Legislation to apply the principle of
equal pay for equal work without discrimination
because of sex is a matter of simple justice
~Dwight David Eisenhower~

The older I get, the more wisdom I find in the
ancient rule of taking first things first --
a process which often reduces the most complex
human problems to manageable proportions.
~Dwight David Eisenhower~

Neither a wise nor a brave man lies
down on the tracks of history to wait
for the train of the future to run over him.
~Dwight David Eisenhower~

Pessimism never won any battle.
~Dwight David Eisenhower~

Pull the string, and it will
follow wherever you wish. Push it,
and it will go nowhere at all.
~Dwight David Eisenhower~

The world moves, and ideas that
were once good are not always good.
~Dwight David Eisenhower~

"Worry" is a word that I
don't allow myself to use.
~Dwight David Eisenhower~

I can think of nothing more boring for the
American people than to have to sit in
their living rooms for a whole half hour
looking at my face on their television screens.
~Dwight David Eisenhower~

I hate war as only a soldier who has lived
it can, only as one who has seen its
brutality, its futility, its stupidity.
~Dwight David Eisenhower~

When you are in any contest, you should
work as if there were - to the very last
minute - a chance to lose it. This is
battle, this is politics, this is anything.
~Dwight David Eisenhower~

Freedom has its life in the hearts,
the actions, the spirit of men and
so it must be daily earned and refreshed
- else like a flower cut from its
life-giving roots, it will wither and die.
~Dwight David Eisenhower~

There are a number of things wrong
with Washington. One of them is
that everyone is too far from home.
~Dwight David Eisenhower~

I would rather try to persuade a
man to go along, because once I have
persuaded him, he will stick. If I
scare him, he will stay just as long
as he is scared, and then he is gone.
~Dwight David Eisenhower~

I deplore the need or the use of troops
anywhere to get American citizens to
obey the orders of constituted courts.
~Dwight David Eisenhower~

That was not the biggest battle that ever was,
but for me it always typified one thing -- the
dash, the ingenuity, the readiness at the first
opportunity that characterizes the American soldier.
~Dwight David Eisenhower~

The purpose is clear.
It is safety with solvency.
The country is entitled to both.
~Dwight David Eisenhower~

It is far more important to be able to
hit the target than it is to haggle over
who makes a weapon or who pulls a trigger.
~Dwight David Eisenhower~

Speeches are for the younger men who are going
places. And I'm not going anyplace except six
feet under the floor of that little chapel
adjoining the museum and library at Abilene.
~Dwight David Eisenhower~

Ankles are nearly always neat and
good-looking, but knees are nearly always not.
~Dwight David Eisenhower~

Some years ago I became president of
Columbia University and learned within
24 hours to be ready to speak at the drop
of a hat, and I learned something more,
the trustees were expected to be ready
to speak at the passing of the hat.
~Dwight David Eisenhower~

I have found out in later years [that]
we were very poor, but the glory of
America is that we didn't know it then.
~Dwight David Eisenhower~

Our pleasures were simple --
they included survival.
~Dwight David Eisenhower~

That was and still is the great disaster
of my life -- that lovely, lovely little boy.
~Dwight David Eisenhower~

This desk of mine is one at which a
man may die, but from which he cannot resign.
~Dwight David Eisenhower~

No one should ever sit in this office
over 70 years old, and that I know.
~Dwight David Eisenhower~

I have one yardstick by which
I test every major problem --
and that yardstick is:
Is it good for America?
~Dwight David Eisenhower~

I thought it completely absurd
to mention my name in the same
breath as the presidency.
~Dwight David Eisenhower~

I feel impelled to speak today in a
language that in a sense is new -- one
which I, who have spent so much of my
life in the military profession, would
have preferred never to use. That new
language is the language of atomic warfare.
~Dwight David Eisenhower~

I never saw a pessimistic general win a battle.
~Dwight David Eisenhower~

The president cannot escape from his office.
~Dwight David Eisenhower~

Plans are nothing, planning is everything.
~Dwight David Eisenhower~

The sergeant is the Army.
~Dwight David Eisenhower~

You'll find that no easy problems ever come to
the President of the United States. If they
are easy to solve, somebody else has solved them.
~Dwight David Eisenhower~

Unlike presidential administrations,
problems rarely have terminal dates.
~Dwight David Eisenhower~

Our economy is the result of millions of
decisions we all make every day about
producing, earning, saving, investing, and spending.
~Dwight David Eisenhower~

Though force can protect in emergency,
only justice, fairness, consideration
and cooperation can finally lead men
to the dawn of eternal peace.
~Dwight David Eisenhower~

I despise all adjectives that try to
describe people as liberal of conservative,
rightist or leftist, as long as they
stay in the useful part of the road.
~Dwight David Eisenhower~

There is one thing about being President,
no one can tell you when to sit down.
~Dwight David Eisenhower~

Don't join the book burners. Do not
think you are going to conceal thoughts
by concealing evidence that they ever
existed. Don't be afraid to go into
your library and read every book.
~Dwight David Eisenhower~

Here in America we are descended in blood and
in spirit from revolutionist and rebel men
and women who dare to dissent from accepted
doctrine. As their heirs, may we never
confuse honest dissent with disloyal subversion.
~Dwight David Eisenhower~

What the church should be telling the
worker is that the first demand religion
makes on him is that he should be a good
workman. If he is a carpenter he should
be a competent carpenter. Church by all
means on Sundays — but what is the use
of church if at the very center of life
a man defrauds his neighbor and insults
God by poor craftsmanship.
~Dwight David Eisenhower~

