Quotes

  1. The Eisenhowers
  2. Quotes

Agriculture

"The proper function of government, yet, is that of partner with the farmer -- never his master. By every possible means we must develop and promote that partnership -- to the end that agriculture may continue to be a sound, enduring foundation for our economy and that subcontract living may be a profitable and satisfying experience."
Special Message to the Congress on Agriculture, i/nine/56

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

Anecdotes

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

"The proudest thing I can claim is that I am from Abilene."
Homecoming Spoken communication, Abilene, Kansas, half-dozen/22/45 Audio clip

"Don't defend yourself. Don't explain. Don't worry."
Letter, DDE to Omar Bradley, 10/26/1949 [DDE'south Pre-Presidential Papers, Box thirteen]

"Whatever America hopes to bring to pass in the globe must first come to pass in the heart of America."
Inaugural Address, Washington, DC, ane/twenty/53 Audio clip

"For history does not long entrust the intendance of freedom to the weak or the timid."
Inaugural Address, Washington, DC, one/20/53 Audio clip

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

"In that location is -- in world affairs -- a steady course to be followed between an assertion of forcefulness that is truculent and a confession of helplessness that is cowardly."
State of the Wedlock 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 effort to live past. It was: e'er have your job seriously, never yourself."
Address at the New England "Forrad to '54" Dinner, Boston, Massachusetts, nine/21/53

"I was raised in a piddling town of which most of you accept never heard. Only in the W information technology is a famous identify. It is called Abilene, Kansas. Nosotros had every bit our marshal for a long time a man named Wild Pecker Hickok. If you don't know anything about him, read your Westerns more than. Now that boondocks had a code, and I was raised equally a boy to prize that code. It was: see anyone face up to face with whom you disagree. You lot could not sneak upward on him from behind, or exercise whatsoever damage to him, without suffering the penalty of an outraged citizenry. If you met him face up to face up and took the same risks he did, you could go away with almost anything, as long as the bullet was in the front."
Remarks Upon Receiving America'south Democratic Legacy Award at a B'nai B'rith Dinner in Honour of the 40th Anniversary of the Anti-Defamation League, 11/23/53 Audio clip

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

"Well, it is very of import, and the cracking thought of setting up an organism is so equally to defeat the domino event. When, each standing alone, 1 falls, it has the effect on the side by side, and finally the whole row is downward. You are trying, through a unifying influence, to build that row of dominoes then they can stand the fall of one, if necessary."
The President's News Conference of 5/12/54 Audio clip

"When I was a boy, I was one of six in my family unit. We had a quarrel daily as to who could go up and do the chore of bringing the groceries downwards habitation. They had a practice so, in grocery stores, that I sympathize growing efficiency has eliminated -- e'er hoping that the grocer would say you can accept one of the dried prunes out of the barrel over there. Simply better than that was the dill pickle jar that you lot could dive into, sometimes arm deep almost, and endeavor to get ane. I empathise that they are not that accommodating anymore; we have got too efficient. When you go around picking things off the shelf, yous pay for them. These, yous understand, were free. That meant a lot to young boys to whom a nickel looked about as large equally a wheel on a subcontract railroad vehicle."
Remarks at the Convention of the National Clan of Retail Grocers, vi/sixteen/54Audio clip

"Now I realize that on any detail conclusion a very great amount of heat can exist generated. But I do say this: life is not fabricated upwards of just 1 conclusion here, or another one there. Information technology is the full of the decisions that you lot make in your daily lives with respect to politics, to your family unit, to your environs, to the people about you. Government has to practise that same affair. Information technology is only in the mass that finally philosophy really emerges."
Remarks at Lunch Meeting of the Republican National Committee and the Republican National Finance Committee, 2/17/55

"Today in that location is a great ideological struggle going on in the world. One side upholds what information technology calls the materialistic dialectic. Denying the existence of spiritual values, it maintains that homo responds only to materialistic influences and consequently he is nothing. He is an educated animal and is useful simply as he serves the ambitions -- desires -- of a ruling clique; though they try to brand this finer-sounding than that, considering they say their dictatorship is that of the proletariat, pregnant that they rule in the people'southward name -- for the people. Now, on our side, we recognize right away that homo 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/x/55

