Quotes

  1. The Eisenhowers
  2. Quotes

Agronomics

"The proper role of government, nevertheless, is that of partner with the farmer -- never his master. By every possible means nosotros must develop and promote that partnership -- to the cease that agriculture may go along 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 Agronomics, 1/nine/56

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

Anecdotes

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

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

"Don't defend yourself. Don't explain. Don't worry."
Alphabetic character, DDE to Omar Bradley, ten/26/1949 [DDE's Pre-Presidential Papers, Box thirteen]

"Whatever America hopes to bring to pass in the world must starting time come to laissez passer in the heart of America."
Countdown Accost, Washington, DC, 1/xx/53 Audio clip

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

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

"There is -- in earth affairs -- a steady course to be followed between an assertion of strength that is truculent and a confession of helplessness that is cowardly."
Country of the Spousal relationship Accost, two/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 maxim, one that I trust I attempt to alive by. It was: always take your task seriously, never yourself."
Address at the New England "Forrard to '54" Dinner, Boston, Massachusetts, ix/21/53

"I was raised in a little town of which almost of y'all have never heard. But in the West it is a famous place. Information technology is chosen Abilene, Kansas. We had as our marshal for a long fourth dimension a homo named Wild Bill Hickok. If you don't know annihilation about him, read your Westerns more. At present that town had a code, and I was raised every bit a male child to prize that lawmaking. It was: meet anyone face to face with whom yous disagree. You could non sneak up on him from behind, or do any damage to him, without suffering the penalty of an outraged citizenry. If you lot met him face up to face up and took the same risks he did, you could get away with near anything, equally long as the bullet was in the front."
Remarks Upon Receiving America'south Autonomous Legacy Laurels at a B'nai B'rith Dinner in Laurels of the 40th Ceremony of the Anti-Defamation League, xi/23/53 Audio clip

"At that place is an former saw in the services: that which is not inspected deteriorates."
The President's News Conference of 5/12/54 Audio clip

"Well, information technology is very important, and the smashing idea of setting up an organism is and so as to defeat the domino result. When, each standing solitary, ane falls, it has the effect on the next, and finally the whole row is downwardly. Yous are trying, through a unifying influence, to build that row of dominoes so they can stand the fall of ane, if necessary."
The President'south News Conference of 5/12/54 Audio clip

"When I was a boy, I was one of half dozen in my family. We had a quarrel daily every bit to who could go up and do the chore of bringing the groceries downwards dwelling. They had a do so, in grocery stores, that I understand growing efficiency has eliminated -- ever hoping that the grocer would say you can have one of the dried prunes out of the barrel over there. But better than that was the dill pickle jar that yous could dive into, sometimes arm deep most, and try to become 1. I sympathise that they are not that accommodating anymore; we have got too efficient. When you lot go effectually picking things off the shelf, yous pay for them. These, you 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 Association of Retail Grocers, vi/16/54Audio clip

"At present I realize that on whatever item conclusion a very great amount of estrus can be generated. Just I do say this: life is not fabricated upwardly of simply one decision here, or another one at that place. Information technology is the total of the decisions that you lot brand in your daily lives with respect to politics, to your family, to your surround, to the people about yous. Regime has to do that same matter. It is simply in the mass that finally philosophy actually emerges."
Remarks at Luncheon Meeting of the Republican National Committee and the Republican National Finance Committee, 2/17/55

"Today there is a great ideological struggle going on in the world. 1 side upholds what it calls the materialistic dialectic. Denying the being of spiritual values, it maintains that man responds only to materialistic influences and consequently he is naught. He is an educated animal and is useful only as he serves the ambitions -- desires -- of a ruling clique; though they try to make this finer-sounding than that, because they say their dictatorship is that of the proletariat, meaning that they rule in the people's name -- for the people. Now, on our side, we recognize correct away that human being is not only an beast, that his life and his ambitions have at the lesser a foundation of spiritual values."
Remarks at 11th Almanac Washington Conference of the Advertising Quango, 3/22/55 Audio clip

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

"Modify based on principle is progress. Abiding 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 it this way: 'Every tomorrow has two handles. Nosotros can take agree of it with the handle of feet or the handle of organized religion'."
Address at the Cow Palace on Accepting the Nomination of the Republican National Convention, 8/23/56 Audio clip

"The globe moves, and ideas that were expert in one case are not e'er expert."
The President's News Conference of 8/31/56 Audio clip

