Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin Delano Roosevelt, commonly known as FDR, was an American statesman and political leader who served as the President of the United States from 1933 to 1945. A Democrat, he won a record four presidential elections and dominated his party after 1932 as a central figure in world events during the mid-20th century, leading the United States during a time of worldwide economic depression and total war. His program for relief, recovery and reform, known as the New Deal, involved...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionUS President
Date of Birth30 January 1882
CityHyde Park, NY
CountryUnited States of America
The creed of our democracy is that liberty is acquired and kept by men and women who are strong and self-reliant, and possessed of such wisdom as God gives mankind - men and women who are just, and understanding, and generous to others - men and women who are capable of disciplining themselves. For they are the rulers and they must rule themselves.
Self-help and self-control are the essence of the American tradition.
A wise Government seeks to provide the opportunity through which the best of individual achievement can be obtained, while at the same time it seeks to remove such obstruction, such unfairness as springs from selfish human motives.
To a great extent the achievements of invention, of mechanical and of artistic creation, must of necessity, and rightly, be individual rather than governmental. It is the self-reliant pioneer in every enterprise who beats the path along which American civilization has marched. Such individual effort is the glory of America.
A point has been reached where the peoples of the Americas must take cognizance of growing ill-will, of marked trends toward aggression, of increasing armaments, of shortening tempers--a situation which has in it many of the elements that lead to the tragedy of general war.... Peace is threatened by those who seek selfish power.
We have always known that heedless self-interest was bad morals; we know now that it is bad economics. Out of the collapse of a prosperity whose builders boasted their practicality has come the conviction that in the long run economic morality pays.
A serf-supporting and self-respecting democracy can plead no justification for the existence of child labor, no economic reason for chiseling workers' wages or stretching workers' hours.
The moment a mere numerical superiority by either states or voters in this country proceeds to ignore the needs and desires of the minority, and for their own selfish purpose or advancement, hamper or oppress that minority, or debar them in any way from equal privileges and equal rights-that moment will mark the failure of our constitutional system.
Freedom to learn is the first necessity of guaranteeing that man himself shall be self reliant enough to be free.
We know that there are chiselers. At the bottom of every case of criticism and obstruction we have found some selfish interest, some private axe to grind.
Democracy, the practice of self-government, is a covenant among free men to respect the rights and liberties of their fellows.
The virtues are lost in self-interest as rivers are lost in the sea.
Self-interest is the enemy of all true affection.
The ablest man I ever met is the man you think you are.