There Are People in the Room We May Never See Again

May 21, 2022 Post a Comment

Quotes

Agriculture

"The proper function of government, however, is that of partner with the farmer -- never his master. By every possible ways nosotros must develop and promote that partnership -- to the finish that agriculture may continue to be a sound, enduring foundation for our economy and that farm living may be a profitable and satisfying feel."
Special Message to the Congress on Agriculture, one/9/56

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

Anecdotes

"I come from the very eye of America."
Guildhall Speech, London, 6/12/45

"The proudest matter I can merits is that I am from Abilene."
Homecoming Speech, Abilene, Kansas, half-dozen/22/45

"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 xiii]

"Whatever America hopes to bring to pass in the world must starting time come to pass in the middle of America."
Inaugural Address, Washington, DC, 1/20/53

"For history does not long entrust the care of liberty to the weak or the timid."
Countdown Accost, Washington, DC, one/twenty/53

"A people that values its privileges above its principles presently loses both."
Inaugural Address, Washington, DC, ane/20/53

"There is -- in world diplomacy -- a steady course to be followed between an exclamation of forcefulness that is truculent and a confession of helplessness that is cowardly."
State of the Union Accost, 2/ii/53

"Thank goodness, many years ago, I had a preceptor, for whom my admiration has never died, and he had a favorite maxim, one that I trust I effort to live past. It was: ever accept your job seriously, never yourself."
Address at the New England "Frontwards to '54" Dinner, Boston, Massachusetts, 9/21/53

"I was raised in a footling town of which virtually of you have never heard. Simply in the West information technology is a famous place. It is called Abilene, Kansas. Nosotros had as our align for a long fourth dimension a man named Wild Neb Hickok. If you don't know anything about him, read your Westerns more. At present that boondocks had a code, and I was raised every bit a male child to prize that lawmaking. It was: meet anyone face up to face with whom you lot disagree. You could not sneak up on him from behind, or do any harm to him, without suffering the penalty of an outraged citizenry. If you met him face to face up and took the same risks he did, you could go away with almost annihilation, as long equally the bullet was in the front."
Remarks Upon Receiving America's Democratic Legacy Honor at a B'nai B'rith Dinner in Honor of the 40th Anniversary of the Anti-Defamation League, 11/23/53

"There is an old saw in the services: that which is not inspected deteriorates."
The President's News Briefing of 5/12/54

"Well, it is very important, and the slap-up thought of setting up an organism is and then equally to defeat the domino result. When, each standing alone, one falls, it has the effect on the adjacent, and finally the whole row is down. Yous are trying, through a unifying influence, to build that row of dominoes and then they can stand the fall of 1, if necessary."
The President's News Conference of 5/12/54

"When I was a boy, I was i of half-dozen in my family. We had a quarrel daily as to who could go upwardly and exercise the chore of bringing the groceries down home. They had a practice and then, in grocery stores, that I understand growing efficiency has eliminated -- ever hoping that the grocer would say you can have 1 of the stale prunes out of the barrel over in that location. Just improve than that was the dill pickle jar that y'all could dive into, sometimes arm deep virtually, and try to go ane. I understand that they are not that accommodating anymore; we have got too efficient. When you lot go effectually picking things off the shelf, you pay for them. These, you understand, were free. That meant a lot to young boys to whom a nickel looked virtually as big as a wheel on a farm wagon."
Remarks at the Convention of the National Association of Retail Grocers, 6/xvi/54

"At present I realize that on any particular decision a very groovy corporeality of heat tin be generated. Simply I do say this: life is non made up of only ane conclusion here, or another one in that location. It is the total of the decisions that you lot brand in your daily lives with respect to politics, to your family, to your environment, to the people about you. Government has to exercise that same matter. It is only in the mass that finally philosophy really emerges."
Remarks at Luncheon Meeting of the Republican National Committee and the Republican National Finance Commission, 2/17/55

"Today in that location is a swell ideological struggle going on in the earth. One side upholds what it calls the materialistic dialectic. Denying the being of spiritual values, it maintains that man responds only to materialistic influences and consequently he is nothing. He is an educated animal and is useful only equally he serves the ambitions -- desires -- of a ruling clique; though they endeavor to brand this effectively-sounding than that, because they say their dictatorship is that of the proletariat, meaning that they dominion in the people'due south name -- for the people. At present, on our side, nosotros recognize right away that man is non merely an creature, that his life and his ambitions take at the bottom a foundation of spiritual values."
Remarks at 11th Annual Washington Conference of the Advertising Council, 3/22/55

