Quotes

  1. The Eisenhowers
  2. Quotes

Agriculture

"The proper role of government, withal, is that of partner with the farmer -- never his master. Past every possible means nosotros must develop and promote that partnership -- to the end that agriculture may go on to exist a sound, enduring foundation for our economy and that farm living may be a profitable and satisfying experience."
Special Message to the Congress on Agriculture, 1/9/56

"You know, farming looks mighty easy when your turn is a pencil, and you're a thou miles from the corn field."
Accost at Bradley University, Peoria, Illinois, 9/25/56

Anecdotes

"I come up from the very heart of America."
Guildhall Oral communication, London, half-dozen/12/45 Audio clip

"The proudest thing I tin claim is that I am from Abilene."
Homecoming Speech, Abilene, Kansas, 6/22/45 Audio clip

"Don't defend yourself. Don't explain. Don't worry."
Letter, DDE to Omar Bradley, ten/26/1949 [DDE's Pre-Presidential Papers, Box 13]

"Any America hopes to bring to pass in the world must showtime come to pass in the heart of America."
Inaugural Accost, Washington, DC, 1/xx/53 Audio clip

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

"A people that values its privileges to a higher place its principles before long loses both."
Inaugural Address, Washington, DC, 1/xx/53 Audio clip

"There is -- in globe affairs -- a steady course to be followed betwixt an exclamation of strength that is truculent and a confession of helplessness that is cowardly."
Country of the Union Address, 2/2/53 Audio clip

"Thank goodness, many years ago, I had a preceptor, for whom my adoration has never died, and he had a favorite saying, one that I trust I attempt to live by. It was: e'er take your job seriously, never yourself."
Address at the New England "Frontwards to '54" Dinner, Boston, Massachusetts, 9/21/53

"I was raised in a little town of which about of you have never heard. But in the Due west it is a famous place. Information technology is called Abilene, Kansas. Nosotros had every bit our marshal for a long time a human being named Wild Bill Hickok. If y'all don't know anything virtually him, read your Westerns more. Now that town had a code, and I was raised every bit a male child to prize that code. It was: meet anyone face to face with whom yous disagree. Y'all could not sneak up on him from behind, or do whatever damage to him, without suffering the penalty of an outraged citizenry. If you met him face to face and took the same risks he did, y'all could get away with well-nigh anything, every bit long as the bullet was in the forepart."
Remarks Upon Receiving America'south Democratic Legacy Award at a B'nai B'rith Dinner in Honor of the 40th Anniversary of the Anti-Defamation League, eleven/23/53 Audio clip

"In that location is an one-time saw in the services: that which is not inspected deteriorates."
The President's News Conference of v/12/54 Audio clip

"Well, it is very of import, and the great idea of setting up an organism is then as to defeat the domino result. When, each standing lonely, one falls, it has the effect on the adjacent, and finally the whole row is down. Y'all are trying, through a unifying influence, to build that row of dominoes so they tin can stand up the autumn of one, if necessary."
The President's News Conference of 5/12/54 Audio clip

"When I was a boy, I was one of six in my family. We had a quarrel daily as to who could become up and do the chore of bringing the groceries downwardly dwelling. They had a practice then, in grocery stores, that I understand growing efficiency has eliminated -- e'er hoping that the grocer would say y'all tin can have ane of the dried prunes out of the barrel over there. But better than that was the dill pickle jar that y'all could dive into, sometimes arm deep almost, and try to go i. I understand that they are non that all-around anymore; we take got too efficient. When you go effectually picking things off the shelf, you pay for them. These, you sympathise, were free. That meant a lot to immature boys to whom a nickel looked about equally big as a wheel on a farm carriage."
Remarks at the Convention of the National Association of Retail Grocers, vi/xvi/54Audio clip

"At present I realize that on any particular decision a very great amount of estrus can be generated. But I do say this: life is not fabricated upward of only ane 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, to your environment, to the people nigh you. Regime has to do that aforementioned thing. It is simply in the mass that finally philosophy actually emerges."
Remarks at Luncheon Meeting of the Republican National Committee and the Republican National Finance Committee, 2/17/55

"Today there is a dandy ideological struggle going on in the globe. I side upholds what it calls the materialistic dialectic. Denying the existence of spiritual values, it maintains that human responds only to materialistic influences and consequently he is nothing. He is an educated animal and is useful only as 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, meaning that they rule in the people's name -- for the people. Now, on our side, we recognize correct away that human being is not merely an brute, that his life and his ambitions accept at the bottom a foundation of spiritual values."
Remarks at 11th Annual Washington Conference of the Advertising Quango, 3/22/55 Audio clip

"Some politician some years agone said that bad officials are elected by good voters who exercise not vote."
Remarks at the Breakfast Meeting of Republican State Chairmen, Denver, Colorado, ix/x/55

