Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: Their Essential Wisdom

By Fall River Press

Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: Their Essential Wisdom invites readers to revisit the words of our 32nd President and his First Lady, both of whom made an indelible mark on American history, as individuals and as a couple.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt had a strength, vigor, and determination that allowed him to overcome personal tragedy and successfully lead the country through an unparalleled four terms as president. Elected at the height of the Great Depression, he swiftly enacted sweeping legislation to put the country back to work. He then brilliantly maneuvered the nation through the dark days of World War II. Employing a vigorous leadership style and a can-do spirit of optimism, Franklin did much to give Americans faith and hope when they needed it most.

Anna Eleanor Roosevelt is widely held as the greatest First Lady the nation has ever seen. Called the most beloved and revered woman of her generation, she devoted herself to his causes, acting as his “eyes, ears, and legs” during his presidency. A tireless champion of disadvantaged people everywhere, Eleanor fought tirelessly for humanitarian causes until her death in 1962. While the Roosevelts shared an unconventional marriage, perhaps even by today’s standards, it was a rock-solid partnership based on trust and mutual respect that lasted for more than forty years.

Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: Their Essential Wisdom collects hundreds of quotations from their speeches, broadcasts, remarks, letters, diaries, and other writings that reveal their thoughts on politics, history, leadership, education, and social justice. In more personal selections, Franklin and Eleanor poignantly express their love for one another, their children, and their life together. A powerful collection that celebrates two giants of American history, Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: Their Essential Wisdom offers a revealing glimpse of this extraordinary couple.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Fall River Press
• Release date: Sep 29, 2014
• ISBN: 9781435157569

Book preview

EARLY YEARS

In thinking back to my earliest days, I am impressed by the peacefulness and regularity of things both in respect to places and people. Up to the age of seven … Hyde Park was the center of the world.

—Franklin D. Roosevelt

Mummie, if I didn’t give the orders, nothing would happen!

—Young Franklin Roosevelt’s response to his mother who told him to let some of the other boys give the orders when they were building a fort

My mother was one of the most beautiful women I have ever seen.

—Eleanor Roosevelt, This Is My Story, 1939

He dominated my life as long as he lived, and was the love of my life for many years after he died.

—Eleanor Roosevelt, about her father, This Is My Story, 1939

It was a beautiful party, of course, but I was so unhappy, because a girl who comes out is so utterly miserable if she does not know all the young people. Of course I had been so long abroad that I had lost touch with all the girls I used to know in New York. I was miserable through all that.

—Eleanor Roosevelt recalling her debut

To receive a piece of jewelry from a man to whom you were not engaged was a sign of being a fast woman, and the idea that you would permit any man to kiss you before you were engaged to him never even crossed my mind.

—Eleanor Roosevelt, This Is My Story, 1939

GOVERNMENT AND DEMOCRACY

Let us not be afraid to help each other—let us never forget that government is ourselves and not an alien power over us. The ultimate rulers of our democracy are not a President and senators and congressmen and government officials but the voters of this country.

—Franklin D. Roosevelt, speech in Marietta, Ohio, July 8, 1938

We cannot call ourselves either wise or patriotic if we seek to escape the responsibility of remolding government to make it more serviceable to all the people and more responsive to modern needs.

—Franklin D. Roosevelt, address on the finances and responsibilities of local government, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, July 6, 1931

History proves that dictatorships do not grow out of strong and successful governments, but out of weak and helpless ones. If by democratic methods people get a government strong enough to protect them from fear and starvation, their democracy succeeds; but if they do not, they grow impatient. Therefore, 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 its government.

—Franklin D. Roosevelt, radio address, April 14, 1938

The primary concern of any Government dominated by the humane ideals of democracy is the simple principle that in a land of vast resources no one should be permitted to starve.

—Franklin D. Roosevelt, radio address, June 28, 1934

Government has a final responsibility for the well-being of its citizens. If private cooperative effort fails to provide work for willing hands and relief for the unfortunate, those suffering hardship through no fault of their own have a right to call upon the government for aid. And a government worthy of the name must make a fitting response.

—Franklin D. Roosevelt, annual message to Congress, January 3, 1938

Governments can err, Presidents do make mistakes, but the immortal Dante tells us that divine justice weighs the sins of the cold-blooded and the sins of the warm-hearted in different scales. Better the occasional faults of a Government that lives in a spirit of charity than the consistent omissions of a Government frozen in the ice of its own indifference.

—Franklin D. Roosevelt, speech accepting renomination as president, Philadelphia, June 27, 1936

Democratic processes of government can always meet the problems of an emergency, if the leadership in public life recognizes and has the courage to tackle the problems of the day.

—Franklin D. Roosevelt, speech in Casper, Wyoming, September 24, 1937

One of the surest safeguards of American democracy is the fact that a million young people year by year study America’s historic ideals in the colleges and universities.

—Franklin D. Roosevelt, letter to the students of the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, September 26, 1935

A democratic form of government, a democratic way of life, presupposes free public education over a long period; it presupposes also an education for personal responsibility that too often is neglected.

—Eleanor Roosevelt, Let Us Have Faith in Democracy, Land Policy Review, Department of Agriculture, January 1942

Under a dictatorship it may be sufficient to learn to read and write and to do certain things by rote, but in a democracy we must learn to reason and to think for ourselves.

—Eleanor Roosevelt, quoted in Collier’s, June 15, 1940

The success or failure of democracy boils itself down to two things, freedom and security. Freedom boils down to a chance to work and earn a living at your work.

—Eleanor Roosevelt, White House press conference, May 22, 1939

Democracy is not a static thing. It is an everlasting march.

—Franklin D. Roosevelt, address in Los Angeles, October 1, 1935

AMERICA AND AMERICANS

The vigor of our history comes, largely, from the fact that, as a comparatively young nation we have gone fearlessly ahead doing things that were never done