No government can help the destinies of people who insist in putting sectional and class consciousness ahead of general weal.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the importance of unity over division in society for effective governance.
Franklin D. Roosevelt's quote highlights that a government's ability to aid its citizens is hindered when people prioritize their own interests and divisions—based on class or sect—over the collective good. By suggesting that sectional and class consciousness obstructs the general well-being or 'weal', he underscores the necessity for a united front for any governmental progress towards the welfare of all.
In practice
In a discussion about societal progress, one might refer to Roosevelt's quote to emphasize the need for collective effort.
There has been one persistent theme through all Axis propaganda. This theme has been that Americans are admittedly rich, that Americans have considerable industrial power - but that Americans are soft and decadent, that they cannot and will not unite and work and fight. ... Let them tell that to the Marines!
The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today.
A war of ideas can no more be won without books than a naval war can be won without ships. Books, like ships, have the toughest armor, the longest cruising range, and mount the most powerful guns.
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.
Men are not prisoners of fate, but only prisoners of their own minds.
A world turned into a stereotype, a society converted into a regiment, a life translated into a routine, make it difficult for either art or artists to survive. Crush individuality in society and you crush art as well. Nourish the conditions of a free life and you nourish the arts, too.
Restore, without delay, the equilibrium between revenue and expenditures, which has done so much to destroy our credit and derange the whole fabric of government. If that should not be done, the government and country will be involved, ere long, in overwhelming difficulties.
The advice I've been giving to people all my life - that you may not be interested in the dialectic but the dialectic is interested in you; you can't give up politics, it won't give you up - was the advice I should have been taking myself.
Fascism begins the moment a ruling class, fearing the people may use their political democracy to gain economic democracy, begins to destroy political democracy in order to retain its power of exploitation and special privilege.
Public opinion in Egypt is very antagonistic to the way the dictatorship, Mubarak dictatorship, interpreted relations with Israel. Very antagonistic.
I get asked a lot about getting into politics. I say, 'Take a look at politics. You tell me what seems appealing about that.'
Well, first of all, I think that a lot of the voters who are voting for the tea party candidates have really good impulses. That is, they believe that for years and years and years, the people with wealth and power or government power have done well and ordinary people have not. That's true.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.