Inspirational Quotations

It’s the birthday of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, one of the most admired Presidents of the United States. The 32nd President is widely known by his initials, FDR.

Roosevelt led the United States during some of its most challenging times, both domestically and internationally. He is most renowned for his socio-economic policies to resolve the Great Depression, his decision to enter the war after Japan attacked Pearl Harbor in 1941, and the eventual victory of the Allied forces in World War II. His presidency transformed the President of the United States into the most powerful elected official in the world.

FDR is the longest-serving president of the United States. He died three months into his fourth term in office, just weeks before the surrender of Germany in World War II. Time Magazine named Franklin Roosevelt as a runner-up (along with Mohandas Gandhi) in the Person of the Century recognition.

Roosevelt was known for his warm-heartedness and humility. He triumphed over a physical disability—at age 39, FDR suffered a polio attack that practically paralyzed his legs and confined him to a wheelchair for the rest of his life.

FDR is also legendary for his collections of stamps, coins, medals, printings, models of various artifacts, walking sticks, paintings and photographs of naval vessels, stuffed animals, etc. He was the first president to set up a Presidential Library. The Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum located in his birthplace of Hyde Park, New York, houses his presidential papers and collections.

See also quotes by his wife, Eleanor Roosevelt, and by his distant cousin, Theodore Roosevelt, the 26th President of the United States.

Inspirational Quotations by Franklin D. Roosevelt

The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today. Let us move forward with strong and active faith.
—Franklin D. Roosevelt (American Head of State)

Happiness lies not in the mere possession of money; it lies in the joy of achievement, in the thrill of creative effort. The joy and moral stimulation of work no longer must be forgotten in the mad chase of evanescent profits. These dark days will be worth all they cost us if they teach us that our true destiny is not to be ministered unto but to minister to ourselves and to our fellow men.
—Franklin D. Roosevelt (American Head of State)

Those who have long enjoyed such privileges as we enjoy, forget in time that men have died to win them.
—Franklin D. Roosevelt (American Head of State)

If you treat people right they will treat you right—ninety percent of the time.
—Franklin D. Roosevelt (American Head of State)

Men are not prisoners of fate, but only prisoners of their own minds.
—Franklin D. Roosevelt (American Head of State)

A great man left a watchword that we can well repeat: There is no indispensable man.
—Franklin D. Roosevelt (American Head of State)

Human kindness has never weakened the stamina or softened the fiber of a free people. A nation does not have to be cruel in order to be tough.
—Franklin D. Roosevelt (American Head of State)

Remember you are just an extra in everyone else’s play.
—Franklin D. Roosevelt (American Head of State)

We can’t always build the future for our youth, but we can build our youth for the future.
—Franklin D. Roosevelt (American Head of State)

We have always known that heedless self-interest was bad morals; we know now that it is bad economics.
—Franklin D. Roosevelt (American Head of State)

The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much it is whether we provide enough for those who have little.
—Franklin D. Roosevelt (American Head of State)

Confidence… thrives on honesty, on honor, on the sacredness of obligations, on faithful protection and on unselfish performance. Without them it cannot live.
—Franklin D. Roosevelt (American Head of State)

Freedom to learn is the first necessity of guaranteeing that man himself shall be self-reliant enough to be free.
—Franklin D. Roosevelt (American Head of State)

Peace, like charity, begins at home.
—Franklin D. Roosevelt (American Head of State)

As gold is tested in four ways by rubbing, cutting, heating and beating – so a man should be tested by these four things: his renunciation, his conduct, his qualities and his actions.
—Chanakya Neeti

Faith is the bird that feels the light and sings when the dawn is still dark.
—Rabindranath Tagore (Indian Hindu Polymath)

When you realize that suffering and discomfort are the call to inquiry, you may actually begin to look forward to uncomfortable feelings. You may even experience them as friends coming to show you what you have not yet investigated thoroughly enough.
—Byron Katie (American Speaker)

It is not the cares of today, but the cares of tomorrow that weigh a man down. For the needs of today we have corresponding strength given.—For the morrow we are told to trust.—It is not ours yet.
—George MacDonald (Scottish Christian Author)

Action, not words, are the true criterion of the attachment of friends.
—George Washington (American Head of State)

But for money and the need of it, there would not be half the friendship in the world. It is powerful for good if divinely used. Give it plenty of air and it is sweet as the hawthorn; shut it up and it cankers and breeds worms.
—George MacDonald (Scottish Christian Author)

Those born blind cannot see;|similarly blind are those in the grip of lust.|Proud men have no perception of evil; and|those bent on acquiring riches see no sin in their actions.
—Chanakya Neeti

Any concern too small to be turned into a prayer is too small to be made into a burden.
—Corrie Ten Boom (Dutch Jewish Humanist)