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

"One American put it this fashion: 'Every tomorrow has two handles. We tin take concur of it with the handle of anxiety or the handle of faith'."
Accost at the Moo-cow Palace on Accepting the Nomination of the Republican National Convention, viii/23/56 Audio clip

"The globe moves, and ideas that were proficient in one case are not ever good."
The President's News Conference of 8/31/56 Audio clip

"I believe when you are in any contest you should work like in that location is always to the very last minute a run a risk to lose information technology. This is boxing, this is politics, this is anything. So I just see no excuse if yous believe anything enough for not putting your whole heart into it. It is what I practise."
The President's News Briefing of 9/27/56Audio clip

"I belong to a family of boys who were raised in meager circumstances in central Kansas, and every one of us earned our way as we went forth, and it never occurred to us that we were poor, but we were."
Boob tube Broadcast: "The People Ask the President," x/12/56

"The promise of the world is that wisdom can arrest conflict between brothers. I believe that war is the deadly harvest of big-headed and unreasoning minds."
Address, National Educational activity Association, Washington, DC, 4/four/57 Audio clip

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

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

"But finally, there is one other quality I would mention among these that I believe volition fit you for difficult and important posts. This is a healthy and lively sense of humor."
Address at U. S. Naval Academy Get-go, 6/4/58

"A famous Frenchman in one case said, 'War has get far as well important to entrust to the generals.' Today, concern, I think, should exist proverb: 'Politics have get far too of import to entrust to the politicians'."
Remarks, Business Council, Hot Springs, Virginia, 10/20/62

RETURN TO Tiptop

Censorship

"Censorship, in my opinion, is a stupid and shallow way of approaching the solution to any trouble. Though sometimes necessary, equally witness a professional and technical undercover that may have a bearing upon the welfare and very safety of this country, we should be very conscientious in the way we use information technology, because in censorship always lurks the very neat danger of working to the disadvantage of the American nation."
Associated Press luncheon, New York, New York, iv/24/50

"Don't join the volume burners. Don't think yous are going to muffle faults past concealing show that they ever existed. Don't be afraid to get in your library and read every book, as long as that document does non offend our ain ideas of decency. That should be the only censorship."
Remarks at the Dartmouth College Commencement Exercises, Hanover, New Hampshire, 6/14/53[Sound]

Children/Youth/Families

"Youth -- our greatest resources -- is existence seriously neglected in a vital respect. The nation as a whole is not preparing teachers or edifice schools fast enough to continue up with the increase in our population."
Annual Message to the Congress on the Country of the Union, 1/7/54[Sound]

"I say with all the earnestness that I can command, that if American mothers will teach our children that there is no end to the fight for ameliorate relationships among the people of the earth, we shall accept peace."
Address to the National Quango of Catholic Women, Boston, Massachusetts, 11/8/54

"In this connectedness, I should mention our enormous national debt. We must brainstorm 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 Union Message, Fundamental Westward, Florida, i/5/56[Sound]

"Teachers need our active back up and encouragement. They are doing one of the most necessary and exacting jobs in the land. They are developing our most precious national resource: our children, our future citizens."
Accost at the Centennial Commemoration Feast of the National Education Association, iv/4/57 [AUDIO]

"Now, the education of our children is of national concern, and if they are not educated properly, it is a national calamity."
The President'due south News Briefing of 7/31/57 [AUDIO]

"I am not here, of grade, as one pretending to any expertness on questions of youth and children -- except in the sense that, within their own 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, 3/27/60 [AUDIO]

Return TO Top

Citizenship

"Democracy is essentially a political system that recognizes the equality of humans earlier the law." -Address to Constituent Assembly, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Baronial eight, 1946

"The freedom of the individual and his willingness to follow real leadership are at the core of America's strength." - Address at Norwich University, Northfield, Vermont, June 9, 1946

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

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

"I believe the merely manner to protect my own rights is to protect the rights of others." -Remarks at the United Negro College Fund tiffin, May 19, 1953

"I believe as long as we permit conditions 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 dejeuner, May nineteen, 1953

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

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

"A foundation of our American style of life is our national respect for law." - Accost to the American People on the state of affairs in Little Rock, Arkansas, September 24, 1957

"Liberty under law is like the air nosotros breathe." -Remarks on the Observance of Constabulary Day, Apr 30, 1958

"It is only as we govern ourselves that nosotros are well-governed." -Remarks on the Observance of Law Mean solar day, April xxx, 1958

Ceremonious Rights

"I propose to use whatsoever authorization exists in the role of the President to end segregation in the District of Columbia, including the Federal Government, and any segregation in the Military."
Annual Message to the Congress on the State of the Marriage, 2/2/53 [AUDIO]