"Change based on principle is progress. Constant change without principle becomes chaos."
Address at the 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 two handles. Nosotros tin can take agree of information technology with the handle of anxiety or the handle of faith'."
Address at the Cow Palace on Accepting the Nomination of the Republican National Convention, eight/23/56 Audio clip

"The world moves, and ideas that were good once are non always skillful."
The President'due south News Briefing of 8/31/56 Audio clip

"I believe when you are in any contest you should piece of work like there is always to the very last infinitesimal a chance to lose it. This is boxing, this is politics, this is anything. Then I but encounter no excuse if you lot 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 belong to a family of boys who were raised in meager circumstances in central Kansas, and every ane of united states of america earned our style as we went forth, and it never occurred to us that we were poor, but we were."
Television Broadcast: "The People Enquire the President," 10/12/56

"The hope of the world is that wisdom can abort disharmonize between brothers. I believe that war is the mortiferous harvest of arrogant and unreasoning minds."
Accost, National Didactics Association, Washington, DC, four/iv/57 Audio clip

"I tell this story to illustrate the truth of the argument I heard long agone in the Army: Plans are worthless, merely planning is everything."
Remarks at the National Defense Executive Reserve Conference, 11/14/57 Audio clip

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

"Only finally, at that place is one other quality I would mention amongst these that I believe will fit you for hard and important posts. This is a healthy and lively sense of humor."
Accost at U. S. Naval Academy Commencement, 6/iv/58

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

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Censorship

"Censorship, in my opinion, is a stupid and shallow style of approaching the solution to whatever problem. Though sometimes necessary, equally witness a professional person and technical cloak-and-dagger that may have a bearing upon the welfare and very prophylactic of this land, we should exist very careful in the way we utilize information technology, because in censorship e'er lurks the very great danger of working to the disadvantage of the American nation."
Associated Printing luncheon, New York, New York, four/24/50

"Don't join the book burners. Don't recollect you are going to muffle faults by concealing prove that they ever existed. Don't be afraid to go in your library and read every volume, as long as that document does not offend our ain ideas of decency. That should exist the but censorship."
Remarks at the Dartmouth College Get-go Exercises, Hanover, New Hampshire, 6/14/53[Sound]

Children/Youth/Families

"Youth -- our greatest resources -- is existence seriously neglected in a vital respect. The nation as a whole is not preparing teachers or building schools fast enough to keep upwards with the increase in our population."
Almanac Message to the Congress on the State of the Wedlock, 1/vii/54[Sound]

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

"In this connection, I should mention our enormous national debt. We must begin to make some payments on it if nosotros are to avoid passing on to our children an impossible burden of debt."
Remarks on the State of the Matrimony Message, Key Westward, Florida, 1/five/56[Audio]

"Teachers demand our active back up and encouragement. They are doing i of the most necessary and exacting jobs in the state. They are developing our nearly precious national resource: our children, our future citizens."
Address at the Centennial Celebration Banquet of the National Education Association, four/four/57 [AUDIO]

"Now, the education of our children is of national concern, and if they are non educated properly, it is a national cataclysm."
The President'southward News Briefing of 7/31/57 [AUDIO]

"I am not here, of course, as one pretending to whatsoever 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 Business firm Conference on Children and Youth, College Park, Maryland, iii/27/lx [AUDIO]

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Citizenship

"Republic is essentially a political system that recognizes the equality of humans before the law." -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 cadre of America's strength." - Accost at Norwich Academy, Northfield, Vermont, June nine, 1946

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

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

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

"I believe as long as we allow atmospheric condition to exist that make for second-course citizens, we are making of ourselves less than first-class citizens." -Remarks at the United Negro College Fund tiffin, May 19, 1953

"The general limits of your freedom are but these: that you do 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 gratuitous men is never actually written by chance--just by choice--their choice." -Address in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, October ix, 1956

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

"Freedom under law is similar the air we exhale." -Remarks on the Observance of Law Day, April 30, 1958

"It is only equally we govern ourselves that we are well-governed." -Remarks on the Observance of Law Twenty-four hour period, April 30, 1958

Civil Rights

"I propose to utilise any authority exists in the office of the President to end segregation in the District of Columbia, including the Federal Government, and any segregation in the War machine."
Annual Message to the Congress on the State of the Union, two/two/53 [AUDIO]

