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Franklin Delano Roosevelt was a patrician who took up the cause of the plebeians in one of the most serious crises the American Republic has ever faced.
Although himself lame, stricken by polio as a young man, FDR never gave up on himself or his country. He recognized strength where others saw weakness. He saw hope where others saw only suffering.
Mr. Roosevelt lifted the country up out of depression. He envisioned a future where all Americans, regardless of class or political affiliation or religion, prospered in a shared future: a victory of humanity over evil, of goodness over greed, of triumph over despair.
Here is FDR's vision in his own words:
"Let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself."
"The only thing we have to fear is fear itself - nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance."
"The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today."
"Men are not prisoners of fate, but only prisoners of their own minds. "
"Confidence... thrives on honesty, on honor, on the sacredness of obligations, on faithful protection and on unselfish performance. Without them it cannot live. "
"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."
"A nation, like a person, has a mind--a mind that must be kept informed and alert, that must know itself, that understands the hopes and needs of its neighbors--all the other nations that live within the narrowing circle of the world. "
"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."
"We cannot always build the future for our youth, but we can build our youth for the future."
"I pledge you, I pledge myself, to a new deal for the American people."
"In our personal ambitions we are individualists. But in our seeking for economic and political progress as a nation, we all go up or else all go down as one people."
"But while they prate of economic laws, men and women are starving. We must lay hold of the fact that economic laws are not made by nature. They are made by human beings."
"It is an unfortunate human failing that a full pocketbook often groans more loudly than an empty stomach."
"In politics, nothing happens by accident. If it happens, you can bet it was planned that way."
"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."
"If we can boondoggle ourselves out of this depression, that word is going to be enshrined in the hearts of the American people for years to come."
"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."
"Not only our future economic soundness but the very soundness of our democratic institutions depends on the determination of our government to give employment to idle men."
"One thing is sure. We have to do something. We have to do the best we know how at the moment... If it doesn't turn out right, we can modify it as we go along."
"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."
"The overwhelming majority of Americans are possessed of two great qualities a sense of humor and a sense of proportion."
"The school is the last expenditure upon which America should be willing to economize."
"The truth is found when men are free to pursue it."
"The virtues are lost in self-interest as rivers are lost in the sea."
"There are as many opinions as there are experts."
"To reach a port, we must sail - sail, not tie at anchor - sail, not drift."
"There are many ways of going forward, but only one way of standing still."
"A conservative is a man with two perfectly good legs who, however, has never learned how to walk forward."
"A reactionary is a somnambulist walking backwards."
"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."
"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."
"We must lay hold of the fact that economic laws are not made by nature. They are made by human beings."
"We have always held to the hope, the belief, the conviction that there is a better life, a better world, beyond the horizon."
