Famous Words of Presidents
There is nothing wrong with America that the faith,
love of freedom, intelligence, and energy of her
citizens cannot cure....Dwight David Eisenhower.
Whatever America hopes to bring to pass in the world must first
come to pass in the heart of America....Dwight David Eisenhower.
What counts is not necessarily the size of the dog in the fight,
it's the size of the fight in the dog....Dwight David Eisenhower.
There are no victories at bargain
prices....Dwight David Eisenhower.
You don't lead by hitting people over the head --
that's assault, not leadership....Dwight David Eisenhower.
History does not long entrust the care of freedom to
the weak or the timid....Dwight David Eisenhower.
The quest for peace is the statesman's most exacting duty...practical
progress to lasting peace is his fondest hope....Dwight David Eisenhower.
Now, Therefore, I, Dwight D. Eisenhower, President of the United
States of America, do hereby call upon all of our citizens to
observe Thursday, November 11, 1954, as Veteran's Day. On that
day let us solemnly remember the sacrifices of all those who
fought so valiantly, on the seas, in the air, and on foreign
shores, to preserve our heritage of freedom, and let us
reconsecrate ourselves to the task of promoting an enduring peace
so that their efforts shall not have been in vain....Dwight David Eisenhower.
The nation which forgets its defenders
will be itself forgotten....Calvin Coolidge.
No nation ever had an army large enough to guarantee
it against attack in time of peace or insure it
victory in time of war....Calvin Coolidge.
Patriotism is easy to understand in America; it means looking
out for yourself by looking out for your country.....Calvin Coolidge.
America was targeted for attack because we're the brightest
beacon for freedom and opportunity in the world. But no one
will keep that light from shining....George Walker Bush.
We want to be a Nation that serves
goals larger than self....George Walker Bush.
No, I don't know that atheists should be considered as
citizens, nor should they be considered patriots. This is
one nation under God....George Walker Bush.
America has never been united by blood or birth or soil.
We are bound by ideals that move us beyond our backgrounds,
lift us above our interests and teach us what it means to be
citizens. Every child must be taught these principles. Every
citizen must uphold them. And every immigrant, by embracing these
ideals, makes our country more, not less, American....George Walker Bush.
When I act you will know my reasons.
When I speak you will know my heart....George Walker Bush.
America is never wholly herself unless she is engaged
in high moral principle. We as a people have such a purpose
today. It is to make kinder the face of the nation and
gentler the face of the world....George Walker Bush.
Our enemies send other people's children on missions of
suicide and murder. They embrace tyranny and death as a
cause and a creed. We stand for a different choice -- made
long ago, on the day of our founding. We affirm it again today.
We choose freedom and the dignity of every life. Steadfast in
our purpose, we now press on. We have known freedom's price. We
have shown freedom's power. And in this great conflict, my fellow
Americans, we will see freedom's victory....George Walker Bush.
America will lead by defending liberty and justice because
they are right and true and unchanging for all people
everywhere. No nation owns these aspirations, and no nation is
exempt from them. We have no intention of imposing our culture
-- but America will always stand firm for the non-negotiable
demands of human dignity: the rule of law...limits on the power
of the state...respect for women...private property...free speech...
equal justice...and religious tolerance....George Walker Bush.
We have a place, all of us, in a long story...The story of a
slave-holding society that became a servant of freedom...It is
the American story; a story of flawed and fallible people, united
across the generations by grand and enduring ideals....George Walker Bush.
In our war against terror, we must never lose sight of the values
that make our country so strong, the values of respect and tolerance,
the values that we believe that everybody ought to worship the
Almighty, however they so choose....George Walker Bush, 2002.
My great concern is not whether you have failed,
but whether you are content with your failure....Abraham Lincoln.
The best thing about the future is that it
only comes one day at a time....Abraham Lincoln.
I believe the Bible is the best gift God has ever
given to man. All the good from the Savior of the
world is communicated through this book...All things
desirable to men are contained in the Bible....Abraham Lincoln.
We should be too big to take offense
and too noble to give it....Abraham Lincoln.
If I were two-faced, would I be
wearing this one?....Abraham Lincoln.
Surely God would not have created such a being as man,
with an ability to grasp the infinite, to exist only for a
day! No, no, man was made for immortality....Abraham Lincoln.
When I do good, I feel good. When I do bad,
I feel bad. That's my religion....Abraham Lincoln.
The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the
stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty,
and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new,
so we must think anew and act anew....Abraham Lincoln.
When I am getting ready to reason with a man, I spend one-third of
my time thinking about myself and what I am going to say and
two-thirds about him and what he is going to say....Abraham Lincoln.
Military glory-the attractive rainbow that
rises in showers of blood....Abraham Lincoln.
He has the right to criticize who has
the heart to help....Abraham Lincoln.
And in the end, it's not the years in your life that
count. It's the life in your years....Abraham Lincoln.
Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery, I feel a strong
impulse to see it tried on him personally....Abraham Lincoln.
Government of the people, by the people, for the people,
shall not perish from the Earth....Abraham Lincoln.
No man is good enough to govern another man
without that other's consent....Abraham Lincoln.
...that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of
freedom, and that Government of the people, by the people,
for the people, shall not perish from the earth....Abraham Lincoln.
This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who
inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government,
they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it or their
revolutionary right to dismember it or overthrow it....Abraham Lincoln.
Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power,
have the right to rise up, and shake off the existing government,
and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable,
a most sacred right -- a right, which we hope and believe, is to
liberate the world. Nor is this right confined to cases in which the
whole people of an existing government, may choose to exercise it. Any
portion of such people that can, may revolutionize, and make their own,
of so much of the territory as they inhabit....Abraham Lincoln.
Am I not destroying my enemies when I
make friends of them?....Abraham Lincoln.
The Lord prefers common-looking people. That's
why He makes so many of them....Abraham Lincoln.
I'll study and get ready and be prepared for
my opportunity when it comes....Abraham Lincoln.
I desire to so conduct the affairs of this administration that
if at the end, when I come to lay down the reins of power, I have
lost every other friend on earth, I shall at least have one friend
left, and that friend shall be down inside of me....Abraham Lincoln.
If I had eight hours to chop down a tree,
I'd spend six sharpening my ax....Abraham Lincoln.
I am not bound to win, but I am bound to be true. I am not bound
to succeed, but I am bound to live by the light that I have. I must
stand with anybody that stands right, and stand with him while he
is right, and part with him when he goes wrong....Abraham Lincoln.
Whatever woman may cast her lot with mine, should any ever do so,
it is my intention to do all in my power to make her happy and
contented; and there is nothing I can imagine that would make me
more unhappy than to fail in the effort....Abraham Lincoln.
Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test
a man's character, give him power....Abraham Lincoln.
Let us have faith that right makes might; and in that faith
let us dare to do our duty as we understand it....Abraham Lincoln.
What constitutes the bulwark of our own liberty and independence?
It is not...the guns of our war steamers, or the strength of our
gallant and disciplined army...our reliance is in the love of
liberty which God has planted in our bosoms....Abraham Lincoln.
No arsenal or no weapon in the arsenals of the
world is so formidable as the will and moral
courage of free men and women.....Ronald Wilson Reagan.
Freedom is the recognition that no single person, no single
authority of government as a monopoly on the truth, but
that every individual life is infinitely precious, that every
one of us put on this world has been put there for a reason
and has something to offer....Ronald Wilson Reagan.
The nine most terrifying words in the English language are,
"I'm from the government and I'm here to help"....Ronald Wilson Reagan.
Politics is supposed to be the second oldest profession.
I have come to to realize that it bears a very
close resemblance to the first....Ronald Wilson Reagan.
If I had a ticket to Heaven and
You didn't have one too,
I'd give up my ticket to Heaven,
And go to hell with you!....Ronald Wilson Reagan, toast to House Speaker Thomas P.O'Neill, Jr.
I have no trouble with my enemies. I can take care of my
enemies all right. But my damn friends...They're the ones
that keep me walking the floor nights!....Warren G. Harding.
Words without actions are the
assassins of idealism....Herbert Hoover.
The preservation of the sacred fire of liberty, and the destiny
of the Republican model of Government, are justly considered
as deeply, perhaps as finally staked, on the experiment
entrusted to the hands of the American people....George Washington.
Observe good faith and justice toward all nations.
Cultivate peace and harmony with all....George Washington.
I hope I shall always possess firmness and virtue enough to
maintain what I consider the most enviable of all titles,
the character of an "Honest Man"....George Washington.
Be courteous to all, but intimate with few, and let those few be
well tried before you give them your confidence. True friendship
is a plant of slow growth, and must undergo and withstand the shocks
of adversity before it is entitled to the appellation....George Washington.
When we assumed the Soldier, we did not
lay aside the Citizen....George Washington.
It is my earnest prayer to God that He would be most graciously
pleased to dispose us all to do justice, to love mercy, and to
demean ourselves with that charity, humility and specific temper
of mind which were the characteristics of the Divine Author of our
religion; without a humble imitation of whose example in these things
we can never hope to be a happy nation....George Washington.
Whereas it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the
providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for
His benefits, and humbly implore His protection and favor -- and
whereas both Houses of Congress have by their joint committee requested
me to recommend to the people of the United States a day of public
thanksgiving and prayer, to be observed by acknowledging with grateful
hearts the many signal favors of Almighty God, especially in a form
of government for their safety and happiness. Now, therefore, I do
recommend and assign Thursday...to be devoted by the people of these
states to the service of that great and glorious Being Who is the
beneficent Author of all that was, that is, or that will be -- that
we may then all unite in rendering Him our sincere and humble thanks....
And also that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers
and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of nations, and beseech Him
to pardon our national and other transgressions...to render our national
Government a blessing to the people...to protect and guide all sovereigns
and nations...and to bless them with good government, peace and concord.
To promote the knowledge and practice of true knowledge and virtue, and the
increase of science among them and us -- and generally to grant unto all mankind
such a degree of prosperity as He alone knows to be best....George Washington.
Discipline is the soul of an army. It makes small numbers formidable,
procures success to the weak, and esteem to all....George Washington.
The willingness with which our young people are likely to serve
in any war, no matter how justified, will be directly proportional
to how they perceive the veterans of earlier wars were
treated and appreciated by their nation....George Washington.
John Adams and Thomas Jefferson were political enemies,
but they became fast friends. And when they passed away
on the same day, the last words of one of them was,
"The country is safe. Jefferson still lives."
And the last words of the other was, "John Adams will
see that things go forward"....Harry S. Truman.
All my life, whenever it comes time to make a decision,
I make it and forget about it....Harry S. Truman.
The next time you begin to think you are all powerful, try ordering
someone else's dog around. Leadership is the ability to get people to
do what they don't want to do and like it....Harry S. Truman.
The American city should be a collection of communities where every
member has a right to belong. It should be a place where every man
feels safe on his streets and in the house of his friends. It should
be a place where each individual's dignity and self-respect is strengthened
by the respect and affection of his neighbors. It should be a place where
each of us can find the satisfaction and warmth which comes from being
a member of the community of man. This is what man sought at the
dawn of civilization. It is what we seek today....Lyndon Baines Johnson.
Yesterday is not ours to recover, but tomorrow
is ours to win or to lose....Lyndon Baines Johnson.
If we fail now, then we will have forgotten in abundance what
we learned in hardship: that democracy rests on faith; freedom
asks more than it gives; and the judgment of God is harshest
on those who are most favored....Lyndon Baines Johnson.
Power always thinks it has a great soul and vast views beyond
the comprehension of the weak; and that it is doing God's
service when it is violating all His laws....John Quincy Adams.
A man is not finished when he is defeated.
He is finished when he quits....Richard Nixon.
When the president does it, that means
it is not illegal....Richard M. Nixon.
The peace we seek to win is not victory over any other people,
but the peace that comes "with healing in its wings" with
compassion for those who have suffered; with understanding for those
who have opposed us; with the opportunity for all the peoples of
this Earth to choose their own destiny....Richard M. Nixon.
We cannot learn from one another until we stop shouting at
one another -- until we speak quietly enough so that our words
can be heard as well as our voices....Richard M. Nixon.
One man with courage makes a majority....Andrew Jackson.
Everyone has superstitions. One of mine has always been when I started
to go anywhere, or to do anything, never to turn back or to stop
until the things intended were accomplished....Ulysses Simpson Grant.
Two centuries ago our nation's birth was a milestone in the long quest
for freedom, but the bold and brilliant dream which excited the founders
of our nation still awaits its consummation. I have no new dream to set
forth today, but rather urge a fresh faith in the old dream....James Carter.
If there be a principle that ought not to be questioned within the United
States, it is that every man has a right to abolish an old government
and establish a new one. This principle is not only recorded in every
public archive, written in every American heart, and sealed with the
blood of a host of American martyrs, but is the only lawful tenure by
which the United States holds their existence as a nation....James Madison.
Yes, the president should resign. He's lied to the American people time
and time again and betrayed their trust. Since he has admitted guilt,
there's no reason to put the American people through an impeachment.
He will serve absolutely no purpose in finishing out his term. The
only possible solution is for the president to save some dignity
and resign....William Jefferson Clinton, spoken during the Nixon investigation.
African-Americans watch the same news at night that ordinary Americans
do....President Clinton on Black Entertainment Television, November 2, 1994.
When even one American -- who has done nothing wrong -- is
forced by fear to shut his mind and close his mouth --
then all Americans are in peril....Harry S. Truman.
We must have strong minds, ready to
accept facts as they are....Harry S. Truman.
Did you ever see a portrait of a great man without
perceiving strong traits of pain and anxiety?....John Adams.
Courage and perseverance have a magic talisman, before
which difficulties and obstacles vanish into air....John Adams.
Grief drives men into habits of serious reflection,
sharpens understanding and softens the heart....John Adams.
One person can make a difference and every
person should try....John Fitzgerald Kennedy.
The great French Marshall Lyautey once asked
his gardener to plant a tree. The gardener
objected that the tree was slow growing and
would not reach maturity for 100 years. The Marshall
replied, "In that case, there is no time to lose.
Plant it this afternoon!"....John Fitzgerald Kennedy.
The problems of the world cannot possibly be solved by skeptics or
cynics whose horizons are limited by the obvious realities. We need
men who can dream of things that never were....John Fitzgerald Kennedy.
And so, my fellow Americans; ask not what your country can do
for you -- ask what you can do for your country. My fellow citizens
of the world; ask not what America will do for you, but what
together we can do for the freedom of man....John Fitzgerald Kennedy.
When written in Chinese, the word crisis is composed
of two characters. One represents danger and the other
represents opportunity....John Fitzgerald Kennedy.
In the long history of the world, only a few generations have been
granted the role of defending freedom in its hour of maximum danger. I do
not shrink from this responsibility -- I welcome it....John Fitzgerald Kennedy.
Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill,
that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any
hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, to assure
the survival and success of liberty....John Fitzgerald Kennedy.
Today, we need a nation of Minutemen, citizens who are not only
prepared to take arms, but citizens who regard the preservation of
freedom as the basic purpose of their daily life and who are willing
to consciously work and sacrifice for that freedom....John Fitzgerald Kennedy.
Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past
or present are certain to miss the future....John Fitzgerald Kennedy.
Older men declare war. But it is youth that
must fight and die....Herbert Hoover.
I am captivated more by dreams of the future
than the history of the past....Thomas Jefferson.
I find that the harder I work, the more
luck I seem to have....Thomas Jefferson.
The happiest moments my heart knows are those in which it is pouring
forth its affections to a few esteemed characters....Thomas Jefferson.
Peace and friendship with all mankind is our wisest policy,
and I wish we may be permitted to pursue it....Thomas Jefferson.
But friendship is precious, not only in the shade, but in the
sunshine of life; and thanks to a benevolent arrangement of things,
the greater part of life is sunshine....Thomas Jefferson.
Whenever you do a thing, act as if all the
world were watching....Thomas Jefferson.
Never put off to tomorrow what you can do today.
Never trouble another with what you can do yourself.
Never spend your money before you have it.
Never buy a thing you do not want because it is
cheap, it will be dear to you. Take care of
your cents. Dollars will take care of themselves.
Pride costs more than hunger, thirst or cold.
We never repent of eating too little.
Nothing is troublesome that one does willingly.
Take things always by the smooth handle.
Think so as to please, and so let others
if you will have no disputes. When angry,
count to 10 before you speak,
if very angry, count to 100....Thomas Jefferson.
I have never considered a difference of opinion
in politics, in religion, in philosophy, as a cause
for withdrawing from a friendship....Thomas Jefferson.
Yet the hour of emancipation is advancing...this enterprise
is for the young; for those who can follow it up, and bear
it through to it's consummation. it shall have all my prayers,
and these are the only weapons of an old man....Thomas Jefferson.
I believe that every human mind feels pleasure
in doing good to another....Thomas Jefferson.
The God who gave us life, gave us
liberty at the same time....Thomas Jefferson.
Laws that forbid the carrying of arms...disarm only
those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit
crimes...Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and
better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage
than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked
with greater confidence than an armed man....Thomas Jefferson.
The most valuable of all talents is that of never
using two words when one will do....Thomas Jefferson.
I had rather be shut up in a very modest cottage with my books,
my family and a few old friends, dining on simple bacon, and
letting the world roll on as it liked, than to occupy the most
splendid post, which any human power can give....Thomas Jefferson.
Whenever the people are well informed, they can be
trusted with their own government; that whenever things
get so far wrong as to attract their notice, they
may be relied on to set them to rights....Thomas Jefferson.
I have often thought that nothing would do more extensive good
at small expense than the establishment of a small circulating
library in every county, to consist of a few well-chosen
books, to be lent to the people of the country under regulations
as would secure their safe return in due time....Thomas Jefferson.
Our particular principles of religion are a subject of accountability
to our God alone. I enquire after no man's and trouble none with
mine; nor is it given to us in this life to know whether yours or
mine, our friend's or our foe's, are exactly the right....Thomas Jefferson.
It is our duty still to endeavor to avoid war; but if it shall actually
take place, no matter by whom brought on, we must defend ourselves.
If our house be on fire, without inquiring whether it was fired
from within or without, we must try to extinguish it.....Thomas Jefferson.
There are many ways of going forward, but only one
way of standing still....Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
No man can tame a tiger into a kitten
by stroking it....Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
When you get to the end of your rope, tie a
knot and hang on....Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
Happiness...it lies in the joy of achievement, in the
thrill of creative effort....Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
Remember always that all of us, and you and
I especially, are descended from immigrants
and revolutionists....Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
When you see a rattlesnake poised to strike,
you do not wait until he has struck before
you crush him.....Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be
our doubts of today. Let us move forward with strong
and active faith....Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
You cannot be friends upon any other terms than
upon the terms of equality....Woodrow Wilson.
The way you let your hand rest in mine, my bewitching Sweetheart,
fills me with happiness. It is the perfection of confiding love.
Everything you do, the little unconscious things in particular,
charms me and increases my sense of nearness to you, identification
with you, till my heart is full to overflowing....Woodrow Wilson.
You are not here merely to make a living. You are
here in order to enable the world to live more amply,
with greater vision, with a finer spirit of hope and
achievement. You are here to enrich the world, and you
impoverish yourself if you forget the errand....Woodrow Wilson.
A conservative is a man who sits and
thinks, mostly sits....Woodrow Wilson.
Friendship is the only cement that will ever
hold the world together....Woodrow Wilson.
I would rather lose in a cause that will some day win, than
win in a cause that will some day lose!....Woodrow Wilson.
If you think about what you ought to do for other people,
your character will take care of itself....Woodrow Wilson.
Liberty has never come from government. Liberty has
always come from the subjects of government. The history
of liberty is the history of resistance....Woodrow Wilson.
We grow great by dreams. All big men are dreamers.
They see things in the soft haze of a spring day
or in the red fire of a long winter's evening.
Some of us let these great dreams die, but others
nourish and protect them; nurse them through bad days
till they bring them to the sunshine and light
which comes always to those who sincerely hope that
their dreams will come true....Woodrow Wilson.
To educate a man in mind and not in morals is to
educate a menace to society....Theodore Roosevelt.
Do what you can with what you have
where you are....Theodore Roosevelt.
There is a homely adage which runs: "Speak softly and
carry a big stick; you will go far"....Theodore Roosevelt.
A man who has never gone to school may steal from
a freight car; but if he has a university education,
he may steal the whole railroad....Theodore Roosevelt.
In any moment of decision the best thing you can do is the
right thing, the next best thing is the wrong thing, and
the worst thing you can do is nothing....Theodore Roosevelt.
Far better is it to dare mighty things, to win glorious
triumphs, even though checkered by failure...than to
rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor
suffer much, because they live in a gray twilight
that knows not victory nor defeat....Theodore Roosevelt.
Patriotism means to stand by the country. It does NOT
mean to stand by the President or any other public
official save exactly to the degree in which he himself
stands by the country. It is patriotic to support him insofar
as he efficiently serves the country. It is unpatriotic not to
oppose him to the exact extent that by inefficiency or otherwise
he fails in his duty to stand by the country....Theodore Roosevelt.
Let us show, not merely in great crises, but in every day affairs of
life, qualities of practical intelligence, of hardihood and endurance,
and above all, the power of devotion to a lofty ideal....Theodore Roosevelt.
Daring Greatly
It is not the critic who counts
Not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled
Or where the doer of deeds could have done them better.
The credit goes to the man who is actually in the arena
Whose face is marred by dust and blood
Who strives valiantly
Who errs and comes short again and again.
Who knows great enthusiasms
The great devotions.
Who spends himself in a worthy cause
Who at best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement
And who at the worst, if he fails
At least fails while Daring Greatly
So that his place shall never be
With the timid souls
Who neither know victory or defeat....Theodore Roosevelt.
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