How we cite our quotes: (Sentence)
Quote #1
This great Nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and will prosper. (4)
Those were dark days for America. Many were homeless, the unemployment rate was hovering at about 25 percent, and the future looked bleak. So although Roosevelt states that the number one priority of the United States is getting people back to work, it is equally about reassuring the country that they aren't doomed.
Quote #2
Compared with the perils which our forefathers conquered because they believed and were not afraid, we have still much to be thankful for. (15)
This isn't just FDR's way of saying that it could always be worse. By invoking the struggles of the American Revolution, Roosevelt suggests that like those early Americans, we still have the grit and determination to make it through these trying times. And what exactly do we have to be thankful for? The natural bounty that the country was only just beginning to fully harness.
Quote #3
It is the insistence, as a first consideration, upon the interdependence of the various elements in all parts of the United States—a recognition of the old and permanently important manifestation of the American spirit of the pioneer. (53)
Although the country had run out of land to settle after thousands forged the Oregon Trail decades earlier, the "spirit of the pioneer" lived on in the American psyche. It is this spirit, Roosevelt argues, that the public has to adopt to set the nation right again. Overcoming the stagnant economy requires new thinking and ingenuity, as well as the use of all the country's lands and resources to further development.