Quotes by US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt:
“I have seen war…I hate war.” – at in address at Chautauqua, NY – August 14, 1936
“The Soviet Union, as everybody who has the courage to face the fact knows, is run by a dictatorship as absolute as any other dictatorship in the world.” – before the American Youth Congress – February 10, 1940
“Democracy alone, of all forms of government, enlists the full force of men’s enlightened will…It is the most humane, the most advanced, and, in the end, the most unconquerable of all forms of human society. The democratic aspiration is no mere recent phase of human history…We…would rather die on our feet than live on our knees.” – in his Third Inauguration Speech, January 20, 1941
“I say that the delivery of needed supplies to Britain is imperative. I say that this can be done; it must be done; and it will be done…The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” – during his Fireside Chat radio address, May 27, 1941
“The massed, angered forces of common humanity are on the march. They are going forward – on the Russian front, in the vast Pacific area, and into Europe – converging upon their ultimate objectives: Berlin and Tokyo. I think the first crack in the Axis has come. The criminal, corrupt Fascist regime in Italy is going to pieces.” – in a Fireside Chat – July 28, 1943
“The world has never seen greater devotion, determination, and self-sacrifice than have been displayed by the Russian people…under the leadership of Marshal Joseph Stalin. With a nation that in saving itself is thereby helping to save all the world from the Nazi menace, this country of ours should always be glad to be a good neighbor and a sincere friend to the world of the future.” – during a Fireside Chat – July 28, 1943
“On this tenth day of June 1940, the hand that held the dagger has struck it into the back of its neighbor”
“Force is the only language they understand, like bullies.” – speaking in reference to Italian dictator Benito Mussolini and German dictator Adolph Hitler.
Quotes by British Prime Minister Winston Churchill:
“From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Atlantic, an iron curtain has descended across the Continent. Behind the line lie all the capitals of the ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe…All these famous cities…lie in what I must call the Soviet sphere, and all are subject in one form or another, not only to Soviet influence but to a very high and, in many cases, increasing measure of control from Moscow.”
“In War: Resolution. In Defeat: Defiance. In Victory: Magnanimity. In Peace: Good Will.”
“Without ships, we cannot live.” – on the importance of winning the War in the Atlantic
“Good night, then – sleep to gather strength for the morning. For the morning will come. Brightly will it shine on the brave and true, kindly on all who suffer for the cause, glorious upon the tombs of heroes. Thus will shine the dawn.” – to the people of France – October 21, 1940
“In Hitler’s launching of the Nazi campaign on Russia, we can already see, after six months of fighting, that he has made one of the outstanding blunders in history.” – before the House of Commons – December 11, 1941
“The enemy is still proud and powerful. He is hard to get at. He still possesses enormous armies, vast resources, and invaluable strategic territories…No one can tell what new complications and perils might arise in four or five more years of war. And it is in the dragging-out of the war at enormous expense, until the democracies are tired or bored or split that the main hopes of Germany and Japan must reside.” – to the American Congress, May 19, 1943
“The only thing that ever really frightened me during the war was the U-Boat peril…It did not take the form of flaring battles and glittering achievements, it manifested itself through statistics, diagrams, and curves unknown to the nation, incomprehensible to the public.”
