Dwight d. eisenhower quotes

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.

The supreme quality of leadership is integrity.

No man can always be right. So the struggle is to do one's best, to keep the brain and conscience clear, never be swayed by unworthy motives or inconsequential reasons, but to strive to unearth the basic factors involved, then do one's duty.

Any nations right to a form of government and economic system of its own choosing is inalienable. Any nations attempt to dictate to other nations their form of government is indefensible.

Some politician some years ago said that bad officials are elected by good voters who do not vote.

Men of widely divergent views in our own country live in peace together because they share certain common aspirations which are more important than their differences.... The common responsibility of all Americans is to become effective, helpful participants in a way of life that blends and harmonizes the fiercely competitive demands of the individual and society.

It is better to have one person working with you than three people working for you.

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.

All generalizations are inaccurate, including this one.

This is a long tough road we have to travel. The men that can do things are going to be sought out just as surely as the sun rises in the morning. Fake reputations, habits of glib and clever speech, and glittering surface performance are going to be discovered.

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.

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.

The search for a scapegoat is the easiest of all hunting expeditions.

There is no glory in battle worth the blood it costs.

A sense of humor is part of the art of leadership, of getting along with people, of getting things done.

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.

Leadership consists of nothing but taking responsibility for everything that goes wrong and giving your subordinates credit for everything that goes well.

Never be more scared of the enemy than you think he is of you.

If a political party does not have its foundation in the determination to advance a cause that is right and that is moral, then it is not a political party; it is merely a conspiracy to seize power.

The middle of the road is all of the usable surface. The extremes, right and left, are in the gutters.

Every step we take towards making the State our Caretaker of our lives, by that much we move toward making the State our Master.

To blend, without coercion, the individual good and the common good is the essence of citizenship in a free country.

We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security.

A constitutional amendment for congressional term limits could never achieve the blessing of Congress; it could be initiated only by the states.

Preparing for battle, plans were essential. But once the battle was joined, plans were useless.

May we never confuse honest dissent with disloyal subversion.

If our founding fathers were alive today, they'd roll over in their graves.

Laughter can relieve tension, soothe the pain of disappointment, and strengthen the spirit for the formidable tasks that always lie ahead.

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

Without God there could be no American form of government, nor an American way of life. Recognition of the Supreme Being is the first, the most basic, expression of Americanism. Thus, the founding fathers of America saw it, and thus with God's help, it will continue to be.

Never waste a minute thinking about people you don't like.

Any time we deny any citizen the full exercise of his constitutional rights, we are weakening our own claim to them.

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

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.

In the service, when a man gives you his word, his word is binding. In politics, you never know.

I never saw a pessimistic general win a battle.

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.

The past sharpens perspective, warns against pitfalls, and helps to point the way.

Teachers need our active support and encouragement. They are doing one of the most necessary and exacting jobs in the land. They are developing our most precious national resource: our children, our future citizens.

Every leader should have enough humility to accept, publicly, the responsibility for the mistakes of the subordinates he has himself selected and, likewise, to give them credit, publicly, for their triumphs.

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

Don't join the book burners... Don't be afraid to go in your library and read every book.

Always try to associate yourself closely with and learn as much as you can from those who know more than you, who do better than you, who see more clearly than you. Apart from the rewards of friendship, the association might pay off at some unforeseen time - that is only an accidental byproduct. The important thing is that the learning will make you a better person.

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 citizenry 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.

We are particularly thankful to you for your part in the movement to have the words under God added to our Pledge of Allegiance. These words will remind Americans that despite our great physical strength we must remain humble. They will help us keep constantly in our minds and hearts the spiritual and moral principles which alone give dignity to man.

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.

It is only common sense to recognize that the great bulk of Americans, whether Republican or Democrat, face many common problems and agree on a number of basic objectives.

Most things which are urgent are not important, and most things which are important are not urgent.

Today in America, unions have a secure place in our industrial life. Only a handful of reactionaries harbor the ugly thought of breaking unions and depriving working men and women of the right to join the union of their choice. I have no use for those - regardless of their political party - who hold some vain and foolish dream of spinning the clock back to days when organized labor was huddled, almost as a hapless mass. Only a fool would try to deprive working men and women of the right to join the union of their choice.

We the people, elect leaders not to rule but to serve

We must achieve both security and solvency. In fact, the foundation of military strength is economic strength.

Plans are nothing; planning is everything.

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

Beware the military-industrial complex.

I believe that for the past twenty years there has been a creeping socialism spreading in the United States.

To have a free, peaceful and prosperous world we must be ever stronger particularly in the spiritual things....It is American belief in decency and justice and progress and the value of individual liberty because of the rights conferred on each of us by our Creator that willcarry us through.... There must be something in the heart as well as the head.

Any man who wants to be president is either an egomaniac or crazy.

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.

Mob rule can not be allowed to override the decisions of our courts.

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 crumbled-up spite and discarded personalities.

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.

Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it.

If men can develop weapons that are so terrifying as to make the thought of global war include almost a sentence for suicide, you would think that man's intelligence and his comprehension... would include also his ability to find a peaceful solution.

This is what I found out about religion: It gives you courage to make the 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.

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

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.

The future of this republic is in the hands of the American voter.

Freedom bestows on us the priceless gift of opportunity - if we neglect our opportunities we shall certainly lose our freedom.

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

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.

To be true to one's own freedom is, in essence, to honor and respect the freedom of all others.

If a man's associates find him guilty of being phony, if they find that he lacks forthright integrity, he will fail. His teachings and actions must square with each other. The first great need, therefore, is integrity and high purpose.

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

We have never stopped sin by passing laws; and in the same way, we are not going to take a great moral ideal and achieve it merely by law.

