Top 271 Quotes & Sayings by Herbert Hoover - Page 4

One of the primary necessities of the world for the maintenance of peace is the elimination of the frictions which arise from competitive armament.

The recognition of Russia on November 16, 1933, started forces which were to have considerable influence in the attempt to collectivize the United States.

Hunger is the mother of anarchy.

Prosperity is no idle expression. It is a job for every worker; it is the safety and safeguard of very business and every home. A continuation of the policies of the Republican party is fundamentally necessary to the future advancement of this progress and to the further building up of this prosperity.

Presidents have only two moments of personal seclusion. One is prayer; the other fishing - and they cannot pray all the time!

Once the day's work starts there is little chance to walk, to ride or to take part in a game. Taking walks or rides early in the morning is a lonesome business, and the inevitable Secret Service guard when the president leaves the White House grounds is not enlivening company.

Our social and economic system cannot march toward better days unless it is inspired by things of the Spirit. It is here that the higher purposes of individualism must find their sustenance.

My boyhood ambition was to be able to earn my own living, without the help of anybody, anywhere.

I, with other Americans, have perhaps unduly resented the stream of criticism of American life... more particularly have I resented the sneers at Main Street. For I have known that in the cottages that lay behind the street rested the strength of our national character.

Fishing is the chance to wash one's soul with pure air. It brings meekness and inspiration, reduces our egoism, soothes our troubles and shames our wickedness. It is discipline in the equality of men--for all men are equal before fish.

The Union has become not merely a physical union of states, but rather a spiritual union in common ideals of our people. Within it is room for every variety of opinion, every possible experiment in social progress. Out of such variety comes growth, but only if we preserve and maintain our spiritual solidarity.

More than ten million women march to work every morning side by side with the men. Steadily the importance of women is gaining notonly in the routine tasks of industry but in executive responsibility. I include also the woman who stays at home as the guardian of the welfare of the family. She is a partner in the job and wages. Women constitute a part of our industrial achievement.

I protest that we fans are being emotionally starved and frustrated by long periods of perfect performance of these batteries. More over, when there are nothing but strikes and balls going on, you relapse into your worries over the Bank of England, or something else.

All progress and growth is a matter of change, but change must be growth within our social and government concepts if it should not destroy them.

Even if security from the cradle to the grave could eliminate [all] the risks of life, it would [still] be a dead hand on the creative spirit of the American people.

The joys of fishing are not confined to the hours near the water.

I can at once refute the statement that the people of the West object to conservation of oil resources. They know that there is a limit to oil supplies and that the time will come when they and the Nation will need this oil much more than it is needed now. There are no half measures in conservation of oil.

Three qualities of greatness stood out in Woodrow Wilson. He was a man of staunch morals. He was more than just an idealist; he was the personification of the heritage of idealism of the American people. He brought spiritual concepts to the peace table. He was a born crusader.

Truth alone can stand the guns of criticism.

If America is to be run by the people, it is the people who must think. And we do not need to put on sackcloth and ashes to think. Nor should our minds work like a sundial which records only sunshine. Our thinking must square against some lessons of history, some principles of government and morals, if we would preserve the rights and dignity of men to which this nation is dedicated.

Through baseball we channel boys desire for exercise and let off their explosive violence without letting them get into the police court.

When I decided to go into politics I weighed the costs. I would get criticism. But I went ahead. So when virulent criticism came I wasn't surprised. I was better able to handle it.

I am interested to learn that a group of distinguished men and women is to be formed to spread knowledge and appreciation of the rehabilitation which is going forward in Palestine under Jewish auspices, and to add my expression to the sentiment among our people in favor of the realization of the age-old aspirations of the Jewish people for the restoration of their national homeland.

I was not able to work up much enthusiasm over the ball game, and in the midst of it I was handed a note informing me of the sudden death of Senator Dwight morrow. He had proved a great pillar of strength in the senate and his death was a great loss to the country and to me. I left the ballpark with the chant of the crowd ringing in my ears, 'We Want Beer!'

The most essential factor to economic recovery today [1932] is the restoration of confidence.

In the great mass of our people there are plenty individuals of intelligence from among whom leadership can be recruited.

Liberalism should be found not striving to spread bureaucracy but striving to set bounds to it. True liberalism seeks all legitimate freedom first in the confident belief that without such freedom the pursuit of all other blessings and benefits is vain. That belief is the foundation of all American progress, political as well as economic.

The gods do not deduct from man's allotted span the hours spent in fishing.

I shall tell my doctors baseball has more curative powers than all their medicine.

