Quotes

  1. The Eisenhowers
  2. Quotes

Agriculture

"The proper function of authorities, however, is that of partner with the farmer -- never his master. Past every possible ways we must develop and promote that partnership -- to the finish that agriculture may continue to exist a sound, enduring foundation for our economy and that farm living may be a profitable and satisfying experience."
Special Bulletin to the Congress on Agriculture, 1/nine/56

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

Anecdotes

"I come up from the very center of America."
Guildhall Speech, London, 6/12/45 Audio clip

"The proudest thing I can 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."
Alphabetic character, DDE to Omar Bradley, 10/26/1949 [DDE'southward Pre-Presidential Papers, Box 13]

"Whatsoever America hopes to bring to pass in the world must kickoff come up to laissez passer in the centre of America."
Inaugural Address, 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, 1/20/53 Audio clip

"A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both."
Inaugural Address, Washington, DC, 1/20/53 Audio clip

"There is -- in world affairs -- a steady course to be followed betwixt an assertion of forcefulness that is truculent and a confession of helplessness that is cowardly."
Country of the Marriage Accost, 2/2/53 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: e'er accept your chore seriously, never yourself."
Address at the New England "Forward to '54" Dinner, Boston, Massachusetts, ix/21/53

"I was raised in a little town of which most of you have never heard. But in the West information technology is a famous place. It is chosen Abilene, Kansas. We had equally our marshal for a long time a man named Wild Nib Hickok. If you don't know anything well-nigh him, read your Westerns more. Now that town had a code, and I was raised as a male child to prize that code. It was: meet anyone face up to face with whom y'all disagree. You could not sneak up on him from behind, or exercise any harm to him, without suffering the penalty of an outraged citizenry. If you met him face to face and took the same risks he did, you could get away with almost anything, as long as the bullet was in the forepart."
Remarks Upon Receiving America's Democratic Legacy Award at a B'nai B'rith Dinner in Honor of the 40th Anniversary of the Anti-Defamation League, 11/23/53 Audio clip

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

"Well, information technology is very important, and the swell idea of setting up an organism is so as to defeat the domino result. When, each standing lonely, 1 falls, information technology has the upshot on the next, and finally the whole row is down. You are trying, through a unifying influence, to build that row of dominoes and so they tin can stand the fall of one, if necessary."
The President'south News Briefing of v/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 go up and practice the chore of bringing the groceries downwards home. They had a practise and then, in grocery stores, that I sympathize growing efficiency has eliminated -- always hoping that the grocer would say you lot can have one of the stale prunes out of the barrel over at that place. But meliorate than that was the dill pickle jar that y'all could dive into, sometimes arm deep almost, and try to get 1. I empathise that they are not that all-around anymore; we take got besides efficient. When you become around picking things off the shelf, you lot pay for them. These, yous sympathize, were free. That meant a lot to young boys to whom a nickel looked about as big every bit a cycle on a farm wagon."
Remarks at the Convention of the National Clan of Retail Grocers, 6/16/54Audio clip

"Now I realize that on any particular determination a very corking corporeality of heat can be generated. But I do say this: life is not fabricated up of simply one decision here, or another one at that place. Information technology 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 near you. Authorities has to do that same thing. It is merely in the mass that finally philosophy really emerges."
Remarks at Luncheon Meeting of the Republican National Committee and the Republican National Finance Committee, 2/17/55

"Today there is a not bad ideological struggle going on in the world. One side upholds what it calls the materialistic dialectic. Denying the existence of spiritual values, it maintains that man responds only to materialistic influences and consequently he is nothing. He is an educated beast and is useful only as he serves the ambitions -- desires -- of a ruling clique; though they endeavor to brand this finer-sounding than that, because they say their dictatorship is that of the proletariat, meaning that they rule in the people'south name -- for the people. Now, on our side, we recognize right away that man is not merely an animal, that his life and his ambitions have at the bottom a foundation of spiritual values."
Remarks at 11th Annual Washington Conference of the Advertising Council, 3/22/55 Audio clip

"Some politician some years ago said that bad officials are elected by good voters who do not vote."
Remarks at the Breakfast Meeting of Republican Country Chairmen, Denver, Colorado, nine/10/55

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

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

"The world moves, and ideas that were proficient once are not always proficient."
The President'due south News Conference of 8/31/56 Audio clip