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

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

"One American put it this way: 'Every tomorrow has ii handles. We can take hold of information technology with the handle of anxiety or the handle of religion'."
Address at the Moo-cow Palace on Accepting the Nomination of the Republican National Convention, 8/23/56

"The world moves, and ideas that were good in one case are not always good."
The President's News Briefing of eight/31/56

"I believe when you are in any contest you should work like there is ever to the very last minute a chance to lose it. This is battle, this is politics, this is anything. So I merely see no excuse if you believe annihilation enough for not putting your whole centre into it. It is what I practice."
The President's News Conference of 9/27/56

"I belong to a family unit of boys who were raised in meager circumstances in central Kansas, and every 1 of u.s. earned our way every bit nosotros went along, and information technology never occurred to us that nosotros were poor, but we were."
Telly Broadcast: "The People Enquire the President," 10/12/56

"The promise of the world is that wisdom can arrest disharmonize between brothers. I believe that war is the deadly harvest of arrogant and unreasoning minds."
Accost, National Pedagogy Association, Washington, DC, 4/four/57

"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

"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 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 sense of humor."
Address at U. S. Naval Academy Commencement, 6/4/58

"A famous Frenchman once said, 'State of war has get far too important to entrust to the generals.' Today, business concern, I recall, should be saying: 'Politics have become far too important to entrust to the politicians'."
Remarks, Business Council, Hot Springs, Virginia, 10/20/62

RETURN TO TOP

Censorship

"Censorship, in my stance, is a stupid and shallow style of budgeted the solution to whatever trouble. Though sometimes necessary, as witness a professional and technical secret that may accept a bearing upon the welfare and very safety of this country, we should be very conscientious in the style nosotros apply it, considering in censorship ever lurks the very great danger of working to the disadvantage of the American nation."
Associated Press tiffin, New York, New York, 4/24/50

"Don't join the book burners. Don't think you lot are going to conceal faults by concealing show that they ever existed. Don't be afraid to go in your library and read every book, as long as that document does not offend our own ideas of decency. That should be the merely censorship."
Remarks at the Dartmouth Higher Offset Exercises, Hanover, New Hampshire, half dozen/14/53[AUDIO]

Children/Youth/Families

"Youth -- our greatest resource -- is existence seriously neglected in a vital respect. The nation as a whole is non preparing teachers or building schools fast enough to keep up with the increment in our population."
Annual Message to the Congress on the Land of the Union, 1/7/54[AUDIO]

"I say with all the earnestness that I tin command, that if American mothers will teach our children that at that place is no cease to the fight for improve relationships amidst the people of the globe, we shall take peace."
Address to the National Council of Catholic Women, Boston, Massachusetts, 11/8/54

"In this connection, I should mention our enormous national debt. We must begin to make some payments on it if we are to avoid passing on to our children an incommunicable burden of debt."
Remarks on the Land of the Matrimony Bulletin, Cardinal West, Florida, 1/5/56[AUDIO]

"Teachers demand our agile support and encouragement. They are doing i of the most necessary and exacting jobs in the land. They are developing our near precious national resource: our children, our futurity citizens."
Accost at the Centennial Celebration Banquet of the National Education Clan, 4/4/57 [Audio]

"Now, the educational activity of our children is of national concern, and if they are not educated properly, it is a national cataclysm."
The President's News Conference of vii/31/57 [AUDIO]

"I am not here, of course, as one pretending to any expertness on questions of youth and children -- except in the sense that, inside 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 Meridian

Citizenship

"Democracy is essentially a political system that recognizes the equality of humans before the law." -Address to Elective Assembly, 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's forcefulness." - Address at Norwich University, Northfield, Vermont, June 9, 1946

"The proudest homo that walks the earth is a free American citizen." -Talk at the Commercial Guild 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 but 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 every bit long as nosotros allow conditions to be that brand for second-class citizens, we are making of ourselves less than first-class citizens." -Remarks at the United Negro College Fund dejeuner, May 19, 1953

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

"The history of free men is never actually written by take chances--but by choice--their pick." -Address in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, October 9, 1956

"A foundation of our American way of life is our national respect for police force." - Address to the American People on the state of affairs in Little Rock, Arkansas, September 24, 1957

"Liberty nether police is like the air we breathe." -Remarks on the Observance of Police force Day, April 30, 1958

"It is but as we govern ourselves that we are well-governed." -Remarks on the Observance of Police force Twenty-four hour period, Apr thirty, 1958