We have not yet reached the goal but.. we shall soon, with the help of God, be in sight of the day when poverty shall be banished from this nation.

I SEND YOU MY HEARTY CONGRATULATIONS UPON BEGINNING THE THIRTIETH YEAR OF YOUR GREAT CAREER AS MANAGER OF THE NEW YORK GIANTS, IN WHICH YOU HAVE DONE SO MUCH TO UPHOLD THE TRADITIONS OF CLEAN SPORTSMANSHIP IN THE MOST BELOVED NATIONAL GAME.

I outlived the bastards.

I suppose I could have called in the whole of the Army, but what was the use? All I had to do was call in Main Street itself.

It was the transcendent fortitude and steadfastness of these men who in adversity and in suffering through the darkest hour of our history held faithful to an ideal. Here men endured that a nation might live.

It is always possible that occasional individuals may have overstepped the law and humanity in treatment of criminals and those charged with crime, and if so, they should be severely punished.

The more complex the problems of the Nation become, the greater is the need for more and more advanced instruction.

Thank God she doesn't have to be confirmed by the Senate.(on the birth of his granddaughter)

When the outcome of a meeting is to have another meeting, it has been a lousy meeting.

The study of this Book in your Bible classes is a post-graduate course in the richest library of human experience.

I pride myself on being one of the oldest fans. I can certainly count up about seventy years of devotion.

Many women are now holding posts of grave responsibility in city and country and state and nation, and their number must be greatly increased.

I want more runs in baseball itself. When you were raised on a sandlot, where the scores ran twenty-three to sixty-one, you yearn for something more than a five to two score. You know as well as I do that the excitement, temperature and decibels of any big game today rise instantly when there is someone on base. It reaches ecstasy when somebody makes a run.

You will expect me to discuss the late election. Well, as nearly as I can learn, we did not have enough votes on our side.

Eat plenty, wisely, without waste.

The imperative need of this nation at all times is the leadership of Uncommon Men or Women.

The outlook of the world today is for the greatest era of commercial expansion in history. The rest of the world will become better customers.

In the larger view the major forces of the depression now lie outside of the United States, and our recuperation has been retarded by the unwarranted degree of fear and apprehension created by these outside forces.

Whatever doubt there may be as to the quality or purpose of our free speech we certainly have ample volumes in production.

I returned to the white House after midnight more depressed than ever before. I had long since arranged to attend the World Series in Philadelphia the next day. Although I like baseball, I kept this engagement only because I felt that my presence at a sporting event might be a gesture of reassurance to a country suffering from a severe attack of 'jitters.'

Unemployment in the sense of distress is widely disappearing. . . . We in America today are nearer to the final triumph over poverty than ever before in the history of any land. The poor-house is vanishing from among us. We have not yet reached the goal, but given a change to go forward with the policies of the last eight years, and we shall soon with he help of God be in sight of the day when poverty will be banished from this nation. There is no guarantee against poverty equal to a job for every man. That is the primary purpose of the economic policies we advocate

In my public statements I have earnestly urged that there rested upon government many responsibilities which affect the moral and spiritual welfare of our people. The participation of women in elections has produced a keener realization of the importance of these questions and has contributed to higher national ideals. Moreover, it is through them that our national ideals are ingrained in our children.

Our individualism is rooted in our very nature. It is based on conviction born of experience. Equal opportunity, the demand for a fair chance, became the formula of American Individualism because it is the method of American achievement.

There is no other book so various as the Bible, nor one so full of concentrated wisdom.

We supported the cooperative movement among farmers. The movement was still young and stubbornly opposed to the commercial distributors. I believed it to be one of the most helpful undertakings, for according to my social theories any organization run by citizens for their own welfare is preferable to the same action by the government.

The American people are doing their job today. They should be given a chance to show whether they wish to preserve the principles of individual and local responsibility and mutual self-help before they embark on what I believe to be a disastrous system. I feel sure they will succeed if given the opportunity.

New discoveries in science and their flow of new inventions will continue to create a thousand new frontiers for those who still would adventure.

Free speech does not live many hours after free industry and free commerce die.

The association of Mount Ararat and Noah, the staunch Christians who were massacred periodically by the Mohammedan Turks, and the Sunday School collections over fifty years for alleviating their miseries-all cumulate to impress the name Armenia on the front of the American mind.

The spark of liberty in the mind and spirit of man cannot be long extinguished; it will break into flames that will destroy every coercion which seems to limit it.

Somebody has inquired as to whether I will be going to the opening baseball game. I hope to have that pleasure.