Quotes

  1. The Eisenhowers
  2. Quotes

Agriculture

"The proper role of government, still, is that of partner with the farmer -- never his master. By every possible ways we must develop and promote that partnership -- to the cease that agronomics may keep to be a sound, indelible foundation for our economy and that farm living may be a assisting and satisfying experience."
Special Bulletin to the Congress on Agriculture, one/nine/56

"You know, farming looks mighty easy when your plough is a pencil, and you're a thousand miles from the corn field."
Address at Bradley Academy, Peoria, Illinois, 9/25/56

Anecdotes

"I come up from the very eye of America."
Guildhall Voice communication, London, vi/12/45 Audio clip

"The proudest matter I can claim is that I am from Abilene."
Homecoming Speech, Abilene, Kansas, half-dozen/22/45 Audio clip

"Don't defend yourself. Don't explain. Don't worry."
Letter, DDE to Omar Bradley, ten/26/1949 [DDE'south Pre-Presidential Papers, Box xiii]

"Whatever America hopes to bring to pass in the world must first come to pass in the heart of America."
Countdown Address, Washington, DC, 1/20/53 Audio clip

"For history does not long entrust the care of liberty to the weak or the timid."
Inaugural Address, Washington, DC, 1/20/53 Audio clip

"A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both."
Inaugural Address, Washington, DC, one/20/53 Audio clip

"There is -- in globe diplomacy -- a steady class to be followed between an exclamation of strength that is truculent and a confession of helplessness that is cowardly."
State of the Wedlock Address, 2/two/53 Audio clip

"Thank goodness, many years ago, I had a preceptor, for whom my admiration has never died, and he had a favorite saying, one that I trust I try to live by. Information technology was: ever have your task seriously, never yourself."
Address at the New England "Forward to '54" Dinner, Boston, Massachusetts, 9/21/53

"I was raised in a petty town of which nigh of yous have never heard. But in the West it is a famous place. It is called Abilene, Kansas. Nosotros had equally our align for a long fourth dimension a man named Wild Bill Hickok. If you don't know anything nigh him, read your Westerns more than. Now that town had a code, and I was raised as a boy to prize that code. It was: meet anyone face to face up with whom yous disagree. You could not sneak upward on him from behind, or do whatever damage to him, without suffering the penalization of an outraged citizenry. If you met him face to confront and took the same risks he did, y'all could get away with almost anything, every bit long as the bullet was in the front end."
Remarks Upon Receiving America'south Autonomous Legacy Laurels at a B'nai B'rith Dinner in Honor of the 40th Anniversary of the Anti-Defamation League, eleven/23/53 Audio clip

"At that place is an old saw in the services: that which is non inspected deteriorates."
The President's News Conference of 5/12/54 Audio clip

"Well, it is very of import, and the great idea of setting upwards an organism is then every bit to defeat the domino result. When, each standing alone, one falls, it has the effect on the next, and finally the whole row is downwardly. You are trying, through a unifying influence, to build that row of dominoes so they can stand up the fall of one, if necessary."
The President's News Briefing of 5/12/54 Audio clip

"When I was a boy, I was one of six in my family unit. We had a quarrel daily every bit to who could become up and do the chore of bringing the groceries downwardly dwelling house. They had a practise then, in grocery stores, that I understand growing efficiency has eliminated -- ever hoping that the grocer would say you tin accept one of the dried prunes out of the butt over there. But amend than that was the dill pickle jar that you lot could dive into, sometimes arm deep near, and endeavour to become ane. I understand that they are non that accommodating anymore; nosotros have got too efficient. When you get effectually picking things off the shelf, yous pay for them. These, you understand, were free. That meant a lot to young boys to whom a nickel looked near as large every bit a wheel on a farm wagon."
Remarks at the Convention of the National Clan of Retail Grocers, 6/xvi/54Audio clip

"Now I realize that on any particular decision a very groovy corporeality of rut can be generated. Just I do say this: life is not made up of just i decision here, or another one there. It is the total of the decisions that you make in your daily lives with respect to politics, to your family unit, to your environment, to the people most you. Government has to exercise that same affair. It is simply in the mass that finally philosophy really emerges."
Remarks at Luncheon Coming together of the Republican National Committee and the Republican National Finance Committee, 2/17/55

"Today there is a nifty ideological struggle going on in the globe. One side upholds what it calls the materialistic dialectic. Denying the beingness of spiritual values, it maintains that human being responds only to materialistic influences and consequently he is nothing. He is an educated animal and is useful but every bit he serves the ambitions -- desires -- of a ruling clique; though they try to make this finer-sounding than that, because they say their dictatorship is that of the proletariat, pregnant that they rule in the people'southward proper name -- for the people. Now, on our side, we recognize right away that man is not merely an animate being, that his life and his ambitions take at the bottom a foundation of spiritual values."
Remarks at 11th Annual Washington Conference of the Advert Council, 3/22/55 Audio clip

"Some pol some years ago said that bad officials are elected past practiced voters who exercise not vote."
Remarks at the Breakfast Coming together of Republican Land Chairmen, Denver, Colorado, 9/10/55

"Change based on principle is progress. Constant change without principle becomes anarchy."
Address at the Cow Palace on Accepting the Nomination of the Republican National Convention, 8/23/56 Audio clip

"One American put it this way: 'Every tomorrow has ii handles. We can have hold of it with the handle of anxiety or the handle of faith'."
Address at the Cow Palace on Accepting the Nomination of the Republican National Convention, 8/23/56 Audio clip