"I believe when you are in whatever contest you should piece of work like in that location is always to the very terminal minute a chance to lose it. This is battle, this is politics, this is anything. So I just run into no excuse if yous believe anything enough for not putting your whole heart into it. It is what I do."
The President's News Briefing of ix/27/56Audio clip

"I vest to a family of boys who were raised in meager circumstances in central Kansas, and every one of the states earned our style equally we went along, and it never occurred to u.s. that we were poor, but nosotros were."
Television Broadcast: "The People Ask the President," ten/12/56

"The hope of the globe is that wisdom tin can arrest disharmonize between brothers. I believe that state of war is the deadly harvest of arrogant and unreasoning minds."
Accost, National Education Association, Washington, DC, 4/iv/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 Conference, 11/14/57 Audio clip

"But these calculations overlook the decisive chemical element: what counts is non necessarily the size of the canis familiaris in the fight -- it's the size of the fight in the domestic dog."
Excerpts From Remarks at Republican National Commission Breakfast, 1/31/58

"Just finally, in that location is one other quality I would mention amid these that I believe will fit yous for difficult and important posts. This is a healthy and lively sense of humour."
Address at U. Due south. Naval Academy Get-go, 6/four/58

"A famous Frenchman once said, 'State of war has become far too important to entrust to the generals.' Today, business organisation, I think, should be proverb: 'Politics have go far too important to entrust to the politicians'."
Remarks, Business organisation Quango, Hot Springs, Virginia, 10/20/62

RETURN TO Acme

Censorship

"Censorship, in my opinion, is a stupid and shallow way of approaching the solution to any problem. Though sometimes necessary, every bit witness a professional person and technical clandestine that may have a bearing upon the welfare and very safety of this country, we should be very careful in the way we apply it, because in censorship always lurks the very peachy danger of working to the disadvantage of the American nation."
Associated Press luncheon, New York, New York, 4/24/50

"Don't join the book burners. Don't call up y'all are going to conceal faults by concealing testify that they ever existed. Don't exist agape to become in your library and read every volume, as long as that document does not offend our own ideas of decency. That should be the only censorship."
Remarks at the Dartmouth Higher Commencement Exercises, Hanover, New Hampshire, vi/14/53[AUDIO]

Children/Youth/Families

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

"I say with all the earnestness that I can command, that if American mothers will teach our children that there is no cease to the fight for better relationships among the people of the world, we shall have peace."
Address to the National Quango of Cosmic Women, Boston, Massachusetts, 11/viii/54

"In this connection, I should mention our enormous national debt. We must brainstorm to brand some payments on information technology if nosotros are to avoid passing on to our children an impossible burden of debt."
Remarks on the State of the Union Bulletin, Fundamental West, Florida, 1/5/56[AUDIO]

"Teachers demand our active back up and encouragement. They are doing one of the about necessary and exacting jobs in the land. They are developing our most precious national resource: our children, our future citizens."
Accost at the Centennial Celebration Banquet of the National Education Association, 4/four/57 [Audio]

"At present, the education of our children is of national concern, and if they are non educated properly, information technology is a national cataclysm."
The President's News Briefing of 7/31/57 [Sound]

"I am not here, of course, 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, Higher Park, Maryland, 3/27/60 [AUDIO]

RETURN TO TOP

Citizenship

"Republic is essentially a political system that recognizes the equality of humans before the constabulary." -Address to Constituent Associates, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, August 8, 1946

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

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

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

"I believe the just style 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 equally we allow weather condition to be that make for second-class citizens, we are making of ourselves less than showtime-class citizens." -Remarks at the United Negro College Fund tiffin, May xix, 1953

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

"The history of gratuitous men is never really written by chance--merely past choice--their choice." -Address in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, October ix, 1956

"A foundation of our American style of life is our national respect for law." - Address to the American People on the situation in Piffling Stone, Arkansas, September 24, 1957

"Freedom nether police force is like the air nosotros breathe." -Remarks on the Observance of Law Twenty-four hours, April xxx, 1958

"It is only every bit nosotros govern ourselves that we are well-governed." -Remarks on the Observance of Law Mean solar day, April 30, 1958

Civil Rights

"I propose to use whatever dominance exists in the function of the President to end segregation in the District of Columbia, including the Federal Government, and any segregation in the Armed Forces."
Almanac Message to the Congress on the Land of the Wedlock, ii/2/53 [Sound]

