10 Franklin Delano Roosevelt Quotes on Leadership

Franklin Delano Roosevelt quotes on leadership

2. I pledge you, I pledge myself, to a new deal for the American people.

3. This is preeminently the time to speak the truth, the whole truth, frankly and boldly. Nor need we shrink from honestly facing conditions in our country today. This great Nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and will prosper. So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself - nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance. In every dark hour of our national life a leadership of frankness and vigor has met with that understanding and support of the people themselves which is essential to victory.

4. Confidence... thrives on honesty, on honor, on the sacredness of obligations, on faithful protection and on unselfish performance. Without them it cannot live.

6. There seems to be no question that [Mussolini] is really interested in what we are doing and I am much interested and deeply impressed by what he has accomplished and by his evidenced honest purpose of restoring Italy.

9. I don't mind telling you in confidence that I am keeping in fairly close touch with that admirable Italian gentleman.

16. A radical is a man with both feet firmly planted - in the air. A conservative is a man with two perfectly good legs who, however, has never learned to walk forward. A reactionary is a somnambulist walking backwards. A liberal is a man who uses his legs and his hands at the behest-at the command - of his head.

24. Are you laboring under the impression that I read these memoranda of yours? I can't even lift them.

40. We do not see faith, hope, and charity as unattainable ideals, but we use them as stout supports of a nation fighting the fight for freedom in a modern civilization. Faith - in the soundness of democracy in the midst of dictatorships. Hope - renewed because we know so well the progress we have made. Charity - in the true spirit of that grand old word. For charity literally translated from the original means love, the love that understands, that does not merely share the wealth of the giver, but in true sympathy and wisdom helps men to help themselves.

56. Favor comes because for a brief moment in the great space of human change and progress some general human purpose finds in him a satisfactory embodiment.

60. I'm not the smartest fellow in the world, but I can sure pick smart colleagues.