Quotes

  1. The Eisenhowers
  2. Quotes

Agriculture

"The proper office of regime, nevertheless, is that of partner with the farmer -- never his master. By every possible means we must develop and promote that partnership -- to the cease that agriculture may proceed to be a sound, enduring foundation for our economy and that farm living may be a profitable and satisfying experience."
Special Message to the Congress on Agriculture, one/ix/56

"You know, farming looks mighty piece of cake when your plow is a pencil, and yous're a 1000 miles from the corn field."
Address at Bradley University, Peoria, Illinois, 9/25/56

Anecdotes

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

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

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

"Whatever America hopes to bring to laissez passer in the earth must kickoff come to pass in the heart of America."
Inaugural Address, Washington, DC, 1/20/53 Audio clip

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

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

"In that location is -- in world affairs -- a steady course to be followed between an assertion of force that is truculent and a confession of helplessness that is cowardly."
Land of the Union Address, 2/2/53 Audio clip

"Give thanks goodness, many years ago, I had a preceptor, for whom my adoration has never died, and he had a favorite saying, one that I trust I try to live by. It was: ever accept your task seriously, never yourself."
Address at the New England "Forward to '54" Dinner, Boston, Massachusetts, nine/21/53

"I was raised in a lilliputian town of which well-nigh of you have never heard. Merely in the Westward it is a famous place. It is called Abilene, Kansas. We had equally our marshal for a long time a man named Wild Beak Hickok. If yous don't know anything almost him, read your Westerns more. Now that boondocks had a code, and I was raised equally a boy to prize that code. It was: run across anyone face to face with whom you disagree. Yous could not sneak up on him from backside, or practice any impairment to him, without suffering the penalty of an outraged denizens. If you met him face up to face and took the aforementioned risks he did, y'all could get away with well-nigh anything, every bit long as the bullet was in the front end."
Remarks Upon Receiving America's Autonomous Legacy Award at a B'nai B'rith Dinner in Honor of the 40th Anniversary of the Anti-Defamation League, 11/23/53 Audio clip

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

"Well, information technology is very of import, and the great idea of setting upward an organism is so as to defeat the domino result. When, each standing lonely, 1 falls, it has the effect on the side by side, and finally the whole row is down. Y'all are trying, through a unifying influence, to build that row of dominoes and so they can stand the fall of ane, if necessary."
The President's News Conference of v/12/54 Audio clip

"When I was a male child, I was one of vi in my family unit. We had a quarrel daily as to who could go upwards and practise the chore of bringing the groceries down domicile. They had a practice then, in grocery stores, that I sympathize growing efficiency has eliminated -- ever hoping that the grocer would say you can have i of the stale prunes out of the barrel over in that location. Simply better than that was the dill pickle jar that you could swoop into, sometimes arm deep well-nigh, and try to get one. I sympathize that they are not that accommodating anymore; we have got too efficient. When yous go around picking things off the shelf, you pay for them. These, y'all understand, were free. That meant a lot to young boys to whom a nickel looked about as big as a wheel on a farm carriage."
Remarks at the Convention of the National Clan of Retail Grocers, 6/xvi/54Audio clip

"Now I realize that on any item decision a very great amount of oestrus can exist generated. But I do say this: life is non made up of just one conclusion here, or some other one there. It is the full 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 lot. Government has to practice that same affair. It is just in the mass that finally philosophy really emerges."
Remarks at Dejeuner Meeting of the Republican National Committee and the Republican National Finance Commission, 2/17/55

"Today there is a great ideological struggle going on in the globe. 1 side upholds what information technology calls the materialistic dialectic. Denying the beingness 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 but every bit he serves the ambitions -- desires -- of a ruling clique; though they attempt to brand this finer-sounding than that, considering they say their dictatorship is that of the proletariat, meaning that they rule in the people'south name -- for the people. Now, on our side, we recognize right away that man is not but an fauna, that his life and his ambitions take at the bottom a foundation of spiritual values."
Remarks at 11th Annual Washington Briefing of the Advertising Council, three/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 Land Chairmen, Denver, Colorado, 9/ten/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