"We have erased segregation in those areas of national life to which Federal authority clearly extends. So doing in this, my friends, we accept neither sought nor claimed partisan credit, and all such actions are nil more -- cypher less than the rendering of justice. And we have e'er been enlightened of this great truth: the final boxing confronting intolerance is to be fought -- not in the chambers of whatsoever legislature -- but in the hearts of men."
Address at the Hollywood Bowl, Beverly Hills, California, 10/19/56[AUDIO]

"Information technology was my hope that this localized situation would be brought under control past city and State authorities. If the use of local police force powers had been sufficient, our traditional method of leaving the problems in those hands would have been pursued. Simply when large gatherings of obstructionists fabricated information technology incommunicable for the decrees of the Court to be carried out, both the police force and the national interest demanded that the President take action."
Radio and Television Accost to the American People on the Situation in Little Stone 9/24/57[Audio]

"I exercise non believe that all of these issues can be solved just by a new police force, or something that someone says, with teeth in it. For example, when we got into the Trivial Rock thing, information technology was non my province to talk about segregation or desegregation. I had the job of supporting a federal court that had issued a proper club under the Constitution, and where compliance was prevented by 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 be true to its own founding documents, does have the chore of working toward that time when there is no discrimination made on such inconsequential reason as race, colour, or faith."
The President'southward News Briefing of 5/13/59

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Education

"The true purpose of education is to ready young men and women for effective citizenship in a complimentary form of government."
Speech at William and Mary College, Williamsburg, Virginia, May 15, 1953 [AUDIO]

"It is unwise to make instruction as well cheap. If everything is provided freely, in that location is a tendency to put no value on annihilation. Education must ever have a sure price on it; even as the very procedure of learning itself must always crave individual effort and initiative."
Accost, Centennial Celebration Feast of the National Educational activity Association, Washington, DC, 4/4/57[AUDIO]

Government

"One of my predecessors is said to take observed that in making his decisions he had to operate similar a football quarterback -- he could non very well call the next play until he saw how the concluding play turned out. Well, that may be a good way to run a football team, 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 [Audio]

"A sound nation is congenital of individuals sound in body and heed and spirit. Authorities dares non ignore the individual citizen."
Address at a Rally in the Public Square, Cleveland, Ohio, 10/1/56[AUDIO]

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

Holocaust

"Merely the most interesting -- although horrible -- sight that I encountered during the trip was a visit to a German internment camp near Gotha. The things I saw ragamuffin description. While I was touring the camp I encountered three men who had been inmates and by ane ruse or another had made their escape. I interviewed them through an interpreter. The visual evidence and the exact testimony of starvation, cruelty and bestiality were and then overpowering as to exit me a chip ill. In one room, where they [there] were piled upward twenty or thirty naked men, killed by starvation, George Patton would non even enter. He said he would become sick if he did then. I made the visit deliberately, in order to exist in position to give commencement-paw evidence of these things if ever, in the future, at that place develops a trend to accuse these allegations merely to 'propaganda'."
Alphabetic character, DDE to George C. Marshall, four/15/45 [The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower, The War Years IV, physician #2418]

"We continue to uncover German language concentration camps for political prisoners in which conditions of indescribable horror prevail. I have visited one of these myself and I clinch you that whatever has been printed on them to engagement has been understatement. If you would see any reward in request 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'southward, I will suit to have them conducted to one of these places where the testify of bestiality and cruelty is then overpowering as to leave no doubt in their minds about the normal practices of the Germans in these camps."
Cable, DDE to George C. Marshall, 4/nineteen/45 [The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower, The War Years IV, doc #2424]

"When I found the first camp like that I think I never was so angry in my life. The bestiality displayed there was non merely piled up bodies of people that had starved to expiry, just to follow out the road and see where they tried to evacuate them so they could still work, you could see where they sprawled on the road. You could become to their burial pits and run across horrors that really I wouldn't even want to brainstorm to describe. I retrieve people ought to know most such things. Information technology explains something of my mental attitude toward the High german war criminal. I believe he must be punished, and I volition concur out for that forever."
Press conference, 6/eighteen/45 [DDE's Pre-Presidential Papers, Primary File, Box 156, Press Statements and Releases, 1944-46 (1)]

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Korean War

"We accept now gained a truce in Korea. We do non greet it with wild rejoicing. We know how honey its cost has been in life and treasure."
Radio Report to the American People on the Achievements of the Administration and the 83d Congress, 8/6/53[AUDIO]