Civil Rights

"I propose to apply any authority exists in the office of the President to end segregation in the Commune of Columbia, including the Federal Government, and any segregation in the Armed forces."
Almanac Message to the Congress on the Country of the Matrimony, 2/2/53 [AUDIO]

"We take erased segregation in those areas of national life to which Federal dominance conspicuously extends. So doing in this, my friends, we have neither sought nor claimed partisan credit, and all such actions are nothing more -- aught less than the rendering of justice. And we accept always been enlightened of this nifty truth: the terminal battle against intolerance is to exist fought -- non in the chambers of any legislature -- merely in the hearts of men."
Address at the Hollywood Bowl, Beverly Hills, California, 10/nineteen/56[Audio]

"It was my promise that this localized state of affairs would be brought under command by city and State authorities. If the utilize of local police powers had been sufficient, our traditional method of leaving the problems in those hands would have been pursued. Merely when large gatherings of obstructionists made it impossible for the decrees of the Court to be carried out, both the police force 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 do not believe that all of these problems can exist solved but past a new constabulary, or something that someone says, with teeth in it. For case, when we got into the Lilliputian Rock thing, it was not my province to talk nearly segregation or desegregation. I had the task of supporting a federal court that had issued a proper club under the Constitution, and where compliance was prevented past activeness 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 have the job of working toward that fourth dimension when there is no discrimination made on such inconsequential reason every bit race, color, or organized religion."
The President's News Conference of 5/13/59

Render TO Pinnacle

Education

"The true purpose of didactics is to set up young men and women for effective citizenship in a gratis course of government."
Voice communication at William and Mary Higher, Williamsburg, Virginia, May 15, 1953 [AUDIO]

"It is unwise to brand teaching too cheap. If everything is provided freely, there is a tendency to put no value on annihilation. Didactics must always take a sure price on it; even as the very process of learning itself must always crave individual effort and initiative."
Address, Centennial Commemoration Banquet of the National Didactics Association, Washington, DC, 4/4/57[AUDIO]

Government

"One of my predecessors is said to have observed that in making his decisions he had to operate similar a football quarterback -- he could not very well phone call the next play until he saw how the last play turned out. Well, that may be a good way to run a football squad, only in these days it is no way to run a regime."
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 mind and spirit. Government dares non ignore the individual citizen."
Accost at a Rally in the Public Square, Cleveland, Ohio, 10/ane/56[Audio]

"Nosotros cannot safely confine authorities programs to our ain domestic progress and our own military ability. We could be the wealthiest and the near mighty nation and still lose the boxing of the world if we do not assist our earth neighbors protect their freedom and advance their social and economic progress. It is not the goal of the American people that the Usa should be the richest nation in the graveyard of history."
Special Message to the Congress on the Mutual Security Program, 3/13/59

Holocaust

"But the most interesting -- although horrible -- sight that I encountered during the trip was a visit to a German internment army camp near Gotha. The things I saw beggar description. While I was touring the camp I encountered three men who had been inmates and by ane ruse or some other had made their escape. I interviewed them through an interpreter. The visual evidence and the verbal testimony of starvation, cruelty and bestiality were so overpowering equally to leave me a bit sick. In one room, where they [there] were piled up xx or 30 naked men, killed past starvation, George Patton would not fifty-fifty enter. He said he would get sick if he did so. I made the visit deliberately, in order to exist in position to requite offset-hand evidence of these things if e'er, in the future, there develops a trend to charge these allegations simply to 'propaganda'."
Letter, DDE to George C. Marshall, 4/15/45 [The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower, The War Years Four, doc #2418]

"We go along to uncover High german concentration camps for political prisoners in which conditions of indescribable horror prevail. I accept visited one of these myself and I assure yous that any has been printed on them to date has been understatement. If you lot would see any advantage in asking about a dozen leaders of Congress and a dozen prominent editors to make a brusk visit to this theater in a couple of C-54's, I will adapt to have them conducted to ane of these places where the testify of animality and cruelty is so overpowering equally to leave no incertitude in their minds virtually the normal practices of the Germans in these camps."
Cablevision, DDE to George C. Marshall, iv/19/45 [The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower, The State of war Years Four, dr. #2424]