"I American put it this way: 'Every tomorrow has 2 handles. We tin catch information technology with the handle of feet or the handle of faith'."
Accost at the Cow Palace on Accepting the Nomination of the Republican National Convention, viii/23/56 Audio clip

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

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

"I belong to a family unit of boys who were raised in meager circumstances in cardinal Kansas, and every ane of us earned our way every bit nosotros went along, and it never occurred to us that we were poor, but we were."
Television Broadcast: "The People Ask the President," ten/12/56

"The hope of the earth is that wisdom tin arrest disharmonize between brothers. I believe that war is the mortiferous harvest of arrogant and unreasoning minds."
Accost, National Education Association, Washington, DC, 4/4/57 Audio clip

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

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

"But finally, there is one other quality I would mention amidst these that I believe will fit you lot for difficult and of import posts. This is a healthy and lively sense of sense of humor."
Address at U. S. Naval Academy First, half-dozen/4/58

"A famous Frenchman once said, 'War has get far too important to entrust to the generals.' Today, business, I recollect, should be proverb: 'Politics take get far too important to entrust to the politicians'."
Remarks, Business Council, Hot Springs, Virginia, 10/twenty/62

RETURN TO TOP

Censorship

"Censorship, in my stance, is a stupid and shallow way of budgeted the solution to whatsoever problem. Though sometimes necessary, every bit witness a professional person and technical secret that may take a bearing upon the welfare and very safety of this country, nosotros should be very conscientious in the way nosotros apply information technology, because in censorship e'er lurks the very great danger of working to the disadvantage of the American nation."
Associated Printing dejeuner, New York, New York, 4/24/50

"Don't join the book burners. Don't think you are going to muffle faults by concealing evidence that they always existed. Don't be agape to become in your library and read every book, every bit long as that certificate does not offend our own ideas of decency. That should be the only censorship."
Remarks at the Dartmouth College Kickoff Exercises, Hanover, New Hampshire, six/14/53[Audio]

Children/Youth/Families

"Youth -- our greatest resource -- is beingness seriously neglected in a vital respect. The nation every bit a whole is not preparing teachers or building schools fast enough to go along up with the increase in our population."
Annual Message to the Congress on the Country of the Union, 1/vii/54[AUDIO]

"I say with all the earnestness that I can control, that if American mothers volition teach our children that there is no end to the fight for better relationships amongst the people of the earth, we shall accept peace."
Address to the National Council of Cosmic Women, Boston, Massachusetts, xi/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 impossible brunt of debt."
Remarks on the Land of the Marriage Message, Central West, Florida, ane/5/56[AUDIO]

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

"Now, the education of our children is of national business organization, and if they are not educated properly, it is a national calamity."
The President's News Conference of seven/31/57 [Sound]

"I am not here, of course, equally 1 pretending to any expertness on questions of youth and children -- except in the sense that, inside their ain families, all grandfathers are experts on these matters."
Address at the Opening Session of the White House Briefing on Children and Youth, College Park, Maryland, 3/27/60 [AUDIO]

RETURN TO Top

Citizenship

"Democracy is essentially a political arrangement that recognizes the equality of humans before the law." -Address to Constituent Assembly, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Baronial 8, 1946

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

"The proudest human that walks the globe is a costless American citizen." -Talk at the Commercial Lodge 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 merely way to protect my own rights is to protect the rights of others." -Remarks at the United Negro Higher Fund lunch, May 19, 1953

"I believe as long as we permit conditions to exist that make for 2nd-course citizens, we are making of ourselves less than beginning-grade citizens." -Remarks at the United Negro College Fund luncheon, May 19, 1953

"The general limits of your liberty are just these: that yous do non trespass upon the equal rights of others." -Remarks to the National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution, April 22, 1954

"The history of free men is never really written past chance--merely 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 Fiddling Rock, Arkansas, September 24, 1957

"Freedom under law is similar the air we breathe." -Remarks on the Observance of Police force Day, April thirty, 1958

"Information technology is only as we govern ourselves that we are well-governed." -Remarks on the Observance of Police force Day, April 30, 1958

Civil Rights

"I propose to employ 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 Armed Forces."
Almanac Message to the Congress on the State of the Matrimony, 2/2/53 [Sound]

