Top 514 Quotes & Sayings by Dwight D. Eisenhower - Page 9

And the other was this: the doctor did want to take off my leg because he thought it was necessary. But you must remember boys in those days were raised for two things: work, and then they made their play; and if you couldn't play baseball and box and play football, why, your life was ended. That was in our boyish minds.

Controlled, universal disarmament is the imperative of our time. The demand for it by the hundreds of millions whose chief concern is the long future of themselves and their children will, I hope, become so universal and so insistent that no man, no government anywhere, can withstand it.

Public opinion wins wars.

As men and women of character and of faith in the soundness of democratic methods, we must work like dogs to justify that faith.

Your country, my country - each is a better and stronger and more influential nation because each can rely upon every resource of the other in days of crisis. Beyond this, each can work and grow and prosper with the other through years of quiet peace.

There is -- in world affairs -- a steady course to be followed between an assertion of strength that is truculent and a confession of helplessness that is cowardly.

There can be no peace without law.

The proper role of government, however, is that of partner with the farmer -- never his master. By every possible means we must develop and promote that partnership -- to the end that agriculture may continue to be a sound, enduring foundation for our economy and that farm living may be a profitable and satisfying experience.

We view our Nation's strength and security as a trust, upon which rests the hope of free men everywhere.

A world that begins to witness the rebirth of trust among nations can find its way to a peace that is neither partial nor punitive. With all who will work in good faith toward such a peace, we are ready, with renewed resolve, to strive to redeem the near-lost hopes of our day.

We ... must avoid the impulse to live only for today, plundering for our own ease and convenience the precious resources of tomorrow.

Every gathering of Americans-whether a few on the porch of a crossroads store or massed thousands in a great stadium-is the possessor of a potentially immeasurable influence on the future.

. . .a sense of humor can be a great help-particularly a sense of humor about (oneself). William Howard Taft joked about his own corpulence and people loved it; took nothing from his inherent dignity. Lincoln eased tense moments with bawdy stories, and often poked fun at himself-and history honors him for this human quality. A sense of humor is part of the art of leadership, of getting along with people, of getting things done.

... we have been warned by the power of modern weapons, that peace may be the only climate possible for human life itself ... There must be law, steadily invoked and respected by all nations, for without law, the world promises only such meager justice as the pity of the strong upon the weak.

Planning is useless... but the process itself is indispensable.

The winning of war - the effectiveness in such things - is in the heart, in the determination, in the faith. It is in our beliefs in our country, in our God, everything that goes to make up America.

No treaty or international agreement can contravene the Constitution.

It will begin with its President taking a simple, firm resolution. The resolution will be: To forego the diversions of politics and to concentrate on the job of ending the Korean war-until that job is honorably done. That job requires a personal trip to Korea. I shall make that trip. Only in that way could I learn how best to serve the American people in the cause of peace. I shall go to Korea.

You can't have this kind of war. There just aren't enough bulldozers to scrape the bodies off the streets.

If people get together, so eventually will nations.

Probably no one here knows I coached a football team - a service team - playing against Georgetown. I think it was in the fall of 1924 Lou Little was your coach, and he beat us. But it was a very happy circumstance, because it brought me the friendship of another man, Lou Little, who to this day remains my very warm associate and friend.

Change is the law of life and of relations between nations. When two great peoples such as ours, energetic and optimistic, live side by side in all the diversity that freedom offers, change is rapid and brings in its wake problems, sometimes frictions.

...the exchange of students...should be vastly expanded...Information and education are powerful forces in support of peace. Just as war begins in the minds of men, so does peace.

Politics should be the part-time profession of every citizen.

I firmly believe that the future of civilization is absolutely dependent upon finding some way of resolving international differences without resorting to war.

You, of Canada, are building a magnificent record of achievement. My country rejoices in it.

One small ball in the air. I wouldn't believe that at this moment you have to fear the intelligence aspects of this.

I have just realized that it is due to you, and to Mr. James Thomas and his staff of the Army Navy Country Club that the putting green here on the White House lawn is already in such excellent condition. I assure you that I get a great deal of pleasure and relaxation out of using the green in an occasional late afternoon hour . . .

How can we appraise a proposal if the terms hurled at our ears can mean anything or nothing, and change their significance with the inflection of the voice? Welfare state, national socialism, radical, liberal, conservative, reactionary and a regiment of others ... these terms in today's usage, are generally compounds of confusion and prejudice. If our attitudes are muddled, our language is often to blame. A good tonic for clearer thinking is a dose of precise, legal definition.

Well, a funny thing, there are three that I like all for the same reason, golf, fishing, and shooting, and I do because first, they take you into the fields. There is mild exercise, the kind that an older individual probably should have. And on top of it, it induces you to take at any one time 2 or 3 hours, if you can, where you are thinking of the bird or that ball or the wily trout. Now, to my mind it is a very healthful, beneficial kind of thing, and I do it whenever I get a chance, as you well know.

The United States pledges before you-and therefore before the world-its determination to help solve the fearful atomic dilemma-to devote its entire heart and mind to find the way by which the miraculous inventiveness of man shall not be dedicated to his death, but consecrated to his life.

But I think a life of raising prize cattle, going shooting two or three times a year, fishing in the summer, and interspersing the whole thing with some golf and bridge - and whenever I felt like talking or writing, doing it with abandon and with no sense of responsibility whatsoever - maybe such a life wouldn't be so bad.

American working men are principals in the three-member team of capital, management, labor. Never have they regarded themselves as a servile class that could attain freedom only through destruction of the industrial economy.

You know, this is what I've always thought a college should look like.