"We take erased segregation in those areas of national life to which Federal potency clearly extends. And then doing in this, my friends, nosotros accept neither sought nor claimed partisan credit, and all such actions are naught more -- nothing less than the rendering of justice. And we have e'er been enlightened of this slap-up truth: the terminal boxing confronting 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, x/19/56[AUDIO]

"Information technology was my hope that this localized state of affairs would exist brought under control past city and Country regime. If the utilize 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 information technology impossible for the decrees of the Court to be carried out, both the law and the national interest demanded that the President have action."
Radio and Television set Accost to the American People on the State of affairs in Trivial Stone 9/24/57[AUDIO]

"I exercise not believe that all of these problems can be solved just past a new constabulary, or something that someone says, with teeth in information technology. For case, when nosotros got into the Little Rock thing, it was not my province to talk near segregation or desegregation. I had the job of supporting a federal courtroom that had issued a proper social club under the Constitution, and where compliance was prevented past action that was unlawful."
The President's News Conference of 3/26/58

"I believe that the United states as a government, if it is going to exist true to its own founding documents, does accept the job of working toward that time when there is no discrimination made on such inconsequential reason equally race, color, or religion."
The President's News Conference of v/13/59

Render TO Elevation

Education

"The truthful purpose of education is to prepare young men and women for constructive citizenship in a free form of government."
Voice communication at William and Mary College, Williamsburg, Virginia, May 15, 1953 [AUDIO]

"It is unwise to brand instruction too cheap. If everything is provided freely, in that location is a tendency to put no value on annihilation. Education must ever take a certain price on information technology; even as the very process of learning itself must always require individual effort and initiative."
Address, Centennial Celebration Banquet of the National Instruction Association, Washington, DC, 4/4/57[Sound]

Government

"1 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 next play until he saw how the last play turned out. Well, that may be a expert fashion to run a football team, but in these days it is no way to run a government."
Address at the Cow Palace on Accepting the Nomination of the Republican National Convention, 8/23/56 [Sound]

"A sound nation is built of individuals sound in trunk and listen and spirit. Regime dares not ignore the individual denizen."
Address at a Rally in the Public Square, Cleveland, Ohio, x/1/56[AUDIO]

"Nosotros cannot safely confine authorities programs to our own domestic progress and our own military ability. We could exist the wealthiest and the most mighty nation and all the same lose the battle of the world if we do not assist our world neighbors protect their freedom and advance their social and economic progress. It is not 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 Mutual Security Programme, 3/thirteen/59

Holocaust

"But the nearly interesting -- although horrible -- sight that I encountered during the trip was a visit to a German internment camp well-nigh Gotha. The things I saw ragamuffin description. While I was touring the army camp I encountered three men who had been inmates and by 1 ruse or another had made their escape. I interviewed them through an interpreter. The visual testify and the verbal testimony of starvation, cruelty and animality were then overpowering every bit to leave me a scrap ill. In i room, where they [there] were piled upward 20 or thirty naked men, killed by starvation, George Patton would non fifty-fifty enter. He said he would get sick if he did so. I made the visit deliberately, in club to exist in position to give start-hand show of these things if ever, in the time to come, there develops a trend to charge these allegations just to 'propaganda'."
Alphabetic character, DDE to George C. Marshall, 4/xv/45 [The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower, The War Years IV, medico #2418]

"We proceed to uncover German concentration camps for political prisoners in which conditions of indescribable horror prevail. I take visited i of these myself and I assure you that whatever has been printed on them to date has been understatement. If you would see any reward in asking about a dozen leaders of Congress and a dozen prominent editors to make a short visit to this theater in a couple of C-54'south, I volition adjust to accept them conducted to 1 of these places where the bear witness of bestiality and cruelty is so overpowering as to get out no incertitude in their minds nigh 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 institute the first campsite like that I think I never was so aroused in my life. The bestiality displayed there was non merely piled up bodies of people that had starved to death, only to follow out the route and see where they tried to evacuate them so they could however work, you could come across where they sprawled on the road. Yous could go to their burial pits and see horrors that really I wouldn't even want to begin to describe. I recall people ought to know well-nigh such things. It explains something of my attitude toward the German war criminal. I believe he must be punished, and I volition hold out for that forever."
Press conference, vi/18/45 [DDE'due south Pre-Presidential Papers, Primary File, Box 156, Printing Statements and Releases, 1944-46 (1)]

