Dwight D. Eisenhower quotes
-
“If you want total security, go to prison. There you're fed, clothed, given medical care and so on. The only thing lacking... is freedom.”
-- Dwight D. Eisenhower -
“History does not long entrust the care of freedom to the weak or the timid.”
-- Dwight D. Eisenhower -
“Neither a wise man nor a brave man lies down on the tracks of history to wait for the train of the future to run over him.”
-- Dwight D. Eisenhower -
“What counts is not necessarily the size of the dog in the fight - it's the size of the fight in the dog.”
-- Dwight D. Eisenhower -
-
“The speed, accuracy and devastating power of American Artillery won confidence and admiration from the troops it supported and inspired fear and respect in their enemy.”
-- Dwight D. Eisenhower -
“In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.”
-- Dwight D. EisenhowerSource : Farewell radio and television address to the American people, 17 Jan. 1961
-
“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 world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the clouds of war, it is humanity hanging on a cross of iron.”
-- Dwight D. EisenhowerSource : Speech in Washington, 16 Apr. 1953, in Public Papers of Presidents 1953 (1960) p. 182
-
“Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it.”
-- Dwight D. Eisenhower -
-
“The future of this republic is in the hands of the American voter.”
-- Dwight D. Eisenhower -
“Teachers need our active support 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.”
-- Dwight D. Eisenhower -
“I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity.”
-- Dwight D. EisenhowerSource : Speech in Ottawa on January 10, 1946. "Eisenhower Speaks: Dwight D. Eisenhower in His Messages and Speeches". Book edited by Rudolph L. Treuenfels, 1948.
-
“Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history.”
-- Dwight D. EisenhowerSource : Letter to Edgar Newton Eisenhower, teachingamericanhistory.org. November 08, 1954.
-
-
“When I was a small boy in Kansas, a friend of mine and I went fishing. I told him I wanted to be a real Major League baseball player, a genuine professional like Honus Wagner. My friend said that he'd like to be President of the United States. Neither of us got our wish.”
-- Dwight D. Eisenhower -
“Today in America, unions have a secure place in our industrial life. Only a handful of reactionaries harbor the ugly thought of breaking unions and depriving working men and women of the right to join the union of their choice. I have no use for those - regardless of their political party - who hold some vain and foolish dream of spinning the clock back to days when organized labor was huddled, almost as a hapless mass. Only a fool would try to deprive working men and women of the right to join the union of their choice.”
-- Dwight D. Eisenhower -
“The history of free men is never really written by chance but by choice; their choice!”
-- Dwight D. Eisenhower -
“Some people wanted champagne and caviar when they should have had beer and hot dogs.”
-- Dwight D. Eisenhower -
-
“The supreme quality for leadership is unquestionably integrity. Without it, no real success is possible, no matter whether it is on a section gang, a football field, in an army, or in an office.”
-- Dwight D. Eisenhower -
“A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both.”
-- Dwight D. EisenhowerSource : First Inaugural Address, delivered 20 January 1953
-
“Only a fool would try to deprive working men and working women of their right to join the union of their choice.”
-- Dwight D. Eisenhower -
-
“You don't lead by hitting people over the head - that's assault, not leadership.”
-- Dwight D. Eisenhower -
“If a political party does not have its foundation in the determination to advance a cause that is right and that is moral, then it is not a political party; it is merely a conspiracy to seize power.”
-- Dwight D. EisenhowerSource : Eisenhower, Dwight D (1958). “Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1956”, p.281, Best Books on
-
“I get weary of the European habit of taking our money, resenting any slight hint as to what they should do, and then assuming, in addition, full right to criticize us as bitterly as they may desire.”
-- Dwight D. Eisenhower -
“What the church should be telling the worker is that the first demand religion makes on him is that he should be a good workman. If he is a carpenter he should be a competent carpenter. Church by all means on Sundays-but what is the use of church if at the very center of life a man defrauds his neighbor and insults God by poor craftsmanship.”
-- Dwight D. Eisenhower -
-
“If a problem cannot be solved, enlarge it.”
-- Dwight D. Eisenhower -
“When you are in any contest, you should work as if there were - to the very last minute - a chance to lose it. This is battle, this is politics, this is anything.”
-- Dwight D. Eisenhower -
“Through unity of action we can be a veritable colossus in support of peace. No one can defeat us unless we first defeat ourselves. Every one of us must be guided by this truth.”
-- Dwight D. Eisenhower -
“The people of Israel, like those of the United States, are imbued with a religious faith and a sense of moral values”
-- Dwight D. Eisenhower -
-
“Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.”
-- Dwight D. Eisenhower -
“People talk about the middle of the road as though it were unacceptable. Actually, all human problems, excepting morals, come into the gray areas. Things are not all black and white. There have to be compromises. The middle of the road is all of the usable surface. The extremes, right and left, are in the gutters.”
-- Dwight D. Eisenhower -
“Civilization owes to the Islamic world some of its most important tools and achievements...the Muslim genius has added much to the culture of all peoples.”
-- Dwight D. Eisenhower -
“We seek peace, knowing that peace is the climate of freedom.”
