Best Dwight D. Eisenhower Quotes

A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both.

Legislation to apply the principle of equal pay for equal work without discrimination because of sex is a matter of simple justice.

Don't join the book burners. Do not think you are going to conceal thoughts by concealing evidence that they ever existed.

Every gun that is fired, 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. The world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.

Peace and justice are two sides of the same coin.

We seek peace, knowing that peace is the climate of freedom.

The free world must not prove itself worthy of its own past.

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 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. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citzenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.

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.

An atheist is a man who watches a Notre Dame -- Southern Methodist University game and doesn't care who wins.

How far have we come in man's long pilgrimage from darkness toward light? Are we nearing the light—a day of freedom and of peace for all mankind? Or are the shadows of another night closing in upon us?

History does not long entrust the care of freedom to the weak or the timid.

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

In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.

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.

Motivation is the art of getting people to do what you want them to do because they want to do it.

We have heard much of the phrase, peace and friendship. This phrase, in expressing the aspiration of America, is not complete. We should say instead, peace and friendship, in freedom. This, I think, is America's real message to the rest of the world.

The best morale exist when you never hear the word mentioned. When you hear a lot of talk about it, it's usually lousy.

We look upon this shaken earth, and we declare our firm and fixed purpose—the building of a peace with justice in a world where moral law prevails.

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

The history of free men is never really written by chance but by choice; their choice!

Some people wanted champagne and caviar when they should have had beer and hot dogs.

May we never confuse honest dissent with disloyal subversion.

Farming looks mighty easy when your plow is a pencil, and you're a thousand miles from the corn field.

I'm saving that rocker for the day when I feel as old as I really am.

Only our individual faith in freedom can keep us free.

Humility must always be the portion of any man who receives acclaim earned in the blood of his followers and the sacrifices of his friends.

An intellectual is a man who takes more words than necessary to tell more than he knows.

Whatever America hopes to bring to pass in the world must first come to pass in the heart of America.

There is nothing wrong with America that faith, love of freedom, intelligence, and energy of her citizens cannot cure.

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.

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

The clearest way to show what the rule of law means to us in everyday life is to recall what has happened when there is no rule of law.

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.

Unlike presidential administrations, problems rarely have terminal dates.

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.

With 450,000 U. S. troops now in Vietnam, it is time that Congress decided whether or not to declare a state of war exists with North Vietnam. Previous congressional resolutions of support provide only limited authority. Although Congress may decide that the previously approved resolution on Vietnam given President Johnson is sufficient, the issue of a declaration of war should at least be put before the Congress for decision.

I say when you get into a war, you should win as quick as you can, because your losses become a function of the duration of the war. I believe when you get in a war, get everything you need and win it.

There are two kinds of mines; one is the personnel mine and the other is the vehicular mine. When we come to a mine field our infantry attacks exactly as if it were not there. The losses we get from personnel mines we consider only equal to those we would have gotten from machine guns and artillery if the Germans had chosen to defend that particular area with strong bodies of troops instead of with mine fields. The attacking infantry does not set off the vehicular mines, so after they have penetrated to the far side of the field they form a bridgehead, after which the engineers come up and dig out channels through which our vehicles can go.

The worst to be feared and the best to be expected can be simply stated. The worst is atomic war. The best would be this: a life of perpetual fear and tension; a burden of arms draining the wealth and the labor of all peoples; a wasting of strength that defies the American system or the Soviet system or any system to achieve true abundance and happiness for the peoples of this earth. 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. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities. It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some 50 miles of concrete highway. We pay for a single fighter plane with a half million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people. This, I repeat, is the best way of life to be found on the road the world has been taking. This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.

I have serious doubts about the value of debates in a presidential election. They tend to be a test of reaction time rather than a genuine exposition of the participants philosophies and programs. Further, in debate, candidates tend to overstate their views. In the 1960 situation I had a very practical objection: Nixon was widely known; Kennedy was not; dramatic debates would therefore help Kennedy.

But we know that freedom cannot be served by the devices of the tyrant. As it is an ancient truth that freedom cannot be legislated into existence, so it is no less obvious that freedom cannot be censored into existence. And any who act as if freedoms defenses are to be found in suppression and suspicion and fear confess a doctrine that is alien to America.

So that here we have, really, the compound, the overall philosophy of Lincoln: in all those things which deal with people, be liberal, be human. In all those things which deal with the peoples money or their economy, or their form of government, be conservativeand dont be afraid to use the word. And so today, Republicans come forward with programs in which there are such words as balanced budgets, and cutting expenditures, and all the kind of thing that means this economy must be conservative, it must be solvent. But they also come forward and say we are concerned with every Americans health, with a decent house for him, we are concerned that he will have a chance for health, and his children for education. We are going to see that he has power available to him. We are going to see that everything takes place that will enrich his life and let him as an individual, hard-working American citizen, have full opportunity to do for his children and his family what any decent American should want to do.

I make it a practice to avoid hating anyone. If someones been guilty of despicable actions, especially toward me, I try to forget him. I used to follow a practicesomewhat contrived, I admitto write the mans 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 Im concerned, that fellow. The drawer became over the years a sort of private wastebasket for crumbled-up spite and discarded personalities.

Should a nation which attacks and occupies foreign territory in the face of United Nations disapproval be allowed to impose conditions on its own withdrawal?