"I believe when y'all are in any contest yous should piece of work similar in that location is always to the very last minute a risk to lose it. This is battle, this is politics, this is anything. So I just meet no excuse if you believe anything plenty for not putting your whole heart into it. It is what I practise."
The President's News Conference of 9/27/56Audio clip

"I vest to a family unit of boys who were raised in meager circumstances in primal Kansas, and every ane of us earned our way every bit nosotros went along, and it never occurred to us that we were poor, only we were."
Television Circulate: "The People Inquire the President," 10/12/56

"The hope of the earth is that wisdom tin can arrest conflict betwixt brothers. I believe that war is the deadly harvest of arrogant and unreasoning minds."
Address, National Educational activity Clan, Washington, DC, 4/4/57 Audio clip

"I tell this story to illustrate the truth of the statement I heard long agone in the Ground forces: Plans are worthless, but planning is everything."
Remarks at the National Defence force Executive Reserve Conference, 11/xiv/57 Audio clip

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

"Merely finally, there is one other quality I would mention amid these that I believe will fit you for difficult and important posts. This is a salubrious and lively sense of humour."
Address at U. Southward. Naval Academy Commencement, vi/4/58

"A famous Frenchman once said, 'State of 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/xx/62

Return TO TOP

Censorship

"Censorship, in my opinion, is a stupid and shallow fashion of budgeted the solution to any problem. Though sometimes necessary, equally witness a professional and technical secret that may have a bearing upon the welfare and very prophylactic of this country, we should exist very careful in the way nosotros utilize it, because in censorship always lurks the very nifty danger of working to the disadvantage of the American nation."
Associated Printing luncheon, New York, New York, four/24/fifty

"Don't join the book burners. Don't think yous are going to conceal faults past concealing testify that they always existed. Don't be afraid to go in your library and read every book, every bit long every bit that document does not offend our own ideas of decency. That should be the only censorship."
Remarks at the Dartmouth Higher Get-go Exercises, Hanover, New Hampshire, six/xiv/53[AUDIO]

Children/Youth/Families

"Youth -- our greatest resource -- is being seriously neglected in a vital respect. The nation as a whole is non preparing teachers or edifice schools fast enough to go along upward with the increase in our population."
Almanac Message to the Congress on the State of the Union, 1/7/54[Audio]

"I say with all the earnestness that I tin control, that if American mothers volition teach our children that there is no end to the fight for improve relationships amidst the people of the world, nosotros shall accept peace."
Accost to the National Quango of Catholic Women, Boston, Massachusetts, 11/8/54

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

"Teachers need our agile support and encouragement. They are doing one of the most necessary and exacting jobs in the land. They are developing our near precious national resources: our children, our future citizens."
Address at the Centennial Celebration Feast of the National Teaching Clan, four/4/57 [AUDIO]

"Now, the education of our children is of national business, and if they are not educated properly, information technology is a national calamity."
The President'due south News Conference of 7/31/57 [Sound]

"I am not here, of form, as one pretending to any expertness on questions of youth and children -- except in the sense that, within their own families, all grandfathers are experts on these matters."
Accost at the Opening Session of the White House Conference on Children and Youth, College Park, Maryland, 3/27/60 [AUDIO]

Render TO Summit

Citizenship

"Commonwealth is substantially a political system that recognizes the equality of humans earlier the law." -Address to Elective Assembly, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, August 8, 1946

"The freedom of the individual and his willingness to follow real leadership are at the cadre of America'south strength." - Accost at Norwich Academy, Northfield, Vermont, June 9, 1946

"The proudest man that walks the globe is a complimentary American citizen." -Talk at the Commercial Gild of Chicago, May 21, 1948

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

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

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

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

"The history of free men is never really written by chance--but by choice--their pick." -Accost in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, October 9, 1956

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

"Freedom under police force is similar the air we breathe." -Remarks on the Observance of Police Solar day, April xxx, 1958

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

Civil Rights

"I suggest to use whatever authority exists in the function of the President to end segregation in the District of Columbia, including the Federal Regime, and whatsoever segregation in the Armed services."
Almanac Message to the Congress on the State of the Union, ii/2/53 [Sound]