"Nosotros have erased segregation in those areas of national life to which Federal potency conspicuously extends. So doing in this, my friends, we have neither sought nor claimed partisan credit, and all such actions are nothing more -- nothing less than the rendering of justice. And nosotros take always been aware of this great truth: the last battle against intolerance is to exist fought -- not in the chambers of whatever legislature -- but in the hearts of men."
Address at the Hollywood Bowl, Beverly Hills, California, 10/19/56[AUDIO]

"It was my hope that this localized situation would be brought under control by city and State regime. If the use of local police force powers had been sufficient, our traditional method of leaving the problems in those easily would have been pursued. But when big gatherings of obstructionists made it impossible for the decrees of the Court to be carried out, both the law and the national involvement demanded that the President take action."
Radio and Television Address to the American People on the Situation in Little Rock 9/24/57[AUDIO]

"I practice not believe that all of these problems tin can be solved but by a new law, or something that someone says, with teeth in it. For example, when we got into the Little Rock thing, information technology was not my province to talk virtually segregation or desegregation. I had the job of supporting a federal court that had issued a proper guild nether the Constitution, and where compliance was prevented by activeness that was unlawful."
The President's News Conference of iii/26/58

"I believe that the United States equally a government, if it is going to be truthful to its own founding documents, does have the job of working toward that time when there is no discrimination fabricated on such inconsequential reason as race, color, or religion."
The President'due south News Briefing of 5/thirteen/59

Return TO Tiptop

Education

"The truthful purpose of teaching is to ready immature men and women for effective citizenship in a free form of government."
Spoken language at William and Mary College, Williamsburg, Virginia, May xv, 1953 [Sound]

"It is unwise to make instruction besides inexpensive. If everything is provided freely, there is a tendency to put no value on anything. Education must always have a certain price on information technology; even as the very process of learning itself must always require private endeavor and initiative."
Accost, Centennial Celebration Feast of the National Education Association, Washington, DC, 4/4/57[Sound]

Government

"I of my predecessors is said to take observed that in making his decisions he had to operate like a football quarterback -- he could not very well call the side by side play until he saw how the last play turned out. Well, that may be a good way to run a football team, simply in these days it is no way to run a government."
Accost at the Moo-cow Palace on Accepting the Nomination of the Republican National Convention, 8/23/56 [Sound]

"A sound nation is built of individuals sound in torso and mind and spirit. Government dares non ignore the individual citizen."
Accost at a Rally in the Public Square, Cleveland, Ohio, 10/1/56[Sound]

"We cannot safely confine government programs to our own domestic progress and our own military power. Nosotros could be the wealthiest and the most mighty nation and however lose the battle of the world if we do not assist our earth neighbors protect their liberty and advance their social and economic progress. It is not the goal of the American people that the U.s.a. should be the richest nation in the graveyard of history."
Special Message to the Congress on the Mutual Security Programme, 3/13/59

Holocaust

"But the most interesting -- although horrible -- sight that I encountered during the trip was a visit to a German internment military camp near Gotha. The things I saw beggar description. While I was touring the camp I encountered 3 men who had been inmates and past one ruse or another had fabricated their escape. I interviewed them through an interpreter. The visual evidence and the verbal testimony of starvation, cruelty and animality were and then overpowering as to get out me a fleck sick. In one room, where they [there] were piled upwards twenty or xxx naked men, killed by starvation, George Patton would not even enter. He said he would get sick if he did so. I made the visit deliberately, in club to be in position to requite start-paw evidence of these things if e'er, in the future, in that location develops a tendency to charge these allegations merely to 'propaganda'."
Letter of the alphabet, DDE to George C. Marshall, 4/xv/45 [The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower, The War Years IV, doc #2418]

"We continue to uncover High german concentration camps for political prisoners in which atmospheric condition of indescribable horror prevail. I have visited one of these myself and I assure you that any has been printed on them to appointment has been understatement. If you would see whatsoever advantage in asking near a dozen leaders of Congress and a dozen prominent editors to make a short visit to this theater in a couple of C-54's, I will suit to have them conducted to one of these places where the evidence of bestiality and cruelty is so overpowering as to leave no doubt in their minds about the normal practices of the Germans in these camps."
Cable, DDE to George C. Marshall, 4/nineteen/45 [The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower, The War Years 4, doc #2424]

"When I found the first camp like that I call back I never was so angry in my life. The bestiality displayed there was not only piled up bodies of people that had starved to expiry, but to follow out the road and encounter where they tried to evacuate them and then they could still work, you could see where they sprawled on the road. You could go to their burial pits and see horrors that actually I wouldn't fifty-fifty want to brainstorm to describe. I recall people ought to know about such things. It explains something of my attitude toward the German war criminal. I believe he must be punished, and I will concur out for that forever."
Press conference, half dozen/18/45 [DDE's Pre-Presidential Papers, Master File, Box 156, Press Statements and Releases, 1944-46 (one)]

