Franklin Delano Roosevelt

We guard against the forces of anti-Christian aggression, which may attack us from without, and the forces of ignorance and fear which may corrupt us from within.

Speech at Madison Square Garden, October 28, 1940 , 1940

Are you laboring under the impression that I read these memoranda of yours? I can't even lift them.

Comment to economic advisor Leon Henderson, as quoted in Ambassador's Journal: A Personal Account of the Kennedy Years (1969) by John Kenneth Galbraith, p. 225 , 1969

If the spirit of God is not in us, and if we will not prepare to give all that we have and all that we are to preserve Christian civilization in our land, we shall go to destruction.

Speech at the Dedication of Great Smoky Mountains National Park, September 2, 1940 , 1940

I'm just afraid that I may not have the strength to do this job. After you leave me tonight, Jimmy, I am going to pray. I am going to pray that God will help me, that he will give me the strength and the guidance to do this job and to do it right. I hope that you will pray for me, too, Jimmy.

Talking to his son James on the night of his landslide victory over Herbert Hoover (8 November 1932), as quoted in Traitor to His Class: The Privileged Life and Radical Presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt (2008) by H. W. Brands , 2008

I sometimes think we consider too much the good luck of the early bird and not enough the bad luck of the early worm.

Roosevelt to Henry M. Heymann (2 December 1919), as quoted in Roosevelt and Howe (1962), by Alfred B. Rollins, Jr., p. 153 , 1962