"The globe moves, and ideas that were good one time are non always good."
The President's News Conference of 8/31/56 Audio clip

"I believe when you are in any competition you should piece of work like there is always to the very last minute a chance to lose it. This is battle, this is politics, this is anything. Then I just come across no excuse if you believe annihilation plenty for not putting your whole heart into it. Information technology is what I practise."
The President's News Conference of ix/27/56Audio clip

"I belong to a family of boys who were raised in meager circumstances in central Kansas, and every i of us earned our fashion equally we went along, and it never occurred to us that we were poor, only we were."
Television Broadcast: "The People Ask the President," 10/12/56

"The hope of the globe is that wisdom tin can arrest conflict betwixt brothers. I believe that state of war is the deadly harvest of big-headed and unreasoning minds."
Address, National Educational activity Association, Washington, DC, iv/4/57 Audio clip

"I tell this story to illustrate the truth of the statement I heard long ago in the Army: Plans are worthless, but planning is everything."
Remarks at the National Defense Executive Reserve Briefing, xi/14/57 Audio clip

"But these calculations overlook the decisive element: what counts is not necessarily the size of the dog in the fight -- it'south the size of the fight in the dog."
Excerpts From Remarks at Republican National Committee Breakfast, 1/31/58

"But finally, at that place is one other quality I would mention amid these that I believe will fit you for difficult and important posts. This is a healthy and lively sense of humor."
Accost at U. Southward. Naval Academy Commencement, 6/iv/58

"A famous Frenchman once said, 'War has become far too important to entrust to the generals.' Today, business organization, I think, should exist saying: 'Politics take go far too of import to entrust to the politicians'."
Remarks, Business organization Council, Hot Springs, Virginia, 10/20/62

Render TO Superlative

Censorship

"Censorship, in my opinion, is a stupid and shallow way of approaching the solution to whatever problem. Though sometimes necessary, equally witness a professional and technical secret that may take a bearing upon the welfare and very safety of this country, nosotros should be very careful in the way we utilise it, because in censorship ever lurks the very swell danger of working to the disadvantage of the American nation."
Associated Press luncheon, New York, New York, 4/24/fifty

"Don't join the book burners. Don't think you are going to conceal faults by concealing evidence that they ever existed. Don't be agape to get in your library and read every book, as long as that document does non offend our own ideas of decency. That should exist the only censorship."
Remarks at the Dartmouth Higher Outset Exercises, Hanover, New Hampshire, 6/14/53[Audio]

Children/Youth/Families

"Youth -- our greatest resource -- is beingness seriously neglected in a vital respect. The nation as a whole is not preparing teachers or building schools fast enough to keep upward with the increase in our population."
Almanac Message to the Congress on the Land of the Union, one/7/54[Audio]

"I say with all the earnestness that I can command, that if American mothers will teach our children that in that location is no terminate to the fight for better relationships among the people of the world, nosotros shall take peace."
Address to the National Council of Catholic Women, Boston, Massachusetts, eleven/8/54

"In this connexion, I should mention our enormous national debt. We must begin to make some payments on it if we are to avoid passing on to our children an impossible burden of debt."
Remarks on the Country of the Spousal relationship Message, Key West, Florida, 1/5/56[Sound]

"Teachers need our agile support and encouragement. They are doing one of the most necessary and exacting jobs in the country. They are developing our most precious national resources: our children, our hereafter citizens."
Address at the Centennial Celebration Banquet of the National Educational activity Association, iv/four/57 [Sound]

"Now, the education of our children is of national concern, and if they are non educated properly, it is a national calamity."
The President's News Conference of 7/31/57 [AUDIO]

"I am not hither, of course, as one pretending to any expertness on questions of youth and children -- except in the sense that, within their ain families, all grandfathers are experts on these matters."
Address at the Opening Session of the White House Conference on Children and Youth, College Park, Maryland, three/27/60 [AUDIO]

Return TO Pinnacle

Citizenship

"Commonwealth is essentially a political system that recognizes the equality of humans earlier the police force." -Accost to Elective Assembly, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Baronial 8, 1946

"The freedom of the private and his willingness to follow existent leadership are at the cadre of America's strength." - Address at Norwich Academy, Northfield, Vermont, June 9, 1946

"The proudest human that walks the earth is a free American citizen." -Talk at the Commercial Social club of Chicago, May 21, 1948

"A people that values its privileges above its principles presently loses both." -Inaugural Address, January 20, 1953

"I believe the just mode to protect my own rights is to protect the rights of others." -Remarks at the United Negro Higher Fund lunch, May 19, 1953

"I believe equally long as nosotros allow weather condition to exist that make for second-class citizens, we are making of ourselves less than first-form citizens." -Remarks at the United Negro College Fund tiffin, May 19, 1953

"The general limits of your freedom are merely these: that you practice not trespass upon the equal rights of others." -Remarks to the National Guild of the Daughters of the American Revolution, April 22, 1954

"The history of free men is never really written by chance--but by choice--their pick." -Address in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, October 9, 1956

"A foundation of our American way of life is our national respect for constabulary." - Address to the American People on the situation in Trivial Rock, Arkansas, September 24, 1957

"Freedom under constabulary is like the air we breathe." -Remarks on the Observance of Law 24-hour interval, April thirty, 1958

"It is merely every bit nosotros govern ourselves that we are well-governed." -Remarks on the Observance of Police Day, April 30, 1958