"Obviously all of united states of america know that the composition that was reached in Korea is not satisfactory to America, but it is far better than to continue the bloody, dreary, cede of lives with no possible strictly armed forces victory in sight."
Address at the Illinois State Off-white at Springfield, 8/19/54[AUDIO]

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

"In June of last year we negotiated a truce which ended the Korean War, preserved the Commonwealth of Korea's freedom, and frustrated the Communist design for conquest."
Accost at the American Legion Convention, 8/thirty/54 [Audio]

Labor

I have no employ for those — regardless of their party — who hold some foolish dream of spinning the clock dorsum to days when unorganized labor was a huddled, almost helpless mass.
Speech 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 right to join the union of their choice.
Spoken communication to the American Federation of Labor, New York City, nine/17/52

Government tin can do a great deal to aid the settlement of labor disputes without allowing itself to be employed every bit an ally of either side. Its proper role in industrial strife is to encourage the process of mediation and conciliation.
State of the Union Message, Washington, DC, 2/2/53[AUDIO]

Leadership/Organization

"What is Leadership?" by Dwight D. Eisenhower

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

"At present I think, speaking roughly, by leadership we mean the art of getting someone else to do something that you want done considering he wants to do it, not considering your position of power can compel him to do information technology, 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 set of Army regulations past which he can compel unified action. He tin say to a body such equally this, "Rise," and "Sit downwardly." You do it exactly. But that is not leadership."
Remarks at the Annual Conference of the Society for Personnel Assistants, 5/12/54[Sound]

"The chore of getting people really wanting to practise something is the essence of leadership. And ane of the things a leader needs occasionally is the inspiration he gets from the people he leads. The old tactical textbooks say that the commander ever visits his troops to inspire them to fight. I for i soon discovered that i of the reasons for my visiting the forepart lines was to get inspiration from the young American soldier. I went dorsum to my chore ashamed of my ain occasional resentments or discouragements, which I probably -- at to the lowest degree I promise I concealed them."
Remarks at the Breakfast Coming together of Republican State Chairmen, Denver, Colorado, 9/x/55

"As long as I am back in my war machine life for a second, I should like to observe one thing most leadership that ane of the great has said -- Napoleon. He said, the nifty leader, the genius in leadership, is the human being who tin do the average thing when everybody else is going crazy."
Address at Meeting Sponsored past the Republican National Committee, iv/17/56

"The essence of leadership is to get others to exercise something because they call back you want information technology 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'due south Gettysburg Farm, 9/12/56

"Leadership is a word and a concept that has been more argued than most any other I know."
The President's News Conference of 11/14/56

"My life has been largely spent in diplomacy that required organization. But organization itself, necessary as information technology is, is never sufficient to win a battle."
Remarks to Participants in the Young Republican National Leadership Training Schoolhouse, 1/20/sixty[AUDIO]

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Peace

"Since the advent of nuclear weapons, it seems clear 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, x/19/54[AUDIO]

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

"The peace nosotros seek and need ways much more than than mere absence of war. Information technology 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 Eye East, 10/31/56[Audio]

"In vast stretches of the earth, men awoke today in hunger. They will spend the day in unceasing toil. And as the sunday goes down they volition 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. So long as this is then, peace and freedom volition be in danger throughout our world. For wherever free men lose hope of progress, liberty will be weakened and the seeds of conflict volition be sown."
Remarks of Welcome to the Delegates to the Tenth Colombo Plan Meeting, Seattle, Washington, xi/10/58[AUDIO]

"I like to believe that people, in the long run, are going to do more than to promote peace than our governments. Indeed, I remember that people desire peace and then much that i of these days governments had amend get out of the way and allow them take it."
Radio and Television receiver Broadcast With Prime Minister Macmillan in London, 8/31/59

"So -- our readiness to meet and defeat this kind of possible attack is forced upon us, both as a potent preventive of actual war and to insure survival in event of attack. This alertness to danger has to be translated into specific policies and activities in the several parts of the globe where our rights -- our way of life -- can be seriously damaged. Work of this kind occupies my days and nights."
Alphabetic character from DDE to Hallock Brownish Hoffman, February 7, 1955

"I have said time and once again in that location is no identify on this earth to which I would not travel, there is no chore I would not undertake if I had any faintest promise that, by so doing, I would promote the general cause of globe peace."
The President's News Conference, March 23, 1955 [AUDIO]

