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.”

“Remember, remember always, that all of us, and you and I especially, are descended from immigrants and revolutionists.”

“More than an end to war, we want an end to the beginnings of all wars.”

“Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the assessment that something else is more important than fear.”

“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.”

“Yesterday, December 7, 1941—a date which will live in infamy...”

“Democracy cannot succeed unless those who express their choice are prepared to choose wisely. The real safeguard of democracy, therefore, is education.”

“The government is us; we are the government, you and I.”

“I ask you to judge me by the enemies I have made.”

“In politics, nothing happens by accident. If it happens, you can bet it was planned that way.”

“The nation that destroys its soil destroys itself.”

“There are many ways of going forward, but only one way of standing still.”

“The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”

“A smooth sea never made a skilled sailor.”

“Men are not prisoners of fate, but only prisoners of their own minds.”

“When you reach the end of your rope, tie a knot in it and hang on.”

“The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today.”

“We must be the great arsenal of democracy.”

“Repetition does not transform a lie into a truth.”

“To reach a port, we must sail—sail, not tie at anchor—sail, not drift.”