RETURN TO TOP

Korean State of war

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

"Manifestly all of united states know that the composition that was reached in Korea is not satisfactory to America, simply information technology is far better than to go along the encarmine, dreary, sacrifice of lives with no possible strictly military victory in sight."
Address at the Illinois State Fair at Springfield, viii/xix/54[AUDIO]

"And of course, at that place was the war in Korea, a state of war around which there had grown upwards such a political situation that armed forces victory, at least a decisive military machine victory, was no longer in the cards."
Radio and Television Address to the American People on the Achievements of the 83rd Congress, eight/23/54 [Audio]

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

Labor

I have no utilize for those — regardless of their political political party — who agree some foolish dream of spinning the clock dorsum to days when unorganized labor was a huddled, almost helpless mass.
Spoken language to the American Federation of Labor, New York Metropolis, nine/17/52

Today in America unions have a secure identify in our industrial life. But a handful of unreconstructed reactionaries harbor the ugly thought of breaking unions. Only a fool would endeavor to deprive working men and women of the right to bring together the union of their choice.
Speech to the American Federation of Labor, New York Metropolis, 9/17/52

Regime can do a great 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 process of mediation and conciliation.
Country of the Matrimony Message, Washington, DC, ii/2/53[AUDIO]

Leadership/Organization

"What is Leadership?" by Dwight D. Eisenhower

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

"Now I think, speaking roughly, by leadership we hateful the art of getting someone else to do something that you desire done because he wants to do information technology, not because your position of ability can compel him to exercise it, or your position of authority. A commander of a regiment is not necessarily a leader. He has all of the appurtenances of ability given by a fix of Army regulations by which he tin compel unified activity. He tin can say to a torso such as this, "Ascent," and "Sit downwardly." You do it exactly. Merely that is not leadership."
Remarks at the Almanac Conference of the Society for Personnel Assistants, v/12/54[AUDIO]

"The job of getting people really wanting to do something is the essence of leadership. And one 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 always visits his troops to inspire them to fight. I for one soon discovered that i of the reasons for my visiting the front end lines was to get inspiration from the young American soldier. I went back to my job ashamed of my own occasional resentments or discouragements, which I probably -- at least I hope I concealed them."
Remarks at the Breakfast Meeting of Republican State Chairmen, Denver, Colorado, 9/10/55

"Equally long as I am dorsum in my war machine life for a second, I should like to observe i thing about leadership that one of the great has said -- Napoleon. He said, the great leader, the genius in leadership, is the human who can exercise the boilerplate thing when everybody else is going crazy."
Address at Meeting Sponsored by the Republican National Commission, 4/17/56

"The essence of leadership is to get others to do something because they think y'all desire it done and because they know information technology is worth while doing -- that is what nosotros are talking nigh."
Remarks at the Republican Campaign Picnic at the President'south Gettysburg Farm, nine/12/56

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

"My life has been largely spent in diplomacy that required organization. Merely organization itself, necessary as it is, is never sufficient to win a battle."
Remarks to Participants in the Young Republican National Leadership Training School, 1/20/threescore[Audio]

RETURN TO Summit

Peace

"Since the appearance of nuclear weapons, it seems articulate that there is no longer any alternative to peace, if there is to be a happy and well world."
Remarks at the Department of State 1954 Honor Awards Ceremony, 10/19/54[Audio]

"There tin can exist no true disarmament without peace, and there can be no real peace without very cloth disarmament."
Remarks at the Republican Women's National Conference, five/ten/55[AUDIO]

"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 receiver Report to the American People on the Developments in Eastern Europe and the Eye E, x/31/56[Audio]

"In vast stretches of the world, men awoke today in hunger. They will spend the day in unceasing toil. And as the lord's day goes down they will still know hunger. They will see suffering in the eyes of their children. Many despair that their labor will ever decently shelter their families or protect them against disease. And so long as this is so, peace and freedom will exist in danger throughout our world. For wherever free men lose hope of progress, liberty will exist weakened and the seeds of disharmonize will exist sown."
Remarks of Welcome to the Delegates to the Tenth Colombo Program Coming together, Seattle, Washington, 11/10/58[AUDIO]

"I like to believe that people, in the long run, are going to practice more to promote peace than our governments. Indeed, I call back that people desire peace then much that one of these days governments had better get out of the way and permit them have it."
Radio and Television Broadcast With Prime Government minister Macmillan in London, 8/31/59