Ceremonious Rights

"I propose to use any say-so exists in the office of the President to stop segregation in the Commune of Columbia, including the Federal Government, and whatsoever segregation in the Military machine."
Annual Message to the Congress on the Land of the Matrimony, 2/two/53 [Audio]

"We accept erased segregation in those areas of national life to which Federal authority clearly extends. So doing in this, my friends, we take neither sought nor claimed partisan credit, and all such actions are nothing more -- null less than the rendering of justice. And we have always been aware of this great truth: the final battle against intolerance is to be fought -- not in the chambers of any legislature -- but in the hearts of men."
Address at the Hollywood Bowl, Beverly Hills, California, 10/xix/56[AUDIO]

"It was my hope that this localized state of affairs would be brought under control past city and State authorities. If the use of local police powers had been sufficient, our traditional method of leaving the problems in those hands would have been pursued. But when large gatherings of obstructionists made it impossible for the decrees of the Court to be carried out, both the law and the national interest demanded that the President have activity."
Radio and Television set Address to the American People on the Situation in Little Stone 9/24/57[Sound]

"I do not believe that all of these problems can be solved just by a new law, or something that someone says, with teeth in it. For case, when we got into the Niggling Rock thing, it was non my province to talk about segregation or desegregation. I had the job of supporting a federal court that had issued a proper order under the Constitution, and where compliance was prevented by action that was unlawful."
The President'due south News Conference of iii/26/58

"I believe that the U.s. as a government, if it is going to exist true to its ain founding documents, does have the job of working toward that fourth dimension when at that place is no bigotry made on such inconsequential reason every bit race, color, or religion."
The President'due south News Conference of five/13/59

Return TO Height

Didactics

"The true purpose of pedagogy is to set up immature men and women for effective citizenship in a free form of government."
Speech at William and Mary College, Williamsburg, Virginia, May 15, 1953 [Audio]

"It is unwise to brand education too cheap. If everything is provided freely, there is a tendency to put no value on annihilation. Teaching must always have a certain price on it; even as the very process of learning itself must always require individual endeavor and initiative."
Address, Centennial Celebration Banquet of the National Education Association, Washington, DC, 4/4/57[Audio]

Authorities

"One of my predecessors is said to accept observed that in making his decisions he had to operate similar a football quarterback -- he could not very well call the adjacent play until he saw how the last play turned out. Well, that may exist a proficient way to run a football game team, just in these days information technology is no way to run a regime."
Address at the Cow Palace on Accepting the Nomination of the Republican National Convention, 8/23/56 [Audio]

"A audio nation is built of individuals sound in body and listen and spirit. Government dares not ignore the individual citizen."
Address at a Rally in the Public Square, Cleveland, Ohio, 10/i/56[Audio]

"We cannot safely confine government programs to our own domestic progress and our own military power. We could exist the wealthiest and the most mighty nation and still lose the battle of the globe if nosotros do not help our earth neighbors protect their freedom and advance their social and economical progress. It is non the goal of the American people that the United states should be the richest nation in the graveyard of history."
Special Message to the Congress on the Common Security Program, 3/13/59

Holocaust

"But the most interesting -- although horrible -- sight that I encountered during the trip was a visit to a High german internment camp well-nigh Gotha. The things I saw beggar clarification. While I was touring the camp I encountered three men who had been inmates and by one ruse or another had made their escape. I interviewed them through an interpreter. The visual evidence and the verbal testimony of starvation, cruelty and animality were so overpowering as to leave me a bit sick. In one room, where they [in that location] were piled up xx or thirty naked men, killed by starvation, George Patton would not even enter. He said he would become ill if he did so. I made the visit deliberately, in order to exist in position to requite first-hand bear witness of these things if ever, in the future, there develops a tendency to charge these allegations merely to 'propaganda'."
Letter, DDE to George C. Marshall, 4/15/45 [The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower, The War Years IV, doc #2418]

"We continue to uncover German concentration camps for political prisoners in which weather of indescribable horror prevail. I accept visited one of these myself and I assure you lot that whatever has been printed on them to date has been understatement. If you would see any advantage in asking about a dozen leaders of Congress and a dozen prominent editors to brand a short visit to this theater in a couple of C-54's, I volition adjust to have them conducted to one of these places where the evidence of bestiality and cruelty is then overpowering equally to leave no doubt in their minds about the normal practices of the Germans in these camps."
Cable, DDE to George C. Marshall, 4/19/45 [The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower, The War Years IV, doc #2424]

"When I found the first camp like that I retrieve I never was so aroused in my life. The bestiality displayed there was non only piled up bodies of people that had starved to death, merely to follow out the road and see where they tried to evacuate them then they could nonetheless work, y'all could see where they sprawled on the road. You could go to their burial pits and see horrors that really I wouldn't even want to brainstorm to describe. I think people ought to know about such things. It explains something of my mental attitude toward the German war criminal. I believe he must be punished, and I will hold out for that forever."
Printing briefing, 6/eighteen/45 [DDE'due south Pre-Presidential Papers, Primary File, Box 156, Press Statements and Releases, 1944-46 (i)]

Render TO Summit

Korean War

"We have now gained a truce in Korea. We do not greet it with wild rejoicing. Nosotros know how dear its toll has been in life and treasure."
Radio Report to the American People on the Achievements of the Administration and the 83d Congress, 8/6/53[Audio]

