We Shall Strive for Perfection is a work for a cappella mixed chorus on a text adapted from excerpts of speeches by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt from 1945, his last year in office.

From his Fourth Inaugural Address (January 20, 1945):

We shall strive for perfection. We shall not achieve it immediately — but we still shall strive. We may make mistakes — but they must never be mistakes which shall result from from faintness of heart or abandonment of moral principles.

From his undelivered Jefferson Day Address (April 13, 1945), the text FDR was working on when he suffered a cerebral hemorrhage:

The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today. Let us move forward with strong and active faith.