"We have erased segregation in those areas of national life to which Federal say-so conspicuously extends. So doing in this, my friends, nosotros have neither sought nor claimed partisan credit, and all such actions are nothing more than -- nothing less than the rendering of justice. And nosotros have always been enlightened of this dandy truth: the terminal boxing against intolerance is to be fought -- non in the chambers of any legislature -- but in the hearts of men."
Accost at the Hollywood Bowl, Beverly Hills, California, 10/19/56[Sound]

"It was my hope that this localized situation would be brought under command by metropolis and State authorities. If the use of local constabulary powers had been sufficient, our traditional method of leaving the issues in those hands would accept been pursued. But when large gatherings of obstructionists made it impossible for the decrees of the Courtroom to be carried out, both the law and the national interest demanded that the President accept action."
Radio and Television receiver Accost to the American People on the Situation in Little Rock 9/24/57[Sound]

"I practice non believe that all of these issues can be solved merely by a new law, or something that someone says, with teeth in information technology. For instance, when nosotros got into the Niggling Rock matter, it was not my province to talk about 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 Conference of three/26/58

"I believe that the United States equally a regime, if information technology is going to be true to its own founding documents, does have the job of working toward that fourth dimension when at that place is no discrimination made on such inconsequential reason as race, colour, or religion."
The President'due south News Conference of v/13/59

RETURN TO TOP

Education

"The truthful purpose of education is to fix immature men and women for effective citizenship in a free form of government."
Speech at William and Mary College, Williamsburg, Virginia, May 15, 1953 [Audio]

"It is unwise to make education too cheap. If everything is provided freely, there is a tendency to put no value on anything. Didactics must always have a certain price on it; fifty-fifty as the very process of learning itself must e'er crave individual effort and initiative."
Address, Centennial Celebration Banquet of the National Didactics Clan, Washington, DC, four/4/57[AUDIO]

Government

"One of my predecessors is said to have observed that in making his decisions he had to operate similar a football quarterback -- he could non very well call the next play until he saw how the last play turned out. Well, that may be a good manner to run a football team, but in these days information technology is no way to run a government."
Accost at the Moo-cow Palace on Accepting the Nomination of the Republican National Convention, viii/23/56 [Audio]

"A sound nation is built of individuals sound in body and mind and spirit. Government dares non ignore the private citizen."
Address at a Rally in the Public Square, Cleveland, Ohio, 10/i/56[AUDIO]

"We cannot safely confine government programs to our ain domestic progress and our ain military power. We could be the wealthiest and the virtually mighty nation and still lose the battle of the world if nosotros do not help our world neighbors protect their freedom and advance their social and economic progress. It is not the goal of the American people that the U.s.a. should exist the richest nation in the graveyard of history."
Special Message to the Congress on the Mutual Security Plan, 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 most Gotha. The things I saw ragamuffin clarification. While I was touring the camp I encountered 3 men who had been inmates and by one ruse or another had made their escape. I interviewed them through an interpreter. The visual show and the verbal testimony of starvation, cruelty and bestiality were so overpowering as to get out me a bit sick. In one room, where they [in that location] were piled up twenty or 30 naked men, killed past starvation, George Patton would non even enter. He said he would become ill if he did and so. I made the visit deliberately, in lodge to be in position to give first-hand testify of these things if ever, in the hereafter, there develops a tendency to charge these allegations merely to 'propaganda'."
Letter, DDE to George C. Marshall, four/15/45 [The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower, The War Years Iv, doc #2418]

"We continue to uncover German language concentration camps for political prisoners in which conditions of indescribable horror prevail. I accept visited one of these myself and I assure you that whatever has been printed on them to engagement has been understatement. If you would see any advantage in asking about a dozen leaders of Congress and a dozen prominent editors to brand a brusk visit to this theater in a couple of C-54'due south, I will conform to have them conducted to i of these places where the testify of bestiality and cruelty is so overpowering as to leave no incertitude in their minds about the normal practices of the Germans in these camps."
Cablevision, DDE to George C. Marshall, 4/19/45 [The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower, The War Years 4, doc #2424]

"When I found the first camp like that I think I never was so angry in my life. The bestiality displayed at that place was non simply piled upwardly bodies of people that had starved to expiry, but to follow out the road and come across where they tried to evacuate them and so they could still work, you could run into where they sprawled on the road. You could go to their burial pits and run into horrors that really I wouldn't fifty-fifty want to begin to depict. I call back people ought to know virtually such things. Information technology explains something of my mental attitude toward the German state of war criminal. I believe he must exist punished, and I will hold out for that forever."
Printing briefing, 6/18/45 [DDE's Pre-Presidential Papers, Principal File, Box 156, Press Statements and Releases, 1944-46 (1)]