Keeping score of old scores and scars, getting even and one-upping, always makes you less than you are.
—Malcolm Forbes (American Publisher)

Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it on to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same.
—Ronald Reagan (American Head of State)

Any act often repeated soon forms a habit; and habit allowed, steadily gains in strength. At first it may be but as the spider’s web, easily broken through, but if not resisted it soon binds us with chains of steel.
—Tryon Edwards (American Theologian)

The search for happiness is one of the chief sources of unhappiness.
—Eric Hoffer (American Philosopher)

Wise people may say what they will, but one passion is never cured by another.
—Earl of Chesterfield

Man is much more sensitive to the contempt of others than to self-contempt.
—Friedrich Nietzsche (German Philosopher, Scholar)

Men show their character in nothing more clearly than by what they think laughable.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (German Poet)

I see it only that thyself is here, and art and nature, hope and fate, friends, angels and the supreme being shall not be absent from the chamber where thou sittest.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (American Philosopher)

It is almost more important how a person takes his fate than what it is.
—Wilhelm von Humboldt (German Philosopher)

There is absolutely nothing that you desire that you cannot achieve.
—Abraham Hicks

No matter how dull, or how mean, or how wise a man is, he feels that happiness is his indisputable right.
—Helen Keller (American Author)

Life has no smooth road for any of us; and in the bracing atmosphere of a high aim the very roughness stimulates the climber to steadier steps, till the legend, over steep ways to the stars” fulfils itself.”
—William Croswell Doane (American Anglican Hymn writer)

Happy New Year everybody, I hope this year brings peace, prosperity, and well-being.

“In the New Year, may your right hand always be stretched out in friendship, never in want.” ? Old Irish toast

It is ever the invisible that is the object of our profoundest worship. With the lover it is not the seen but the unseen that he muses upon.
—Christian Nestell Bovee

Everything’s got a moral, if only you can find it.
—Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Lewis Carroll) (British Anglican Author)

Whoever you are, whatever your dream, you have to be strong in your head and strong in your heart. Be strong. There’s no quitting in the person who wants it bad enough.
—Carly Patterson (American Sportsperson)

In all living there is a certain narrowness of application which leads to breadth and power. We have to concentrate on a thing in order to master it. Then we must be broad enough not to be narrowed by our specialties.
—Ralph Washington Sockman

In the midst of global crises such as pollution, wars and famine, kindness may too easily be dismissed as a soft issue,” or a luxury to be addressed after the urgent problems are solved. But kindness is the greatest need in all those areas—kindness toward the environment, toward other nations, toward the needs of people who are suffering. Until we reflect basic kindness in everything we do, our political gestures will be fleeting and fragile. Simple kindness may be the most vital key to the riddle of how human beings can live with each other in peace, and care properly for this planet we all share.”
—Bo Lozoff (American Interfaith Writer)

Good actions ennoble us, and we are the sons of our own deeds.
—Miguel de Cervantes (Spanish Novelist)

The root of all difficulty and conflict lies in the mind; therefore, the solution to all difficulty and conflict lies in changing the mind.
—Kusan Sunim (Korean Buddhist Priest)

A man too busy to take care of his health is like a mechanic too busy to take care of his tools.
—Spanish Proverb

It takes less time to do a thing right, than it does to explain why you did it wrong.
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (American Poet)

Frozen in fear, you avoid responsibility because you think your experience is beyond your control. This stance keeps you from making decisions, solving problems, or going after what you want in life.
—David Emerald

Each of us is something of a schizophrenic personality, tragically divided against ourselves.
—Martin Luther King, Jr. (American Civil Rights Leader)

One who helps us in difficult times should be considered as a relative, even if he is a stranger. One who hurts us, should be considered as a stranger, even if he is our relative. Though a disease resides in our body, it is harmful. But a medicinal plant that grows in a forest, saves lives.
—Hitopadesha

I sincerely believe that the word relationships is the key to the prospect of a decent world. It seems abundantly clear that every problem you will have-in your family, in your work, in our nation, or in this world-is essentially a matter of relationships, of interdependence.
—Clarence Francis (American Business Executive)

In hell, people starve because their hands are chained to six-foot-long chopsticks, too long to bring the rice to their mouths. Heaven is the same, only there, people feed each other.
—Vietnamese Proverb

One always has time enough, if one will apply it well.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (German Poet)

To commit adultery with God is the perfect experience for which the world was created.
—Sri Aurobindo (Indian Yogi, Nationalist)

Rely upon your own judgment; be true to your own conscience; follow the light that is within you; all outward lights are so many will-o’-the-wisps. There will be those who tell you that you are foolish; that your judgment is faulty; that your conscience is all awry, and that the light within you is darkness; but heed them not. If what they say is true, the sooner you, as a searcher of wisdom, find it out the better, and you can only make that discovery by bringing your powers to the test. Therefore, pursue your course bravely.
—James Allen