Render TO TOP

Korean War

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

"Manifestly all of u.s. know that the composition that was reached in Korea is non satisfactory to America, but it is far better than to continue the bloody, dreary, cede of lives with no possible strictly military victory in sight."
Address at the Illinois State Off-white at Springfield, 8/19/54[Audio]

"And of grade, there was the state of war in Korea, a war around which in that location had grown up such a political situation that military victory, at to the lowest degree a decisive military victory, was no longer in the cards."
Radio and Television Address to the American People on the Achievements of the 83rd Congress, 8/23/54 [Audio]

"In June of last yr we negotiated a truce which ended the Korean War, preserved the South korea'due south freedom, and frustrated the Communist design for conquest."
Accost at the American Legion Convention, 8/30/54 [Audio]

Labor

I take no use for those — regardless of their political party — who hold some foolish dream of spinning the clock dorsum to days when unorganized labor was a huddled, nearly helpless mass.
Spoken language to the American Federation of Labor, New York City, 9/17/52

Today in America unions take a secure place in our industrial life. Merely a handful of unreconstructed reactionaries harbor the ugly thought of breaking unions. Merely a fool would try to deprive working men and women of the correct to join the union of their option.
Speech to the American Federation of Labor, New York City, ix/17/52

Regime tin practice a keen deal to aid the settlement of labor disputes without allowing itself to be employed as an ally of either side. Its proper role in industrial strife is to encourage the procedure of mediation and conciliation.
State of the Matrimony Bulletin, Washington, DC, 2/two/53[Sound]

Leadership/Arrangement

"What is Leadership?" past Dwight D. Eisenhower

"You accept got to have something in which to believe. You lot have 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 nosotros hateful the fine art of getting someone else to do something that yous desire done because he wants to do it, not considering your position of power tin hogtie him to do it, or your position of potency. A commander of a regiment is not necessarily a leader. He has all of the appurtenances of power given by a gear up of Regular army regulations by which he tin compel unified activeness. He can say to a body such as this, "Ascension," and "Sit downwardly." You do it exactly. Simply that is not leadership."
Remarks at the Almanac Briefing of the Guild for Personnel Administration, 5/12/54[Sound]

"The job of getting people really wanting to practice something is the essence of leadership. And 1 of the things a leader needs occasionally is the inspiration he gets from the people he leads. The old tactical textbooks say that the commander ever visits his troops to inspire them to fight. I for one presently discovered that 1 of the reasons for my visiting the front lines was to go inspiration from the young American soldier. I went back to my chore ashamed of my ain occasional resentments or discouragements, which I probably -- at least I promise I concealed them."
Remarks at the Breakfast Meeting of Republican Land Chairmen, Denver, Colorado, nine/ten/55

"Equally long as I am back in my war machine life for a second, I should like to observe one thing near leadership that one of the bully has said -- Napoleon. He said, the dandy leader, the genius in leadership, is the man who can do the average thing when everybody else is going crazy."
Address at Meeting Sponsored past the Republican National Committee, 4/17/56

"The essence of leadership is to become others to practise something because they think y'all desire it done and because they know information technology is worth while doing -- that is what we are talking about."
Remarks at the Republican Campaign Picnic at the President's Gettysburg Farm, 9/12/56

"Leadership is a word and a concept that has been more than argued than almost whatsoever other I know."
The President's News Conference of xi/xiv/56

"My life has been largely spent in affairs that required organization. Only arrangement itself, necessary as it is, is never sufficient to win a battle."
Remarks to Participants in the Young Republican National Leadership Preparation Schoolhouse, ane/20/60[Sound]

RETURN TO Pinnacle

Peace

"Since the advent of nuclear weapons, it seems clear that at that place is no longer whatsoever alternative to peace, if there is to be a happy and well globe."
Remarks at the Section of State 1954 Honor Awards Ceremony, 10/19/54[AUDIO]

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

"The peace we seek and need means much more than mere absence of war. It ways the acceptance 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, 10/31/56[AUDIO]

"In vast stretches of the earth, men awoke today in hunger. They will spend the 24-hour interval in unceasing toil. And as the lord's day goes down they will withal know hunger. They volition see suffering in the optics of their children. Many despair that their labor volition ever decently shelter their families or protect them against affliction. So long as this is so, peace and freedom will be in danger throughout our world. For wherever free men lose hope of progress, liberty will be weakened and the seeds of conflict volition be sown."
Remarks of Welcome to the Delegates to the 10th Colombo Programme Meeting, Seattle, Washington, 11/x/58[AUDIO]

