Franklin D. Roosevelt Quotes

The first principle of a civilized state is that the power is legitimate only when it is under contract.

Government is a contrivance of human wisdom to provide for human wants. People have the right to expect that these wants will be provided for by this wisdom.

A liberty subject to law and subordinate to the common welfare.

Government is a trust, and the officers of the government are trustees; and both the trust and trustees are created for the benefit of the public.

The public power of all society is above every soul contained in the same society.

I will ever prefer the weal of the public and of the whole commonwealth, in making of good laws and constitutions, to any particular and private ends of mine

The safety and happiness of society are the objects at which all political institutions aim and to which all such institutions must be sacrificed.

The only orthodox object of the institution of government is to secure the greatest degree of happiness possible to the general mass of those associated under it.

The ruling authority is liable to raise a claim which could justify a deviation from the law by saying: The law is supposed to serve the country. The law is merely one consideration, there are additional considerations which are no less important; the good of the country is one such consideration and it could possibly override the law….this is a very dangerous claim. The saying that patriotism is the last refuge of the charlatan is well known. This argument, taken alone, is liable to topple the principle of the legality of government and the rule of law together with it.

Voters are people with the God-given right to decide who will waste their money for them.

He who is the most strenuous for the rights of the people, when vested with power is as eager after for the prerogatives of government.

The public good is in nothing more essentially interested, than in the protection of every individual’s private rights.

Government is a contrivance of human wisdom to provide for human wants. Men have a right that these wants should be provided for by this wisdom.

The right to private property is inconceivable without responsibilities to the common good.

The good of the people is the chief law.

The role of government is to protect the public health.

Concern for individual well-being is for private citizens .... Princes, who enjoy public possessions, should be concerned with public good.

The legitimate acts of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others.

if any government does not acknowledge the rights of the human person or violates them, it not only fails in its duty, but its orders completely lack juridical force

The magistrate has the right to enforce what he thinks, and he who is conscious of the truth has a right to suffer.

All government is intended for the benefit of the people.

To secure a full effect to your object, it will be necessary that you should meet and consult together for the common good in your towns and counties. It is in dark and trying times that this constitutional privilege.

The public interest is more than the sum total of the interest groups.

The public interest is not defined as what is interesting to the public.

The legitimate object of government is "to do for the people what needs to be done, but which they cannot, by individual effort, do at all, or do so well, for themselves.