"So -- our readiness to come across and defeat this kind of possible attack is forced upon us, both as a strong preventive of bodily state of war and to insure survival in upshot of assault. This alacrity 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 -- tin 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 accept said time and over again there is no place on this earth to which I would non travel, in that location is no task I would not undertake if I had whatever faintest hope that, by so doing, I would promote the general cause of world peace."
The President'south News Conference, March 23, 1955 [AUDIO]

"Equally for myself and for the Secretarial assistant of State and others involved, including those in the Legislature, we stand set to do annihilation, to meet with anyone, anywhere, as long as we may do so in cocky-respect, demanding the respect due this Nation, and there is whatever slightest thought or risk of furthering this great crusade of peace."
Remarks at the Republican Women's National Briefing, May 10, 1955[Sound]

"For a just and lasting peace, here is my solemn pledge to you: by dedication and patience nosotros will go along, every bit long as I remain your President, to piece of work for this simple -- this single -- this exclusive goal."
Address at Byrd Field, Richmond, Virginia, October 29, 1956[Sound]

"The building of such a peace is a bold and solemn purpose. To proclaim it is easy. To serve it will exist hard. And to attain it, we must be aware of its total meaning -- and fix to pay its total price."
Second Inaugural Address, Jan 21, 1957[Sound]

"For all that we cherish and justly want -- for ourselves or for our children -- the securing of peace is the get-go requisite."
Radio and Television receiver Accost to the American People on the Demand for Mutual Security in Waging the Peace, May 21, 1957

"Having established every bit our goals a lasting earth peace with justice and the security of freedom on this earth, we must be prepared to make whatsoever sacrifices are demanded every bit nosotros pursue this path to its end."
Remarks at the Fort Pitt Chapter, Clan of the United States Army May 31, 1961

The Presidency

"My first day at the President'southward Desk. Enough of worries and difficult problems. Just such has been my portion for a long fourth dimension -- the result is that this just seems (today) like a continuation of all I've been doing since July '41 -- even before that!"
Diary entry, ane/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 near taxing job, as far as tiring of the mind and spirit; but it too has, as I have said before, its inspirations which tend to counteract each other . . . There have been times in war where I thought nothing could be quite as wearing and vehement as that with lives directly involved. But I would say, on the whole, this is the most wearing, although not necessarily, as I say, the nigh tiring."
The President's News Conference at Key Due west, Florida, 1/viii/56

"Many people are always saying the Presidency is besides big a job for any one man. When I hear this assertion, I always attempt to betoken out that a single human being must make the concluding decisions that affect the whole, but that proper arrangement brings to him merely the questions and problems on which his decisions are needed. His own chore is to exist mentally prepared to make those decisions and then to be supported past an system that will make sure they are carried out."
Letter of the alphabet, DDE to Dillon Anderson, ane/22/68 [DDE's Mail service-Presidential Papers, 1968 Primary File, Box 36, "An"]

"On the other hand, I found that getting things done sometimes required other weapons from the Presidential arsenal -- persuasion, cajolery, fifty-fifty a lilliputian head-thumping here and in that location -- to say nothing of a personal streak of obstinacy which on occasion fires my boilers."
Some Thoughts on the Presidency, Reader'southward Digest, November 1968

Faith

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

"Today I think that prayer is only simply a necessity, considering by prayer I believe we mean an effort to get in touch with the Infinite. We know that even our prayers are imperfect. Even our supplications are imperfect. Of course they are. We are imperfect human beings. Just if we can dorsum off from those problems and make the attempt, and then at that place is something that ties us all together. Nosotros have begun in our grasp of that basis of agreement, which is that all gratuitous government is firmly founded in a deeply-felt religious religion."
Remarks at the Dedicatory Prayer Breakfast of the International Christian Leadership, ii/5/53

"The churches of America are citadels of our organized religion in individual freedom and human being dignity. This faith is the living source of all our spiritual forcefulness. And this strength 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, 7/nine/53

"From this day forrard, the millions of our school children will daily proclaim in every city and town, every hamlet and rural school firm, the dedication of our nation and our people to the Almighty. To anyone who truly loves America, nothing could be more than inspiring than to contemplate this rededication of our youth, on each school morning, to our state'south true meaning.
Especially is this meaningful equally we regard today's world. Over the globe, mankind has been cruelly torn by violence and brutality and, by the millions, deadened in mind and soul past a materialistic philosophy of life. Man everywhere is appalled by the prospect of diminutive war. In this somber setting, this law and its effects today have profound meaning. In this style we are reaffirming the transcendence of religious religion in America's heritage and future; in this way we shall constantly strengthen those spiritual weapons which forever volition be our country's most powerful resources, in peace or in war."
Argument by the President Upon Signing Bill to Include the Words "Under God" in the Pledge to the Flag, 6/14/54