Return TO Top

Korean War

"We have now gained a truce in Korea. Nosotros exercise not greet it with wild rejoicing. We know how dear its cost has been in life and treasure."
Radio Study to the American People on the Achievements of the Assistants and the 83d Congress, 8/6/53[Sound]

"Obviously all of united states know that the limerick that was reached in Korea is not satisfactory to America, but it is far better than to keep the bloody, dreary, cede of lives with no possible strictly military victory in sight."
Address at the Illinois Country Fair at Springfield, viii/nineteen/54[Sound]

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

"In June of terminal yr we negotiated a truce which ended the Korean State of war, preserved the Republic of Korea'due south freedom, and frustrated the Communist pattern for conquest."
Accost at the American Legion Convention, viii/thirty/54 [Audio]

Labor

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

Today in America unions take a secure place in our industrial life. Only a scattering of unreconstructed reactionaries harbor the ugly thought of breaking unions. Just a fool would try 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 City, nine/17/52

Regime can do a great deal to aid the settlement of labor disputes without assuasive itself to be employed as an ally of either side. Its proper function in industrial strife is to encourage the procedure of mediation and conciliation.
State of the Matrimony Bulletin, Washington, DC, 2/2/53[Sound]

Leadership/Organization

"What is Leadership?" past Dwight D. Eisenhower

"Yous have got to have something in which to believe. Y'all accept got to have leaders, organization, friendships, and contacts that help you to believe that, and help you lot to put out your best."
Remarks to the Leaders of the United Defense Fund, iv/29/54 [AUDIO]

"Now I remember, speaking roughly, past leadership we mean the art of getting someone else to do something that you lot want done because he wants to practice it, not because your position of ability tin can compel him to do it, or your position of authority. A commander of a regiment is non necessarily a leader. He has all of the appurtenances of ability given by a set of Ground forces regulations past which he can compel unified action. He can say to a torso such as this, "Rise," and "Sit." Y'all do it exactly. Only that is not leadership."
Remarks at the Annual Briefing of the Order for Personnel Administration, five/12/54[AUDIO]

"The task of getting people really wanting to practice 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 1 soon discovered that i of the reasons for my visiting the forepart lines was to become inspiration from the young American soldier. I went back to my task ashamed of my own occasional resentments or discouragements, which I probably -- at least I promise I concealed them."
Remarks at the Breakfast Coming together of Republican State Chairmen, Denver, Colorado, 9/10/55

"As long as I am dorsum in my military life for a second, I should like to find one affair about leadership that one of the corking has said -- Napoleon. He said, the not bad leader, the genius in leadership, is the homo who can do the average affair when everybody else is going crazy."
Address at Meeting Sponsored past the Republican National Commission, 4/17/56

"The essence of leadership is to become others to practise something because they recollect you want it done and considering they know information technology is worth while doing -- that is what we are talking about."
Remarks at the Republican Campaign Picnic at the President's Gettysburg Subcontract, 9/12/56

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

"My life has been largely spent in diplomacy that required organisation. But organization itself, necessary as information technology is, is never sufficient to win a battle."
Remarks to Participants in the Young Republican National Leadership Preparation School, 1/20/60[AUDIO]

RETURN TO Meridian

Peace

"Since the advent of nuclear weapons, information technology seems clear that there is no longer any alternative to peace, if there is to exist a happy and well world."
Remarks at the Department of State 1954 Honor Awards Anniversary, 10/xix/54[AUDIO]

"At that place can be no true disarmament without peace, and there can be no real peace without very material disarmament."
Remarks at the Republican Women's National Conference, 5/x/55[AUDIO]

"The peace nosotros seek and need means much more mere absence of war. It means the credence of law, and the fostering of justice, in all the earth."
Radio and Goggle box Written report to the American People on the Developments in Eastern Europe and the Middle East, 10/31/56[Audio]

"In vast stretches of the earth, men awoke today in hunger. They will spend the 24-hour interval in unceasing toil. And as the sun goes downward they will nonetheless know hunger. They will come across suffering in the optics of their children. Many despair that their labor will ever decently shelter their families or protect them against illness. And then long as this is so, peace and freedom volition be in danger throughout our world. For wherever costless men lose promise 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, 11/10/58[AUDIO]

