Never let yourself be persuaded that any one Great Man, any one leader, is necessary to the salvation of America. When America consists of one leader and 158 million followers, it will no longer be America.
Never question another man’s motive. His wisdom, yes, but not his motives.
Pull the string and it will follow wherever you wish. Push it, and it will go nowhere at all.
Never waste a minute thinking about people you don’t like.
Don’t join the book burners. Don’t think you’re going to conceal faults by concealing evidence that they ever existed. Don’t be afraid to go in your library and read every book…
In most communities it is illegal to cry “fire” in a crowded assembly. Should it not be considered serious international misconduct to manufacture a general war scare in an effort to achieve local political aims?
In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.
We are going to have peace even if we have to fight for it.
Never send a battalion to take a hill if a regiment is available.
Humility must always be the portion of any man who receives acclaim earned in blood of his followers and sacrifices of his friends.
Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.
Preventive war was an invention of Hitler. I would not even listen to anyone seriously that came and talked about such a thing.
A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both.
If you want total security, go to prison. There you’re fed, clothed, given medical care and so on. The only thing lacking… is freedom.
The history of free men is never written by chance but by choice – their choice.
Extremes to the right and to the left of any political dispute are always wrong.
Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it.
You do not lead by hitting people over the head — that’s assault, not leadership.
Always try to associate yourself with and learn as much as you can from those who know more than you do, who do better than you, who see more clearly than you.
shot through the heart, and you’re to blame! you give love, a bad name.
I like to believe that people in the long run are going to do more to promote peace than our governments. Indeed, I think that people want peace so much that one of these days governments had better get out of the way and let them have it.
I think that people want peace so much that one of these days government had better get out of the way and let them have it.
One day the people of the world will want peaceso much that the governments will have to get outof their way and give it to them.
Statesmanship is developed in the hard knocks of general experience, private and public.
Leadership consists of nothing but taking responsibility for everything that goes wrong and giving your subordinates credit for everything that goes well.
Don’t be afraid to go to your library and read every book as long as any document does not offend your own ideas of decency.
I don’t like the idea of something where you have to depend upon the integrity of the man and not the integrity of the institution.
If any blame or fault attaches to the attempt, it is mine alone.
We must achieve both security and solvency. In fact, the foundation of military strength is economic strength,
An atheist is a man who watches a Notre Dame – Southern Methodist University game and doesn’t care who wins.
When you appeal to force there’s one thing you must never do – lose.
Morale is the greatest single factor in successful wars.
What counts is not necessarily the size of the dog in the fight but the size of the fight in the dog.
Morale is the greatest single factor in successful wars.
Morale is the greatest single factor in successful wars.
An intellectual is a man who takes more words than necessary to tell more than he knows.
I would rather have a lucky general than a smart general. … They win battles and they make me lucky.
I think that people want peace so much that one of these days governments had better get out of their way and let them have it.
What counts is not necessarily the size of the dog in the fight – it’s the size of the fight in the dog.
No one can defeat us unless we first defeat ourselves.
This is what I found out about religion: It gives you courage to make decisions you must make in a crisis and then the confidence to leave the result to a Higher Power. Only by trust in God can a man carrying responsibility find repose.
If you want total security go to prison. There you’re fed clothed given medical care and so on. The only thing lacking … is freedom.
Morale is the greatest single factor in successful wars.
“Worry” is a word that I don’t allow myself to use.
The search for a scapegoat is the easiest of all hunting expeditions.
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.
If the United Nations once admits that international disputes can be settled by using force, then we will have destroyed the foundation of the organization and our best hope of establishing a world order.
Our forces saved the remnants of the Jewish people of Europe for a new life and a new hope in the reborn land of Israel. Along with all men of good will, I salute the young state and wish it well.
This world of ours… must avoid becoming a community of dreadful fear and hate, and be, instead, a proud confederation of mutual trust and respect.
I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity.
In most communities it is illegal to cry ‘fire’ in a crowded assembly. Should it not be considered serious international misconduct to manufacture a general war scare in an effort to achieve local political aims?
When people speak to you about a preventive war, you tell them to go and fight it. After my experience, I have come to hate war.
There is nothing wrong with America that faith, love of freedom, intelligence, and energy of her citizens cannot cure.
Only strength can cooperate. Weakness can only beg.
Our real problem, then, is not our strength today; it is rather the vital necessity of action today to ensure our strength tomorrow.
The spirit of man is more important than mere physical strength, and the spiritual fiber of a nation than its wealth.
There’s no tragedy in life like the death of a child. Things never get back to the way they were.
An intellectual is a man who takes more words than necessary to tell more than he knows.
The best morale exist when you never hear the word mentioned. When you hear a lot of talk about it, it’s usually lousy.
Neither a wise man nor a brave man lies down on the tracks of history to wait for the train of the future to run over him.
Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history.
History does not long entrust the care of freedom to the weak or the timid.
The history of free men is never really written by chance but by choice their choice!
The most terrible job in warfare is to be a second lieutenant leading a platoon when you are on the battlefield.
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.
What counts is not necessarily the size of the dog in the fight – it’s the size of the fight in the dog.
The supreme quality for leadership is unquestionably integrity. Without it, no real success is possible, no matter whether it is on a section gang, a football field, in an army, or in an office.
You don’t lead by hitting people over the head – that’s assault, not leadership.
If you want total security, go to prison. There you’re fed, clothed, given medical care and so on. The only thing lacking… is freedom.
Only our individual faith in freedom can keep us free.
Motivation is the art of getting people to do what you want them to do because they want to do it.
Politics ought to be the part-time profession of every citizen who would protect the rights and privileges of free people and who would preserve what is good and fruitful in our national heritage.
Politics is a profession; a serious, complicated and, in its true sense, a noble one.
Few women, I fear, have had such reason as I have to think the long sad years of youth were worth living for the sake of middle age.
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 problem to a manageable proportion.
Though force can protect in emergency, only justice, fairness, consideration and cooperation can finally lead men to the dawn of eternal peace.
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.
I think that people want peace so much that one of these days government had better get out of their way and let them have it.
Here in America we are descended in blood and in spirit from revolutionists and rebels – men and women who dare to dissent from accepted doctrine. As their heirs, may we never confuse honest dissent with disloyal subversion.
The history of free men is never really written by chance but by choice their choice!