1940s, Response to the attack on Pearl Harbor (1941)
Context: Yesterday, December 7, 1941 — a date which will live in infamy — the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan.
The United States was at peace with that nation, and, at the solicitation of Japan, was still in conversation with its government and its Emperor looking toward the maintenance of peace in the Pacific.

“But Lincoln also understood that after such a decision, a democracy should seek peace through a new unity. For a democracy can keep alive only if the settlement of old difficulties clears the ground and transfers energies to face new responsibilities. Never can it have as much ability and purpose as it needs in that striving; the end of battle does not end the infinity of those needs. That is why Lincoln — commander of a people as well as of an army — asked that his battle end "with malice toward none, with charity for all."”

Franklin D. Roosevelt

1930s, Address at the dedication of the memorial on the Gettysburg battlefield (1938)

“We can gain no lasting peace if we approach it with suspicion and mistrust or with fear. We can gain it only if we proceed with the understanding, the confidence, and the courage which flow from conviction.”

Franklin D. Roosevelt

1940s, Fourth inaugural address (1945)

“A self-supporting and self-respecting democracy can plead no justification for the existence of child labor, no economic reason for chiseling workers' wages or stretching workers' hours.”

Franklin D. Roosevelt

1930s, Message to Congress on establishing minimum wages and maximum hours (1937)

“I hope your committee will not permit doubts as to constitutionality, however reasonable, to block the suggested legislation.”

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Letter to Samuel B. Hill, Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=14894 (6 July 1935) <br class="br">1930s

“The destiny of America was proclaimed in words of prophecy spoken by our first President in his first inaugural in 1789 — words almost directed, it would seem, to this year of 1941: "The preservation of the sacred fire of liberty and the destiny of the republican model of government are justly considered … deeply,… finally, staked on the experiment intrusted to the hands of the American people."”

Franklin D. Roosevelt

1940s, Third inaugural address (1941)

“Human kindness has never weakened the stamina or softened the fiber of a free people. A nation does not have to be cruel to be tough.”

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Speech in 1935, as quoted by Donna E. Shalala, as Secretary of Health and Human Services, in a speech to the American Public Welfare Association (27 February 1995) http://www.hhs.gov/news/speeches/apwa.html <br class="br">1930s

“All free peoples are deeply impressed by the courage and steadfastness of the Greek nation.”

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Letter to King George of Greece (5 December 1940)
1940s

“To us there has come a time, in the midst of swift happenings, to pause for a moment and take stock — to recall what our place in history has been, and to rediscover what we are and what we may be. If we do not, we risk the real peril of inaction.”

Franklin D. Roosevelt

1940s, Third inaugural address (1941)

“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.”

Franklin D. Roosevelt

1940s, Response to the attack on Pearl Harbor (1941)

“In Washington's day the task of the people was to create and weld together a nation. In Lincoln's day the task of the people was to preserve that Nation from disruption from within. In this day the task of the people is to save that Nation and its institutions from disruption from without.”

Franklin D. Roosevelt

1940s, Third inaugural address (1941)

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

Franklin D. Roosevelt

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
Posthumous publications

“An election cannot give a country a firm sense of direction if it has two or more national parties which merely have different names but are as alike in their principles and aims as peas in the same pod.”

Franklin D. Roosevelt

1930s, Fireside Chat in the night before signing the Fair Labor Standards Act (1938)