On Leadership:

The country needs and, unless I mistake its temper, the country demands bold, persistent experimentation. It is common sense to take a method and try it: If it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something.

                      Address at Oglethorpe University, May 22, 1932

On War and Peace:

Today we are faced with the preeminent fact that if civilization is to survive the science of human relationship—it must demand the ability of all peoples, of all kinds, to live together in the same world in peace.

                      Undelivered address prepared for Jefferson Day to be delivered April 13, 1945

On Poverty:

We are determined to make every American citizen the subject of his country's interest and concern; and we will never regard any faithful law-abiding group within our borders as superfluous.  The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.

                     Second Inaugural Address, Washington, D.C., January 20, 1937

 On Faith:

Today the whole world is divided between human slavery and human freedom—between pagan brutality and the Christian ideal. We choose human freedom—which is the Christian ideal.

                     Fireside Chat, May 27, 1941

On Conservation:

There is merit for all of us in the ancient tale of mythology, the tale of Giant Antaeus, who every time that he touched Mother Earth arose with strength renewed a hundred fold

                     Dedication speech at Shenandoah National Park, Virginia, July 3, 1936.