"Faith is the mightiest force that man has at his command. It impels man beings to greatness in idea and give-and-take and human activity."
Address at the Second Assembly of the Earth Council of Churches, Evanston, Illinois, 8/xix/54 [Audio]

"Nosotros are substantially a religious people. We are not simply religious, we are inclined, more than today than e'er, to see the value of religion as a practical force in our affairs."
Accost at the 2nd Associates of the World Council of Churches, Evanston, Illinois, 8/nineteen/54[AUDIO]

"Without God, there could be no American form of Government, nor an American style of life. Recognition of the Supreme Being is the offset -- the most basic -- expression of Americanism. Thus the Founding Fathers saw information technology, and thus, with God'south help, it will continue to be."
Remarks Recorded for the "Back-to-God" Program of the American Legion, 2/20/55

"Since the day of cosmos, the fondest hopes of men and women accept been to pass on to their children something meliorate than they themselves enjoyed. That hope represents a spark of the Divine which is implanted in every human breast."
Accost at the Signing of the Declaration of Principles at the Meeting of the Presidents in Panama City, seven/22/56

"The purpose is Divine; the implementation is human. Our country and its government take made mistakes -- human mistakes. They have been of the head -- non of the heart. And it is all the same true that the great concept of the nobility of all men, alike created in the image of the Almighty, has been the compass by which we have tried and are trying to steer our course."
Almanac Message to the Congress on the State of the Wedlock, ane/ten/57

"Basic to our democratic civilisation are the principles and convictions that have spring u.s.a. together as a nation. Amongst these are personal freedom, human rights, and the dignity of man. All these take their roots in a deeply held religious faith -- in a belief in God."
Address at U.South. Naval Academy Commencement, half-dozen/iv/58

"The liberty of a citizen and the freedom of a religious believer are more than intimately related; they are mutually dependent. These 2 liberties give 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 TOP

Sports

"My abiding prayer, these days, equally 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, DDE to Bobby Jones, 7/28/51 [DDE'southward Pre-Presidential Papers, Box 63, Jones, Robert Tyre Jr.]

"The other 24-hour interval Aks and I went up to your ranch for a twenty-four hour period'south angling. I cannot remember whatsoever twenty-four hours when nosotros take had more fun on a stream. We had along with us three newspaper men and a few hugger-mugger service people, many of whom had never seen a trout stream, so we did the affair upward correct 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, viii/15/53 [DDE's Papers equally 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 first, to realize that at that place are no rules to war. Our men were raised in sports, where a referee runs a football, or an umpire a baseball game, and so forth."
Remarks at the Conference of the National Women's Advisory Committee on Civil Defense, x/26/54 [Sound]

"And the other was this: the md did want to take off my leg because he thought it was necessary. Just 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 adolescent minds."
Radio and Television Circulate: "The Women Ask the President," x/24/56

"But I call up a life of raising prize cattle, going shooting two or three times a yr, 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 any -- peradventure such a life wouldn't be and then bad."
Letter, DDE to Alfred M. Gruenther, eleven/ii/56 [The Papers of Dwight D. Eisenhower, Volume XVII - The Presidency: The Middle Way, Part Xi, Chapter 22]

"I have just 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 y'all that I get a great deal of pleasance and relaxation out of using the dark-green in an occasional late afternoon hour . . ."
Letter of the alphabet, DDE to Rear Admiral John S. Phillips, 4/12/57 [DDE'southward Papers every bit President, President's Personal File, Box 10, one-A-7 Golf (4)]

"Not but do I have a swell love for the game of golf -- no thing how badly I play it -- but I accept also the belief that through every kind of coming together, through every kind of activity to which we tin can join more often and more than intimately peoples of our several countries, past that mensurate we will do something to solve the difficulties and the tensions that this poor old world seems present to so much endure."
Remarks to Representatives of Globe Amateur Golf game Team Championship Conference, v/2/58[AUDIO]

"Probably no 1 here knows I coached a football team -- a service squad -- playing against Georgetown. I think it was in the fall of 1924 Lou Little was your omnibus, and he trounce the states. Merely information technology was a very happy circumstance, because it brought me the friendship of another man, Lou Niggling, who to this day remains my very warm associate and friend."
Remarks at the Dedication of the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service of Georgetown Academy, 10/thirteen/58[AUDIO]