"I similar to believe that people, in the long run, are going to practice more to promote peace than our governments. Indeed, I recall that people want peace so much that 1 of these days governments had better go out of the mode and let them have it."
Radio and Television Circulate With Prime Minister Macmillan in London, 8/31/59

"So -- our readiness to come across and defeat this kind of possible assail is forced upon usa, both as a stiff preventive of actual war and to insure survival in event of attack. This alertness to danger has to be translated into specific policies and activities in the several parts of the world where our rights -- our way of life -- can exist seriously damaged. Work of this kind occupies my days and nights."
Letter from DDE to Hallock Dark-brown Hoffman, February 7, 1955

"I have said time and again there is no place on this earth to which I would not travel, at that place is no chore I would non undertake if I had any faintest hope that, past so doing, I would promote the full general cause of world peace."
The President's News Conference, March 23, 1955 [Sound]

"Every bit for myself and for the Secretary of Land and others involved, including those in the Legislature, we stand ready to do anything, to meet with anyone, anywhere, equally long as we may do and so in cocky-respect, demanding the respect due this Nation, and there is whatsoever slightest idea or risk of furthering this not bad cause of peace."
Remarks at the Republican Women'southward National Briefing, May ten, 1955[Sound]

"For a just and lasting peace, hither is my solemn pledge to y'all: by dedication and patience we will continue, as long as I remain your President, to work for this elementary -- this single -- this sectional 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 like shooting fish in a barrel. To serve it will exist hard. And to attain it, we must exist enlightened of its full significant -- and set to pay its full toll."
2nd Inaugural Address, January 21, 1957[AUDIO]

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

"Having established equally our goals a lasting world peace with justice and the security of liberty on this earth, nosotros must exist prepared to brand any sacrifices are demanded as we pursue this path to its cease."
Remarks at the Fort Pitt Affiliate, Association of the United States Army May 31, 1961

The Presidency

"My first twenty-four hour period at the President's Desk-bound. Enough of worries and hard issues. But such has been my portion for a long time -- the effect is that this just seems (today) like a continuation of all I've been doing since July '41 -- even before that!"
Diary entry, i/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 virtually taxing chore, as far as tiring of the mind and spirit; but it likewise has, as I have said before, its inspirations which tend to counteract each other . . . At that place have been times in war where I thought nothing could be quite every bit wearing and fierce as that with lives directly involved. But I would say, on the whole, this is the nearly wearing, although non necessarily, as I say, the nearly tiring."
The President'due south News Conference at Primal W, Florida, 1/8/56

"Many people are always saying the Presidency is too big a task for any 1 man. When I hear this assertion, I always endeavor to indicate out that a single man must make the final decisions that bear upon the whole, merely that proper organization brings to him only the questions and problems on which his decisions are needed. His own job is to be mentally prepared to make those decisions and then to exist supported by an organization that will make sure they are carried out."
Letter, DDE to Dillon Anderson, ane/22/68 [DDE's Post-Presidential Papers, 1968 Principal File, Box 36, "An"]

"On the other hand, I institute that getting things done sometimes required other weapons from the Presidential armory -- persuasion, cajolery, even a niggling caput-thumping here and there -- to say zippo of a personal streak of obstinacy which on occasion fires my boilers."
Some Thoughts on the Presidency, Reader's Digest, November 1968

Religion

"In other words, our class of regime has no sense unless it is founded in a securely felt religious religion, and I don't intendance what it is."
Address at the Freedoms Foundation, Waldorf-Astoria, New York City, New York, 12/22/52

"Today I think that prayer is simply simply a necessity, because past prayer I believe nosotros mean an effort to go 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 back off from those problems and brand the effort, and then there is something that ties united states all together. Nosotros have begun in our grasp of that basis of agreement, which is that all free government is firmly founded in a deeply-felt religious faith."
Remarks at the Dedicatory Prayer Breakfast of the International Christian Leadership, 2/v/53

"The churches of America are citadels of our faith in individual freedom and human dignity. This faith is the living source of all our spiritual strength. And this strength is our matchless armor in our world-broad 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, 7/ix/53

"From this twenty-four hour period forward, the millions of our school children will daily proclaim in every city and town, every hamlet and rural schoolhouse house, the dedication of our nation and our people to the Almighty. To anyone who truly loves America, nil could be more inspiring than to contemplate this rededication of our youth, on each school morning, to our country'south true significant.
Especially is this meaningful every bit we regard today's world. Over the earth, mankind has been cruelly torn by violence and brutality and, by the millions, muffled in mind and soul by a materialistic philosophy of life. Human being everywhere is appalled by the prospect of atomic state of war. In this somber setting, this constabulary and its effects today have profound meaning. In this way nosotros are reaffirming the transcendence of religious faith in America's heritage and futurity; in this way nosotros shall constantly strengthen those spiritual weapons which forever will exist our country'south most powerful resources, in peace or in war."
Argument by the President Upon Signing Beak to Include the Words "Under God" in the Pledge to the Flag, half dozen/14/54