-- Dwight D. Eisenhower -
-
“This desk of mine is one at which a man may die, but from which he cannot resign.”
-- Dwight D. Eisenhower -
“It is far more important to be able to hit the target than it is to haggle over who makes a weapon or who pulls a trigger.”
-- Dwight D. Eisenhower -
“The middle of the road is all of the usable surface. The extremes, right and left, are in the gutters.”
-- Dwight D. Eisenhower -
“It is only common sense to recognize that the great bulk of Americans, whether Republican or Democrat, face many common problems and agree on a number of basic objectives.”
-- Dwight D. Eisenhower -
-
“Our American heritage is threatened as much by our own indifference as it is by the most unscrupulous office or by the most powerful foreign threat. The future of this republic is in the hands of the American voter.”
-- Dwight D. Eisenhower -
“Before all else, we seek, upon our common labor as a nation, the blessings of Almighty God.”
-- Dwight D. Eisenhower -
“I can think of nothing more boring for the American people than to have to sit in their living rooms for a whole half hour looking at my face on their television screens.”
-- Dwight D. Eisenhower -
“The proudest thing I can claim is that I am from Abilene.”
-- Dwight D. Eisenhower -
-
“Any time we deny any citizen the full exercise of his constitutional rights, we are weakening our own claim to them.”
-- Dwight D. Eisenhower -
“When people speak to you about a preventive war, you tell them to go and fight it. After my experience, I have come to hate war.”
-- Dwight D. Eisenhower -
“Don't join the book burners... Don't be afraid to go in your library and read every book.”
-- Dwight D. Eisenhower -
“Leadership consists of nothing but taking responsibility for everything that goes wrong and giving your subordinates credit for everything that goes well.”
-- Dwight D. EisenhowerSource : "Nineteen Stars: A Study in Military Character and Leadership". Book by Edgar F. Puryear Jr., p. 289, 1971.
-
-
“Only our individual faith in freedom can keep us free.”
-- Dwight D. Eisenhower -
“This is a long tough road we have to travel. The men that can do things are going to be sought out just as surely as the sun rises in the morning. Fake reputations, habits of glib and clever speech, and glittering surface performance are going to be discovered.”
-- Dwight D. Eisenhower -
“We succeed only as we identify in life, or in war, or in anything else, a single overriding objective, and make all other considerations bend to that one objective.”
-- Dwight D. Eisenhower -
“I never saw a pessimistic general win a battle.”
-- Dwight D. Eisenhower -
-
“The qualities of a great man are vision, integrity, courage, understanding, the power of articulation, and profundity of character.”
-- Dwight D. Eisenhower -
“It is better to have one person working with you than three people working for you.”
-- Dwight D. Eisenhower -
“I have full confidence in your courage and devotion to duty and skill in battle. We will accept nothing less than full Victory! Good luck! And let us beseech the blessing of Almighty God upon this great and noble undertaking.”
-- Dwight D. Eisenhower -
“Your task will not be an easy one. Your enemy is well-trained, well-equipped and battle-hardened. He will fight savagely”
-- Dwight D. Eisenhower -
-
“How has retirement affected my golf game? A lot more people beat me now.”
-- Dwight D. Eisenhower -
“As our heart summons our strength, our wisdom must direct it.”
-- Dwight D. Eisenhower -
“Soldiers, Sailors and Airmen of the Allied Expeditionary Force! You are about to embark upon the Great Crusade, toward which we have striven these many months. The eyes of the world are upon you.”
-- Dwight D. Eisenhower -
“Never waste a minute thinking about people you don't like.”
-- Dwight D. Eisenhower -
-
“This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.”
-- Dwight D. Eisenhower -
“No man is worth your tears, but once you find one that is, he won't make you cry.”
-- Dwight D. Eisenhower -
“Never send a battalion to take a hill if a regiment is available.”
-- Dwight D. Eisenhower -
“Extremes to the right and to the left of any political dispute are always wrong.”
-- Dwight D. Eisenhower -
-
“Accomplishment will prove to be a journey, not a destination.”
-- Dwight D. Eisenhower -
“The search for a scapegoat is the easiest of all hunting expeditions.”
-- Dwight D. Eisenhower -
“This is what I found out about religion: It gives you courage to make the decisions you must make in a crisis, and then the confidence to leave the result to a higher Power. Only by trust in God can a man carrying responsibility find repose.”
-- Dwight D. Eisenhower -
“I think that people want peace so much that one of these days government had better get out of their way and let them have it.”
-- Dwight D. Eisenhower -
-
“Pull the string, and it will follow wherever you wish. Push it, and it will go nowhere at all.”
-- Dwight D. Eisenhower -
“I call upon those who love freedom to stand with us now. Together we shall achieve victory.”
-- Dwight D. Eisenhower -
“Though force can protect in emergency, only justice, fairness, consideration and cooperation can finally lead men to the dawn of eternal peace.”
-- Dwight D. Eisenhower -
“If men can develop weapons that are so terrifying as to make the thought of global war include almost a sentence for suicide, you would think that man's intelligence and his comprehension... would include also his ability to find a peaceful solution.”