"I like to believe that people, in the long run, are going to exercise more to promote peace than our governments. Indeed, I think that people want peace so much that one of these days governments had better become out of the way and allow them take information technology."
Radio and Television Broadcast With Prime number Minister Macmillan in London, 8/31/59

"And then -- our readiness to meet and defeat this kind of possible assault is forced upon us, both as a potent preventive of bodily war and to insure survival in effect of attack. This alacrity to danger has to be translated into specific policies and activities in the several parts of the earth where our rights -- our mode of life -- can be seriously damaged. Work of this kind occupies my days and nights."
Letter from DDE to Hallock Brown Hoffman, February 7, 1955

"I have said fourth dimension and once again there is no place on this world to which I would not travel, there is no chore I would not undertake if I had whatever faintest promise that, past and so doing, I would promote the general crusade of world peace."
The President'southward News Conference, March 23, 1955 [AUDIO]

"Every bit for myself and for the Secretary of Land and others involved, including those in the Legislature, we stand fix to do anything, to run across with anyone, anywhere, equally long as we may practice so in self-respect, demanding the respect due this Nation, and at that place is any slightest thought or chance of furthering this bang-up crusade of peace."
Remarks at the Republican Women's National Conference, May x, 1955[AUDIO]

"For a just and lasting peace, here is my solemn pledge to you: past dedication and patience we will continue, as 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[AUDIO]

"The building of such a peace is a bold and solemn purpose. To proclaim information technology is easy. To serve it volition be hard. And to accomplish information technology, nosotros must exist enlightened of its full meaning -- and gear up to pay its full cost."
Second Countdown Address, January 21, 1957[AUDIO]

"For all that we cherish and justly desire -- for ourselves or for our children -- the securing of peace is the first requisite."
Radio and Television 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 liberty on this earth, we must be prepared to make whatever sacrifices are demanded as we pursue this path to its end."
Remarks at the Fort Pitt Affiliate, Association of the United States Army May 31, 1961

The Presidency

"My showtime day at the President'southward Desk. Plenty of worries and difficult issues. But such has been my portion for a long time -- the result is that this just seems (today) similar a continuation of all I've been doing since July '41 -- even before that!"
Diary entry, 1/21/53 [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 almost taxing job, as far as tiring of the heed and spirit; only information technology also has, every bit I have said before, its inspirations which tend to counteract each other . . . There have been times in war where I thought nothing could exist quite as wearing and trigger-happy as that with lives directly involved. But I would say, on the whole, this is the most wearing, although not necessarily, equally I say, the most tiring."
The President's News Conference at Key West, Florida, one/viii/56

"Many people are e'er proverb the Presidency is likewise big a chore for whatsoever ane homo. When I hear this assertion, I always endeavor to betoken out that a single man must make the final decisions that touch on the whole, just that proper organization brings to him only the questions and problems on which his decisions are needed. His own task is to be mentally prepared to make those decisions and then to be supported by an system that will brand sure they are carried out."
Letter, DDE to Dillon Anderson, 1/22/68 [DDE's Post-Presidential Papers, 1968 Principal File, Box 36, "An"]

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

Religion

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

"Today I think that prayer is just just a necessity, because by prayer I believe we hateful an endeavour to go far touch with the Infinite. We know that even our prayers are imperfect. Even our supplications are imperfect. Of form they are. We are imperfect human beings. But if nosotros tin dorsum off from those bug and make the try, and so there is something that ties u.s.a. all together. We have begun in our grasp of that basis of understanding, which is that all free government is firmly founded in a deeply-felt religious organized 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 nobility. This faith is the living source of all our spiritual strength. And this strength is our matchless armor in our world-wide struggle against the forces of godless tyranny and oppression."
Message to the National Co-Chairmen, Commission of Religious Organizations, National Briefing on Christians and Jews, 7/ix/53