"Faith is the mightiest force that man has at his command. It impels human beings to greatness in thought and word and act."
Address at the Second Assembly of the World Council of Churches, Evanston, Illinois, eight/19/54 [Sound]

"Nosotros are essentially a religious people. We are not simply religious, we are inclined, more than today than ever, to see the value of religion as a practical force in our diplomacy."
Address at the Second Associates of the Globe Council of Churches, Evanston, Illinois, viii/19/54[AUDIO]

"Without God, in that location could be no American form of Government, nor an American way of life. Recognition of the Supreme Being is the commencement -- the almost basic -- expression of Americanism. Thus the Founding Fathers saw it, and thus, with God's aid, it will go on 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 hope represents a spark of the Divine which is implanted in every human being breast."
Address at the Signing of the Declaration of Principles at the Meeting of the Presidents in Panama City, 7/22/56

"The purpose is Divine; the implementation is man. Our land and its regime take made mistakes -- human mistakes. They have been of the caput -- not of the middle. And it is still true that the bang-up concept of the nobility of all men, alike created in the image of the Omnipotent, has been the compass past which we have tried and are trying to steer our course."
Almanac Message to the Congress on the Land of the Marriage, 1/ten/57

"Basic to our autonomous civilization are the principles and convictions that take bound the states together as a nation. Among these are personal liberty, human rights, and the dignity of man. All these accept their roots in a deeply held religious faith -- in a belief in God."
Address at U.S. Naval Academy Outset, 6/4/58

"The liberty of a denizen and the freedom of a religious believer are more than intimately related; they are mutually dependent. These two liberties give life to the centre of our Nation."
Remarks at the Cornerstone-Laying Ceremony for the Interchurch Center, New York Urban center, New York, ten/12/58 [Sound]

RETURN TO Summit

Sports

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

"The other day Aks and I went up to your ranch for a twenty-four hours's angling. I cannot remember whatsoever day when we have had more fun on a stream. We had along with u.s.a. iii newspaper men and a few secret service people, many of whom had never seen a trout stream, so we did the thing upward right by borrowing frying pans, bacon and corn meal from the wife of your rancher -- and we cooked an outdoor meal for the crowd. It was actually quite a day."
Letter, DDE to Bal F. Swan, 8/fifteen/53 [DDE'south Papers every bit President, Proper name Series, Box seven, "Denver, 1953"]

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

"And the other was this: the medico did want to take off my leg because he thought information technology was necessary. But you must remember boys in those days were raised for ii things: work, and and so they made their play; and if you couldn't play baseball and box and play football, why, your life was concluded. That was in our boyish minds."
Radio and Television Circulate: "The Women Ask the President," 10/24/56

"But I think a life of raising prize cattle, going shooting ii or three times a yr, fishing in the summer, and interspersing the whole thing with some golf and bridge -- and whenever I felt similar talking or writing, doing it with abandon and with no sense of responsibility any -- maybe such a life wouldn't be and so bad."
Letter of the alphabet, DDE to Alfred M. Gruenther, xi/ii/56 [The Papers of Dwight D. Eisenhower, Book XVII - The Presidency: The Heart Style, Part XI, Chapter 22]

"I have but realized that it is due to you, and to Mr. James Thomas and his staff of the Army Navy Country Social club that the putting green here on the White House lawn is already in such excellent condition. I assure you that I get a dandy deal of pleasure and relaxation out of using the green in an occasional late afternoon hour . . ."
Letter, DDE to Rear Admiral John Due south. Phillips, 4/12/57 [DDE'south Papers as President, President'southward Personal File, Box 10, 1-A-seven Golf game (4)]

"Not only exercise I have a groovy love for the game of golf -- no matter how badly I play it -- but I have also the belief that through every kind of meeting, through every kind of activity to which we can bring together more often and more intimately peoples of our several countries, past that measure we will exercise something to solve the difficulties and the tensions that this poor old world seems present to so much endure."
Remarks to Representatives of World Amateur Golf game Squad Championship Conference, five/2/58[AUDIO]

"Probably no one here knows I coached a football team -- a service team -- playing against Georgetown. I remember it was in the fall of 1924 Lou Little was your passenger vehicle, 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 solar day remains my very warm associate and friend."
Remarks at the Dedication of the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service of Georgetown University, 10/13/58[Sound]

"Well, a funny affair, there are three that I like all for the same reason, golf game, line-fishing, and shooting, and I do because first, they take you into the fields. There is balmy practice, the kind that an older individual probably should have. And on top of it, it induces you to take at any in one case ii or 3 hours, if you lot can, where you lot are thinking of the bird or that ball or the wily trout. Now, to my mind it is a very healthful, benign kind of thing, and I do it whenever I get a run a risk, as you well know."
The President'south Press Conference of x/15/58[AUDIO]