"When I establish the showtime campsite like that I think I never was and so aroused in my life. The animality displayed at that place was not simply piled up bodies of people that had starved to death, but to follow out the road and come across where they tried to evacuate them so they could still piece of work, you could see where they sprawled on the route. You could go to their burial pits and run into horrors that really I wouldn't fifty-fifty want to begin to depict. I recollect people ought to know about such things. It explains something of my attitude toward the German state of war criminal. I believe he must exist punished, and I will hold out for that forever."
Press conference, 6/18/45 [DDE's Pre-Presidential Papers, Principal File, Box 156, Press Statements and Releases, 1944-46 (1)]

Render TO TOP

Korean War

"Nosotros have now gained a truce in Korea. We do not greet it with wild rejoicing. Nosotros know how dear its cost has been in life and treasure."
Radio Written report to the American People on the Achievements of the Administration and the 83d Congress, 8/half-dozen/53[Sound]

"Apparently all of united states know that the composition that was reached in Korea is not satisfactory to America, just it is far amend than to continue the encarmine, dreary, cede of lives with no possible strictly military victory in sight."
Address at the Illinois State Fair at Springfield, 8/19/54[AUDIO]

"And of class, at that place was the state of war in Korea, a war effectually which there had grown up such a political situation that military victory, at least a decisive military victory, was no longer in the cards."
Radio and Television receiver Address to the American People on the Achievements of the 83rd Congress, 8/23/54 [AUDIO]

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

Labor

I have no utilize 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, almost helpless mass.
Oral communication to the American Federation of Labor, New York Metropolis, 9/17/52

Today in America unions accept a secure place in our industrial life. Only a scattering of unreconstructed reactionaries harbor the ugly idea of breaking unions. But a fool would try to deprive working men and women of the correct to join the wedlock of their selection.
Oral communication to the American Federation of Labor, New York Metropolis, 9/17/52

Government tin do a corking deal to assist the settlement of labor disputes without allowing itself to be employed equally an ally of either side. Its proper role in industrial strife is to encourage the procedure of mediation and conciliation.
State of the Wedlock Bulletin, Washington, DC, two/2/53[Audio]

Leadership/Organization

"What is Leadership?" by Dwight D. Eisenhower

"You take got to take something in which to believe. You have got to have leaders, organization, friendships, and contacts that help you to believe that, and aid you to put out your best."
Remarks to the Leaders of the United Defense force Fund, 4/29/54 [AUDIO]

"Now I call up, speaking roughly, by leadership we mean the art of getting someone else to do something that y'all desire done considering he wants to do it, not because your position of power tin can hogtie him to do information technology, or your position of dominance. A commander of a regiment is not necessarily a leader. He has all of the appurtenances of power given by a set of Ground forces regulations by which he can compel unified activity. He can say to a body such equally this, "Rising," and "Sit down downwardly." You do it exactly. But that is non leadership."
Remarks at the Annual Conference of the Lodge for Personnel Administration, five/12/54[Audio]

"The job of getting people really wanting to practise 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 erstwhile tactical textbooks say that the commander always visits his troops to inspire them to fight. I for one soon discovered that one of the reasons for my visiting the forepart lines was to become inspiration from the immature American soldier. I went back to my chore aback 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, nine/x/55

"Every bit long as I am back in my armed services life for a 2nd, I should like to observe one thing most leadership that one of the great has said -- Napoleon. He said, the bully leader, the genius in leadership, is the homo who tin do the average thing when everybody else is going crazy."
Address at Coming together Sponsored past the Republican National Commission, 4/17/56

"The essence of leadership is to become others to do something because they recollect you lot want it done and because they know it 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 argued than virtually any other I know."
The President'due south News Conference of xi/xiv/56

"My life has been largely spent in affairs that required arrangement. Simply system itself, necessary as information technology is, is never sufficient to win a battle."
Remarks to Participants in the Immature Republican National Leadership Training Schoolhouse, 1/twenty/60[Sound]

Return TO Pinnacle

Peace

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

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

"The peace we seek and need ways much more than than mere absenteeism of war. It means 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, ten/31/56[Audio]

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

"I like to believe that people, in the long run, are going to do more to promote peace than our governments. Indeed, I call back that people want peace and so much that 1 of these days governments had better get out of the way and let them have it."
Radio and Boob tube Circulate With Prime number Minister Macmillan in London, 8/31/59

"So -- our readiness to encounter and defeat this kind of possible attack is forced upon us, both equally a potent preventive of actual state of war and to insure survival in result 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 style of life -- tin exist seriously damaged. Piece of work of this kind occupies my days and nights."
Letter from DDE to Hallock Dark-brown Hoffman, February 7, 1955

"I take said time and once again there is no place on this earth to which I would not travel, there is no job I would not undertake if I had whatsoever faintest hope that, by so doing, I would promote the general cause of world peace."
The President's News Conference, March 23, 1955 [Audio]