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

"It was my promise that this localized situation would exist brought under control by urban center and State authorities. If the use of local police powers had been sufficient, our traditional method of leaving the problems in those easily would have been pursued. But when large gatherings of obstructionists made it impossible for the decrees of the Court to be carried out, both the police and the national interest demanded that the President take action."
Radio and Television Address to the American People on the Situation in Piddling Rock 9/24/57[Sound]

"I practice not believe that all of these problems can be solved just past a new law, or something that someone says, with teeth in it. For instance, when we got into the Little Rock thing, it was not my province to talk almost segregation or desegregation. I had the job of supporting a federal court that had issued a proper order under the Constitution, and where compliance was prevented by action that was unlawful."
The President's News Briefing of 3/26/58

"I believe that the United States as a government, if it is going to be true to its ain founding documents, does have the chore of working toward that fourth dimension when there is no discrimination made on such inconsequential reason equally race, color, or religion."
The President's News Conference of five/xiii/59

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Education

"The true purpose of education is to gear up young men and women for constructive citizenship in a free grade of government."
Speech at William and Mary Higher, Williamsburg, Virginia, May 15, 1953 [AUDIO]

"It is unwise to make education likewise inexpensive. If everything is provided freely, there is a tendency to put no value on anything. Instruction must always accept a certain toll on it; even every bit the very procedure of learning itself must ever require individual attempt and initiative."
Address, Centennial Celebration Feast of the National Education Association, Washington, DC, four/iv/57[AUDIO]

Government

"One of my predecessors is said to have observed that in making his decisions he had to operate like a football quarterback -- he could not very well telephone call the next play until he saw how the final play turned out. Well, that may exist a good manner to run a football team, simply in these days it is no mode to run a government."
Address at the Cow Palace on Accepting the Nomination of the Republican National Convention, viii/23/56 [AUDIO]

"A sound nation is congenital of individuals audio in body and mind and spirit. Government dares not ignore the individual citizen."
Accost at a Rally in the Public Foursquare, Cleveland, Ohio, x/1/56[Audio]

"We cannot safely confine government programs to our own domestic progress and our ain military ability. We could be the wealthiest and the nearly mighty nation and notwithstanding lose the battle of the world if nosotros do not help our globe neighbors protect their freedom and advance their social and economic progress. It is not the goal of the American people that the Us should be the richest nation in the graveyard of history."
Special Bulletin to the Congress on the Mutual Security Programme, 3/thirteen/59

Holocaust

"But 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 beggar description. While I was touring the campsite I encountered iii men who had been inmates and by one 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 so overpowering equally to leave me a flake sick. In ane room, where they [in that location] were piled up twenty or 30 naked men, killed past starvation, George Patton would not even enter. He said he would get sick if he did so. I made the visit deliberately, in society to be in position to requite outset-manus show of these things if ever, in the futurity, there develops a tendency to charge these allegations only to 'propaganda'."
Letter, DDE to George C. Marshall, 4/15/45 [The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower, The War Years Iv, doc #2418]

"We go along to uncover German concentration camps for political prisoners in which conditions of indescribable horror prevail. I take visited 1 of these myself and I clinch you that whatever has been printed on them to date has been understatement. If you would encounter whatsoever advantage in asking about a dozen leaders of Congress and a dozen prominent editors to brand a short visit to this theater in a couple of C-54'due south, I will adapt to have them conducted to one of these places where the bear witness of bestiality and cruelty is and so overpowering equally to exit no doubt in their minds about the normal practices of the Germans in these camps."
Cable, DDE to George C. Marshall, 4/xix/45 [The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower, The War Years IV, dr. #2424]

"When I institute the first camp like that I think I never was and so angry in my life. The bestiality displayed there was non merely piled up bodies of people that had starved to expiry, only to follow out the road and come across where they tried to evacuate them so they could still work, you lot could encounter where they sprawled on the road. You could go to their burying pits and come across horrors that actually I wouldn't even want to begin to draw. I call back people ought to know about such things. Information technology explains something of my attitude toward the German war criminal. I believe he must be punished, and I will concord out for that forever."
Printing briefing, vi/xviii/45 [DDE's Pre-Presidential Papers, Principal File, Box 156, Press Statements and Releases, 1944-46 (i)]