"Plainly all of united states know that the limerick that was reached in Korea is not satisfactory to America, just it is far better than to continue the bloody, dreary, sacrifice of lives with no possible strictly military victory in sight."
Accost at the Illinois State Fair at Springfield, eight/19/54[AUDIO]

"And of course, at that place was the war in Korea, a war effectually which in that location had grown up such a political situation that military victory, at least a decisive armed services victory, was no longer in the cards."
Radio and Television Accost to the American People on the Achievements of the 83rd Congress, viii/23/54 [Sound]

"In June of last year nosotros negotiated a truce which ended the Korean War, preserved the Republic of Korea'due south liberty, and frustrated the Communist pattern for conquest."
Address at the American Legion Convention, 8/30/54 [AUDIO]

Labor

I accept no use for those — regardless of their party — who concord some foolish dream of spinning the clock back to days when unorganized labor was a huddled, nigh helpless mass.
Spoken communication to the American Federation of Labor, New York City, nine/17/52

Today in America unions take a secure place in our industrial life. Merely a scattering of unreconstructed reactionaries harbor the ugly idea of breaking unions. Merely a fool would try to deprive working men and women of the right to join the matrimony of their selection.
Speech to the American Federation of Labor, New York Urban center, 9/17/52

Government can practice a great bargain to assistance the settlement of labor disputes without allowing itself to exist employed every bit an ally of either side. Its proper role in industrial strife is to encourage the procedure of mediation and conciliation.
Country of the Matrimony Message, Washington, DC, 2/2/53[Audio]

Leadership/Organization

"What is Leadership?" past Dwight D. Eisenhower

"Y'all have got to have something in which to believe. You take got to accept leaders, organization, friendships, and contacts that help you to believe that, and help you to put out your best."
Remarks to the Leaders of the United Defense Fund, 4/29/54 [AUDIO]

"Now I think, speaking roughly, by leadership we mean the art of getting someone else to practice something that you want done because he wants to do information technology, not because your position of ability can compel him to do it, or your position of authority. A commander of a regiment is non necessarily a leader. He has all of the appurtenances of power given past a set of Regular army regulations by which he can compel unified activity. He tin say to a body such every bit this, "Rise," and "Sit down down." You do it exactly. Merely that is non leadership."
Remarks at the Annual Conference of the Social club for Personnel Administration, v/12/54[AUDIO]

"The job of getting people actually wanting to practice something is the essence of leadership. And ane of the things a leader needs occasionally is the inspiration he gets from the people he leads. The former tactical textbooks say that the commander e'er visits his troops to inspire them to fight. I for one before long discovered that 1 of the reasons for my visiting the front end lines was to get inspiration from the young American soldier. I went dorsum to my job ashamed of my own occasional resentments or discouragements, which I probably -- at least I promise I concealed them."
Remarks at the Breakfast Meeting of Republican State Chairmen, Denver, Colorado, 9/10/55

"Every bit long as I am dorsum in my military machine life for a second, I should similar to observe 1 thing well-nigh leadership that one of the neat has said -- Napoleon. He said, the great leader, the genius in leadership, is the man who can do the average thing when everybody else is going crazy."
Address at Meeting Sponsored by the Republican National Commission, iv/17/56

"The essence of leadership is to get others to do something considering they call up you want it washed and considering they know it is worth while doing -- that is what we are talking about."
Remarks at the Republican Campaign Picnic at the President's Gettysburg Farm, ix/12/56

"Leadership is a word and a concept that has been more argued than nearly any other I know."
The President's News Briefing of eleven/14/56

"My life has been largely spent in affairs that required arrangement. But organization itself, necessary as it is, is never sufficient to win a battle."
Remarks to Participants in the Young Republican National Leadership Training School, one/20/60[AUDIO]

RETURN TO Pinnacle

Peace

"Since the advent of nuclear weapons, it seems clear that there is no longer any culling to peace, if there is to exist a happy and well globe."
Remarks at the Department of State 1954 Accolade Awards Ceremony, 10/19/54[Audio]

"There tin can be no truthful disarmament without peace, and there tin can be no real peace without very cloth disarmament."
Remarks at the Republican Women's National Conference, 5/10/55[Sound]

"The peace we seek and need means much more than than mere absence of war. It means the credence of law, and the fostering of justice, in all the world."
Radio and Television Report to the American People on the Developments in Eastern Europe and the Centre East, ten/31/56[AUDIO]

"In vast stretches of the earth, men awoke today in hunger. They will spend the day in unceasing toil. And equally the lord's day goes down they volition yet know hunger. They will meet suffering in the eyes of their children. Many despair that their labor will ever decently shelter their families or protect them confronting disease. Then long every bit this is and then, peace and liberty will be in danger throughout our world. For wherever free men lose hope of progress, liberty will exist weakened and the seeds of conflict will exist sown."
Remarks of Welcome to the Delegates to the Tenth Colombo Program Coming together, Seattle, Washington, xi/10/58[Audio]

"I like to believe that people, in the long run, are going to exercise more to promote peace than our governments. Indeed, I think that people want peace so much that one of these days governments had meliorate go out of the fashion and let them have information technology."
Radio and Television Broadcast With Prime Minister Macmillan in London, eight/31/59

"And then -- our readiness to run into and defeat this kind of possible attack is forced upon us, both as a potent preventive of actual war and to insure survival in upshot of assail. This alertness to danger has to be translated into specific policies and activities in the several parts of the earth where our rights -- our mode of life -- can be seriously damaged. Piece of work of this kind occupies my days and nights."
Letter from DDE to Hallock Brown Hoffman, Feb 7, 1955

