Respectfully Quoted: A Dictionary of Quotations. 1989.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt (18821945)
History proves that dictatorships do not grow out of strong and successful governments, but out of weak and helpless ones. If by democratic methods people get a government strong enough to protect them from fear and starvation, their democracy succeeds; but if they do not, they grow impatient. Therefore, the only sure bulwark of continuing liberty is a government strong enough to protect the interests of the people, and a people strong enough and well enough informed to maintain its sovereign control over its government.
President FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT, fireside chat on economic conditions, April 14, 1938.The Public Papers and Addresses of Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1938, pp. 24243 (1941).