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Quotes by President
"Things do not happen. Things are made to happen."
3
"And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with His wrath? Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that his justice cannot sleep forever."
3
"One of our defects as a nation is a tendency to use what have been called "weasel words." When a weasel sucks eggs the meat is sucked out of the egg. If you use a "weasel word" after another there is nothing left of the other."
3
"Believe you can and you're halfway there."
3
"I walk on untrodden ground. There is scarcely any part of my conduct which may not hereafter be drawn into precedent."
3
"Experience demands that man is the only animal which devours his own kind, for I can apply no milder term to the general prey of the rich on the poor."
3
"There are no favorites in my office. I treat them all with the same general inconsideration."
3
"The whole commerce between master and slave is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous passions, the most unremitting despotism on the one part, and degrading submissions on the other. Our children see this, and learn to imitate it."
3
"There is no force so democratic as the force of an ideal."
3
"I thought it completely absurd to mention my name in the same breath as the presidency."
3
"What a stupendous, what an incomprehensible machine is man! Who can endure toil, famine, stripes, imprisonment and death itself in vindication of his own liberty, and the next moment . . . inflict on his fellow men a bondage, one hour of which is fraught with more misery than ages of that which he rose in rebellion to oppose."
3
"A bureaucrat is a Democrat who holds some office that a Republican wants."
3
"If everybody that voted in 2008 shows up in 2010, we will win this election. We will win this election."
3
"Nothing was or is farther from my intentions, than to enlist myself as the champion of a fixed opinion, where I have only expressed doubt."
3
"Implicit in the very idea of ordered liberty, was a rejection of absolute truth, the infallibility of any idea or ideology or theology or "ism, any tyrannical consistency that might lock future generations into a single, unalterable course, or drive both majorities and minorities into the cruelties of the Inquisition, the pogrom, the gulag, or the jihad....A rejection of absolutism, in all its forms, may sometimes slip into moral relativism or even nihilism, an erosion of values that hold society together."
3
"The Chinese use two brush strokes to write the word 'crisis.' One brush stroke stands for danger; the other for opportunity. In a crisis, be aware of the danger--but recognize the opportunity."
3
"Let me tell your something. I'm from Chicago. I don't break."
3
"Nothing in this world is worth having or worth doing unless it means effort, pain, difficulty. No kind of life is worth leading if it is always an easy life. I know that your life is hard; I know that your work is hard; and hardest of all for those of you who have the highest trained consciences, and who therefore feel always how much you ought to do. I know your work is hard, and that is why I congratulate you with all my heart. I have never in my life envied a human being who led an easy life; I have envied a great many people who led difficult lives and led them well."
3
"The highest duty of the writer is to remain true to himself and let the chips fall where they may. In serving his vision of the truth the artist best serves his nation."
3
"Every new day begins with possibilities. It's up to us to fill it with the things that move us toward progress and peace."
3
"Our purpose in Vietnam is to prevent the success of aggression. It is not conquest, it is not empire, it is not foreign bases, it is not domination. It is, simply put, just to prevent the forceful conquest of South Vietnam by North Vietnam."
3
"Politics is a profession; a serious, complicated and, in its true sense, a noble one."
3
"The rich alone use imported articles, and on these alone the whole taxes of the General Government are levied...and its surplus applied to canals, roads, schools, etc., the farmer will see his government supported, his children educated, and the face of his country made a paradise by the contributions of the rich alone, without his being called on to spend a cent from his earnings."
3
"We need to steer clear of this poverty of ambition, where people want to drive fancy cars and wear nice clothes and live in nice apartments but don't want to work hard to accomplish these things. Everyone should try to realize their full potential."
3
"The equal rights of man, and the happiness of every individual, are now acknowledged to be the only legitimate objects of government."
3
"We cordially believe in the rights of property. We think that normally and in the long run the rights of humanity, coincide with the rights of property... But we feel that if in exceptional cases there is any conflict between the rights of property and the rights of man, then we must stand for the rights of man."
3
"I had rather be shut up in a very modest cottage with my books, my family and a few old friends, dining on simple bacon, and letting the world roll on as it liked, than to occupy the most splendid post, which any human power can give."
3
"In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself."
3
"If it is believed that these elementary schools will be better managed by the governor and council or any other general authority of the government, than by the parents within each ward, it is a belief against all experience."
3
"There is filth on the floor, and it must be scraped up with the muck-rake."
3
"So, I'm lying on the couch and Laura walks in and I say, 'Free at last,' and she says 'You're free all right, you're free to do the dishes.' So I say, 'You're talking to the former president, baby,' and she said, 'consider this your new domestic policy agenda.'"
3
"A people without children would face a hopeless future, a country without trees is almost as helpless."
3
"It is an axiom in my mind, that our liberty can never be safe but in the hands of the people themselves, and that too of the people with a certain degree of instruction. This it is the business of the State to effect, and on a general plan."
3
"It might be said now that I have the best of both worlds. A Harvard education and a Yale degree."
3
"All eyes are opened, or opening, to the rights of man. The general spread of the light of science has already laid open to every view the palpable truth that the mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately, by the grace of God. These are grounds of hope for others. For ourselves, let the annual return of this day forever refresh our recollection of these rights, and an undiminished devotion to them."
3
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