"As for myself and for the Secretary of State and others involved, including those in the Legislature, we stand ready to exercise anything, to run into with anyone, anywhere, as long as we may do so in self-respect, enervating the respect due this Nation, and there is whatsoever slightest idea or risk of furthering this great cause of peace."
Remarks at the Republican Women'due south National Conference, May 10, 1955[AUDIO]

"For a but and lasting peace, here is my solemn pledge to y'all: by dedication and patience we will keep, as long as I remain your President, to work for this simple -- this single -- this exclusive goal."
Address at Byrd Field, Richmond, Virginia, Oct 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 be hard. And to reach it, we must be aware of its full meaning -- and ready to pay its full price."
Second 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 beginning requisite."
Radio and Television Address to the American People on the Need for Common Security in Waging the Peace, May 21, 1957

"Having established as our goals a lasting world peace with justice and the security of freedom on this earth, we must be prepared to make whatsoever sacrifices are demanded as we pursue this path to its cease."
Remarks at the Fort Pitt Chapter, Association of the United states Army May 31, 1961

The Presidency

"My commencement 24-hour interval at the President's Desk-bound. Plenty of worries and difficult issues. But such has been my portion for a long time -- the outcome is that this but 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 ane; 1953 DDE Desk Diary]

"I would say that the Presidency is probably the about taxing job, as far as tiring of the mind and spirit; but information technology too 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 as wearing and vehement equally that with lives direct involved. But I would say, on the whole, this is the about wearing, although not necessarily, as I say, the most tiring."
The President'southward News Conference at Key West, Florida, ane/eight/56

"Many people are always saying the Presidency is as well large a job for whatsoever 1 human. When I hear this exclamation, I always effort to bespeak out that a single human being must make the final decisions that affect the whole, but that proper organization brings to him only the questions and issues on which his decisions are needed. His own job is to be mentally prepared to brand those decisions and then to exist supported by an organization that volition brand sure they are carried out."
Letter, DDE to Dillon Anderson, ane/22/68 [DDE's Post-Presidential Papers, 1968 Primary File, Box 36, "An"]

"On the other hand, I institute that getting things done sometimes required other weapons from the Presidential arsenal -- persuasion, cajolery, even a piddling caput-thumping here and there -- to say nothing of a personal streak of obstinacy which on occasion fires my boilers."
Some Thoughts on the Presidency, Reader'due south Digest, November 1968

Religion

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

"Today I retrieve that prayer is only simply a necessity, because past prayer I believe we hateful an endeavour to become in touch with the Infinite. We know that fifty-fifty our prayers are imperfect. Even our supplications are imperfect. Of course they are. We are imperfect human beings. Merely if we tin back off from those bug and brand the effort, then there is something that ties us all together. We have begun in our grasp of that basis of understanding, which is that all free authorities 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 private 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-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, 7/9/53

"From this day forrad, the millions of our schoolhouse children will daily proclaim in every metropolis and town, every village and rural school business firm, the dedication of our nation and our people to the Almighty. To anyone who truly loves America, naught could exist more inspiring than to contemplate this rededication of our youth, on each school forenoon, to our land's truthful meaning.
Especially is this meaningful as we regard today'southward globe. Over the globe, mankind has been cruelly torn by violence and brutality and, by the millions, deadened in mind and soul by a materialistic philosophy of life. Human everywhere is appalled past the prospect of atomic state of war. In this somber setting, this law and its effects today take profound meaning. In this way nosotros are reaffirming the transcendence of religious organized religion in America's heritage and future; in this way nosotros shall constantly strengthen those spiritual weapons which forever volition be our country's most powerful resource, in peace or in war."
Statement by the President Upon Signing Bill to Include the Words "Nether God" in the Pledge to the Flag, six/14/54

"Organized religion is the mightiest force that human has at his command. It impels human being beings to greatness in thought and word and human activity."
Address at the Second Assembly of the World Council of Churches, Evanston, Illinois, 8/19/54 [AUDIO]

"We are essentially a religious people. We are not merely religious, we are inclined, more today than e'er, to see the value of religion as a practical force in our affairs."
Accost at the 2d Assembly of the Globe Quango of Churches, Evanston, Illinois, eight/19/54[AUDIO]

"Without God, at that place could be no American grade of Government, nor an American way of life. Recognition of the Supreme Being is the first -- the near basic -- expression of Americanism. Thus the Founding Fathers saw information technology, and thus, with God's help, it volition go along to exist."
Remarks Recorded for the "Back-to-God" Programme of the American Legion, 2/xx/55