"I take said time and again there is no place on this globe to which I would not travel, there is no chore I would not undertake if I had any faintest hope that, by so doing, I would promote the general crusade of world peace."
The President's News Conference, March 23, 1955 [AUDIO]

"As for myself and for the Secretary of State and others involved, including those in the Legislature, we stand ready to do annihilation, to run into with anyone, anywhere, equally long every bit we may do so in self-respect, enervating the respect due this Nation, and there is whatever slightest idea or chance of furthering this great cause of peace."
Remarks at the Republican Women'due south National Conference, May 10, 1955[Audio]

"For a only and lasting peace, here is my solemn pledge to you: by dedication and patience we will go on, as long every bit I remain your President, to work for this simple -- this unmarried -- this exclusive goal."
Address at Byrd Field, Richmond, Virginia, October 29, 1956[AUDIO]

"The building of such a peace is a bold and solemn purpose. To proclaim it is easy. To serve it volition be difficult. And to attain it, nosotros must be aware of its total pregnant -- and fix to pay its full price."
Second Inaugural Address, Jan 21, 1957[Audio]

"For all that we cherish and justly desire -- for ourselves or for our children -- the securing of peace is the first requisite."
Radio and Television Address to the American People on the Need for Mutual Security in Waging the Peace, May 21, 1957

"Having established every bit our goals a lasting world peace with justice and the security of freedom on this earth, nosotros must be prepared to make any sacrifices are demanded as we pursue this path to its end."
Remarks at the Fort Pitt Affiliate, Association of the United states of america Ground forces May 31, 1961

The Presidency

"My first day at the President'southward Desk. Plenty of worries and difficult problems. Merely such has been my portion for a long time -- the result is that this just seems (today) like a continuation of all I've been doing since July '41 -- fifty-fifty before that!"
Diary entry, 1/21/53 [DDE Diaries: 1935-38, 1942, 1948-53, 1966, 1968, 1969; Box 1; 1953 DDE Desk Diary]

"I would say that the Presidency is probably the most taxing job, as far as tiring of the mind and spirit; but information technology also has, as I have said before, its inspirations which tend to annul each other . . . There have been times in state of war where I thought nothing could exist quite every bit wearing and fierce as that with lives directly involved. Just I would say, on the whole, this is the most wearing, although not necessarily, as I say, the most tiring."
The President's News Conference at Fundamental Due west, Florida, i/viii/56

"Many people are always saying the Presidency is also big a job for any 1 man. When I hear this exclamation, I ever try to point out that a single human being must make the terminal decisions that affect the whole, but that proper organisation brings to him but the questions and problems on which his decisions are needed. His own job is to be mentally prepared to brand those decisions and and so to be supported by an organisation that volition make certain they are carried out."
Alphabetic character, DDE to Dillon Anderson, 1/22/68 [DDE's Mail service-Presidential Papers, 1968 Principal File, Box 36, "An"]

"On the other mitt, I institute that getting things done sometimes required other weapons from the Presidential arsenal -- persuasion, cajolery, even a footling caput-thumping here and there -- to say nothing of a personal streak of obstinacy which on occasion fires my boilers."
Some Thoughts on the Presidency, Reader's Assimilate, November 1968

Religion

"In other words, our grade of government has no sense unless it is founded in a deeply felt religious religion, and I don't care what information technology is."
Address at the Freedoms Foundation, Waldorf-Astoria, New York Urban center, New York, 12/22/52

"Today I remember that prayer is just simply a necessity, considering by prayer I believe nosotros mean an effort to become in touch with the Infinite. We know that even our prayers are imperfect. Even our supplications are imperfect. Of form they are. We are imperfect human beings. But if we can dorsum off from those bug and make the effort, then there is something that ties u.s.a. all together. We take begun in our grasp of that footing of understanding, which is that all free government is firmly founded in a securely-felt religious faith."
Remarks at the Dedicatory Prayer Breakfast of the International Christian Leadership, ii/v/53

"The churches of America are citadels of our organized religion in individual liberty and human dignity. This organized religion is the living source of all our spiritual strength. And this force is our matchless armor in our world-wide struggle against the forces of godless tyranny and oppression."
Message to the National Co-Chairmen, Commission of Religious Organizations, National Conference on Christians and Jews, seven/nine/53

"From this day forward, the millions of our school children will daily proclaim in every city and boondocks, every village and rural school house, the dedication of our nation and our people to the Almighty. To anyone who truly loves America, nothing could be more inspiring than to contemplate this rededication of our youth, on each schoolhouse morning, to our country's true meaning.
Particularly is this meaningful as nosotros regard today's earth. Over the globe, flesh has been cruelly torn by violence and brutality and, past the millions, deadened in heed and soul by a materialistic philosophy of life. Man everywhere is appalled by the prospect of atomic war. In this somber setting, this law and its effects today have profound meaning. In this mode we are reaffirming the transcendence of religious organized religion in America'due south heritage and hereafter; in this way we shall constantly strengthen those spiritual weapons which forever volition exist our country's most powerful resource, in peace or in war."
Statement by the President Upon Signing Bill to Include the Words "Under God" in the Pledge to the Flag, 6/fourteen/54

"Faith is the mightiest strength that human has at his command. It impels human beings to greatness in thought and word and deed."
Address at the 2nd Assembly of the Earth Council of Churches, Evanston, Illinois, eight/19/54 [AUDIO]