"As for myself and for the Secretary of Country and others involved, including those in the Legislature, we stand fix to do annihilation, to encounter with anyone, anywhere, every bit long equally we may practice so in cocky-respect, demanding the respect due this Nation, and there is whatsoever slightest thought or adventure of furthering this swell cause of peace."
Remarks at the Republican Women'southward National Conference, May 10, 1955[Sound]

"For a but and lasting peace, here is my solemn pledge to y'all: by dedication and patience we will keep, 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 like shooting fish in a barrel. To serve information technology will be hard. And to attain information technology, we must be enlightened of its full meaning -- and ready to pay its total toll."
2nd Inaugural Address, Jan 21, 1957[AUDIO]

"For all that nosotros cherish and justly desire -- for ourselves or for our children -- the securing of peace is the commencement requisite."
Radio and Goggle box Accost to the American People on the Need for Mutual 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 world, we must exist prepared to make whatever 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 showtime mean solar day at the President's Desk. Plenty of worries and difficult problems. But such has been my portion for a long time -- the result is that this only seems (today) similar a continuation of all I've been doing since July '41 -- fifty-fifty before that!"
Diary entry, i/21/53 [DDE Diaries: 1935-38, 1942, 1948-53, 1966, 1968, 1969; Box i; 1953 DDE Desk-bound Diary]

"I would say that the Presidency is probably the about taxing task, equally far as tiring of the listen and spirit; but it also has, as I take said before, its inspirations which tend to counteract each other . . . There have been times in war where I thought nothing could be quite every bit wearing and tearing as that with lives direct involved. But I would say, on the whole, this is the almost wearing, although not necessarily, as I say, the most tiring."
The President's News Briefing at Key Westward, Florida, 1/8/56

"Many people are ever saying the Presidency is too large a chore for any one man. When I hear this assertion, I e'er try to point out that a unmarried homo must make the final decisions that affect the whole, only that proper organisation brings to him only the questions and problems on which his decisions are needed. His ain job is to exist mentally prepared to make those decisions and then to be supported by an organization that will make sure they are carried out."
Alphabetic character, DDE to Dillon Anderson, 1/22/68 [DDE's Post-Presidential Papers, 1968 Chief File, Box 36, "An"]

"On the other hand, I found that getting things washed sometimes required other weapons from the Presidential arsenal -- persuasion, cajolery, even a trivial 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's Digest, November 1968

Religion

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

"Today I think that prayer is merely simply a necessity, because by prayer I believe we hateful an effort to arrive touch with the Infinite. We know that fifty-fifty our prayers are imperfect. Fifty-fifty our supplications are imperfect. Of form they are. We are imperfect human beings. But if we can back off from those problems and make the effort, and so there is something that ties u.s. all together. Nosotros have begun in our grasp of that basis of understanding, which is that all gratis regime is firmly founded in a deeply-felt religious faith."
Remarks at the Dedicatory Prayer Breakfast of the International Christian Leadership, two/5/53

"The churches of America are citadels of our faith in private freedom and homo dignity. This organized religion is the living source of all our spiritual force. And this forcefulness is our matchless armor in our earth-broad struggle against the forces of godless tyranny and oppression."
Message to the National Co-Chairmen, Commission of Religious Organizations, National Briefing on Christians and Jews, 7/9/53

"From this twenty-four hour period frontwards, the millions of our school children will daily proclaim in every city and town, every village and rural schoolhouse house, the dedication of our nation and our people to the Almighty. To anyone who truly loves America, nothing could be more inspiring than to contemplate this rededication of our youth, on each school morning, to our country's true significant.
Specially is this meaningful as we regard today's world. Over the earth, mankind has been cruelly torn by violence and brutality and, past the millions, muffled in mind and soul past a materialistic philosophy of life. Man everywhere is appalled by the prospect of atomic war. In this somber setting, this law and its effects today have profound meaning. In this mode we are reaffirming the transcendence of religious religion in America's heritage and future; in this style we shall constantly strengthen those spiritual weapons which forever will be our country'southward near powerful resource, in peace or in war."
Argument by the President Upon Signing Bill to Include the Words "Nether God" in the Pledge to the Flag, six/14/54