"Since the solar 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 promise represents a spark of the Divine which is implanted in every man chest."
Address at the Signing of the Announcement of Principles at the Meeting of the Presidents in Panama City, 7/22/56

"The purpose is Divine; the implementation is human. Our country and its government accept made mistakes -- man mistakes. They have been of the head -- not of the heart. And it is all the same true that the great concept of the dignity of all men, alike created in the image of the Omnipotent, has been the compass by which we take tried and are trying to steer our course."
Annual Bulletin to the Congress on the State of the Marriage, i/10/57

"Basic to our democratic culture are the principles and convictions that accept bound u.s.a. together as a nation. Amid these are personal liberty, human rights, and the dignity of man. All these have their roots in a deeply held religious faith -- in a belief in God."
Accost at U.S. Naval Academy Commencement, 6/4/58

"The freedom of a citizen and the freedom of a religious laic are more than than intimately related; they are mutually dependent. These two liberties give life to the middle of our Nation."
Remarks at the Cornerstone-Laying Ceremony for the Interchurch Middle, New York Metropolis, New York, 10/12/58 [Sound]

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Sports

"My constant prayer, these days, as I starting time my backswing is, 'Oh, please permit me swing slowly.' The problem 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'due south Pre-Presidential Papers, Box 63, Jones, Robert Tyre Jr.]

"The other day Aks and I went up to your ranch for a mean solar day's fishing. I cannot remember whatsoever day when nosotros have had more fun on a stream. Nosotros had along with us three paper men and a few secret service people, many of whom had never seen a trout stream, so nosotros did the thing up right past borrowing frying pans, bacon and corn meal from the wife of your rancher -- and we cooked an outdoor meal for the crowd. Information technology was really quite a 24-hour interval."
Letter, DDE to Bal F. Swan, 8/15/53 [DDE's Papers as President, Name Series, Box vii, "Denver, 1953"]

"One of the things that I noticed in state of war was how difficult it was for our soldiers, at first, to realize that there are no rules to war. Our men were raised in sports, where a referee runs a football, or an umpire a baseball game game, and and so forth."
Remarks at the Briefing of the National Women'due south Advisory Commission on Ceremonious Defense, ten/26/54 [AUDIO]

"And the other was this: the doctor did want to take off my leg because he idea it was necessary. Only you lot must think boys in those days were raised for two things: piece of work, and so they made their play; and if yous couldn't play baseball and box and play football, why, your life was ended. That was in our boyish minds."
Radio and Tv Circulate: "The Women Ask the President," 10/24/56

"Simply I call up a life of raising prize cattle, going shooting two or three times a year, fishing in the summer, and interspersing the whole affair with some golf and bridge -- and whenever I felt like talking or writing, doing it with carelessness and with no sense of responsibility whatsoever -- maybe such a life wouldn't be and so bad."
Letter, DDE to Alfred M. Gruenther, 11/2/56 [The Papers of Dwight D. Eisenhower, Volume XVII - The Presidency: The Heart Way, Part XI, Chapter 22]

"I have only realized that it is due to you, and to Mr. James Thomas and his staff of the Ground forces Navy Land Club that the putting green hither on the White House backyard is already in such excellent condition. I clinch you lot that I get a great deal of pleasure and relaxation out of using the green in an occasional late afternoon hour . . ."
Letter, DDE to Rear Admiral John S. Phillips, 4/12/57 [DDE's Papers every bit President, President's Personal File, Box 10, 1-A-seven Golf (4)]

"Not just practice I have a great love for the game of golf game -- no matter how badly I play it -- but I take as well the belief that through every kind of meeting, through every kind of activeness to which we can join more often and more intimately peoples of our several countries, by that mensurate we will practise something to solve the difficulties and the tensions that this poor former globe seems nowadays to and so much endure."
Remarks to Representatives of World Amateur Golf Squad Title Conference, five/2/58[Sound]

"Probably no one hither knows I coached a football team -- a service squad -- playing confronting Georgetown. I think it was in the fall of 1924 Lou Little was your coach, and he vanquish usa. But it was a very happy circumstance, because it brought me the friendship of another human, Lou Little, 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 University, 10/13/58[Audio]