He that knows nothing, doubts nothing.
—Common Proverb

We need others. We need others to love and we need to be loved by them. There is no doubt that without it, we too, like the infant left alone, would cease to grow, cease to develop, choose madness and even death.
—Leo Buscaglia (American Motivational Speaker)

There is no wisdom save in truth. Truth is everlasting, but our ideas about truth are changeable. Only a little of the first fruits of wisdom, only a few fragments of the boundless heights, breadths and depths of truth, have I been able to gather.
—Martin Luther (German Protestant Theologian)

Before we can teach our children, we must understand and live the principles ourselves. It is vital that the child learn from our example that what we say and what we live are the same.
—Dwan J. Young

Unless a man has been taught what to do with success after getting it, the achievement of it must inevitably leave him a prey to boredom.
—Bertrand A. Russell (British Philosopher)

It’s the 175th birthday of one of America’s most famous writers, Samuel Langhorne Clemens, better known by his nom de plume, Mark Twain. He was born on November 30, 1835 in Florida, Missouri. Mark Twain studied up to the fifth grade and quit school when his father died. He supported his family first as a typesetter and later as a riverboat captain until the Civil War broke out in 1861. He then headed west, worked as a miner, and eventually became a journalist. By 1866, Mark Twain had gained national fame as a humorist and travel writer.

Today, Mark Twain is much celebrated for, among many works, three novels that are often used as academic texts: “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer” (1876), “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” (1885), and “Pudd’nhead Wilson” (1894), all of which are set in the Mississippi valley. Mark Twain’s writings are characterized by his natural wit, social criticism, and a keen understanding of human nature. Mark Twain toured widely as a renowned public speaker and continued to write until his death of a heart attack on April 21, 1910.

Further Reading

• The recently-released “Autobiography of Mark Twain”
• “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer” (get a download for free)
• “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” (get a download for free)
• “Pudd’nhead Wilson” (get a download for free)
• “The Wit and Wisdom of Mark Twain”

Inspirational Quotations by Mark Twain

Each man must for himself alone decide what is right and what is wrong, which course is patriotic and which isn’t. You cannot shirk this and be a man. To decide against your conviction is to be an unqualified and inexcusable traitor, both to yourself and to your country, let men label you as they may.
—Mark Twain (American Humorist)

We should be careful to get out of an experience only the wisdom that is in it—and stop there; lest we be like the cat that sits down on a hot stove-lid. She will never sit down on a hot stove-lid again – and that is well; but also she will never sit down on a cold one anymore.
—Mark Twain (American Humorist)

Lord save us all from… a hope tree that has lost the faculty of putting out blossoms.
—Mark Twain (American Humorist)

Go to bed early, get up early—this is wise.
—Mark Twain (American Humorist)

Let us endeavor so to live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry.
—Mark Twain (American Humorist)

Praise is well, compliment is well, but affection-that is the last and most precious reward that any man can win, whether by character or achievement.
—Mark Twain (American Humorist)

I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened.
—Mark Twain (American Humorist)

Nothing that grieves us can be called little: by the eternal laws of proportion, a child’s loss of a doll and a king’s loss of a crown are events of the same size.
—Mark Twain (American Humorist)

That which we persist in doing becomes easier – not that the nature of the task has changed, but our ability to do has increased.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (American Philosopher)

Men spend their lives in anticipations, in determining to be vastly happy at some period when they have time. But the present time has one advantage over every other—it is our own. Past opportunities are gone, future are not come. We may lay in a stock of pleasures, as we would lay in a stock of wine; but if we defer the tasting of them too long, we shall find that both are soured by age.
—Charles Caleb Colton (English Angelic Priest)

And even if you were in some prison, the walls of which let none of the sounds of the world come to your senses – would you not then still have your childhood, that precious, kingly possession, that treasure-house of memories?
—Rainer Maria Rilke (Austrian Poet)

Anger is foremost enemy of humankind, which inherently resides within oneself only to destroy him, just like fire which is enkindled by a piece of wood ends up burning the piece.
—Subhashita Manjari

I can live without money, but I cannot live without love.
—Judy Garland

I believe in work, hard work, and long hours of work. Men do not breakdown from overwork, but from worry and dissipation.
—Charles Evans Hughes (American Elected Rep)

It is easier to act yourself into a better way of feeling than to feel yourself into a better way of action.
—Orval Hobart Mowrer (American Psychologist)

Authors and lovers always suffer some infatuation, from which only absence can set them free.
—Samuel Johnson (British Essayist)

The world is satisfied with words, few care to dive beneath the surface.
—Blaise Pascal (French Catholic Mathematician)

Who makes quick use of the moment, is a genius of prudence.
—Johann Kaspar Lavater (Swiss Christian Poet)