one ounce lime juice, one ounce pineapple juice, one ounce orange juice, and a generous dash of falernum. Shake with ice. Strain into a”
― Jean Edward Smith, FDR

“When you're in politics you've got to play the game.”
― Jean Edward Smith, FDR

“Franklin crashed flat on the marble, his crutches clattering down beside him. Onlookers rushed in, then drew back, uncertain what to do.

With an enormous effort Roosevelt wrestled himself into a sitting position. He laughed reassuringly. "There's nothing to worry about," he told anxious spectators. "We'll get out of this all right. Give me a hand there.”
― Jean Edward Smith, FDR

“Always a good listener, FDR was at his best in these exchanges. "I want you to feel that you can come to me at any time in my office," he was soon telling union spokesmen, "and we can talk matters over. Let's get together for I need you to teach me your business and show me what's going on.”
― Jean Edward Smith, FDR

“The answer was regulation. But don't call it regulation, said Roosevelt. "If we call the method regulation, people will hold up their hands in horror and say 'UnAmerican' or 'dangerous.' But if we call the same process co-operation these same old fogeys will cry out 'well done.”
― Jean Edward Smith, FDR

“When hit in the stomach by a line drive, he wrote his parents that it was "to the great annoyance of that intricate organ, and to the great delight of all present.”
― Jean Edward Smith, FDR

“When warned on one occasion that the unions might become too powerful, he was quoted as replying, "Too powerful for what?" His attitude was that their power should prove an antidote for that of big business.”
― Jean Edward Smith, FDR

“The country needs, the country demands, bold, persistent experimentation. Take a method and try it. If it fails admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something.”
― Jean Edward Smith, FDR

“If Landon took the high road, Gerald L. K. Smith, Father Coughlin, and the Union party took the low. Alarmed at Lemke’s failure to gain traction, Union party rhetoric escalated to a level of vituperation seldom seen in American public life. “I’ll teach them how to hate,” Smith boasted. “Religion and patriotism, keep going on that. It’s the only way you can get them really ‘het up.’ ”
― Jean Edward Smith, FDR

“It's a bit traumatic," she noted, "to see your father, who took long walks with you, sailed with you, could out-jump you, and suddenly you look up and you see him walking on crutches—trying, struggling in heavy steel braces. And you see the sweat down his face, and you hear him saying, 'I must get down the driveway today—all the way down the driveway.”
― Jean Edward Smith, FDR

“must do the thing you think you cannot do,”
― Jean Edward Smith, FDR