We merely want to live in peace with all
the world, to trade with them, to commune
with them, to learn from their culture as
they may learn from ours, so that the products
of our toil may be used for our schools and
our roads and our churches and not for guns
and planes and tanks and ships of war.
~Dwight David Eisenhower~

Through unity of action we can be a veritable
colossus in support of peace. No one can
defeat us unless we first defeat ourselves.
Every one of us must be guided by this truth.
~Dwight David Eisenhower~

If all that Americans want is security,
they can go to prison. They'll have enough
to eat, a bed and roof over their heads.
But if an American wants to preserve his dignity
and his equality as a human being, he must not
bow his neck to any dictatorial government.
~Dwight David Eisenhower~

We succeed only as we identify in life,
or in war, or in anything else, a single
overriding objective, and make all other
considerations bend to that one objective.
~Dwight David Eisenhower~

Unless each day can be looked back upon
by an individual as one in which he has
had some fun, some joy, some real
satisfaction, that day is a loss.
~Dwight David Eisenhower~

The same day I saw my first horror camp,
I visited every nook and cranny. I felt
it my duty to be in a position from then
on to testify about these things in case
there ever grew up at home the belief or
assumption that the stories of Nazi
brutality were just propaganda.
~Dwight David Eisenhower~

There is a kind of dictatorship that can
come about through a creeping paralysis
of thought, readiness to accept paternalistic
measures by government, and along with those
measures comes a surrender of our own
responsibilities and therefore a surrender
of our own thought over our own lives and
our own right to exercise the vote. The free
system gives the right to every citizen to
do something for himself. Because he has
the right, the opportunity is always there.
~Dwight David Eisenhower~

Men and women, inspired by faith in
man's dignity, goaded by conviction
in man's responsibility, labored that
this land might be a better home for
those who followed them. Because every
American generation attacked its problems
with fresh vigor, we have peopled a continent,
subdued its prairies and wilderness, tamed
its rivers and devoted its resources to
the betterment of those who dwell in it.
~Dwight David Eisenhower~

I make it a practice to avoid hating anyone.
If someone's been guilty of despicable actions,
especially toward me, I try to forget him.
I used to follow a practice -— somewhat
contrived, I admit—to write the man's name
on a piece of scrap paper, drop it into the
lowest drawer of my desk, and say to myself:
"That finishes the incident, and so far as
I'm concerned, that fellow. The drawer became
over the years a sort of private wastebasket
for crumpled-up spite and discarded personalities.
Besides, it seemed to be effective, and helped
me avoid harboring useless black feelings.
~Dwight David Eisenhower~

Only Americans can hurt America.
~Dwight David Eisenhower~

The people of the world genuinely want peace.
Some day the leaders of the world are going
to have to give in and give, it to them.
~Dwight David Eisenhower~

When you put on a uniform, there are
certain inhibitions that you accept.
~Dwight David Eisenhower~

Most things which are urgent are
not important, and most things
which are important are not urgent.
~Dwight David Eisenhower~

No one can defeat us unless
we first defeat ourselves.
~Dwight David Eisenhower~

The only way to win World War III is to prevent it.
~Dwight David Eisenhower~

The final battle against intolerance is
to be fought -- not in the chambers of
any legislature -- but in the hearts of men.
~Dwight David Eisenhower~

One hundred and eighty-one years
ago, our forefathers started a
revolution that still goes on.
~Dwight David Eisenhower~

I have full confidence in your courage,
devotion to duty and skill in battle.
We will accept nothing less than full victory!
~Dwight David Eisenhower~

When you appeal to force, there's
one thing you must never do -- lose.
~Dwight David Eisenhower~

People talk about the middle of the road
as though it were unacceptable. Actually,
all human problems, excepting morals,
come into the gray areas. Things are
not all black and white. There have to
be compromises. The middle of the road
is all of the usable surface. The extremes,
right and left, are in the gutters.
~Dwight David Eisenhower~

You will bring about the destruction of the German war
machine, the elimination of Nazi tyranny over the oppressed
peoples of Europe, and security for ourselves in a free world.
Your task will not be an easy one. Your enemy is well-trained,
well-equipped, and battle-hardened. He will fight savagely. But
this is the year 1944. Much has happened since the Nazi triumphs
of 1940-41. The United Nations have inflicted upon the Germans
great defeat in open battle man to man. Our air offensive has
seriously reduced their strength in the air and their capacity
to wage war on the ground. Our home fronts have given us an
overwhelming superiority in weapons and munitions of war and
placed at our disposal great reserves of trained fighting men.
The tide has turned. The free men of the world are marching
together to victory. I have full confidence in your courage,
devotion to duty, and skill in battle. We will accept nothing
less than full victory. Good luck, and let us all beseech the
blessings of Almighty God upon this great and noble undertaking.
~Dwight David Eisenhower, The D-Day Order, 6 June 1944~

All of us have heard this term 'preventative war'
since the earliest days of Hitler. I recall that
is about the first time I heard it. In this day
and time...I don't believe there is such a thing;
and, frankly, I wouldn't even listen to anyone
seriously that came in and talked about such a thing.
Variant: A preventive war, to my mind, is an
impossibility. I don't believe there is such a thing,
and frankly I wouldn't even listen to anyone seriously
that came in and talked about such a thing.
~Dwight David Eisenhower, Press conference 1953~

In this war, which was total in every sense of
the word, we have seen many great changes in
military science. It seems to me that not the
least of these was the development of psychological
warfare as a specific and effective weapon.
~Dwight David Eisenhower~

The eyes of the world are upon you.
The hopes and prayers of liberty-loving
people everywhere march with you.
~Dwight David Eisenhower, address to his troops D-Day 1944~

Without a doubt, psychological warfare
has proven its right to a place of
dignity in our military arsenal.
~Dwight David Eisenhower~