quotes by President Quotes

“My strong preference has always been to legislate when I can get legislation done.”

“I was elected a Captain of Volunteers--a success which gave me more pleasure than any I have had since.”

“An economically peaceful and prosperous Sri Lanka is the dream of youth of the nation. My message for the youth is to collectively work for an inclusively developed Sri Lanka.”

“No experiment can be more interesting than that we are now trying, and which we trust will end in establishing the fact, that man may be governed by reason and truth. Our first object should therefore be, to leave open to him all the avenues to truth. The most effectual hitherto found, is the freedom of the press. It is, therefore, the first shut up by those who fear the investigation of their actions.”

“Operation Iraqi Freedom is over, and the Iraqi people now have lead responsibility for the security of their country”

“Peace does not rest in the charters and covenants alone. It lies in the hearts and minds of all people. So let us not rest all our hopes on parchment and on paper, let us strive to build peace, a desire for peace, a willingness to work for peace in the hearts and minds of all of our people. I believe that we can. I believe the problems of human destiny are not beyond the reach of human beings.”

“The processes of growth are gradual, bearing fruit in a decade, not a day.”

“From the greatest to the smallest, happiness and usefulness are largely found in the same soul, and the joy of life is won in its deepest and truest sense only by those who have not shirked life's burdens.”

“The United States must be neutral in fact as well as in name.... We must be impartial in thought as well as in actiona nationthat neither sits in judgment upon others nor is disturbed in her own counsels and which keeps herself fit and free to do what is honest and disinterested and truly serviceable for the peace of the world.”

“A great industrial nation is controlled by its system of credit. Our system of credit is privately concentrated. The growth of the nation, therefore, and all our activities are in the hands of a few men who, even if their action be honest and intended for the public interest, are necessarily concentrated upon the great undertakings in which their own money is involved and who necessarily, by very reason of their own limitations, chill and check and destroy genuine economic freedom.”

“A private central bank issuing the public currency is a greater menace to the liberties of the people than a standing army. We must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt.”

“When we decided to take up arms, it was because the only other choice was to surrender and to submit to slavery.”

“Any danger spot is tenable if men, brave men, will make it so.”

“Envy is as evil a thing as arrogance.”

“Adversity does not make us frail; it only shows us how frail we are.”

“Laws provide against injury from others; but not from ourselves.”

“Peace will come soon to stay, and so come as to be worth keeping in all future time. It will then have proved that among free men there can be no successful appeal from the ballot to the bullet, and that they who take such appeal are sure their cases and pay the costs.”

“Let's remember that our leadership is defined not just by our defence against threats, but by the enormous opportunities to do good and promote understanding.”

“When people are oppressed, and human rights are denied - particularly along sectarian lines or ethnic lines - when dissent is silenced, it feeds violent extremism, it creates an environment that is ripe for terrorists to exploit. When peaceful, democratic change is impossible, it feeds into the terrorist propaganda that violence is the only answer available.”

“I look at some of the kids that I interact with, and they were born with so many disadvantages. And you could start off in your first interaction with them saying, "Unless they get a lot of compensatory help, they're not going to be able to compete; they're just so far behind, and they're wounded and they're hurt."”

“Democracy may not be perfect, but at least I don't have to build a wall to keep my people in.”

“The Internet and Twitter and all these things are very powerful, but it also means sometimes that instead of having a dialogue we just start calling folks - calling each other names. And that's true on the left or the right.”

“Everyone's life is a page in the human history irrespective of the position he or she holds or the work he or she performs.”

“It takes time to persuade men to do even what is for their own good.”

“A tendancy to melancholy...let it be observed, is a misfortune, not a fault.”

“We do have to balance this issue of privacy and security. Those who pretend that there's no balance that has to be struck and think we can take a 100-percent absolutist approach to protecting privacy don't recognize that governments are going to be under an enormous burden to prevent the kinds of terrorist acts that not only harm individuals, but also can distort our society and our politics in very dangerous ways.”

“We will be soldiers, so our sons may be farmers, so their sons may be artists”

“Our people shall be free”

“It is not often that a man can make opportunities for himself. But he can put himself in such shape that when or if the opportunities come he is ready.”

“We shall make mistakes; and if we let these mistakes frighten us from our work we shall show ourselves weaklings.”

“I will never apologize for saying that the future of humanity and the future of the world is going to be defined by what we have in common as opposed to those things that separate us and ultimately lead us into conflict.”

“I've sought a constructive relationship with Russia, but what I have also been is realistic in recognizing that there is some significant differences in how Russia views the world and how we view the world.”

“Peace is normally a great good, and normally it coincides with righteousness, but it is righteousness and not peace which should bind the conscience of a nation as it should bind the conscience of an individual; and neither a nation nor an individual can surrender conscience to another's keeping.”

“Practice the art of patience for nature never acts in haste.”

“Knowledge is power...knowled ge is safety...knowle dge is happiness.”

“No great intellectual thing was ever done by great effort.”

“It's a generational project just to get America to live up fully to its ideals and to have the kind of society where everybody has a shot, and every kid is getting a good education, and people are getting living wages, and they have decent retirement.”

“There's something about the American spirit -– inherent in the American spirit -- we don't hang on to the past. We always move forward.... We are going to leave something better for our children –- not just here in the United States, but all around the world.”

“Our patience is not infinite. We're not willing to let this go on forever.”

“I am a slow walker, but I never walk back.”

“However [political parties] may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion.”

“It seems like a lot of people seek their peace in things. And most of us are not even satisfied with the things we have... we always want more.”

“All of us in the Senate live in an iron lung-the iron lung of politics, and it is no easy task to emerge from that rarified atmosphere in order to breathe the same fresh air our constituents breathe.”

“Islamic culture has given us majestic arches and soaring spires; timeless poetry and cherished music; elegant calligraphy and places of peaceful contemplation.”

“The foundation on which (our government is) built is the natural equality of man, the denial of every pre-eminence but that annexed to legal office, and particularly the denial of a pre-eminence by birth.”

“It means, people who are in high and responsible positions, if they go against righteousness, righteousness itself will get transformed into a destroyer.”

“Your organization will take on the personality of its top leaders”

“The loneliest feeling in the world is when you think you are leading the parade and turn to find that no one is following you. No president who badly misguesses public opinion will last very long.”

“Who will govern the governors? There is only one force in the nation that can be depended upon to keep the government pure and the governors honest, and that is the people themselves. They alone, if well informed, are capable of preventing the corruption of power, and of restoring the nation to its rightful course if it should go astray. They alone are the safest depository of the ultimate powers of government.”

“The great cause which divides our countries is not to be decided by individual animosities. The harmony of private societies cannot weaken national efforts.”