In time of this grave national danger, when all excess income should go to win the war, no American citizen ought to have a net income, after he has paid his taxes, of more than $25,000 a year.
Interpretation
Roosevelt advocates for income limits to support the war effort during national crises.
In this quote, Franklin D. Roosevelt emphasizes the importance of national solidarity and sacrifice during times of grave danger, suggesting that during a war, citizens should prioritize the country's needs over personal wealth. He proposes that no American should have a net income exceeding $25,000 after taxes to ensure that the nation's resources are directed towards winning the war.
In practice
This quote can be used in a speech about economic equality during emergencies.
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.
British rule depends upon repression and collaboration and the Irish people should recognise that those who collaborate with Britain in exchange for a slice of the cake will implement British policy and remain silent when Irish people are murdered and oppressed. It is they who are responsible for prolonging the war in Ireland. Without the quislings, without the collaborators, we would already have reached freedom.
Let us wage a moral and political war against war itself, so that we can cut military spending and use that money for human needs.
There is no more dangerous thing for a democracy than a foreign policy based on presidential preventive war.
When facism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the American flag.
Democrats consider the people as the safest depository of power in the last resort; they cherish them, therefore, and wish to leave in them all the powers to the exercise of which they are competent.
I don't approve of the notion that we should be announcing who should step down from the position of a head of a state unless we are seriously prepared to remove that person. But if we are not, if we are being prudent and careful, then let's also be careful with how we talk.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.