Franklin Delano Quotes & Sayings

It is really quite amazing that all of the folks supporting privatization, from the president on down, keep invoking the name of my grandfather, Franklin Delano Roosevelt. — James Roosevelt

When the death of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt thrust him suddenly into the Presidency in April of 1945 at one of the most critical moments of our history, he met that moment with courage and vision. His farsighted leadership in the postwar era has helped ever since to preserve peace and freedom in the world. — Richard M. Nixon

Franklin Delano Roosevelt, for his part, was less than enthralled with his wife's alliance with the NAACP, and the White House attempted to maintain a distance between the president and Eleanor's activism on behalf of blacks. Marshall himself had felt the president's chill when Attorney General Francis Biddle phoned FDR to discuss the NAACP's involvement in a race case in Virginia. At Biddle's instruction, Marshall picked up an extension phone to listen in, only to hear FDR exclaim, "I warned you not to call me again about any of Eleanor's niggers. Call me one more time and you are fired." Marshall later recalled, "The President only said 'nigger' once, but once was enough for me. — Gilbert King

I met senators, diplomats and the President of the United States, Franklin Delano Roosevelt. — Jean Craighead George

The real issue, as far as Democrats are concerned, is the number of people receiving something from the government. This is exactly what Franklin Delano Roosevelt had in mind when he created this monster. And Clinton is planning to expand it beyond Roosevelt's wildest dreams. — Rush Limbaugh

Language-lovers know that there is a word for every fear. Are you afraid of wine? Then you have oenophobia. Tremulous about train travel? You suffer from siderodromophobia. Having misgivings about your mother-in-law is pentheraphobia, and being petrified of peanut butter sticking to the roof of your mouth is arachibutyrophobia. And then there's Franklin Delano Roosevelt's affliction, the fear of fear itself, or phobophobia. — Steven Pinker

My own special relationship with America began at an early age. My father, a fellow journalist, named me after Franklin Delano Roosevelt. — Lionel Barber

If Franklin Delano Roosevelt became convinced tomorrow that coming out for cannibalism would get him the votes he needs so sorely, he would begin fattening a missionary in the White House yard come Wednesday. — H.L. Mencken

My father was a Republican, and he couldn't stand what Franklin Delano Roosevelt was doing to the country. I always say I'm a mean-spirited narrow-minded right-wing, conservative Christian ... I start out with that, and if you don't like it, you can lump it. I am not politically correct. — Jane Russell

The trouble that public unions could potentially cause for citizens was one reason that President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, hero of Democrats and union organizers alike, opposed them for government workers. Republican Fiorello La Guardia, a great mayor of New York, opposed them, too. Unlike in the private sector, where unions were a needed counterweight to strong management, in the public sector unions had a big say in selecting management through the election process. As a result, they had a lot of power on both sides of the labor-management negotiating process. Roosevelt and La Guardia thus feared that, when government officials and unions battled over power, citizens could lose out. — Joel Klein

I don't want to go negative on Franklin Delano Roosevelt, but he didn't pass an economic deal in the first 100 days. We have passed the largest Recovery Act in the history of the country. — Rahm Emanuel

The promise of Social Security was reflected in President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's inter-generational compact that rewards hard work and provides retirement security. — Christine Pelosi

Roosevelt loved the subtleties of human relations ... He was sensitive to nuances in a way that Harry Truman never was and never would be. Truman, with his rural Missouri background, and partly too, because of the limits of his education, was inclined to see things in far simpler terms, as right or wrong, wise or foolish. He dealt little in abstractions. — David McCullough

In America, we may acknowledge Washington and Lincoln as great men, and probably Franklin and Jefferson and maybe Franklin Delano Roosevelt and possibly even several more, but we would probably disagree about precisely what it was that made them great, what it was that enabled them to give a lasting direction to the course of events. — Edmund Morgan

It may seem ironic that the judicial branch preserves its legitimacy through refraining from action on political questions. That concept was put forward best by Justice [Felix] Frankfurter, appointed by President [Franklin Delano] Roosevelt. — Sam Brownback

The greatest leaders in fighting for an integrated America in the twentieth century were in the Democratic Party. The fact is, it was the liberal wing of the Democratic Party that ended segregation. The fact is that it was Franklin Delano Roosevelt who gave hope to a nation that was in despair and could have slid into dictatorship. And the fact is, every Republican has much to learn from studying what the Democrats did right. — Newt Gingrich

You can never study Franklin Delano Roosevelt too much. — Newt Gingrich

When President Franklin Delano Roosevelt died, First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt was comforted by a piece of poetry given to her by a friend: They are not dead who live in lives they leave behind: In those whom they have blessed they live a life again.2 — Mark Batterson

We should honor Franklin Delano Roosevelt today as the greatest commander in chief of the Armed Forces of the United States in our history, bar none - including President Lincoln. — Nigel Hamilton

As President Franklin Delano Roosevelt learned when he tried to pack the Supreme Court, the three branches of government are coequal for a reason. Neither the executive branch or the legislative branch should use the third branch to a pursue a partisan agenda. — Dan Pfeiffer

Franklin Delano Roosevelt is the new president. He won in a landslide. Landslide makes me think of rocks and dirt falling down a mountain. Not sure what that has to do with an election. But maybe it does. My papa voted. He is a pebble. Lots of pebbles make a landslide, right? His vote counted.

Roosevelt will move into the White House and will have a fine supper to celebrate, I guess. Papa had cornbread and buttermilk and beans with his friends at my house. I bet papa enjoyed his celebration more. — Sharon M. Draper

The war, however, and the rhetoric that accompanied it created an urgency in the black community to call in the long overdue debt their country owed them. "Men of every creed and every race, wherever they lived in the world" were entitled to "Four Freedoms": freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear, Roosevelt said, addressing the American people in his 1941 State of the Union address. — Margot Lee Shetterly

their installations. Once a wiretap was approved, Hoover considered it approved forever. Hoover had asserted that the FBI was free to install bugs at will, without informing a higher authority. He told Katzenbach that this power had been granted him in perpetuity by Franklin Delano Roosevelt a quarter of a century ago. — Tim Weiner

Facts are facts: No president since Franklin Delano Roosevelt in the Great Depression inherited a worse economy, bigger job losses or deeper problems from his predecessor. But President Obama is moving America forward, not back. — Martin O'Malley

My parents came from Russia and suddenly they wound up in Boston, Massachusetts, Brookline, Massachusetts and they felt the sun rose and set on Franklin Delano Roosevelt's backside because he meant so much to them. This was freedom. This was something totally different from the Russia they had left. — Mike Wallace

There are bursts of things like Abraham Lincoln or Ronald Reagan or Franklin Delano Roosevelt or same-sex marriage that change very much what we thought we were all about. — Cass Sunstein

Our only president who has died as U.S. commander in chief in war is Franklin Delano Roosevelt - who died of a cerebral hemorrhage or massive stroke on April 12, 1945, only three weeks before the unconditional surrender of the German armed forces he had laid down as implacable Allied policy two years before. — Nigel Hamilton

FDR's struggle with illness and subsequent metal-filled life are remarkably similar to the story of another great leader who was part robot: Iron Man. FDR, much like Tony Stark, was cocky and arrogant before his life-changing diagnosis, but the years of suffering changed all of that, and he emerged more humble, more fearless, and ready to defend America. Also, FDR wore iron braces and used a wheelchair, which, for the purposes of this comparison, is exactly like a well-armed robot suit. — Daniel O'Brien

Franklin Delano Roosevelt once said, "America's greatest contribution to the world is the summer camp." Anyone — Susan Wiggs