"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 have you into the fields. There is mild exercise, the kind that an older individual probably should accept. And on top of it, information technology induces you to take at any 1 fourth dimension ii or 3 hours, if you can, where you are thinking of the bird or that ball or the wily trout. Now, to my heed it is a very healthful, beneficial kind of thing, and I do it whenever I get a chance, as you well know."
The President'southward Press Briefing of 10/xv/58[AUDIO]

"Morale -- the will to win, the fighting heart -- are the honored hallmarks of the football passenger vehicle and player. Likewise, they are feature of the enterprising executive, the successful troop leader, the established artist and the dedicated teacher and scientist."
Remarks at the Kickoff Football Hall of Fame Dinner, New York City, New York, x/28/58[Audio]

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

"You did non tell me what you are doing athletically just at present merely I practise promise that if your arm comes forth next leap y'all tin can get information technology in practiced shape to try out for the pitching spot on the varsity. However, if you don't make information technology then I propose 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'due south Post Presidential Papers, Secretary'due south Serial, 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 whatever 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, page sixteen

War/Defense

"I take been called a Fascist and most a Hitlerite - actually, I have one earnest conviction in this war. It is that no other war in history has so definitely lined up the forces of capricious oppression and dictatorship against those of human rights and individual liberty."
Letter of the alphabet from Dwight D. Eisenhower to John S.D. Eisenhower, April 8, 1943 [Eisenhower's Pre-Presidential Papers, Box 173, Eisenhower John S.D. 1943-1946 (2)]

"Humility must ever exist the portion of any human being who receives acclaim earned in blood of his followers and sacrifices of his friends."
Guildhall Address, London, vi/12/45 [AUDIO]

"War is a grim, cruel business organization, a business justified only as a means of sustaining the forces of good against those of evil."
Transcription fabricated for National War Fund at asking of Col. Luther L. Hill, 9/eleven/45

"I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it tin can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity."
Address earlier the Canadian Club, Ottawa, Canada, 1/10/46

"Guns and tanks and planes are nothing unless there is a solid spirit, a solid heart, and nifty productiveness behind it."
Accost to Economical Club of New York, Hotel Astor, xi/xx/46

"State of war is flesh'south most tragic and stupid folly; to seek or advise its deliberate provocation is a blackness crime against all men. Though y'all follow the trade of the warrior, you do then in the spirit of Washington -- not of Genghis Khan. For Americans, only threat to our mode of life justifies resort to conflict."
Graduation Exercises at the United States Military Academy, six/iii/47

"Perchance my hatred of war blinds me so that I cannot comprehend the arguments they adduce. Merely, in my opinion, there is no such thing as a preventive war. Although this proposition is repeatedly made, none has yet explained how war prevents war. Worse than this, no one has been able to explain abroad the fact that war creates the conditions that afford state of war."
Remarks at Carnegie Plant, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, x/19/50 [DDE's Pre-Presidential Papers, Principal File, Box 196, Carnegie Institute]

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

"Americans, indeed, all free men, call up that in the final choice a soldier'due south pack is not so heavy a brunt as a prisoner's chains."
Inaugural Address, 1/20/53[AUDIO]

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

"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 common cold and are not clothed. This globe in arms is non spending coin alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. The cost of ane modern heavy bomber is this: a modernistic brick school in more than 30 cities. It is ii electrical power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some l miles of physical highway. We pay for a unmarried fighter airplane with a half million bushels of wheat. Nosotros pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could accept housed more 8,000 people. This, I repeat, is the best manner of life to be establish on the road. the earth has been taking. This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron."
Address "The Chance for Peace" Delivered Before the American Society of Newspaper Editors, four/sixteen/53 [Audio]

"We do non go along security establishments simply to defend property or territory or rights abroad or at body of water. We keep the security forces to defend a manner of life."
Remarks to the Committee for Economic Development, 5/20/54 [AUDIO]

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

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

"I take spent my life in the study of armed forces strength as a deterrent to state of war, and in the graphic symbol of military machine armaments necessary to win a war. The report of the offset of these questions is notwithstanding profitable, just we are apace getting to the signal that no war tin be won."
Letter, DDE to Richard L. Simon, Simon and Schuster, Inc., 4/four/56 [DDE's Papers every bit President, DDE Diaries Serial, Box 14, Apr 1956 Miscellaneous (5)]