"Morale -- the will to win, the fighting eye -- are the honored hallmarks of the football coach and actor. Besides, they are characteristic of the enterprising executive, the successful troop leader, the established artist and the dedicated teacher and scientist."
Remarks at the Starting time Football Hall of Fame Dinner, New York City, New York, ten/28/58[AUDIO]

"I think of going back to the sports field again, and let's take a baseball game game. Well, y'all have croaky out a grounder and you put in your last ounce of energy and yous just happen to brand first base. Merely yous don't stop in that location. First base is the beginning. At present yous call on all your alertness, your skill, your free energy -- and you count on your teammates, you count on the people that are working with y'all. And the purpose of that getting on first base was to get you lot around to count a run."
Remarks at a Republican Men's Luncheon in Cleveland, Ohio eleven/iv/60 [Audio]

"You lot did not tell me what you lot are doing athletically only now simply I do promise that if your arm comes along next spring y'all can get it in good shape to try out for the pitching spot on the varsity. However, if you don't make information technology then I advise you take up golf which after all is the best game of all of them."
Letter, DDE to grandson David Eisenhower, 11/17/65 [DDE'south Postal service Presidential Papers, Secretary's Series, Box 13, Eisenhower]

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

War/Defense

"I accept been called a Fascist and almost a Hitlerite - actually, I have one earnest conviction in this state of war. It is that no other war in history has and so definitely lined up the forces of arbitrary oppression and dictatorship against those of human rights and private liberty."
Alphabetic character from Dwight D. Eisenhower to John Due south.D. Eisenhower, April eight, 1943 [Eisenhower's Pre-Presidential Papers, Box 173, Eisenhower John S.D. 1943-1946 (2)]

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

"War is a grim, cruel business, a business concern justified only equally a means of sustaining the forces of skilful confronting those of evil."
Transcription made for National War Fund at request of Col. Luther Fifty. Hill, 9/11/45

"I hate war equally only a soldier who has lived information technology can, only as 1 who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity."
Address earlier the Canadian Gild, Ottawa, Canada, 1/x/46

"Guns and tanks and planes are nothing unless there is a solid spirit, a solid eye, and great productiveness behind information technology."
Address to Economic Social club of New York, Hotel Astor, 11/20/46

"War is flesh's most tragic and stupid folly; to seek or advise its deliberate provocation is a black crime confronting all men. Though you follow the trade of the warrior, yous do then in the spirit of Washington -- not of Genghis Khan. For Americans, just threat to our mode of life justifies resort to disharmonize."
Graduation Exercises at the United States Military University, half-dozen/3/47

"Mayhap my hatred of war blinds me and then that I cannot embrace the arguments they adduce. Simply, in my opinion, there is no such thing as a preventive state of war. Although this suggestion is repeatedly made, none has nevertheless explained how war prevents state of war. Worse than this, no i has been able to explicate away the fact that war creates the weather that beget state of war."
Remarks at Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 10/xix/50 [DDE's Pre-Presidential Papers, Chief File, Box 196, Carnegie Institute]

"Considering, therefore, we are defending a way of life, we must be respectful of that mode of life as we proceed to the solution of our trouble. We must non violate its principles and its precepts, and we must not destroy from within what we are trying to defend from without."
Speech before NATO Council, 11/26/51 [DDE's Pre-Pres. Papers, Box 197]

"Americans, indeed, all costless men, retrieve that in the last selection a soldier's pack is not and then heavy a brunt as a prisoner's bondage."
Inaugural Address, i/20/53[AUDIO]

"Each and all of usa must summon to mind the words of Him whom we honor this Easter fourth dimension: 'When a strong human being, armed, keepeth his palace, his goods are in peace'."
Statement on the Fourth Anniversary of the Signing of the North Atlantic Treaty, 4/four/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 not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This earth in artillery 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 modernistic brick school in more than 30 cities. Information technology is two electrical power plants, each serving a boondocks of 60,000 population. Information technology is ii fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some 50 miles of concrete highway. We pay for a single fighter airplane with a one-half million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people. This, I repeat, is the best way of life to exist found on the road. the world has been taking. This is non a way of life at all, in any true sense. Nether the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of fe."
Accost "The Gamble for Peace" Delivered Before the American Society of Newspaper Editors, 4/16/53 [Sound]

"We practice not go on security establishments merely to defend property or territory or rights abroad or at bounding main. We continue the security forces to defend a style of life."
Remarks to the Committee for Economic Development, 5/20/54 [Audio]

