Good grief - I had no idea the man said so many memorable, insightful things. No wonder he garnered so many devotees.

I went looking only for the quote: "We will do something. If it doesn't work we will try something else, but above all we will do something."

As Wolfgang and some others would happily point out, my quote is not accurate. OTH, that's why I checked on it. So there.

Here are some applicable lines- it's hard to stop - These statements were made at different times and on separate occasions but they are things we are saying today.

* Here is my principle: Taxes shall be levied according to ability to pay. That is the only American principle.

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

* In our personal ambitions we are individualists. But in our seeking for economic and political progress as a nation, we all go up or else all go down as one people.

* In politics, nothing happens by accident. If it happens, you can bet it was planned that way.

* 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.

* It is the duty of the President to propose and it is the privilege of the Congress to dispose.

* 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.

* More than an end to war, we want an end to the beginning of all wars - yes, an end to this brutal, inhuman and thoroughly impractical method of settling the differences between governments. I love this one. Eb

* Nobody will ever deprive the American people of the right to vote except the American people themselves and the only way they could do this is by not voting.

* One thing is sure. We have to do something. We have to do the best we know how at the moment... If it doesn't turn out right, we can modify it as we go along. (Restated, amplified)

" The point in history at which we stand is full of promise and danger. The world will either move forward toward unity and widely shared prosperity - or it will move apart.


* There is a mysterious cycle in human events. To some generations much is given. Of other generations much is expected. This generation of Americans has a rendezvous with destiny.

* Those newspapers of the nation which most loudly cried dictatorship against me would have been the first to justify the beginnings of dictatorship by somebody else.

* We must lay hold of the fact that economic laws are not made by nature. They are made by human beings.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt