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Washington |
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- "I cannot tell a lie." (year??)
- "To be prepared for war is one of the most effective means of
preserving peace." (January 8, 1790)
- "Happily the Government of the United States, which gives to
bigotry no sanction,
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persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its
protection should demean themselves as good citizens in giving on all
occasions their effectual support." (1790)
- "The basis of our political systems is the right of the people to
make and to alter their constitutions of government." (September
17, 1796)
- "Tis our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances, with any
portion of the foreign world." (September 17, 1796)
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Adams, J. |
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- "Liberty can not be preserved without general knowledge among
people. (August 1765)
- "Facts are stubborn things;
and whatever may be our wishes our inclinations, or the dictates of our
passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence." (December
1770)
- "A government of laws, and not of men. (1774)
- "It is weakness rather than wickedness which renders men unfit to be
trusted with unlimited power." (1788)
- "My country has in its wisdom contrived for me the most
insignificant office [the vice presidency] that ever the invention of
man contrived or his imagination conceived; and as I can do neither good
nor evil, I must be borne away by others and meet the common fate."
(December 19, 1793)
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Jefferson |
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- "When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one
people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with
another, and to assume among the powers of the Earth the separate and
equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's G-d entitle
them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they
should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. We hold
these truths to be self-evident; that all men are created equal; that
they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that
among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that to
secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving
their just powers from the consent of the governed;
that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends,
it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to
institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and
organizing its powers in such from, as to them shall seem most likely to
effect their safety and happiness." ("Declaration of
Independence," July 4, 1776)
[EDITOR'S NOTE: Please click here for an explanation of why "G-d"
is used]
- "Great innovations should not be forced on slender majorities."
(year??)
- "He who permits himself to tell a lie once, finds it much easier to
do it a second and third time, till at length it becomes habitual; he
tells lies without attending to it, and truths without the world's
believing him. This falsehood of the tongue leads to that of the
heart, and in time depraves all its good dispositions." (August 19,
1785)
- "I hold it, that a little rebellion, now and then, is a good thing,
and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical."
(January 30, 1787)
- "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the
blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure."
(November 13, 1787)
- "Delay is preferable to error." (May 16, 1792)
- "An injured friend is the bitterest of foes." (April 28, 1793)
- "I have sworn upon the altar of G-d, eternal hostility against every
form of tyranny over the mind of man." (September 23, 1800)
[EDITOR'S NOTE: Please click here for an explanation of why "G-d"
is used]
- "History, in general, only informs us what bad government is." (June
14, 1807)
- "I can not live without books." (June 10, 1815)
- "I know no safe depository of the ultimate powers of society but the
people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to
exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to
take it from them, but to inform their discretion." (September 28, 1820)
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Madison |
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- "A standing army is one of the greatest mischiefs that can possibly
happen." (1787)
- "I believe there are more instances of the abridgement of the
freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in
power than by violent and sudden usurpations." (June 16, 1788)
- "A public debt is a public curse." (April 13, 1790)
- "All power in human hands is liable to be abused." (December 18,
1825)
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Monroe |
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- "The right of self-defense never ceases. It is among the most
sacred, and alike necessary to nations and to individuals." (November
16, 1818)
- "The American continents ... are henceforth not to be considered as
subjects for future colonization by any European powers." (December 2,
1823)
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Adams, J. Q. |
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- "Slavery is the great and foul stain upon the North American
Union." (January 10, 1820)
- "There is nothing so deep and nothing so shallow which political
enmity will not turn to account." (August 19, 1822)
- "In charity to all mankind, bearing no malice or ill will or any
human being, and even compassionating those who hold in bondage their
fellow men, not knowing what they do." (July 30, 1838)
- "I say women exhibit the most exalted virtue when they depart from
the domestic circle and enter on the concerns of their country, of
humanity, and of their G-d!" (February 1838)
[EDITOR'S NOTE: Please click here for an explanation of why "G-d"
is used]
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Jackson |
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- "One man with courage makes a majority." (1832)
- "There are no necessary evils in government." ( July 10, 1832)
- "The right of resisting oppression is a natural right." (December
14, 1832)
- "If he [the President] speaks to Congress, it must be in the
language of truth." (October 27, 1834)
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Van Buren |
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- "No evil can result from its [slavery's] inhibition more pernicious
than its toleration." (January 4, 1820)
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Harrison, W. |
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- "I contend that the strongest of all governments is that which is
most free." (September 27, 1829)
- "A decent and manly examination of the acts of government should not
only be tolerated, but encouraged." (March 4, 1841)
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Tyler |
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- "Wealth can only be accumulated by the earnings of industry and the
savings of frugality." (December 7, 1841)
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Polk |
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- "There is more selfishness and less principle among members of
Congress ... than I had any conception of, before I became President of
the U.S." (December 16, 1846)
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Taylor |
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- "It would be judicious to act with magnanimity towards a prostrate
foe." (September 28, 1846)
- "Tell him to go to hell." (1847) [Reply to Santa Anna's
demand for surrender.]
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Fillmore |
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- "An honorable defeat is better than a dishonorable victory."
(September 13, 1844)
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Pierce |
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- "The maintenance of large standing armies in our country would be
not only dangerous, but unnecessary." (March 4, 1853)
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Buchanan |
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- "The ballot box is the surest arbiter of disputes among free men."
(December 3, 1860)
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Lincoln |
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- "There is no grievance that is a fit object of redress by mob law."
(January 27, 1838)
- "The ballot is stronger than the bullet." (May 19, 1865)
- "A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this
government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free."
(June 16, 1858)
- "You can fool all of the people some of the time, and some of the
people all of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of
the time." (year??)
- "If [General] McClellan is not using the army, I should like to
borrow it for a while." (April 9, 1862)
- "If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it;
and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it; and if
I could do it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would do
that." (August 1862)
- "Fellow citizens, we cannot escape history." (December 1, 1862)
- "The fiery trial through which we pass will light us down in honor
or dishonor to the last generation. We say we are for the Union.
The world will not forget that we say this. We know how to save
it. We, even we here, hold the power and bear the responsibility.
In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free ---
honorable alike in what we give and what we preserve. We shall
nobly save or meanly lose the last, best hope of Earth. Other
means may succeed; this could not fail. The way is plain,
peaceful, generous, just --- a way which if followed the world will
forever applaud and G-d must forever bless." (December 1, 1862)
[EDITOR'S NOTE: Please click here for an explanation of why "G-d"
is used]
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Gettysburg Address: (Well worth repeating in full).
"Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this
continent, a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the
proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in
a great civil war, testing whether that nation or any nation so
conceived and so dedicated can long endure. We are met on a great
battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of
that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives
that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper
that we should do this. But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate
- we cannot consecrate - we cannot hallow - this ground. The brave
men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it far above
our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note nor
long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did
here. It is for us, the living, rather to be dedicated here to the
unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly
advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great
task before us - that from these honored dead we take increased devotion
to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion;
that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain;
that this nation, under G-d, 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." (November 19, 1863)
[EDITOR'S NOTE: Please click here for an explanation of why "G-d"
is used]
- "Common-looking people are the best in the world: that is the
reason the Lord makes so many of them." (December 23, 1863)
- "I wish some of you would tell me the brand of whiskey that Grant
drinks. I would like to send a barrel of it to my other generals."
(November 26, 1863)
- "Truth is generally the best vindication against slander." (July 18,
1864)
- "It is best not to swap horses while crossing the river." (June 9,
1864)
- Second Inaugural (Excerpt): "With
malice toward none, with charity for all,
with firmness in the right as G-d gives us to see the right, let us
strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds,
to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and
his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting
peace among ourselves and with all nations." (March 4, 1865)
[EDITOR'S NOTE: Please click here for an explanation of why "G-d"
is used]
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Johnson, A. |
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- "Legislation can neither be wise nor just which seeks the welfare of
a single interest at the expense and to the injury of many and varied
interests." (February 22, 1869)
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Grant |
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- "No terms except unconditional and immediate surrender can be
accepted." (February 16, 1862)
- "The war is over -- the rebels are our countrymen again." (April 9,
1865) [Comments to his cheering men after Lee's surrender
ending the U.S. Civil War.]
- "I know no method to secure the repeal of bad or obnoxious laws so
effective as their stringent execution." (March 4, 1869)
- "Keep the church and State forever separate." (1875)
- "To maintain peace in the future it is necessary to be prepared for
war." (1886)
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Hayes |
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- "Nothing brings out the lower traits of human nature like office
seeking." (1878)
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Garfield |
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- "All free governments are managed by the combined wisdom and folly
of the people." (April 21, 1880)
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Arthur |
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- "Men may die, but the fabrics of free institutions remain
unshaken." (September 22, 1881)
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Cleveland |
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- "A man is known by the company he keeps, and also by the company
from which he is kept out." (year??)
- "Your every voter, as surely as your chief magistrate, exercises a
public trust." (March 4, 1885)
- "Communism is a hateful thing, and a menace to peace and organized
government." (December 3, 1888)
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Harrison, B. |
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- "Where the children of rich and poor mingle together on the play
ground and in the school room, there is produced a unity of feeling and
a popular love for public institutions that can be brought about in no
other way." (May 9, 1891)
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McKinley |
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- "War should never be entered upon until every agency of peace has
failed." (March 4, 1897)
- "That's all a man can hope for during his lifetime -- to set an
example -- and when he is dead, to be an inspiration for history."
(December 29, 1899)
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Roosevelt, T. |
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- "Actions speak louder than words." (year??)
- "I wish to preach, not the doctrine of ignoble ease, but the
doctrine of the strenuous life." (April 10, 1899).
- "No man is justified in doing evil on the ground of expediency."
(1900)
- "There is a homely adage which runs, speak softly and carry a big
stick; you will go far. If the American nation will speak softly
and yet build and keep at a pitch of the highest training a thoroughly
efficient navy, the Monroe Doctrine will go far." (September 2, 1901)
- "No man is above the law and no man is below it; nor do we ask any
man's permission when we require him to obey it. Obedience to the
law is demanded as a right; not asked as a favor." (December 7, 1903)
- "If elected, I shall see to it that every man has a square deal, no
less and no more." (November 1904)
- "To waste, to destroy, our natural resources, to skin and exhaust
the land instead of using it so as to increase its usefulness, will
result in undermining in the days of our children the very prosperity
which we ought by right to hand down to them amplified and
developed" (December 3, 1907)
- "Americanism is a question of principle, of purpose, of idealism, or
character; it is not a matter of birthplace or creed or line of
descent." (1909)
- "No other President ever enjoyed the Presidency as I did."
(September 10, 1909)
- "I feel as fit as a bull moose." (August 7, 1912)
- "Every reform movement has a lunatic fringe." (1913)
- "There is no room in this country for hyphenated Americanism."
(October 12, 1915)
- "One of our defects as a nation is a tendency to use what have been
called "weasel words." (May 31, 1916)
- "The White House is a bully pulpit." (year??)
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Taft |
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- "Socialism proposes no adequate substitute for the motive of
enlightened selfishness that today is at the basis of all human labor
and effort, enterprise and new activity." (1913)
- "The world is not going to be saved by legislation." (1916)
- "We live in a stage of politics, where legislators seem to regard
the passage of laws as much more important than the results of their
enforcement." (1916)
- "Anti-Semitism is a noxious weed that should be cut out. It
has no place in America." (1920)
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Wilson |
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- "Politics is a war of causes; a joust of principles." (March 1880)
- "There is no indispensable man." (August 7, 1912)
- "There is such a thing as a man being too proud to fight." (May 10,
1915)
- "America cannot be an ostrich with its head in the sand." (February
2, 1916)
- "Every people has a right to choose the sovereignty under which they
shall live." (May 27, 1916)
- "It must be a peace without victory. . . . Only a peace between
equals can last." (January 22, 1917)
- "The world must be made safe for democracy." (April 2, 1917)
- "Open covenants of peace, openly arrived at." (January 8, 1918)
- "America is the only idealistic nation in the world." (September 8,
1919)
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Harding |
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- "In the great fulfillment we must have a citizenship less concerned
about what the government can do for it and more anxious about what it
can do for the nation." (June 7, 1916)
- "America's present need is not heroics, but healing; not nostrums
but normalcy; not revolution, but restoration" (May 14, 1920)
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"Our most dangerous tendency is to expect too much of
government, and at the same time do for it too little. . . .
We must strive for normalcy to reach stability." (March 4, 1921)
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Coolidge |
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- "Character is the only secure foundation of the state." (February
12, 1924)
- "The business of America is business." (January 17, 1925)
- "Perhaps one of the most important accomplishments of my
administration has been minding my own business" (March 1, 1929)
- "Public debt [is] a burden on all the people." (1929)
- "The more I study it [the Constitution], the more I have come to
admire it, realizing that no other document devised by the hand of man
ever brought so much progress and happiness to humanity." (1929)
- "It is difficult for men in high office to avoid the malady of
self-delusion" (1929)
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Hoover |
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- "We have learned that social injustice is the destruction of justice
itself." (1922)
- "The course of unbalanced budgets is the road to ruin" (May 31,
1932)
- "Older men declare war. But it is youth that must fight and
die." (June 27, 1944)
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Roosevelt, F. |
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- "I pledge you, pledge myself, to a New Deal for the American people.
Let us all here assembled constitute ourselves prophets of a new order
of competence and of courage. This is more than a political
campaign; it is a call to arms. Give me your help, not to win
votes alone, but to win in this crusade to restore America to its own
people." (July 2, 1932)
- "In the field of world policy; I would dedicate this nation to the
policy of the good neighbor." (March 4, 1933)
- "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself - nameless,
unreasoning, unjustified terror." (March 4, 1933)
- "We can afford all that we need; but we can not afford all [that] we
want." (May 22, 1935)
- "This generation of Americans has a rendezvous with destiny." (June
27, 1936)
- "Your boys are not going to be sent into any foreign wars." (October
30, 1940)
- "We must be the great arsenal of democracy." (December 29, 1940)
- "A good leader can't get too far ahead of his followers." (1940)
- "Freedom of conscience, of education, of speech, of assembly are
among the very fundamentals of democracy and all of them would be
nullified should freedom of the press ever be successfully
challenged." (September 4, 1940)
- "Yesterday, December 7, 1941 - a date which will live in infamy -
the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by
naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan." (December 8, 1941)
- "We have learned that we can not live alone, at peace; that our own
well-being is dependent on the well-being of other nations, far away.
We have learned that we must live as men, and not as ostriches, nor as
dogs in the manger. We have learned to be citizens of the world,
members of the human community." (January 20, 1945)
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Truman |
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- "If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen." (1960)
- "The buck stops here." (Sign on President Truman's desk
in the Oval Office of the White House)
- "The only thing new in the world is the history you don't know." (1974)
- "Secrecy and a free, democratic government don't mix." (1974)
- "America was not built on fear. America was built on courage,
on imagination and an unbeatable determination to do the job at
hand." (January 8, 1947)
- "International relations have traditionally been compared to a chess
game in which each nation tries to outwit and checkmate the
other." (March 3, 1947)
- "No government is perfect. One of the chief virtues of a
democracy, however, is that its defects are always visible and under
democratic processes can be pointed out and corrected." (March 12, 1947)
- "You can not stop the spread of an idea by passing a law against
it." (June 4, 1948)
- "Isolationism is the road to war. Worse than that,
isolationism is the road to defeat in war." (June 10, 1950)
- "Being a President is like riding a tiger. A man has to keep
on riding or be swallowed." (1956)
- "We need not fear the expression of ideas -- we do need to fear
their suppression." (September 22, 1950)
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Eisenhower |
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- "Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired,
in a final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those
who are cold and are not clothed." (April 16, 1953).
- "Mob rule can not be allowed to override the decisions of our
courts." (September 24, 1957)
- "America is best described by one word, freedom." (January 9, 1958)
- "This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large
arms industry is new in the American experience. . . . In the
councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of
unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the
military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise
of misplaced power exists and will persist." (January 17, 1961)
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Kennedy |
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- "New frontier." (July 15, 1960)
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Inaugural (Excerpts):
Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe
alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans,
born in this century, tempered by war, disciplined by a hard and bitter
peace, proud of our ancient heritage, and unwilling to witness or permit
the slow undoing of those human rights to which this nation has always
been committed, and to which we are committed today at home and around
the world. 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
the success of liberty. . . . Let us never negotiate out of
fear, but let us never fear to negotiate. . . .
And so my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you;
ask what you can do for your country." (January 20, 1961)
- "I believe this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal,
before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning
him safely to earth." (May 23, 1961)
- "Mankind must put an end to war or war will put an end to mankind"
(September 25, 1961)
- "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent
revolution inevitable" (March 12, 1962).
- "There is always inequity in life. . . . Life is unfair."
(March 21, 1962)
- "This government, as promised, has maintained the closest
surveillance of the Soviet military buildup on the island of Cuba."
(October 1962)
- "All free men, wherever they may live, are citizens of Berlin.
And therefore, as a free man, I take pride in the words Ich bin ein
Berliner." (June 26, 1963)
- "If we cannot end now our differences, at least we can help make the
world safe for diversity." (June 10, 1963)
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Johnson, L. |
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- "Come now. let us reason together." (Saying attributed to him)
- "All I have I would have given gladly not to be standing here
today." (Speech he gave before Congress five days after the
assassination of President Kennedy in November 1963)
- "Evil acts of the past are never rectified by evil acts of the
present." (July 21, 1964)
- "War on poverty" (January 8, 1964)
- "If government is to serve any purpose it is to do for others what
they are unable to do for themselves." (1966)
- "I will not seek, and I will not accept the nomination of my party
for another term as your president." (1968)
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Nixon |
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- "You won't have Nixon to kick around anymore, because gentlemen,
this is my last press conference." (November 7, 1962)
- "You can not win a battle in any arena merely by defending
yourself." (1962)
- "A man who has never lost himself in a cause bigger than himself has
missed one of life's mountaintop experiences. Only in losing
himself does he find himself." (1962)
- "Bring us together again." (October 31, 1968)
- "The great silent majority." (November 3, 1969)
- "People have got to know whether or not their President is a crook.
Well, I'm not a crook." (November 11, 1973)
- "Always give your best, never get discourage, never be petty;
always remember, others may hate you. Those who hate you don't win
unless you hate them. And then you destroy yourself." (August
9, 1974)
- "When the Presiden
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Memorable
U.S. Presidential Quotations (by President)