"From this solar day forrad, the millions of our school children will daily proclaim in every city and town, every village and rural school house, the dedication of our nation and our people to the Omnipotent. To anyone who truly loves America, naught could be more inspiring than to contemplate this rededication of our youth, on each schoolhouse morning time, to our land'south true meaning.
Especially is this meaningful every bit nosotros regard today'due south world. Over the globe, mankind has been cruelly torn by violence and brutality and, past the millions, deadened in mind and soul by a materialistic philosophy of life. Man everywhere is appalled by the prospect of atomic war. In this somber setting, this law and its furnishings today accept profound pregnant. In this way we are reaffirming the transcendence of religious faith in America'due south heritage and future; in this fashion we shall constantly strengthen those spiritual weapons which forever volition be our country's well-nigh powerful resource, in peace or in war."
Statement by the President Upon Signing Bill to Include the Words "Under God" in the Pledge to the Flag, 6/xiv/54

"Faith is the mightiest forcefulness that man has at his command. It impels human beings to greatness in idea and word and deed."
Accost at the Second Assembly of the World Council of Churches, Evanston, Illinois, 8/19/54 [AUDIO]

"We are essentially a religious people. We are not merely religious, we are inclined, more today than e'er, to see the value of religion as a practical forcefulness in our diplomacy."
Address at the 2nd Associates of the World Council of Churches, Evanston, Illinois, 8/nineteen/54[Audio]

"Without God, there could be no American course of Government, nor an American way of life. Recognition of the Supreme Being is the first -- the nigh basic -- expression of Americanism. Thus the Founding Fathers saw it, and thus, with God's help, information technology volition continue to be."
Remarks Recorded for the "Back-to-God" Program of the American Legion, 2/xx/55

"Since the day of creation, the fondest hopes of men and women accept been to pass on to their children something better than they themselves enjoyed. That promise represents a spark of the Divine which is implanted in every human 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 human. Our country and its government have fabricated mistakes -- human mistakes. They accept been of the head -- not of the heart. And it is even so true that the peachy concept of the dignity of all men, akin created in the epitome of the Almighty, has been the compass by which we take tried and are trying to steer our course."
Annual Bulletin to the Congress on the Country of the Union, i/x/57

"Basic to our democratic civilisation are the principles and convictions that accept leap 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 religion -- in a belief in God."
Address at U.S. Naval Academy Kickoff, 6/4/58

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

Render TO Meridian

Sports

"My abiding prayer, these days, as I start my backswing is, 'Oh, please let me swing slowly.' The trouble is that sometimes I wonder whether I swing at all; whether I am non strictly a chopper."
Letter, DDE to Bobby Jones, vii/28/51 [DDE'south Pre-Presidential Papers, Box 63, Jones, Robert Tyre Jr.]

"The other day Aks and I went up to your ranch for a day's angling. I cannot remember any day when we 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 upwards right by borrowing frying pans, salary and corn meal from the wife of your rancher -- and we cooked an outdoor meal for the crowd. It was really quite a day."
Letter, DDE to Bal F. Swan, 8/15/53 [DDE's Papers equally President, Name Series, Box seven, "Denver, 1953"]

"One of the things that I noticed in war was how hard it was for our soldiers, at outset, to realize that at that place are no rules to state of war. Our men were raised in sports, where a referee runs a football game, or an umpire a baseball, so forth."
Remarks at the Conference of the National Women's Advisory Committee on Civil Defence force, 10/26/54 [Sound]

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

"Simply I think a life of raising prize cattle, going shooting two or iii times a year, fishing in the summertime, and interspersing the whole matter with some golf and bridge -- and whenever I felt like talking or writing, doing it with abandon and with no sense of responsibility whatsoever -- perchance such a life wouldn't be so bad."
Letter of the alphabet, DDE to Alfred Thousand. Gruenther, 11/2/56 [The Papers of Dwight D. Eisenhower, Volume XVII - The Presidency: The Middle Way, Part Xi, Affiliate 22]

"I have just realized that information technology is due to you, and to Mr. James Thomas and his staff of the Regular army Navy Country Club that the putting green here on the White House backyard is already in such excellent status. I assure you lot that I get a great deal of pleasure and relaxation out of using the dark-green in an occasional late afternoon hour . . ."
Alphabetic character, DDE to Rear Admiral John S. Phillips, four/12/57 [DDE's Papers equally President, President's Personal File, Box ten, ane-A-vii Golf (iv)]

"Not but do I have a great beloved for the game of golf -- no affair how badly I play it -- but I have also the belief that through every kind of coming together, through every kind of activity to which we can join more than often and more intimately peoples of our several countries, past that measure we will do something to solve the difficulties and the tensions that this poor old world seems present to then much endure."
Remarks to Representatives of World Amateur Golf Squad Championship Conference, five/2/58[Audio]