"Faith is the mightiest forcefulness that human has at his command. It impels homo beings to greatness in idea and give-and-take and deed."
Address at the Second Assembly of the Earth Council of Churches, Evanston, Illinois, 8/19/54 [Sound]

"We are essentially a religious people. We are non merely religious, nosotros are inclined, more today than ever, to see the value of organized religion as a practical force in our affairs."
Address at the Second Associates of the Earth Council of Churches, Evanston, Illinois, 8/19/54[AUDIO]

"Without God, there could be no American grade of Government, nor an American fashion of life. Recognition of the Supreme Being is the first -- the most basic -- expression of Americanism. Thus the Founding Fathers saw it, and thus, with God'due south aid, it will keep to be."
Remarks Recorded for the "Back-to-God" Programme of the American Legion, two/20/55

"Since the day of creation, the fondest hopes of men and women have been to pass on to their children something better than they themselves enjoyed. That hope represents a spark of the Divine which is implanted in every human breast."
Accost at the Signing of the Announcement of Principles at the Coming together of the Presidents in Panama Metropolis, seven/22/56

"The purpose is Divine; the implementation is human. Our country and its government have made mistakes -- homo mistakes. They take been of the caput -- not of the heart. And information technology is still truthful that the dandy concept of the dignity of all men, alike created in the image of the Almighty, has been the compass past which nosotros have tried and are trying to steer our form."
Annual Message to the Congress on the Country of the Union, 1/10/57

"Bones to our democratic civilization are the principles and convictions that have bound usa together as a nation. Among 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."
Address at U.S. Naval Academy Commencement, half dozen/four/58

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

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Sports

"My abiding prayer, these days, as I commencement my backswing is, 'Oh, delight let me swing slowly.' The trouble is that sometimes I wonder whether I swing at all; whether I am not strictly a chopper."
Alphabetic character, DDE to Bobby Jones, vii/28/51 [DDE's Pre-Presidential Papers, Box 63, Jones, Robert Tyre Jr.]

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

"One of the things that I noticed in war was how hard information technology 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, and so forth."
Remarks at the Conference of the National Women's Advisory Committee on Civil Defence force, 10/26/54 [AUDIO]

"And the other was this: the doctor did desire to take off my leg because he idea it was necessary. But you must remember boys in those days were raised for two things: work, and then they made their play; and if y'all couldn't play baseball game and box and play football game, why, your life was ended. That was in our boyish minds."
Radio and Television Circulate: "The Women Ask the President," 10/24/56

"Just I think a life of raising prize cattle, going shooting two or 3 times a year, fishing in the summer, and interspersing the whole matter with some golf and bridge -- and whenever I felt similar talking or writing, doing it with carelessness and with no sense of responsibility any -- maybe such a life wouldn't be then bad."
Letter, DDE to Alfred M. Gruenther, 11/two/56 [The Papers of Dwight D. Eisenhower, Volume XVII - The Presidency: The Middle Fashion, Part Xi, Chapter 22]

"I accept just realized that it is due to you, and to Mr. James Thomas and his staff of the Army Navy Country Club that the putting green here on the White House backyard is already in such excellent condition. I clinch you that I get a smashing deal of pleasure and relaxation out of using the green in an occasional belatedly afternoon hr . . ."
Letter, DDE to Rear Admiral John S. Phillips, 4/12/57 [DDE'south Papers as President, President's Personal File, Box 10, 1-A-7 Golf (four)]

"Not simply do I take a slap-up love for the game of golf -- no thing how badly I play it -- but I have also the belief that through every kind of meeting, through every kind of activity to which we can bring together more oftentimes and more intimately peoples of our several countries, by that measure out we volition practice something to solve the difficulties and the tensions that this poor quondam world seems present to so much endure."
Remarks to Representatives of World Amateur Golf Team Championship Conference, 5/two/58[Audio]

"Probably no one here knows I coached a football team -- a service team -- playing against Georgetown. I remember it was in the fall of 1924 Lou Picayune was your coach, and he beat usa. But it was a very happy circumstance, because it brought me the friendship of some other 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 Strange Service of Georgetown Academy, 10/13/58[AUDIO]

