We continue to recognize the greater ability of some to earn more than others. But we do assert that the ambition of the individual to obtain for him a proper security is an ambition to be preferred to the appetite for great wealth and great power.
— Franklin D. Roosevelt
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.
There are many ways of going forward, but only one way of standing still.
The point in history at which we stand is full of promise and danger. The world will either move forward toward unity and widely shared prosperity - or it will move apart.
It is an unfortunate human failing that a full pocketbook often groans more loudly than an empty stomach.
Remember you are just an extra in everyone else's play.
If you treat people right they will treat you right... ninety percent of the time.
It isn't sufficient just to want - you've got to ask yourself what you are going to do to get the things you want.
I think we consider too much the good luck of the early bird and not enough the bad luck of the early worm.
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.
Men are not prisoners of fate, but only prisoners of their own minds.
Self-interest is the enemy of all true affection.
It takes a long time to bring the past up to the present.
The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.
When you reach the end of your rope, tie a knot in it and hang on.
Happiness lies in the joy of achievement and the thrill of creative effort.
Yesterday, December seventh, 1941, a date which will live in infamy, the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan. We will gain the inevitable triumph, so help us God.
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 the goverment.
If civilization is to survive, we must cultivate the science of human relationships - the ability of all peoples, of all kinds, to live together, in the same world at peace.
Take a method and try it. If it fails, admit it frankly, and try another. But by all means, try something.
There are as many opinions as there are experts.
Rules are not necessarily sacred, principles are.
Confidence... thrives on honesty, on honor, on the sacredness of obligations, on faithful protection and on unselfish performance. Without them it cannot live.
A conservative is a man with two perfectly good legs who, however, has never learned how to walk forward.
There is a mysterious cycle in human events. To some generations much is given. Of other generations much is expected. This generation of Americans has a rendezvous with destiny.
The virtues are lost in self-interest as rivers are lost in the sea.
Competition has been shown to be useful up to a certain point and no further, but cooperation, which is the thing we must strive for today, begins where competition leaves off.
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.
In politics, nothing happens by accident. If it happens, you can bet it was planned that way.
We have always held to the hope, the belief, the conviction that there is a better life, a better world, beyond the horizon.