RETURN TO Superlative

Korean State of war

"We have now gained a truce in Korea. We practise not greet information technology with wild rejoicing. We know how beloved its cost has been in life and treasure."
Radio Report to the American People on the Achievements of the Administration and the 83d Congress, viii/6/53[Sound]

"Obviously all of us know that the composition that was reached in Korea is not satisfactory to America, merely it is far improve than to continue the bloody, dreary, sacrifice of lives with no possible strictly military victory in sight."
Address at the Illinois State Fair at Springfield, 8/nineteen/54[AUDIO]

"And of class, there was the war in Korea, a war around which in that location had grown upwardly such a political state of affairs that military machine victory, at to the lowest degree a decisive military victory, was no longer in the cards."
Radio and Television Accost to the American People on the Achievements of the 83rd Congress, eight/23/54 [Sound]

"In June of concluding yr nosotros negotiated a truce which ended the Korean War, preserved the Commonwealth of Korea'southward freedom, and frustrated the Communist blueprint for conquest."
Address at the American Legion Convention, 8/xxx/54 [AUDIO]

Labor

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

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

Authorities can practise a great bargain to aid the settlement of labor disputes without allowing itself to exist employed every bit an marry 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?" past Dwight D. Eisenhower

"You have got to have something in which to believe. You have got to have leaders, organization, friendships, and contacts that help y'all to believe that, and help y'all to put out your best."
Remarks to the Leaders of the United Defence Fund, four/29/54 [Audio]

"At present I recall, speaking roughly, by leadership we hateful the art of getting someone else to do something that you want done because he wants to practice it, not because your position of power can compel him to practise it, or your position of authority. A commander of a regiment is not necessarily a leader. He has all of the goods of ability given past a prepare of Army regulations by which he can hogtie unified activity. He can say to a body such as this, "Ascent," and "Sit down." You lot exercise it exactly. But that is not leadership."
Remarks at the Almanac Conference of the Club for Personnel Administration, 5/12/54[Audio]

"The job of getting people really wanting to exercise something is the essence of leadership. And one of the things a leader needs occasionally is the inspiration he gets from the people he leads. The old tactical textbooks say that the commander ever visits his troops to inspire them to fight. I for one presently discovered that one of the reasons for my visiting the front lines was to get inspiration from the young American soldier. I went back to my chore ashamed of my own occasional resentments or discouragements, which I probably -- at least I promise I curtained them."
Remarks at the Breakfast Meeting of Republican State Chairmen, Denver, Colorado, 9/10/55

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

"The essence of leadership is to become others to exercise something because they think y'all want it washed 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'southward Gettysburg Subcontract, nine/12/56

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

"My life has been largely spent in affairs that required organization. But system itself, necessary equally it is, is never sufficient to win a battle."
Remarks to Participants in the Young Republican National Leadership Training School, 1/20/60[Sound]

Return TO Superlative

Peace

"Since the advent of nuclear weapons, it seems clear that in that location is no longer any culling to peace, if there is to exist a happy and well world."
Remarks at the Section of Country 1954 Award Awards Anniversary, 10/xix/54[AUDIO]

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

"The peace we seek and need ways much more than mere absenteeism of war. Information technology means the acceptance of police force, and the fostering of justice, in all the earth."
Radio and Tv set Report to the American People on the Developments in Eastern Europe and the Center E, 10/31/56[AUDIO]

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

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

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

"I accept said time and once more there is no identify on this globe to which I would not travel, in that location is no task I would not undertake if I had any faintest hope that, by and then doing, I would promote the full general cause of world peace."
The President's News Conference, March 23, 1955 [AUDIO]

"Equally for myself and for the Secretary of Country and others involved, including those in the Legislature, nosotros stand ready to do annihilation, to come across with anyone, anywhere, as long every bit we may do so in self-respect, demanding the respect due this Nation, and there is whatsoever slightest idea or chance of furthering this great cause of peace."
Remarks at the Republican Women's National Conference, May 10, 1955[AUDIO]

"For a but and lasting peace, hither is my solemn pledge to you: by dedication and patience we volition go on, as long as I remain your President, to work for this simple -- this single -- this exclusive goal."
Accost at Byrd Field, Richmond, Virginia, October 29, 1956[Audio]

