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  • That means that the Roosevelt statement is regularly misquoted. Who knew?
    – AJFaraday
    Commented May 5, 2016 at 9:35
  • 22
    @AJFaraday it isn't misquoted, he did say it. It's just that he wasn't the first to utter what is, frankly, an obvious and kind of glib observation. I'm sure similar things have been uttered by wizened old tribal elders to goad the youngsters into attacking that enormous mammoth.
    – terdon
    Commented May 5, 2016 at 11:19
  • 2
    It's more that I've often heard and read "We have nothing to fear but fear itself", attributed to him. Worded differently, and therefore misquoted, or to put it more kindly, paraphrased. And yes, I'm sure he's neither the first nor the last to say it. I never contradicted that.
    – AJFaraday
    Commented May 5, 2016 at 11:20
  • 2
    Actually, @AJFaraday, the OP's quote is a correct sub-quote of FDR's statement (assuming user14111 got it right...). I'm not sure that I've ever heard it put quite the way you have quoted it. These are, however, minor quibbles in the context of the question itself.
    – FreeMan
    Commented May 5, 2016 at 16:02
  • 2
    @user14111 "blood, sweat and tears" was Theodore Roosevelt's phrase in 1897. Churchill paraphrased it in 1940 as "blood, toil, tears and sweat". See en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood,_toil,_tears,_and_sweat - amusing we now have two Roosevelts involved.
    – abligh
    Commented May 5, 2016 at 19:41