| Respectfully Quoted: A Dictionary of Quotations. 1989. | | | |
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| | | NUMBER: | 750 |
| AUTHOR: | Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1882–1945) |
| QUOTATION: | 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. |
| ATTRIBUTION: | President FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT, fireside chat on economic conditions, April 14, 1938.—The Public Papers and Addresses of Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1938, pp. 242–43 (1941). |
| SUBJECTS: | Government |
| BIOGRAPHY: | Columbia Encyclopedia | | |
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