"The building of such a peace is a assuming and solemn purpose. To proclaim it is easy. To serve information technology volition be difficult. And to achieve it, we must be enlightened of its full meaning -- and set to pay its total price."
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 starting time requisite."
Radio and Television set 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 globe peace with justice and the security of freedom on this earth, we must be prepared to make whatever sacrifices are demanded equally we pursue this path to its end."
Remarks at the Fort Pitt Chapter, Association of the U.s. Regular army May 31, 1961

The Presidency

"My first day at the President'south Desk. Plenty of worries and difficult problems. But such has been my portion for a long time -- the result is that this merely seems (today) like a continuation of all I've been doing since July '41 -- even before that!"
Diary entry, i/21/53 [DDE Diaries: 1935-38, 1942, 1948-53, 1966, 1968, 1969; Box 1; 1953 DDE Desk Diary]

"I would say that the Presidency is probably the most taxing job, as far as tiring of the mind and spirit; but it also has, as I take said before, its inspirations which tend to counteract each other . . . At that place take been times in war where I thought aught could exist quite as wearing and vehement as that with lives directly involved. But I would say, on the whole, this is the almost wearing, although non necessarily, as I say, the almost tiring."
The President's News Conference at Primal West, Florida, 1/8/56

"Many people are always maxim the Presidency is too big a job for any i man. When I hear this assertion, I always try to indicate out that a single human being must make the final decisions that touch on the whole, merely that proper organization brings to him only the questions and bug on which his decisions are needed. His own job is to be mentally prepared to make those decisions and and so to be supported by an system that will brand sure they are carried out."
Alphabetic character, DDE to Dillon Anderson, ane/22/68 [DDE's Post-Presidential Papers, 1968 Principal File, Box 36, "An"]

"On the other mitt, I constitute that getting things done sometimes required other weapons from the Presidential arsenal -- persuasion, cajolery, even a little head-thumping here and there -- to say cypher of a personal streak of obstinacy which on occasion fires my boilers."
Some Thoughts on the Presidency, Reader'south Digest, Nov 1968

Organized 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 information technology is."
Accost at the Freedoms Foundation, Waldorf-Astoria, New York City, New York, 12/22/52

"Today I think that prayer is merely simply a necessity, because past prayer I believe we mean an endeavor to arrive impact 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. Merely if we can back off from those problems and make the effort, then in that location is something that ties u.s.a. all together. We have begun in our grasp of that basis of understanding, which is that all complimentary government is firmly founded in a deeply-felt religious religion."
Remarks at the Dedicatory Prayer Breakfast of the International Christian Leadership, 2/5/53

"The churches of America are citadels of our faith 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-broad struggle against the forces of godless tyranny and oppression."
Bulletin to the National Co-Chairmen, Commission of Religious Organizations, National Briefing on Christians and Jews, 7/9/53

"From this day forwards, the millions of our school children will daily proclaim in every urban center 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, nothing could be more than inspiring than to contemplate this rededication of our youth, on each school morning time, to our country'southward true pregnant.
Especially is this meaningful as we regard today's earth. Over the globe, flesh has been cruelly torn by violence and brutality and, by the millions, muffled in mind and soul by a materialistic philosophy of life. Man everywhere is appalled past the prospect of atomic state of war. In this somber setting, this law and its effects today have profound meaning. In this way we are reaffirming the transcendence of religious faith in America's heritage and time to come; in this way nosotros shall constantly strengthen those spiritual weapons which forever will be our country'southward most powerful resource, in peace or in war."
Statement by the President Upon Signing Pecker to Include the Words "Under God" in the Pledge to the Flag, 6/fourteen/54

"Faith is the mightiest strength that human being has at his command. It impels homo beings to greatness in thought and word and deed."
Address at the Second Assembly of the Earth Quango 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 ever, to meet the value of religion as a practical force in our affairs."
Address at the Second Assembly of the World Council of Churches, Evanston, Illinois, 8/nineteen/54[Audio]