"Probably no one here knows I coached a football game team -- a service squad -- playing against Georgetown. I call up information technology was in the fall of 1924 Lou Trivial was your motorbus, and he trounce us. Merely it was a very happy circumstance, because it brought me the friendship of some other man, Lou Picayune, who to this mean solar day remains my very warm associate and friend."
Remarks at the Dedication of the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service of Georgetown University, 10/xiii/58[AUDIO]

"Well, a funny thing, there are three that I like all for the same reason, golf, angling, and shooting, and I do because first, they take you into the fields. There is balmy do, the kind that an older private probably should accept. And on top of it, information technology induces you lot to take at any ane fourth dimension 2 or iii hours, if yous can, where you are thinking of the bird or that ball or the wily trout. Now, to my mind it is a very healthful, beneficial kind of matter, and I do it whenever I become a chance, every bit you lot well know."
The President's Press Conference of 10/xv/58[Sound]

"Morale -- the will to win, the fighting heart -- are the honored hallmarks of the football coach and player. Likewise, they are characteristic 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[Sound]

"I call back of going dorsum to the sports field again, and let'southward take a baseball game game. Well, y'all have cracked out a grounder and you put in your final ounce of energy and yous just happen to make first base. Merely you don't stop at that place. First base is the beginning. Now you call on all your alertness, your skill, your energy -- and you count on your teammates, you lot count on the people that are working with you. And the purpose of that getting on kickoff base was to get you lot around to count a run."
Remarks at a Republican Men's Tiffin in Cleveland, Ohio eleven/iv/60 [AUDIO]

"You did non tell me what you are doing athletically just now but I do hope that if your arm comes forth side by side spring y'all can get it in good shape to try out for the pitching spot on the varsity. All the same, if you don't brand it then I suggest you take upward golf which after 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, Secretarial assistant'due south Series, Box 13, Eisenhower]

"Just I noted with existent satisfaction how well ex-footballers seemed to take 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 -- work, squad play, self-confidence, and an enthusiasm that amounts to dedication."
At Ease: Stories I Tell to Friends, page sixteen

War/Defense

"I have been called a Fascist and most a Hitlerite - actually, I take ane earnest conviction in this war. It is that no other war in history has and so definitely lined up 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, April 8, 1943 [Eisenhower'southward Pre-Presidential Papers, Box 173, Eisenhower John S.D. 1943-1946 (2)]

"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 [AUDIO]

"War is a grim, savage business, a business justified only equally a means of sustaining the forces of skillful confronting those of evil."
Transcription fabricated for National State of war Fund at request of Col. Luther L. Hill, 9/11/45

"I detest war as simply a soldier who has lived it can, only every bit one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity."
Accost before the Canadian Guild, Ottawa, Canada, 1/10/46

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

"War is flesh'southward almost tragic and stupid folly; to seek or propose its deliberate provocation is a black crime against all men. Though yous follow the trade of the warrior, you do then in the spirit of Washington -- not of Genghis Khan. For Americans, only threat to our way of life justifies resort to conflict."
Graduation Exercises at the United States Military Academy, 6/3/47

"Possibly my hatred of war blinds me so that I cannot encompass the arguments they adduce. Merely, in my opinion, there is no such thing as a preventive state of war. Although this proposition is repeatedly made, none has all the same explained how war prevents state of war. Worse than this, no ane has been able to explain abroad the fact that war creates the weather condition that beget war."
Remarks at Carnegie Found, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 10/xix/50 [DDE's Pre-Presidential Papers, Primary File, Box 196, Carnegie Plant]

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

"Americans, indeed, all free men, remember that in the final choice a soldier's pack is non so heavy a brunt as a prisoner's bondage."
Inaugural Accost, ane/20/53[Sound]

"Each and all of the states must summon to mind the words of Him whom we accolade this Easter time: 'When a stiff human being, armed, keepeth his palace, his goods are in peace'."
Statement on the Fourth Anniversary of the Signing of the N Atlantic Treaty, 4/4/53

"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are non clothed. This world in arms is not spending coin alone. 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. It is two electrical ability plants, each serving a boondocks of 60,000 population. Information technology is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some 50 miles of physical highway. We pay for a single fighter airplane with a one-half million 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 way of life to exist plant on the road. the world has been taking. This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, information technology is humanity hanging from a cross of iron."
Accost "The Chance for Peace" Delivered Before the American Society of Newspaper Editors, four/xvi/53 [AUDIO]