"Well, a funny thing, at that place are three that I like all for the same reason, golf, angling, and shooting, and I practise considering first, they take you into the fields. There is balmy exercise, the kind that an older individual probably should have. And on top of it, information technology induces yous to accept at whatever one time 2 or 3 hours, if you can, where you are thinking of the bird or that brawl or the wily trout. Now, to my mind it is a very healthful, beneficial kind of thing, and I practise it whenever I get a hazard, equally yous well know."
The President's Printing Conference of 10/15/58[AUDIO]

"Morale -- the will to win, the fighting eye -- are the honored hallmarks of the football coach and player. Besides, they are characteristic of the enterprising executive, the successful troop leader, the established artist and the dedicated teacher and scientist."
Remarks at the Get-go Football game Hall of Fame Dinner, New York Urban center, New York, x/28/58[Sound]

"I call back of going back to the sports field once more, and let'due south take a baseball game game. Well, yous have cracked out a grounder and you put in your terminal ounce of free energy and you lot just happen to brand starting time base. But you don't stop there. Start base is the showtime. Now you call on all your alertness, your skill, your energy -- and yous count on your teammates, you count on the people that are working with y'all. And the purpose of that getting on first base of operations was to get you around to count a run."
Remarks at a Republican Men's Lunch in Cleveland, Ohio 11/4/60 [AUDIO]

"You did non tell me what you are doing athletically just now just I do hope that if your arm comes along next jump y'all can become it in good shape to endeavor out for the pitching spot on the varsity. However, if y'all don't make it then I suggest you accept up golf which subsequently all is the best game of all of them."
Letter, DDE to grandson David Eisenhower, xi/17/65 [DDE's Mail service Presidential Papers, Secretary's Serial, Box 13, Eisenhower]

"But I noted with real satisfaction how well ex-footballers seemed to accept leadership qualifications . . . I believe that football, mayhap more than than whatever other sport, tends to instill in men the feeling that victory comes through difficult -- about 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 take been chosen a Fascist and well-nigh 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 confronting those of human rights and individual liberty."
Letter 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 e'er exist the portion of any man who receives acclaim earned in blood of his followers and sacrifices of his friends."
Guildhall Address, London, half-dozen/12/45 [AUDIO]

"State of war is a grim, savage business, a business justified only as a means of sustaining the forces of good against those of evil."
Transcription made for National War Fund at request of Col. Luther 50. Loma, ix/xi/45

"I detest war as just a soldier who has lived information technology can, simply as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity."
Address before the Canadian Gild, Ottawa, Canada, one/x/46

"Guns and tanks and planes are zip unless there is a solid spirit, a solid center, and dandy productiveness backside information technology."
Address to Economic Club of New York, Hotel Astor, 11/20/46

"War is mankind's most tragic and stupid folly; to seek or propose its deliberate provocation is a black crime against all men. Though yous follow the trade of the warrior, you lot practise and so in the spirit of Washington -- not of Genghis Khan. For Americans, only threat to our way of life justifies resort to disharmonize."
Graduation Exercises at the U.s. Military Academy, 6/3/47

"Perhaps my hatred of war blinds me and then that I cannot comprehend the arguments they adduce. Only, in my opinion, there is no such thing as a preventive state of war. Although this suggestion is repeatedly fabricated, none has yet explained how war prevents war. Worse than this, no one has been able to explain away the fact that war creates the atmospheric condition that beget war."
Remarks at Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 10/19/50 [DDE'due south Pre-Presidential Papers, Principal File, Box 196, Carnegie Establish]

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

"Americans, indeed, all costless men, remember that in the terminal choice a soldier's pack is not so heavy a burden equally a prisoner'south chains."
Inaugural Address, one/20/53[AUDIO]

"Each and all of us must summon to mind the words of Him whom we laurels this Easter time: 'When a strong human being, armed, keepeth his palace, his appurtenances are in peace'."
Statement on the Fourth Ceremony of the Signing of the N Atlantic Treaty, four/4/53

"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the last 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. The price of 1 modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more 30 cities. Information technology is two electrical ability plants, each serving a boondocks of 60,000 population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. Information technology is some 50 miles of concrete highway. We pay for a single fighter plane with a one-half million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could accept housed more than than 8,000 people. This, I repeat, is the best mode of life to be plant on the road. the world has been taking. This is not a way of life at all, in any truthful sense. Nether the deject of threatening state of war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron."
Address "The Chance for Peace" Delivered Before the American Society of Newspaper Editors, 4/16/53 [Audio]

"We do not proceed security establishments only to defend holding or territory or rights away or at body of water. We proceed the security forces to defend a way of life."
Remarks to the Commission for Economic Evolution, 5/20/54 [AUDIO]