"Well, a funny affair, there are iii that I like all for the same reason, golf, fishing, and shooting, and I practise considering first, they take you into the fields. There is mild exercise, the kind that an older individual probably should accept. And on peak of information technology, it induces yous to take at any i time 2 or 3 hours, if you can, where y'all are thinking of the bird or that ball or the wily trout. At present, to my listen it is a very healthful, beneficial kind of thing, and I practice it whenever I get a chance, as you well know."
The President'south Press Briefing of x/15/58[Sound]

"Morale -- the will to win, the fighting center -- are the honored hallmarks of the football motorbus and player. Too, 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 City, New York, 10/28/58[Sound]

"I think of going dorsum to the sports field once again, and let'due south take a baseball. Well, you have croaky out a grounder and you lot put in your last ounce of energy and you but happen to brand get-go base. Merely you don't finish there. Outset base is the offset. Now y'all call on all your alertness, your skill, your energy -- and you lot count on your teammates, you count on the people that are working with yous. And the purpose of that getting on first base was to get you around to count a run."
Remarks at a Republican Men's Luncheon in Cleveland, Ohio xi/iv/threescore [AUDIO]

"You did non tell me what you lot are doing athletically just now but I practice hope that if your arm comes along next spring y'all can go it in good shape to try out for the pitching spot on the varsity. Notwithstanding, if you don't make it then I suggest you take upwards golf which later all is the best game of all of them."
Alphabetic character, DDE to grandson David Eisenhower, 11/17/65 [DDE's Postal service Presidential Papers, Secretary'south Series, Box xiii, Eisenhower]

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

War/Defense

"I have been chosen a Fascist and almost a Hitlerite - actually, I accept one earnest conviction in this war. Information technology is that no other war in history has so definitely lined upwardly the forces of arbitrary oppression and dictatorship against those of human rights and private liberty."
Letter from Dwight D. Eisenhower to John S.D. Eisenhower, April 8, 1943 [Eisenhower's Pre-Presidential Papers, Box 173, Eisenhower John Due south.D. 1943-1946 (ii)]

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

"War is a grim, cruel business concern, a business organization justified only every bit a means of sustaining the forces of good confronting those of evil."
Transcription fabricated for National State of war Fund at request of Col. Luther Fifty. Hill, 9/11/45

"I hate war every bit simply a soldier who has lived information technology can, only as i who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity."
Address before the Canadian Lodge, Ottawa, Canada, 1/x/46

"Guns and tanks and planes are nil unless there is a solid spirit, a solid centre, and keen productiveness backside it."
Accost to Economic Club of New York, Hotel Astor, 11/xx/46

"State of war is mankind's well-nigh tragic and stupid folly; to seek or advise its deliberate provocation is a black criminal offense against all men. Though y'all follow the trade of the warrior, you do so in the spirit of Washington -- not of Genghis Khan. For Americans, only threat to our fashion of life justifies resort to conflict."
Graduation Exercises at the United States Military Academy, six/3/47

"Mayhap my hatred of war blinds me and then that I cannot comprehend the arguments they adduce. Just, in my opinion, at that place 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 1 has been able to explain away the fact that war creates the weather that beget state of war."
Remarks at Carnegie Plant, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 10/19/l [DDE's Pre-Presidential Papers, Primary File, Box 196, Carnegie Plant]

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

"Americans, indeed, all free men, call up that in the final pick a soldier'due south pack is non and then heavy a burden as a prisoner's chains."
Countdown Address, 1/20/53[Audio]

"Each and all of us must summon to mind the words of Him whom we honor this Easter fourth dimension: 'When a strong human, armed, keepeth his palace, his goods are in peace'."
Statement on the Fourth Anniversary of the Signing of the North Atlantic Treaty, 4/four/53

"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are non clothed. This world in arms is non spending money lone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. The cost of one modernistic heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more 30 cities. It is two electric power plants, each serving a boondocks of sixty,000 population. Information technology is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some 50 miles of concrete highway. We pay for a single fighter plane with a half meg bushels of wheat. We pay for a unmarried destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than than 8,000 people. This, I echo, is the best way of life to be found on the road. the world has been taking. This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Nether the deject of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of atomic number 26."
Address "The Take a chance for Peace" Delivered Before the American Society of Newspaper Editors, 4/sixteen/53 [AUDIO]

"We do non keep security establishments merely to defend property or territory or rights abroad or at ocean. We keep the security forces to defend a way of life."
Remarks to the Committee for Economic Development, five/20/54 [Sound]