"Without God, there could exist no American class of Government, nor an American fashion of life. Recognition of the Supreme Being is the first -- the nearly bones -- expression of Americanism. Thus the Founding Fathers saw it, and thus, with God's help, information technology will proceed to be."
Remarks Recorded for the "Back-to-God" Program of the American Legion, ii/20/55

"Since the day of cosmos, the fondest hopes of men and women accept been to pass on to their children something meliorate than they themselves enjoyed. That hope represents a spark of the Divine which is implanted in every human being breast."
Address at the Signing of the Announcement of Principles at the Meeting of the Presidents in Panama Urban center, 7/22/56

"The purpose is Divine; the implementation is homo. Our country and its government have made mistakes -- human mistakes. They have been of the head -- non of the middle. And it is still true that the great concept of the dignity of all men, alike created in the image of the Almighty, has been the compass by which nosotros have tried and are trying to steer our course."
Almanac Message to the Congress on the Country of the Union, one/10/57

"Bones to our democratic civilization are the principles and convictions that have jump us together as a nation. Among these are personal liberty, human rights, and the dignity of man. All these accept their roots in a deeply held religious faith -- in a belief in God."
Address at U.S. Naval Academy Commencement, 6/4/58

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

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Sports

"My constant prayer, these days, as I offset my backswing is, 'Oh, please let 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, seven/28/51 [DDE'southward Pre-Presidential Papers, Box 63, Jones, Robert Tyre Jr.]

"The other day Aks and I went up to your ranch for a day's fishing. I cannot remember any 24-hour interval when we have had more fun on a stream. We had along with us three paper men and a few cloak-and-dagger service people, many of whom had never seen a trout stream, so we did the thing upwards right by borrowing frying pans, salary and corn meal from the wife of your rancher -- and we cooked an outdoor meal for the oversupply. It was really quite a mean solar day."
Letter of the alphabet, DDE to Bal F. Swan, 8/fifteen/53 [DDE's Papers as President, Name Serial, Box seven, "Denver, 1953"]

"1 of the things that I noticed in state of war was how difficult 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 game, or an umpire a baseball game game, and so forth."
Remarks at the Conference of the National Women's Advisory Commission on Civil Defense, 10/26/54 [AUDIO]

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

"But I recollect a life of raising prize cattle, going shooting two or three times a year, fishing in the summer, and interspersing the whole thing with some golf and bridge -- and whenever I felt like talking or writing, doing information technology with carelessness and with no sense of responsibility whatsoever -- maybe such a life wouldn't exist so bad."
Alphabetic character, DDE to Alfred M. Gruenther, xi/2/56 [The Papers of Dwight D. Eisenhower, Volume XVII - The Presidency: The Middle Way, Part 11, Chapter 22]

"I have simply realized that it is due to you, and to Mr. James Thomas and his staff of the Army Navy State Club that the putting green hither on the White House lawn is already in such excellent condition. I assure y'all that I become a great bargain of pleasure and relaxation out of using the green in an occasional late afternoon hour . . ."
Alphabetic character, DDE to Rear Admiral John S. Phillips, iv/12/57 [DDE's Papers every bit President, President'due south Personal File, Box ten, i-A-7 Golf (four)]

"Not merely do I have a keen beloved for the game of golf game -- no matter how desperately I play it -- but I have also the belief that through every kind of coming together, through every kind of activeness to which we can bring together more often and more intimately peoples of our several countries, by that measure out we will exercise something to solve the difficulties and the tensions that this poor old world seems present to and so much endure."
Remarks to Representatives of World Amateur Golf game Team Title Conference, 5/two/58[Audio]

"Probably no one here knows I coached a football squad -- a service squad -- playing confronting Georgetown. I think it was in the autumn of 1924 Lou Little was your charabanc, and he beat us. Simply it was a very happy circumstance, because it brought me the friendship of another man, Lou Footling, 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 University, 10/13/58[AUDIO]

"Well, a funny thing, there are 3 that I like all for the aforementioned reason, golf game, angling, and shooting, and I do because commencement, they take yous into the fields. There is mild practice, the kind that an older individual probably should have. And on elevation of it, information technology induces yous to take at any 1 fourth dimension ii or 3 hours, if y'all tin, where y'all are thinking of the bird or that ball or the wily trout. Now, to my listen it is a very healthful, beneficial kind of affair, and I do it whenever I get a chance, as you well know."
The President's Press Conference of ten/xv/58[AUDIO]