-- Dwight D. Eisenhower -
-
“In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.”
-- Dwight D. Eisenhower -
“In the final choice a soldier's pack is not so heavy as a prisoner's chains.”
-- Dwight D. Eisenhower -
“An atheist is a man who watches a Notre Dame - Southern Methodist University game and doesn't care who wins.”
-- Dwight D. Eisenhower -
-
“Together we must learn how to compose differences, not with arms, but with intellect and decent purpose.”
-- Dwight D. Eisenhower -
“The clearest way to show what the rule of law means to us in everyday life is to recall what has happened when there is no rule of law.”
-- Dwight D. Eisenhower -
“Humility must always be the portion of any man who receives acclaim earned in the blood of his followers and the sacrifices of his friends.”
-- Dwight D. Eisenhower -
“There is nothing wrong with America that faith, love of freedom, intelligence, and energy of her citizens cannot cure.”
-- Dwight D. Eisenhower -
-
“I despise people who go to the gutter on either the right or the left and hurl rocks at those in the center.”
-- Dwight D. Eisenhower -
“Here in America we are descended in blood and in spirit from revolutionists and rebels - men and women who dare to dissent from accepted doctrine. As their heirs, may we never confuse honest dissent with disloyal subversion.”
-- Dwight D. Eisenhower -
“The problem in defense is how far you can go without destroying from within what you are trying to defend from without.”
-- Dwight D. Eisenhower -
“Hope spurs humans everywhere to work harder to endure more now that the future may be better.”
-- Dwight D. Eisenhower -
-
“An intellectual is a man who takes more words than necessary to tell more than he knows.”
-- Dwight D. Eisenhower -
“I believe that without free enterprise there can be no democracy.”
-- Dwight D. Eisenhower -
“Any man who wants to be president is either an egomaniac or crazy.”
-- Dwight D. Eisenhower -
“Always try to associate yourself closely with and learn as much as you can from those who know more than you, who do better than you, who see more clearly than you. Apart from the rewards of friendship, the association might pay off at some unforeseen time - that is only an accidental byproduct. The important thing is that the learning will make you a better person.”
-- Dwight D. EisenhowerSource : "Bill Clinton, campaign strategists, Colo. Senate debate". "Meet the Press" with Tom Brokaw, www.nbcnews.com.
-
-
“I have one yardstick by which I test every major problem - and that yardstick is: Is it good for America?”
-- Dwight D. Eisenhower -
“Whatever America hopes to bring to pass in the world must first come to pass in the heart of America.”
-- Dwight D. Eisenhower -
“May we never confuse honest dissent with disloyal subversion.”
-- Dwight D. Eisenhower -
“We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security.”
-- Dwight D. Eisenhower -
-
“Only strength can cooperate. Weakness can only beg.”
-- Dwight D. Eisenhower -
“If all that Americans want is security, they can go to prison. They'll have enough to eat, a bed and a roof over their heads. But if an American wants to preserve his dignity and his equality as a human being, he must not bow his neck to any dictatorial government.”
-- Dwight D. Eisenhower -
“In this war, which was total in every sense of the word, we have seen many great changes in military science. It seems to me that not the least of these was the development of psychological warfare as a specific and effective weapon.”
-- Dwight D. Eisenhower -
“We must achieve both security and solvency. In fact, the foundation of military strength is economic strength,”
-- Dwight D. Eisenhower -
-
“There is no victory at bargain basement prices.”
-- Dwight D. Eisenhower -
“There is no glory in battle worth the blood it costs.”
-- Dwight D. Eisenhower -
“If a man's associates find him guilty of being phony, if they find that he lacks forthright integrity, he will fail. His teachings and actions must square with each other. The first great need, therefore, is integrity and high purpose.”
-- Dwight D. Eisenhower -
“Peace and justice are two sides of the same coin.”
-- Dwight D. Eisenhower -
-
“In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.”
-- Dwight D. Eisenhower -
“I like to believe that people in the long run are going to do more to promote peace than our governments. Indeed, I think that people want peace so much that one of these days governments had better get out of the way and let them have it.”
-- Dwight D. Eisenhower -
“If progress is to be steady we must have long term guides extending far ahead.”
-- Dwight D. Eisenhower -
You may also like:
-
Douglas MacArthur
Military Officer -
Franklin D. Roosevelt
32nd U.S. President -
George H. W. Bush
41st U.S. President -
George S. Patton
Military Commander -
George Washington
1st U.S. President -
Gerald R. Ford
38th U.S. President -
Harry S. Truman
33rd U.S. President -
Herbert Hoover
31st U.S. President -
Jimmy Carter
39th U.S. President -
John F. Kennedy
35th U.S. President -
Joseph Stalin
Former Premier of the Soviet Union -
Lyndon B. Johnson
36th U.S. President -
Nikita Khrushchev
Former General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union -
Richard M. Nixon
37th U.S. President -
Ronald Reagan
40th U.S. President -
Theodore Roosevelt
26th U.S. President -
Winston Churchill
Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom -
Woodrow Wilson
28th U.S. President -
Mamie Eisenhower
Former First Lady of the United States