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

"And the next thing is that every war is going to astonish you in the manner information technology occurred, and in the style it is carried out."
The President's News Conference of 3/23/55

"I take spent my life in the report of military forcefulness as a deterrent to war, and in the character of military armaments necessary to win a state of war. The written report of the commencement of these questions is yet profitable, but we are apace getting to the point that no war tin be won."
Alphabetic character, DDE to Richard L. Simon, Simon and Schuster, Inc., four/4/56 [DDE's Papers as President, DDE Diaries Series, Box xiv, April 1956 Miscellaneous (five)]

"When we get to the point, as we i day volition, that both sides know that in any outbreak of general hostilities, regardless of the chemical element of surprise, destruction will be both reciprocal and consummate, peradventure we will take sense plenty to meet at the conference table with the understanding that the era of armaments has ended and the homo race must conform its deportment to this truth or die."
Letter, DDE to Richard L. Simon, Simon and Schuster, Inc., iv/four/56 [DDE's Papers as President, DDE Diaries Series, Box fourteen, April 1956 Miscellaneous (five)]

"Artillery alone can give the earth 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 man progress."
Address before the American Club of Newspaper Editors, Statler Hotel, Washington, DC, 4/21/56[AUDIO]

"Nosotros know something of the price of that 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 merely as the war did."
The President's News Briefing of 6/6/56

"The only manner to win the next globe war is to prevent it."
Address at a Rally in the Civic Auditorium, Seattle, Washington, 10/17/56

"We must be potent at domicile if we are going to exist strong abroad. Nosotros understand that. So we want to be strong at home in our morale or in our spirit, we desire to exist strong intellectually, in our didactics, in our economy and, where necessary, militarily."
Radio and Boob tube Broadcast: "The Women Ask the President," x/24/56

"The promise of the world is that wisdom can arrest conflict between brothers. I believe that war is the deadly harvest of big-headed and unreasoning minds. And I find grounds for this conventionalities in the wisdom literature of Proverbs. It says in effect this: Panic strikes like a storm and cataclysm comes like a whirlwind to those who hate knowledge and ignore their God."
Accost at the Centennial Commemoration Banquet of the National Pedagogy Association, 4/4/57[AUDIO]

"First, separate footing, sea and air warfare is gone forever. If always again we should be involved in war, we will fight information technology in all elements, with all services, as ane unmarried concentrated try."
Special Bulletin to the Congress on Reorganization of the Defense Establishment, four/iii/58

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

"First, separate footing, body of water and air warfare is gone forever. This lesson we learned in World War 2. I lived that lesson in Europe. Others lived it in the Pacific. Millions of American veterans learned it well."
Address to the American Lodge of Newspaper Editors and the International Press Institute, 4/17/58

"Now all of us deplore this vast military spending. Yet, in the face of the Soviet attitude, nosotros realize its necessity. Whatever the cost, America will keep itself secure. Only in the process we must not, by our own hand, destroy or misconstrue the American system. This we could do by useless overspending. I know ane sure way to overspend. That is by overindulging sentimental attachments to outmoded military machines and concepts."
Accost to the American Society of Newspaper Editors and the International Press Institute, iv/17/58

"I know something about that state of war, and I never want to see that history repeated. But, my fellow Americans, it certainly can be repeated if the peace-loving democratic nations again fearfully practice a policy of standing idly by while big aggressors use armed force to conquer the small-scale and weak."
Radio and Television Written report to the American People Regarding the State of affairs in the Formosa Straits, 9/xi/58

"Any survey of the complimentary globe'south defense structure cannot fail to impart a feeling of regret that so much of our effort and resources must be devoted to armaments."
Annual Message to the Congress on the State of the Union, 1/nine/59

"But all history has taught u.s.a. the grim lesson that no nation has ever been successful in avoiding the terrors of war by refusing to defend its rights -- by attempting to placate aggression."
Radio and Television Report to the American People: Security in the Free World, three/xvi/59

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

"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, past the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous ascent of misplaced ability exists and volition persist."
Farewell Radio and Television Address to the American People, one/17/61

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

"Nothing is easy in state of war. Mistakes are e'er paid for in casualties and troops are quick to sense any blunder made by their commanders."
Cause in Europe, folio 450

"We need an adequate defense force, but every artillery dollar we spend above adequacy has a long-term weakening issue upon the nation and its security."
Waging Peace, page 622

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