"A preventive war, to my heed, is an impossibility today. How could yous have 1 if one of its features would exist several cities lying in ruins, several cities where many, many thousands of people would be dead and injured and mangled, the transportation systems destroyed, sanitation implements and systems all gone? That isn't preventive state of war; that is war."
The President'due south News Briefing of 8/11/54 [Audio]

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

"I have spent my life in the study of war machine strength equally a deterrent to war, and in the character of military armaments necessary to win a war. The study of the commencement of these questions is still assisting, but we are rapidly getting to the point that no war tin be won."
Letter, DDE to Richard 50. Simon, Simon and Schuster, Inc., iv/4/56 [DDE'southward Papers as President, DDE Diaries Series, Box 14, April 1956 Miscellaneous (5)]

"When we get to the betoken, equally we one solar day volition, that both sides know that in any outbreak of full general hostilities, regardless of the element of surprise, devastation will be both reciprocal and complete, perhaps nosotros will accept sense enough to meet at the conference table with the agreement that the era of armaments has ended and the human race must conform its actions to this truth or die."
Alphabetic character, DDE to Richard Fifty. Simon, Simon and Schuster, Inc., 4/4/56 [DDE's Papers as President, DDE Diaries Series, Box 14, April 1956 Miscellaneous (five)]

"Arms alone can requite the world no permanent peace, no confident security. Arms are solely for defense -- to protect from tearing assault what we already take. They are only a plush insurance. They cannot add to homo progress."
Address before the American Gild of Newspaper Editors, Statler Hotel, Washington, DC, 4/21/56[Audio]

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

"The just way to win the next world war is to forbid information technology."
Address at a Rally in the Civic Auditorium, Seattle, Washington, 10/17/56

"We must be strong at habitation if nosotros are going to be strong away. We understand that. So nosotros want to be strong at home 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 Enquire the President," 10/24/56

"The hope of the world is that wisdom can arrest conflict 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. Information technology says in effect this: Panic strikes like a storm and calamity comes like a whirlwind to those who hate cognition and ignore their God."
Address at the Centennial Commemoration Feast of the National Pedagogy Clan, iv/4/57[AUDIO]

"First, separate footing, sea and air warfare is gone forever. If ever once again we should be involved in war, we will fight it in all elements, with all services, as ane single concentrated effort."
Special Message to the Congress on Reorganization of the Defense Establishment, iv/3/58

"Now this brings me to my main topic -- our military machine force -- more specifically, how to stay potent against threat from outside, without undermining the economic health that supports our security."
Address to the American Club of Paper Editors and the International Press Institute, 4/17/58

"Outset, separate ground, body of water and air warfare is gone forever. This lesson we learned in Globe State of war 2. I lived that lesson in Europe. Others lived it in the Pacific. Millions of American veterans learned it well."
Address to the American Club of Newspaper Editors and the International Press Institute, 4/17/58

"At present all of united states of america deplore this vast military spending. Yet, in the face of the Soviet attitude, we realize its necessity. Whatever the cost, America will keep itself secure. But in the procedure nosotros must not, past our ain mitt, destroy or distort the American organisation. This we could do past useless overspending. I know one certain way to overspend. That is by overindulging sentimental attachments to outmoded armed services machines and concepts."
Accost to the American Gild of Newspaper Editors and the International Press Establish, 4/17/58

"I know something about that war, and I never want to see that history repeated. Simply, my fellow Americans, it certainly tin can be repeated if the peace-loving democratic nations over again fearfully exercise a policy of continuing idly by while large aggressors use armed force to conquer the small and weak."
Radio and Television set Written report to the American People Regarding the Situation in the Formosa Straits, nine/xi/58

"Any survey of the free world'due south defense structure cannot fail to impart a feeling of regret that then much of our endeavor and resource must be devoted to armaments."
Annual Bulletin to the Congress on the State of the Union, 1/9/59

"Only all history has taught the states the grim lesson that no nation has ever been successful in avoiding the terrors of state of war by refusing to defend its rights -- by attempting to placate aggression."
Radio and Telly Report to the American People: Security in the Free World, three/16/59

"In this hope, among the things we teach to the immature are such truths every bit the transcendent value of the private and the dignity of all people, the futility and stupidity of war, its destructiveness of life and its deposition 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 authorities, we must baby-sit against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial circuitous. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist."
Farewell Radio and Television Address to the American People, 1/17/61

"Morale is the greatest single cistron in successful war."
Crusade in Europe, page 210

"Nothing is piece of cake in war. Mistakes are always paid for in casualties and troops are quick to sense whatever blunder fabricated by their commanders."
Crusade in Europe, page 450

"Nosotros need an adequate defence force, but every arms dollar nosotros spend above adequacy has a long-term weakening outcome upon the nation and its security."
Waging Peace, page 622

Return TO TOP