“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.”

We must especially beware of that small group of selfish men who would clip the wings of the American Eagle in order to feather their own nests.

No government can help the destinies of people who insist in putting sectional and class consciousness ahead of general weal.

No country, however rich, can afford the waste of its human resources. Demoralization caused by vast unemployment is our greatest extravagance. Morally, it is the greatest menace to our social order.

I want to preach a new doctrine. A complete separation of business and government.

Calm seas never made a good sailor.

It is one of the characteristics of a free and democratic nation that it have free and independent labor unions.

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.

Government cannot close its eyes to the pollution of waters, to the erosion of soil, to the slashing of forests any more than it can close its eyes to the need for slum clearance and schools.

In our democracy officers of the government are the servants, and never the masters of the people.

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

The fate of America cannot depend on any one man. The greatness of America is grounded in principles and not on any single personality.

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

Human kindness has never weakened the stamina or softened the fiber of a free people. A nation does not have to be cruel to be tough.

Repetition does not transform a lie into a truth.

No democracy can long survive which does not accept as fundamental to its very existence the recognition of the rights of minorities.

Hitler built a fortress around Europe, but he forgot to put a roof on it.