"Nosotros practice non keep security establishments only to defend property or territory or rights abroad or at ocean. Nosotros keep the security forces to defend a way of life."
Remarks to the Committee for Economic Development, 5/20/54 [AUDIO]

"A preventive war, to my listen, is an impossibility today. How could yous have one 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 Briefing of 8/11/54 [Sound]

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

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

"When we become to the point, as we one twenty-four hours will, that both sides know that in whatever outbreak of general hostilities, regardless of the element of surprise, destruction will exist both reciprocal and consummate, mayhap we will take sense plenty to meet at the briefing table with the understanding that the era of armaments has concluded and the human race must suit its actions to this truth or die."
Letter of the alphabet, DDE to Richard L. Simon, Simon and Schuster, Inc., iv/4/56 [DDE'southward Papers as President, DDE Diaries Series, Box fourteen, April 1956 Miscellaneous (5)]

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

"Nosotros know something of the cost of that state of war. Nosotros were in it from December seventh, '41, till August of '45. E'er since that fourth dimension, we take been waging peace. It has had its ups and downs simply every bit the state of war did."
The President'southward News Conference of 6/half-dozen/56

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

"Nosotros must be stiff at home if we are going to be strong abroad. We empathise that. So we want to be stiff at home in our morale or in our spirit, we want to be stiff intellectually, in our instruction, in our economy and, where necessary, militarily."
Radio and Television Broadcast: "The Women Ask the President," 10/24/56

"The hope of the earth is that wisdom can arrest conflict between brothers. I believe that war is the deadly harvest of arrogant and unreasoning minds. And I observe grounds for this belief in the wisdom literature of Proverbs. Information technology says in result this: Panic strikes like a storm and calamity comes like a whirlwind to those who detest cognition and ignore their God."
Address at the Centennial Celebration Banquet of the National Education Association, 4/4/57[AUDIO]

"Beginning, split up footing, ocean and air warfare is gone forever. If ever again we should be involved in war, we volition fight information technology in all elements, with all services, as i single concentrated effort."
Special Message to the Congress on Reorganization of the Defense force Establishment, four/three/58

"Now this brings me to my main topic -- our military force -- more specifically, how to stay strong against threat from outside, without undermining the economical wellness that supports our security."
Address to the American Social club of Newspaper Editors and the International Press Establish, 4/17/58

"Start, separate ground, sea and air warfare is gone forever. This lesson we learned in World State of war Ii. I lived that lesson in Europe. Others lived it in the Pacific. Millions of American veterans learned information technology well."
Accost to the American Society of Newspaper Editors and the International Press Institute, iv/17/58

"At present all of united states of america deplore this vast armed services spending. Nonetheless, in the face of the Soviet attitude, nosotros realize its necessity. Whatever the cost, America will keep itself secure. Simply in the process we must not, by our own hand, destroy or distort the American system. This we could do past useless overspending. I know one sure way to overspend. That is by overindulging sentimental attachments to outmoded military machines and concepts."
Address to the American Society of Newspaper Editors and the International Printing Constitute, 4/17/58

"I know something about that state of war, and I never want to see that history repeated. Simply, my fellow Americans, information technology certainly can be repeated if the peace-loving democratic nations again fearfully practise a policy of continuing idly past while big aggressors use armed force to conquer the pocket-sized and weak."
Radio and Television Report to the American People Regarding the State of affairs in the Formosa Straits, 9/11/58

"Any survey of the gratis globe's defense structure cannot fail to impart a feeling of regret that so much of our endeavor and resource must be devoted to armaments."
Annual Message to the Congress on the State of the Marriage, i/ix/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 aggression."
Radio and Television set Report to the American People: Security in the Costless World, iii/16/59

"In this promise, amidst the things we 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 Briefing on Children and Youth, College Park, Maryland, 3/27/60

"In the councils of government, nosotros must guard against the conquering of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the armed forces-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist."
Bye Radio and Television Address to the American People, ane/17/61

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

"Nothing is easy in state of war. Mistakes are always paid for in casualties and troops are quick to sense any blunder made past their commanders."
Crusade in Europe, page 450

"Nosotros demand an adequate defense, only every arms dollar nosotros spend in a higher place adequacy has a long-term weakening upshot upon the nation and its security."
Waging Peace, page 622

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