"Morale -- the will to win, the fighting eye -- are the honored hallmarks of the football coach and player. Likewise, they are feature of the enterprising executive, the successful troop leader, the established artist and the dedicated teacher and scientist."
Remarks at the First Football Hall of Fame Dinner, New York City, New York, 10/28/58[AUDIO]

"I think of going back to the sports field again, and allow's have a baseball game. Well, you have croaky out a grounder and you put in your last ounce of free energy and you just happen to brand first base of operations. Simply you don't stop there. First base is the beginning. Now you call on all your alacrity, your skill, your energy -- and yous count on your teammates, yous count on the people that are working with you. And the purpose of that getting on offset base was to become you around to count a run."
Remarks at a Republican Men'southward Tiffin in Cleveland, Ohio 11/4/sixty [Sound]

"You did non tell me what you are doing athletically just now simply I do hope that if your arm comes forth next spring you can become information technology in adept shape to try out for the pitching spot on the varsity. However, if yous don't make it then I suggest you take up golf which after all is the best game of all of them."
Letter, DDE to grandson David Eisenhower, 11/17/65 [DDE'south Postal service Presidential Papers, Secretary'southward Series, Box thirteen, Eisenhower]

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

State of war/Defense force

"I take been called a Fascist and nearly a Hitlerite - actually, I accept one hostage 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 South.D. Eisenhower, Apr 8, 1943 [Eisenhower'south Pre-Presidential Papers, Box 173, Eisenhower John Southward.D. 1943-1946 (ii)]

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

"War is a grim, cruel concern, a business concern justified merely as a means of sustaining the forces of good against those of evil."
Transcription made for National War Fund at asking of Col. Luther L. Hill, 9/11/45

"I detest war as but a soldier who has lived it can, only as 1 who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity."
Address earlier the Canadian Gild, Ottawa, Canada, 1/ten/46

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

"War is mankind's about tragic and stupid folly; to seek or advise its deliberate provocation is a blackness criminal offense confronting all men. Though you follow the merchandise of the warrior, you do then in the spirit of Washington -- not of Genghis Khan. For Americans, only threat to our manner of life justifies resort to disharmonize."
Graduation Exercises at the U.s.a. Military Academy, vi/iii/47

"Possibly my hatred of war blinds me then that I cannot embrace the arguments they adduce. But, in my opinion, there is no such thing as a preventive state of war. Although this proposition is repeatedly made, none has nonetheless explained how war prevents war. Worse than this, no one has been able to explain abroad the fact that war creates the conditions that beget war."
Remarks at Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 10/19/50 [DDE'southward Pre-Presidential Papers, Master File, Box 196, Carnegie Found]

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

"Americans, indeed, all gratis men, remember that in the final choice a soldier's pack is not so heavy a burden as a prisoner's chains."
Inaugural Address, i/20/53[AUDIO]

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

"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is non spending money lonely. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick schoolhouse in more than than 30 cities. Information technology is ii electric power plants, each serving a boondocks of 60,000 population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some 50 miles of concrete highway. We pay for a single fighter airplane with a half 1000000 bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people. This, I repeat, is the best style of life to be found on the road. the earth has been taking. This is non a way of life at all, in whatever true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of atomic number 26."
Address "The Chance for Peace" Delivered Before the American Social club of Newspaper Editors, iv/16/53 [Sound]

"Nosotros do not continue security establishments merely to defend property or territory or rights abroad or at sea. We keep the security forces to defend a way of life."
Remarks to the Committee for Economical Development, v/20/54 [Audio]

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

"And the next affair is that every war is going to astonish you in the way it occurred, and in the way information technology is carried out."
The President'south News Briefing of 3/23/55

"I accept spent my life in the report of military strength as a deterrent to state of war, and in the character of military armaments necessary to win a war. The written report of the outset of these questions is all the same profitable, but we are rapidly getting to the point that no war can be won."
Letter, DDE to Richard Fifty. Simon, Simon and Schuster, Inc., four/4/56 [DDE'south Papers as President, DDE Diaries Series, Box 14, April 1956 Miscellaneous (v)]

