"The only thing we have to fear is fear itself - nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance."
— Franklin D. Roosevelt
The Only Thing We Have To
The only thing we have to fear is fear itself - nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.
About this quote
Delivered on March 4, 1933, at the depth of the Great Depression, this is the opening line of Roosevelt's First Inaugural Address. With 13 million Americans unemployed and banks failing across the country, FDR used the address to reframe the crisis as a psychological and moral challenge as much as an economic one. The line was adapted from a 1932 calendar published by the philosopher Henry David Thoreau scholar Henry David Thoreau — though FDR's speechwriter Louis Howe may have drawn it from a department store advertisement that used similar phrasing. The speech marked a sharp break from Hoover's passive response to the Depression.
Source
First Inaugural Address, 1933