President Quotes

The more informed you are, the less arrogant and aggressive you are.

It is only through labor and painful effort, by grim energy and resolute courage, that we move on to better things.

Without language, one cannot talk to people and understand them; one cannot share their hopes and aspirations, grasp their history, appreciate their poetry, or savor their songs.

We want, and must have, a national policy, as to slavery, which deals with it as being wrong.

One effect of sustained conflict is to narrow our vision of what is possible. Time and time again, conflicts are resolved through shifts that were unimaginable at the start.

It is my greatest wish that the Children’s Fund should continue to be a beacon of hope and light.

My father taught me to work; he did not teach me to love it.

We are trying to construct a more inclusive society. We are going to make a country in which no one is left out.

That some should be rich, shows that others may become rich, and, hence, is just encouragement to industry and enterprise.

The duties are even more important than the rights; and in the long run I think that the reward is ampler and greater for duty well done, than for the insistence upon individual rights.

The Welfare of Each of Us Is Dependent Fundamentally Upon the Welfare of All of Us

We can succeed only by concert. It is not, 'Can any of us imagine better,' but, 'Can we all do better?'

To do things today exactly the way you did them yesterday saves thinking.

A capacity, and taste, for reading gives access to whatever has already been discovered by others.

The country needs and, unless I mistake its temper, the country demands bold, persistent experimentation .

Private enterprise is ceasing to be free enterprise.

If we know where we are and something about how we got there, we might see where we are trending - and if the outcomes which lie naturally in our course are unacceptable, to make timely change.

If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong.

The only person who is a worse liar than a faith healer is his patient.

A child is a person who is going to carry on what you have started ... the fate of humanity is in his hands.

Weasel words from mollycoddles will never do when the day demands prophetic clarity from greathearts. Manly men must emerge for this hour of trial.

I understand that it is a maxim of law, that a poor plea may be a good plea to a bad declaration.

There has never been but one question in all civilization-how to keep a few men from saying to many men: You work and earn bread and we will eat it.

A nation that still needs to distinguish between stealing an election, and stealing a new pair of shoes, is not completely civilized yet.

The human body has two ends on it: one to create with and one to sit on. Sometimes people get their ends reversed. When this happens they need a kick in the seat of the pants.

Half finished work generally proves to be labor lost.

The modern naturalist must realize that in some of its branches his profession, while more than ever a science, has also become an art.

If there is one thing in this planet that has the power to bind people it is soccer.

To be the father of a nation is a great honor, but to be the father of a family is a greater joy.

We will send ships and Marines as soon as possible for the protection of American life and property.

One of our defects as a nation is a tendency to use what have been called "weasel words."

I believe that we are going to get along very well with him [Josef Stalin] and the Russian people - very well indeed.

The Constitution was not made to fit us like a straitjacket. In its elasticity lies its chief greatness.

The Nazi danger to our Western world has long ceased to be a mere possibility. The danger is here now--not only from a military enemy but from an enemy of all law, all liberty, all morality, all religion.

We didn't have another choice but to do what we did, if we wanted to be accepted, because we weren't counted as human beings.

Our defense is in the preservation of the spirit which prizes liberty as a heritage of all men, in all lands, everywhere. Destroy this spirit and you have planted the seeds of despotism around your own doors.

Such a mind we must desire to see in a woman,--a mind that stirs without irritating you, that arouses but does not belabour, amuses and yet subtly instructs.

There has never yet been a man in our history who led a life of ease whose name is worth remembering.

With self-discipline most anything is possible.

Whether or not the world would be vastly benefited by a total banishment from it of all intoxicating drinks seems not now an open question. Three-fourths of mankind confess the affirmative with their tongues, and I believe all the rest acknowledge it in their hearts.

We cannot always build a future for our youth, but we can always build our youth for the future.

When you make it to the top, turn and reach down for the person behind you.

When someone asked Abraham Lincoln, after he was elected president, what he was going to do about his enemies, he replied, "I am going to destroy them. I am going to make them my friends."

Reduce the supply of black labor by colonizing the black laborer out of the country, and by precisely so much you increase the demand for and wages of white labor.

I have always hated slavery, I think, as much as any abolitionist. I have been an Old Line Whig. I have always hated it, but I have always been quiet about it until this new era of the introduction of the Nebraska Bill began.

The world has never had a good definitionof the word liberty

The natural man inevitably rebels against mathematics, a mild form of torture that could only be learned by painful processes of drill.

I have never had a feeling, politically, that did not spring from the Declaration of Independence that all should have an equal chance. This is the sentiment embodied in the Declaration of Independence, I would rather be assassinated on this spot than surrender it.

If 600,000 people have to die in order for the nation to live, then 600,000 people will die.

Above all, try something

Slavery is founded in the selfishness of man's nature - opposition to it is his love of justice. These principles are an eternal antagonism; and when brought into collision so fiercely, as slavery extension brings them, shocks and throes and convulsions must ceaselessly follow.

The march to freedom is irreversible.

I have really got it into my head to try to be United States Senator, and, if I could have your support, my chances would be reasonably good. But I know, and acknowledge, that you have as just claims to the place as I have; and therefore I cannot ask you to yield to me, if you are thinking of becoming a candidate, yourself. If, however, you are not, then I should like to be remembered affectionately by you; and also to have you make a mark for me with the Anti-Nebraska members down your way.

We have introduced a rule of law into many sections of our public life.

Reality is what I see, not what you see.

I have no wealthy or popular relations to recommend me.

A man is about as happy as he makes up his mind to be.

I believe it is universally understood and acknowledged that all men will ever act correctly, unless they have a motive to do otherwise.

The chief factor in any man's success or failure must be his own character.

I think the authors of that notable instrument [the Declaration of Independence] intended to include all men.