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

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

"I accept spent my life in the study of military strength equally a deterrent to state of war, and in the character of armed forces armaments necessary to win a state of war. The study of the first of these questions is nevertheless profitable, just we are rapidly getting to the point that no war tin be won."
Letter, 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 (v)]

"When nosotros get to the point, every bit we one day will, that both sides know that in any outbreak of general hostilities, regardless of the element of surprise, destruction volition be both reciprocal and consummate, perchance we will have sense enough to run into 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 dice."
Letter, DDE to Richard 50. Simon, Simon and Schuster, Inc., 4/4/56 [DDE's Papers as President, DDE Diaries Serial, Box 14, Apr 1956 Miscellaneous (5)]

"Arms alone can give the world no permanent peace, no confident security. Arms are solely for defense -- to protect from vehement assault what we already accept. They are only a costly insurance. They cannot add to human progress."
Address before the American Club of Newspaper Editors, Statler Hotel, Washington, DC, iv/21/56[Sound]

"Nosotros know something of the cost of that war. We were in it from Dec seventh, '41, till August of '45. Ever since that fourth dimension, we have been waging peace. It has had its ups and downs just as the war did."
The President's News Conference of half-dozen/six/56

"The just fashion to win the next globe war is to prevent it."
Address at a Rally in the Borough Auditorium, Seattle, Washington, x/17/56

"We must be strong at home if we are going to be stiff abroad. Nosotros understand that. So we want to be strong at dwelling house in our morale or in our spirit, we want to be strong intellectually, in our education, in our economic system and, where necessary, militarily."
Radio and Television Broadcast: "The Women Ask the President," x/24/56

"The hope of the earth is that wisdom tin can arrest conflict between brothers. I believe that war is the deadly harvest of big-headed and unreasoning minds. And I observe grounds for this conventionalities in the wisdom literature of Proverbs. Information technology says in upshot 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 Celebration Feast of the National Instruction Clan, 4/4/57[AUDIO]

"Offset, separate ground, sea and air warfare is gone forever. If ever again we should exist 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 Institution, 4/3/58

"Now this brings me to my main topic -- our military strength -- more specifically, how to stay strong against threat from exterior, without undermining the economic health that supports our security."
Accost to the American Society of Newspaper Editors and the International Press Institute, 4/17/58

"First, dissever ground, sea and air warfare is gone forever. This lesson nosotros learned in Earth War Ii. I lived that lesson in Europe. Others lived information technology in the Pacific. Millions of American veterans learned it well."
Address to the American Club of Newspaper Editors and the International Press Plant, four/17/58

"Now all of united states of america deplore this vast military spending. Even so, in the face up of the Soviet mental attitude, we realize its necessity. Whatever the cost, America will keep itself secure. But in the process we must not, past our own hand, destroy or distort the American system. This we could do by useless overspending. I know one certain mode to overspend. That is by overindulging sentimental attachments to outmoded military machines and concepts."
Address to the American Society of Newspaper Editors and the International Printing Institute, 4/17/58

"I know something most that state of war, and I never desire to see that history repeated. Just, my boyfriend Americans, it certainly tin can be repeated if the peace-loving democratic nations again appallingly practice a policy of continuing idly past while big aggressors use armed strength to conquer the small and weak."
Radio and Idiot box Report to the American People Regarding the Situation in the Formosa Straits, 9/xi/58

"Whatsoever survey of the free world's defense construction cannot fail to impart a feeling of regret that and so much of our effort and resources must be devoted to armaments."
Almanac Bulletin to the Congress on the State of the Marriage, i/9/59

"Merely all history has taught us 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 Television Written report to the American People: Security in the Free Globe, 3/xvi/59

"In this hope, among the things nosotros teach to the young are such truths as the transcendent value of the private and the dignity of all people, the futility and stupidity of war, its destructiveness of life and its degradation of man values."
Address at the Opening Session of the White House Conference on Children and Youth, Higher Park, Maryland, 3/27/60

"In the councils of regime, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial circuitous. The potential for the disastrous ascent of misplaced power exists and will persist."
Farewell Radio and Television receiver Address to the American People, 1/17/61

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

"Nothing is piece of cake in war. Mistakes are e'er paid for in casualties and troops are quick to sense any blunder fabricated past their commanders."
Crusade in Europe, page 450

"Nosotros demand an adequate defense, just every arms dollar we spend above adequacy has a long-term weakening effect upon the nation and its security."
Waging Peace, page 622