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Quotes by President

"Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves are its only safe depositories."

"You are the most powerful cultural force in the world."

"The great increase of our population throughout the Union will alone produce an important effect, and in no quarter will it be so sensibly felt as in those in contemplation."

"I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy."

"Few men in our history have ever obtained the Presidency by planning to obtain it."

"Experience teaches us that it is much easier to prevent an enemy from posting themselves than it is to dislodge them after they have got possession."

"I have no other view than to promote the public good, and am unambitious of honors not founded in the approbation of my Country."

"To live under the American Constitution is the greatest political privilege that was ever accorded to the human race."

"The slogan of progress is changing from the full dinner pail to the full garage."

"Whatever starts in California unfortunately has an inclination to spread."

"We must adjust to changing times and still hold to unchanging principles."

"Under the benignant providence of Almighty God the representatives of the States and of the people are again brought together to deliberate for the public good."

"To vote is like the payment of a debt, a duty never to be neglected, if its performance is possible."

"I don't believe you can find any evidence of the fact that I have changed government policy solely because of a contribution."

"Liberty has never come from Government. Liberty has always come from the subjects of it. The history of liberty is a history of limitations of governmental power, not the increase of it."

"It is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed."

"Aggression unopposed becomes a contagious disease."

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

"One of the tests of the civilization of people is the treatment of its criminals."

"Government is a contrivance of human wisdom to provide for human wants. People have the right to expect that these wants will be provided for by this wisdom."

"I played by the rules of politics as I found them."

"To suppose that any form of government will secure liberty or happiness without any virtue in the people, is a chimerical idea."

"I'm not the smartest fellow in the world, but I can sure pick smart colleagues."

"Let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle."

"America did not invent human rights. In a very real sense human rights invented America."

"We must always remember that America is a great nation today not because of what government did for people but because of what people did for themselves and for one another."

"When people are bewildered they tend to become credulous."
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