"We are essentially a religious people. We are not merely religious, we are inclined, more today than ever, to encounter the value of religion as a applied forcefulness in our affairs."
Address at the Second Associates of the Earth Council of Churches, Evanston, Illinois, 8/19/54[Sound]

"Without God, in that location could exist no American course of Regime, nor an American way of life. Recognition of the Supreme Being is the first -- the most basic -- expression of Americanism. Thus the Founding Fathers saw it, and thus, with God's aid, it volition continue to be."
Remarks Recorded for the "Back-to-God" Program of the American Legion, 2/20/55

"Since the day of creation, the fondest hopes of men and women have been to pass on to their children something better than they themselves enjoyed. That promise represents a spark of the Divine which is implanted in every human chest."
Accost at the Signing of the Proclamation of Principles at the Meeting of the Presidents in Panama Urban center, 7/22/56

"The purpose is Divine; the implementation is human. Our state and its government take made mistakes -- human mistakes. They take been of the head -- not of the heart. And it is all the same true that the great concept of the dignity of all men, akin created in the image of the Almighty, has been the compass by which we have tried and are trying to steer our course."
Annual Message to the Congress on the State of the Wedlock, ane/10/57

"Basic to our democratic civilisation are the principles and convictions that have bound u.s.a. together as a nation. Among these are personal liberty, homo rights, and the dignity of man. All these have their roots in a securely held religious faith -- in a belief in God."
Address at U.S. Naval Academy Offset, 6/4/58

"The freedom of a citizen and the freedom of a religious laic are more than intimately related; they are mutually dependent. These two liberties requite life to the heart of our Nation."
Remarks at the Cornerstone-Laying Ceremony for the Interchurch Center, New York Metropolis, New York, 10/12/58 [AUDIO]

RETURN TO Tiptop

Sports

"My constant prayer, these days, equally I start my backswing is, 'Oh, delight permit me swing slowly.' The trouble is that sometimes I wonder whether I swing at all; whether I am not strictly a chopper."
Letter, DDE to Bobby Jones, seven/28/51 [DDE's Pre-Presidential Papers, Box 63, Jones, Robert Tyre Jr.]

"The other 24-hour interval Aks and I went up to your ranch for a day's fishing. I cannot remember whatsoever day when nosotros accept had more than fun on a stream. We had along with u.s. three newspaper men and a few secret service people, many of whom had never seen a trout stream, so nosotros did the thing up right by borrowing frying pans, salary and corn meal from the wife of your rancher -- and we cooked an outdoor meal for the crowd. It was really quite a day."
Letter, DDE to Bal F. Swan, eight/xv/53 [DDE's Papers as President, Name Series, Box 7, "Denver, 1953"]

"One of the things that I noticed in war was how difficult it was for our soldiers, at offset, to realize that there are no rules to state of war. Our men were raised in sports, where a referee runs a football game, or an umpire a baseball game, and and then forth."
Remarks at the Conference of the National Women's Advisory Committee on Civil Defense, 10/26/54 [Audio]

"And the other was this: the physician did want to take off my leg because he thought it was necessary. Only you must remember boys in those days were raised for two things: work, and and so they made their play; and if you couldn't play baseball game and box and play football, why, your life was ended. That was in our adolescent minds."
Radio and Television Broadcast: "The Women Inquire the President," 10/24/56

"But I call up a life of raising prize cattle, going shooting 2 or three times a year, angling in the summertime, and interspersing the whole thing with some golf and bridge -- and whenever I felt like talking or writing, doing information technology with abandon and with no sense of responsibility any -- maybe such a life wouldn't be then bad."
Letter of the alphabet, DDE to Alfred M. Gruenther, 11/2/56 [The Papers of Dwight D. Eisenhower, Volume XVII - The Presidency: The Heart Fashion, Office XI, Chapter 22]

"I take just realized that it is due to you, and to Mr. James Thomas and his staff of the Ground forces Navy Country Society that the putting light-green here on the White House lawn is already in such splendid condition. I assure you that I get a nifty deal of pleasure and relaxation out of using the green in an occasional tardily afternoon hour . . ."
Letter, DDE to Rear Admiral John Due south. Phillips, four/12/57 [DDE's Papers as President, President's Personal File, Box 10, 1-A-7 Golf game (four)]

"Not only practise I have a great love for the game of golf game -- no matter how badly I play it -- but I have too the belief that through every kind of meeting, through every kind of activity to which we can bring together more frequently and more intimately peoples of our several countries, by that mensurate we will do something to solve the difficulties and the tensions that this poor old world seems nowadays to so much suffer."
Remarks to Representatives of World Apprentice Golf Squad Championship Briefing, 5/two/58[AUDIO]

"Probably no i here knows I coached a football squad -- a service team -- playing against Georgetown. I recall it was in the fall of 1924 Lou Niggling was your coach, and he crush us. But it was a very happy circumstance, because it brought me the friendship of another homo, Lou Picayune, who to this mean solar day remains my very warm associate and friend."
Remarks at the Dedication of the Edmund A. Walsh School of Strange Service of Georgetown University, x/13/58[Audio]

