I do not believe in communism any more than you do but there is nothing wrong with the Communists in this country. Several of the best friends I have got are Communists.
Interpretation
One can disagree with a political ideology while still valuing personal relationships with those who hold that belief.
This quote by Franklin D. Roosevelt highlights the importance of personal relationships that transcend political beliefs. It emphasizes that even though one may not agree with a certain ideology, such as communism, it does not justify the dismissal of individuals who may identify with that belief. It advocates for understanding and friendship despite differing opinions.
In practice
In a speech on unity, you might say, 'As Franklin D. Roosevelt once stated, I cherish my friendships across differing beliefs.'
There has been one persistent theme through all Axis propaganda. This theme has been that Americans are admittedly rich, that Americans have considerable industrial power - but that Americans are soft and decadent, that they cannot and will not unite and work and fight. ... Let them tell that to the Marines!
The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today.
A war of ideas can no more be won without books than a naval war can be won without ships. Books, like ships, have the toughest armor, the longest cruising range, and mount the most powerful guns.
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.
Men are not prisoners of fate, but only prisoners of their own minds.
A world turned into a stereotype, a society converted into a regiment, a life translated into a routine, make it difficult for either art or artists to survive. Crush individuality in society and you crush art as well. Nourish the conditions of a free life and you nourish the arts, too.
I had eventually come to understand that friendship was a delicate, gradual process that mustn’t be rushed or seized upon but allowed and encouraged to take its course over time. I pictured it as a butterfly, simultaneously beautiful and fragile, that once afloat belonged to the air and any attempt to grab at it would only destroy it.
When somebody shares, everybody wins.
Those final weeks, spanning end of summer and the beginning of another autumn, are blurred in memory, perhaps because our understanding of each other had reached that sweet depth where two people communicate more often in silence than in words: an affectionate quietness replaces the tensions, the unrelaxed chatter and chasing about that produce a friendship’s more showy, more, in the surface sense, dramatic moments.
There is nothing I would not do for those who are really my friends. I have no notion of loving people by halves, it is not my nature.
I do not want a friend who smiles when I smile, who weeps when I weep; for my shadow in the pool can do better than that.
Friendship is the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person, having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.