Franklin D. Roosevelt

The lessons of religious toleration - a toleration which recognizes complete liberty of human thought, liberty of conscience - is one which, by precept and example, must be inculcated in the hearts and minds of all Americans if the institutions of our democracy are to be maintained and perpetuated. We must recognize the fundamental rights of man. There can be no true national life in our democracy unless we give unqualified recognition to freedom of religious worship and freedom of education.

In vain they seek to hide behind the flag and the Constitution. In their blindness they forget what the flag and the Constitution stand for. Now, as always, they stand for democracy, not tyranny; for freedom, not subjection; and against a dictatorship by mob rule and the over-privileged alike.

Take a method and try it. If it fails, admit it frankly, and try another. But by all means, try something.

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

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

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.

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

We must lay hold of the fact that economic laws are not made by nature. They are made by human beings.

A nation that destroys its soils destroys itself. Forests are the lungs of our land, purifying the air and giving fresh strength to our people.

In the truest sense, freedom cannot be bestowed; it must be achieved.

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.

To reach a port we must set sail

The best customer of American industry is the well paid worker.

The real safeguard of democracy is education.

The American People in their Righteous Might will win through to Absolute Victory.

Books cannot be killed by fire.

This generation of Americans has a rendezvous with destiny.

It is the duty of the President to propose and it is the privilege of the Congress to dispose.

No group and no government can properly prescribe precisely what should constitute the body of knowledge with which true education is concerned.

There are as many opinions as there are experts.

The United States Constitution has proved itself the most marvelously elastic compilation of rules of government ever written.