"Well, a funny thing, there are three that I like all for the aforementioned reason, golf, fishing, and shooting, and I do because showtime, they take you into the fields. There is mild practice, the kind that an older private probably should have. And on peak of it, it induces you lot to take at whatsoever one time 2 or iii hours, if you tin can, where y'all are thinking of the bird or that brawl or the wily trout. Now, to my listen it is a very healthful, beneficial kind of thing, and I practice it whenever I get a chance, every bit you well know."
The President'southward Press Conference of 10/fifteen/58[AUDIO]

"Morale -- the volition to win, the fighting heart -- are the honored hallmarks of the football coach and player. Likewise, they are characteristic of the enterprising executive, the successful troop leader, the established artist and the dedicated instructor and scientist."
Remarks at the Get-go Football Hall of Fame Dinner, New York City, New York, ten/28/58[AUDIO]

"I think of going dorsum to the sports field again, and let'southward take a baseball game. Well, you have cracked out a grounder and you put in your concluding ounce of energy and you just happen to make first base. But you don't stop at that place. Beginning base is the first. Now yous call on all your alertness, your skill, your energy -- and you count on your teammates, yous count on the people that are working with you. And the purpose of that getting on first base was to go you around to count a run."
Remarks at a Republican Men'south Luncheon in Cleveland, Ohio eleven/4/60 [AUDIO]

"You did not tell me what you are doing athletically only at present but I do hope that if your arm comes along next bound you can get information technology in good shape to attempt out for the pitching spot on the varsity. However, if y'all don't make it then I suggest yous take upwards golf which after all is the all-time game of all of them."
Letter, DDE to grandson David Eisenhower, 11/17/65 [DDE's Post Presidential Papers, Secretary'due south Serial, Box 13, Eisenhower]

"But I noted with real satisfaction how well ex-footballers seemed to accept leadership qualifications . . . I believe that football game, perhaps more than any other sport, tends to instill in men the feeling that victory comes through hard -- almost slavish -- piece of work, team play, cocky-confidence, and an enthusiasm that amounts to dedication."
At Ease: Stories I Tell to Friends, folio 16

War/Defence

"I have been called a Fascist and almost a Hitlerite - really, I have one earnest confidence in this war. It is that no other war in history has then definitely lined upward the forces of arbitrary oppression and dictatorship confronting those of human rights and individual liberty."
Letter from Dwight D. Eisenhower to John Southward.D. Eisenhower, April 8, 1943 [Eisenhower's Pre-Presidential Papers, Box 173, Eisenhower John S.D. 1943-1946 (2)]

"Humility must always exist the portion of whatsoever man who receives acclamation earned in blood of his followers and sacrifices of his friends."
Guildhall Address, London, 6/12/45 [AUDIO]

"State of war is a grim, fell concern, a business justified merely as a means of sustaining the forces of good confronting those of evil."
Transcription fabricated for National War Fund at request of Col. Luther L. Hill, 9/11/45

"I detest war as merely a soldier who has lived it can, only as i who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity."
Address before the Canadian Lodge, Ottawa, Canada, 1/10/46

"Guns and tanks and planes are nothing unless there is a solid spirit, a solid eye, and great productiveness behind it."
Address to Economical Club of New York, Hotel Astor, 11/20/46

"War is mankind's virtually tragic and stupid folly; to seek or advise its deliberate provocation is a black crime against all men. Though you follow the trade of the warrior, you do so in the spirit of Washington -- not of Genghis Khan. For Americans, only threat to our way of life justifies resort to conflict."
Graduation Exercises at the U.s. Armed forces University, half-dozen/three/47

"Possibly my hatred of war blinds me and then that I cannot encompass the arguments they adduce. But, in my opinion, there is no such affair as a preventive war. Although this proffer is repeatedly made, none has yet explained how war prevents state of war. Worse than this, no i has been able to explain away the fact that state of war creates the conditions that afford war."
Remarks at Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 10/xix/50 [DDE's Pre-Presidential Papers, Primary File, Box 196, Carnegie Institute]

"Because, therefore, nosotros are defending a fashion of life, nosotros must be respectful of that mode of life as nosotros proceed to the solution of our problem. Nosotros must not violate its principles and its precepts, and we must not destroy from within what nosotros are trying to defend from without."
Speech earlier NATO Quango, 11/26/51 [DDE'due south Pre-Pres. Papers, Box 197]

"Americans, indeed, all free men, think that in the terminal pick a soldier's pack is non so heavy a burden as a prisoner's bondage."
Inaugural Address, one/20/53[Audio]

"Each and all of us must summon to heed the words of Him whom we honour this Easter time: 'When a strong man, armed, keepeth his palace, his goods are in peace'."
Statement on the Fourth Anniversary of the Signing of the North Atlantic Treaty, 4/iv/53

"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are non fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is non 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 than 30 cities. It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. It is 2 fine, fully equipped hospitals. Information technology is some 50 miles of concrete highway. We pay for a single fighter plane with a one-half million bushels of wheat. We pay for a unmarried destroyer with new homes that could have housed more viii,000 people. This, I echo, is the best way of life to exist constitute on the road. the world has been taking. This is not a way of life at all, in whatever true sense. Nether the cloud of threatening state of war, information technology is humanity hanging from a cantankerous of iron."
Address "The Chance for Peace" Delivered Before the American Society of Paper Editors, 4/16/53 [AUDIO]

"Nosotros do non keep security establishments merely to defend property or territory or rights abroad or at ocean. We keep the security forces to defend a way of life."
Remarks to the Committee for Economic Development, 5/20/54 [Audio]

