World War Quotes

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.

Oh Lord, give us faith. Give us faith in Thee; faith in our sons; faith in each other; faith in our united crusade.

You know, I am a juggler and I never let my right hand know what my left hand does. I may have one policy for Europe and one diametrically opposite for North and South America. I may be entirely inconsistent, and furthermore, I am perfectly willing to mislead and tell untruths if it will help win the war.

Such aid is not an act of war, even if a dictator should unilaterally proclaim it to be.

We expect to eliminate the danger from Japan, but it would serve us ill if we accomplished that and found that the rest of the world was dominated by Hitler and Mussolini. So we are going to win the war and we are going to win the peace that follows.

We are committed to the proposition that the principles of morality and considerations of our own security will not permit us to acquiesce in a peace dictated by aggressors and sponsored by appeasers.

I may never declare war; I may make war. If I were to ask Congress to declare war, they might argue about it for three months.

We know that Germany and Japan are conducting their military and naval operations with a joint plan. Germany and Italy consider themselves at war with the United States without even bothering about a formal declaration.

If Great Britain goes down, the Axis powers will be in a position to bring enormous military and naval resources against this hemisphere.

Upon our naval and air patrol - now operating in large number over a vast expanse of the Atlantic Ocean - falls the duty of maintaining the American policy of freedom of the seas.

The Government of Italy has now chosen to preserve what it terms its 'freedom of action' and to fulfill what it states are its promises to Germany.

The property of all churches will be seized by the Reich and its puppets.

The British people and their Grecian allies need ships; from America they will get ships. They need planes; from America they will get planes. Yes, from America they need food, and from America they will get food. They need tanks and guns and ammunition and supplies of all kinds; from America they will get tanks and guns and ammunition and supplies of all kinds.

Powerful enemies must be out-fought and out-produced.

We are doing our utmost in the United States to furnish all of the material and supplies which can possibly be released to the Allied governments.

In every country conquered by the Nazis and the Fascists, or the Japanese militarists, the people have been reduced to the status of slaves or chattels. It is our determination to restore these conquered peoples to the dignity of human beings, masters of their own fate, entitled to freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom from want, and freedom from fear. We have started to make good on that promise.

Nazi forces are not seeking mere modifications in colonial maps or in minor European boundaries. They openly seek the destruction of all elective systems of government on every continent, including our own.

The Greer was flying the American flag. Her identity as an American ship was unmistakable. She was then and there attacked by a submarine. Germany admits that it was a German submarine.

Let this warning be clear. From now on, if German or Italian vessels enter the waters, the protection of which is necessary for American defense, they do so at their own peril.

The question immediately presented in our Far Eastern affairs is whether the United States is or is not to stand by while Japan goes forward with a program of conquest by force in eastern Asia and the western Pacific.