"When we get to the signal, as we one day will, that both sides know that in any outbreak of general hostilities, regardless of the chemical element of surprise, devastation volition be both reciprocal and consummate, maybe we will have sense plenty to meet at the conference table with the agreement that the era of armaments has ended and the human race must conform its deportment to this truth or die."
Letter, DDE to Richard 50. Simon, Simon and Schuster, Inc., 4/4/56 [DDE'south Papers as President, DDE Diaries Series, Box 14, April 1956 Miscellaneous (5)]

"Arms lone can requite the world no permanent peace, no confident security. Arms are solely for defence -- to protect from tearing assault what we already have. They are only a costly insurance. They cannot add together to human progress."
Address earlier the American Social club of Newspaper Editors, Statler Hotel, Washington, DC, four/21/56[AUDIO]

"We know something of the cost of that war. We were in it from Dec 7th, '41, till August of '45. Ever since that time, we have been waging peace. Information technology has had its ups and downs just every bit the war did."
The President's News Briefing of 6/6/56

"The only way to win the next world state of war is to forestall it."
Accost at a Rally in the Civic Auditorium, Seattle, Washington, ten/17/56

"We must be strong at home if we are going to be strong abroad. We understand that. So we want to exist potent at dwelling house in our morale or in our spirit, we desire to be potent intellectually, in our education, in our economy and, where necessary, militarily."
Radio and Television Broadcast: "The Women Ask the President," 10/24/56

"The hope of the globe is that wisdom can arrest conflict between brothers. I believe that war is the deadly harvest of big-headed and unreasoning minds. And I find grounds for this belief in the wisdom literature of Proverbs. It says in effect this: Panic strikes like a storm and calamity comes like a whirlwind to those who detest noesis and ignore their God."
Accost at the Centennial Celebration Banquet of the National Teaching Association, iv/4/57[Audio]

"Showtime, separate ground, ocean and air warfare is gone forever. If always again we should be involved in war, nosotros will fight it in all elements, with all services, every bit ane single concentrated effort."
Special Bulletin to the Congress on Reorganization of the Defense Establishment, four/3/58

"Now this brings me to my main topic -- our military force -- more specifically, how to stay stiff against threat from outside, without undermining the economic wellness that supports our security."
Accost to the American Society of Paper Editors and the International Press Found, 4/17/58

"First, separate basis, ocean and air warfare is gone forever. This lesson nosotros learned in Globe State of war Two. I lived that lesson in Europe. Others lived information technology in the Pacific. Millions of American veterans learned it well."
Address to the American Society of Newspaper Editors and the International Printing Institute, iv/17/58

"Now all of us deplore this vast armed forces spending. Yet, in the face of the Soviet attitude, nosotros realize its necessity. Any the cost, America volition proceed itself secure. But in the process we must not, by our ain manus, destroy or misconstrue the American system. This nosotros could exercise past 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 Order of Newspaper Editors and the International Press Plant, 4/17/58

"I know something nigh that war, and I never want to run across that history repeated. Only, my fellow Americans, information technology certainly can be repeated if the peace-loving democratic nations again appallingly practice a policy of standing idly by while big aggressors utilise armed strength to conquer the minor and weak."
Radio and Goggle box Study to the American People Regarding the Situation in the Formosa Straits, 9/11/58

"Any survey of the gratis world's defense structure cannot fail to impart a feeling of regret that and then much of our effort and resource must be devoted to armaments."
Almanac Message to the Congress on the Country of the Union, 1/nine/59

"But all history has taught united states of america 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 assailment."
Radio and Goggle box Report to the American People: Security in the Free World, iii/16/59

"In this hope, among the things nosotros teach to the immature are such truths as the transcendent value of the individual and the dignity of all people, the futility and stupidity of state 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, iii/27/sixty

"In the councils of regime, nosotros must baby-sit confronting the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rising of misplaced ability exists and will persist."
Farewell Radio and Telly Address to the American People, 1/17/61

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

"Nothing is easy in war. Mistakes are ever paid for in casualties and troops are quick to sense any blunder fabricated by their commanders."
Crusade in Europe, folio 450

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

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