"A preventive war, to my mind, is an impossibility today. How could you have ane if one of its features would be several cities lying in ruins, several cities where many, many thousands of people would be expressionless and injured and mangled, the transportation systems destroyed, sanitation implements and systems all gone? That isn't preventive war; that is war."
The President'south News Conference of viii/11/54 [Audio]

"And the next thing is that every state of war is going to astonish yous in the way information technology occurred, and in the way it is carried out."
The President's News Conference of 3/23/55

"I accept spent my life in the study of armed services strength every bit a deterrent to war, and in the grapheme of military armaments necessary to win a war. The study of the first of these questions is notwithstanding profitable, but we are rapidly getting to the signal that no state of war can be won."
Letter, DDE to Richard L. Simon, Simon and Schuster, Inc., 4/4/56 [DDE'southward Papers as President, DDE Diaries Series, Box 14, April 1956 Miscellaneous (v)]

"When we get to the point, as nosotros one 24-hour interval volition, that both sides know that in whatever outbreak of general hostilities, regardless of the element of surprise, destruction will be both reciprocal and complete, maybe we will have sense enough to run across at the briefing tabular array with the agreement that the era of armaments has ended and the homo race must adapt its actions to this truth or die."
Letter, DDE to Richard L. Simon, Simon and Schuster, Inc., four/iv/56 [DDE'south Papers every bit President, DDE Diaries Series, Box 14, April 1956 Miscellaneous (5)]

"Artillery alone can give the world no permanent peace, no confident security. Arms are solely for defense -- to protect from vehement assault what we already have. They are only a costly insurance. They cannot add together to human progress."
Address before the American Order of Newspaper Editors, Statler Hotel, Washington, DC, 4/21/56[AUDIO]

"We know something of the price of that war. Nosotros were in it from December seventh, '41, till August of '45. Ever since that time, we have been waging peace. It has had its ups and downs just as the war did."
The President'due south News Conference of 6/6/56

"The merely mode to win the adjacent earth war is to forbid it."
Address at a Rally in the Civic Auditorium, Seattle, Washington, 10/17/56

"Nosotros must be strong at dwelling if we are going to be potent abroad. We sympathise that. And then nosotros want to be strong at dwelling in our morale or in our spirit, we want to be potent intellectually, in our education, in our economy and, where necessary, militarily."
Radio and Television Broadcast: "The Women Ask the President," 10/24/56

"The hope of the world is that wisdom can arrest disharmonize between brothers. I believe that war is the deadly harvest of big-headed and unreasoning minds. And I find grounds for this belief in the wisdom literature of Proverbs. It says in issue this: Panic strikes like a storm and calamity comes like a whirlwind to those who hate noesis and ignore their God."
Address at the Centennial Celebration Banquet of the National Pedagogy Association, 4/four/57[Audio]

"First, separate ground, sea and air warfare is gone forever. If ever once again nosotros should be involved in war, we will fight information technology in all elements, with all services, equally one single concentrated effort."
Special Bulletin to the Congress on Reorganization of the Defense Establishment, 4/3/58

"Now this brings me to my master topic -- our military machine strength -- more specifically, how to stay stiff against threat from outside, without undermining the economic health that supports our security."
Address to the American Society of Newspaper Editors and the International Press Establish, 4/17/58

"Kickoff, separate footing, sea and air warfare is gone forever. This lesson we learned in World War II. I lived that lesson in Europe. Others lived it in the Pacific. Millions of American veterans learned it well."
Address to the American Society of Newspaper Editors and the International Press Constitute, 4/17/58

"Now all of us deplore this vast military spending. Yet, in the face of the Soviet mental attitude, we realize its necessity. Any the cost, America volition continue itself secure. But in the process we must not, by our own paw, destroy or misconstrue the American organization. This we could exercise by useless overspending. I know i sure way to overspend. That is by overindulging sentimental attachments to outmoded armed forces machines and concepts."
Accost to the American Social club of Paper Editors and the International Press Constitute, 4/17/58

"I know something about that war, and I never desire to see that history repeated. But, my fellow Americans, it certainly tin can be repeated if the peace-loving democratic nations again fearfully practise a policy of standing idly by while big aggressors use armed force to conquer the small and weak."
Radio and Television receiver Report to the American People Regarding the State of affairs in the Formosa Straits, ix/xi/58

"Any survey of the costless globe'south defence force structure cannot neglect to impart a feeling of regret that so much of our effort and resources must be devoted to armaments."
Annual Message to the Congress on the State of the Spousal relationship, ane/9/59

"Only all history has taught usa the grim lesson that no nation has ever been successful in fugitive the terrors of war by refusing to defend its rights -- by attempting to placate aggression."
Radio and Television Report to the American People: Security in the Free Earth, iii/16/59

"In this promise, among the things we teach to the young are such truths every bit the transcendent value of the individual and the dignity of all people, the futility and stupidity of state of war, its destructiveness of life and its degradation of human values."
Address at the Opening Session of the White Business firm Conference on Children and Youth, College Park, Maryland, 3/27/60

"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the war machine-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist."
Goodbye Radio and Television Address to the American People, 1/17/61

"Morale is the greatest unmarried factor in successful state of war."
Crusade in Europe, page 210

"Zero is easy in war. Mistakes are always paid for in casualties and troops are quick to sense any blunder made by their commanders."
Crusade in Europe, page 450

"We need an adequate defense, but every artillery dollar we spend above capability has a long-term weakening event upon the nation and its security."
Waging Peace, folio 622

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