There are three stages of life: youth, maturity, and 'My, you're looking good!'

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.

Some day there is going to be a man sitting in my present chair who has not been raised in the military services and who will have little understanding of where slashes in their estimates can be made with little or no damage. If that should happen while we still have the state of tension that now exists in the world, I shudder to think of what could happen in this country

I despise people who go to the gutter on either the right or the left and hurl rocks at those in the center.

If we make ourselves worthy of America's ideals, if we do not forget that our nation was founded on the premise that all men are creatures of God's making, the world will come to know that it is free men who carry forward the true promise of human progress and dignity.

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

If all that Americans want is security, they can go to prison. They'll have enough to eat, a bed and a 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.

Never lose your temper, except intentionally.

The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities ... We pay for a single fighter 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.

You don't lead by hitting people over the head - that's assault, not leadership.

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. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the clouds of war, it is humanity hanging on a cross of iron.

In this hope, among the things we teach to the young are such truths as the transcendent value of the individual and the dignity of all people, the futility and stupidity of war, its destructiveness of life and its degradation of human values.

I'll tell you what leadership is. It's persuasion and conciliation, and education, and patience.

In vast stretches of the earth, men awoke today in hunger. They will spend the day in unceasing toil. And as the sun goes down they will still know hunger. They will see suffering in the eyes of their children. Many despair that their labor will ever decently shelter their families or protect them against disease. So long as this is so, peace and freedom will be in danger throughout our world. For wherever free men lose hope of progress, liberty will be weakened and the seeds of conflict will be sown.

What counts is not necessarily the size of the dog in the fight - it's the size of the fight in the dog.

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. There is a tiny splinter group of course that believes you can do these things. Among them are a few other Texas oil millionaires and an occasional politician or business man from other areas. Their number is negligible and they are stupid.

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.

There's no tragedy in life like the death of a child. Things never get back to the way they were.

A good teacher is one who can understand those who are not very good at explaining, and explain to those who are not very good at understanding.

The qualities of a great man are vision, integrity, courage, understanding, the power of articulation, and profundity of character.

I believe we must be strong militarily, but beyond a certain point military strength can become a national weakness.

And I should like to assure you, my Islamic friends, that under the American Constitution, under American tradition, and in American hearts, this Center, this place of worship, is just as welcome as could be a similar edifice of any other religion. Indeed, America would fight with her whole strength for your right to have here your own church and worship according to your own conscience. This concept is indeed a part of America, and without that concept we would be something else than what we are.

Extremes to the right and to the left of any political dispute are always wrong.

Accomplishment will prove to be a journey, not a destination.

Character in many ways is everything in leadership. It is made up of many things, but I would say character is really integrity. When you delegate something to a subordinate, for example, it is absolutely your responsibility, and he must understand this. You as a leader must take complete responsibility for what the subordinate does. I once said, as a sort of wisecrack, that leadership consists of nothing but taking responsibility for everything that goes wrong and giving your subordinates credit for everything that goes well.

Inflation is not a Robin Hood, taking from the rich to give to the poor. Rather, it deals most cruelly with those who can least protect themselves. It strikes hardest those millions of our citizens whose incomes do not quickly rise with the cost of living. When prices soar, the pensioner and the widow see their security undermined, the man of thrift sees his savings melt away; the white collar worker, the minister, and the teacher see their standards of living dragged down.

A preventive war, to my mind, is an impossibility today. How could you have one if one of its features would be several cities lying in ruins, several cities where many, many thousands of people would be dead and injured and mangled, the transportation systems destroyed, sanitation implements and systems all gone? That isn't preventive war; that is war.

The only way to win World War III is to prevent it.

I firmly believe that the army of persons who urge greater and greater centralization of authority and greater and greater dependence upon the Federal Treasury are really more dangerous to our form of government than any external threat that can possibly be arrayed against us.

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 spirit of man is more important than mere physical strength, and the spiritual fiber of a nation than its wealth. The Bible is endorsed by the ages. Our civilization is built upon its words. In no other book is there such a collection of inspired wisdom, reality, and hope.

The libraries of America are and must ever remain the home of free and inquiring minds. To them, our citizens-of all ages and races, of all creeds and persuasions-must be able to turn with clear confidence that there they can freely seek the whole truth, unvarnished by fashion and uncompromised by expediency.

Our best protection against bigger government in Washington is better government in the states.

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

Our American heritage is threatened as much by our own indifference as it is by the most unscrupulous office or by the most powerful foreign threat. The future of this republic is in the hands of the American voter.

Change based on principle is progress. Constant change without principle becomes chaos.

It is not a struggle merely of economic theories, or forms of government or of military power. At issue is the true nature of man. Either man is the creature whom the psalmist described as a little lower than the angels ... or man is a soulless, animated machine to be enslaved, used and consumed by the state for its own glorification. It is, therefore, a struggle which goes to the roots of the human spirit, and its shadow falls across the long sweep of man's destiny.

Leadership is the ability to decide what is to be done and then get others to do it.

The opportunist thinks of me and today. The statesman thinks of us and tomorrow.

Only strength can cooperate. Weakness can only beg.

For every obstacle there is a solution. Persistence is the key. The greatest mistake is giving up!

Pessimism never won any battle.

The world no longer has a choice between force and law; if civilization is to survive, it must choose the rule of law.

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.

Unless we progress, we regress.

Civilization owes to the Islamic world some of its most important tools and achievements...the Muslim genius has added much to the culture of all peoples.

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.

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.

Only Americans can hurt America.

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.

We have the disgrace of racial discrimination, or we have prejudice against people because of their religion. We have not had the courage to uproot these things, although we know they are wrong.