"When we get to the point, as we 1 twenty-four hour period will, that both sides know that in any outbreak of full general hostilities, regardless of the element of surprise, destruction will exist both reciprocal and consummate, perhaps we volition have sense enough to meet at the conference tabular array with the understanding that the era of armaments has ended and the human race must adjust its actions to this truth or die."
Alphabetic character, DDE to Richard L. Simon, Simon and Schuster, Inc., iv/4/56 [DDE's Papers equally President, DDE Diaries Series, Box 14, April 1956 Miscellaneous (5)]

"Arms lonely can give the world no permanent peace, no confident security. Artillery are solely for defense -- to protect from violent assail what nosotros already have. They are just a plush insurance. They cannot add to human progress."
Address before the American Society of Newspaper Editors, Statler Hotel, Washington, DC, 4/21/56[AUDIO]

"Nosotros know something of the cost of that state of war. We were in it from December seventh, '41, till August of '45. Ever since that time, nosotros have been waging peace. Information technology has had its ups and downs only equally the state of war did."
The President's News Conference of half dozen/6/56

"The only way to win the adjacent earth war is to forbid it."
Address at a Rally in the Borough Auditorium, Seattle, Washington, x/17/56

"We must exist strong at domicile if we are going to be strong away. Nosotros understand that. So we want to be stiff at home in our morale or in our spirit, we desire to be strong intellectually, in our didactics, in our economy and, where necessary, militarily."
Radio and Television Circulate: "The Women Inquire the President," 10/24/56

"The promise of the world is that wisdom tin 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 effect this: Panic strikes like a storm and calamity comes similar a whirlwind to those who hate knowledge and ignore their God."
Accost at the Centennial Celebration Feast of the National Education Clan, 4/4/57[AUDIO]

"First, separate ground, ocean and air warfare is gone forever. If ever again we should exist involved in war, we volition fight it in all elements, with all services, as one single full-bodied effort."
Special Message to the Congress on Reorganization of the Defense force Institution, 4/3/58

"Now this brings me to my main topic -- our armed forces strength -- more than specifically, how to stay strong confronting threat from outside, without undermining the economic health that supports our security."
Address to the American Society of Newspaper Editors and the International Press Institute, four/17/58

"First, separate ground, 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."
Accost to the American Lodge of Newspaper Editors and the International Printing Institute, 4/17/58

"Now all of u.s. deplore this vast military machine spending. Still, in the face of the Soviet attitude, we realize its necessity. Any the cost, America will keep itself secure. But in the procedure we must non, by our own hand, destroy or misconstrue the American system. This we could practise by useless overspending. I know one sure way to overspend. That is by overindulging sentimental attachments to outmoded war machine machines and concepts."
Address to the American Lodge of Newspaper Editors and the International Press Institute, 4/17/58

"I know something about that war, and I never want to encounter that history repeated. But, my fellow Americans, it certainly tin exist repeated if the peace-loving democratic nations again fearfully practice a policy of standing idly by while big aggressors employ armed force to conquer the small and weak."
Radio and Television Report to the American People Regarding the Situation in the Formosa Straits, 9/xi/58

"Any survey of the free world's defence force construction cannot fail to impart a feeling of regret that and so much of our attempt and resources must be devoted to armaments."
Annual Bulletin to the Congress on the Country of the Marriage, 1/ix/59

"But all history has taught us the grim lesson that no nation has ever been successful in avoiding the terrors of state of war past refusing to defend its rights -- past attempting to placate aggression."
Radio and Telly Study to the American People: Security in the Free World, 3/16/59

"In this hope, among the things we teach to the young are such truths as the transcendent value of the individual and the nobility of all people, the futility and stupidity of state of war, its destructiveness of life and its degradation of human values."
Accost at the Opening Session of the White Business firm Conference on Children and Youth, Higher Park, Maryland, 3/27/sixty

"In the councils of government, we must guard against the conquering of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, past the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist."
Farewell Radio and Tv set Address to the American People, 1/17/61

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

"Nothing is easy in war. Mistakes are e'er paid for in casualties and troops are quick to sense any corrigendum made by their commanders."
Crusade in Europe, page 450

"Nosotros need an adequate defense, only every arms dollar we spend to a higher place capability has a long-term weakening consequence upon the nation and its security."
Waging Peace, folio 622

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