- 
	
	Men are not prisoners of fate, but only prisoners of their own minds.   
- 
	
	The United States Constitution has proved itself the most marvelously elastic compilation of rules of government ever written.   
- 
	
	Not only our future economic soundness but the very soundness of our democratic institutions depends on the determination of our government to give employment to idle men.   
- 
	
	Physical strength can never permanently withstand the impact of spiritual force.   
- 
	
	I am a Christian and a Democrat, that's all.   
- 
	
	Happiness lies in the joy of achievement and the thrill of creative effort.   
- 
	
	The point in history at which we stand is full of promise and danger. The world will either move forward toward unity and widely shared prosperity - or it will move apart.   
- 
	
	The democratic aspiration is no mere recent phase in human history. It is human history. It permeated the ancient life of early peoples. It blazed anew in the Middle Ages. It was written in Magna Charta.   
- 
	
	There seems to be no question that Mussolini is really interested in what we are doing and I am much interested and deeply impressed by what he has accomplished and by his evidenced honest purpose of restoring Italy.   
- 
	
	I believe that in every country the people themselves are more peaceably and liberally inclined than their governments.   
- 
	
	When you see a rattlesnake poised to strike, you do not wait until he has struck to crush him.   
- 
	
	The hopes of the Republic cannot forever tolerate either undeserved poverty or self-serving wealth.   
- 
	
	In our seeking for economic and political progress, we all go up - or else we all go down.   
- 
	
	As Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy I have directed that all measures be taken for our defense, that always will our whole nation remember the character of the onslaught against us. No matter how long it may take us to overcome this premeditated invasion, the American people, in their righteous might, will win through to absolute victory.   
- 
	
	Democracy is not dying. We know it because we have seen it revive - and grow. We know it cannot die - because it is built on the unhampered initiative of individual men and women joined together in a common enterprise - an enterprise undertaken and carried through by the free expression of a free majority.   
- 
	
	I don't mind telling you in confidence that I am keeping in fairly close touch with that admirable Italian gentleman.   
- 
	
	We know that we still have far to go; that we must more greatly build the security and the opportunity and the knowledge of every citizen, in the measure justified by the resources and the capacity of the land.   
- 
	
	A conservative is a man with two perfectly good legs who, however, has never learned how to walk forward.   
- 
	
	We shall strive for perfection. We shall not achieve it immediately - but we still shall strive. We may make mistakes - but they must never be mistakes which result from faintness of heart or abandonment of moral principle.   
- 
	
	I don't want to see a single war millionaire created in the United States as a result of this world disaster.   
- 
	
	Prosperous farmers mean more employment, more prosperity for the workers and the business men of every industrial area in the whole country.   
- 
	
	It is the duty of the President to propose and it is the privilege of the Congress to dispose.   
- 
	
	Hostilities exist. There is no blinking at the fact that our people, our territory and our interests are in grave danger. With confidence in our armed forces, with the unbounding determination of our people, we will gain the inevitable triumph, so help us God.   
- 
	
	We have undertaken a new order of things; yet we progress to it under the framework and in the spirit and intent of the American Constitution. We have proceeded throughout the Nation a measurable distance on the road toward this new order.   
