Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890-1969)

Quotes

• You do not lead by hitting people over the head--that's assault, not leadership.

• There is nothing wrong with America that the faith, love of freedom, intelligence and energy of her citizens cannot cure.

• Plans are worthless, but planning is everything.

• I never saw a pessimistic general win a battle.

• Before all else, we seek, upon our common labor as a nation, the blessings of Almighty God.

• On that day let us solemnly remember the sacrifices of all those who fought so valiantly, on the seas, in the air, and on foreign shores, to preserve our heritage of freedom, and let us reconsecrate ourselves to the task of promoting an enduring peace so that all their efforts shall not have been in vain.

• Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired in the final analysis, is a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, who are cold and not clothed.

• May we, in our dealings with all the peoples of the earth, ever speak the truth and serve justice.

• In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

• Politics ought to be the part-time profession of every citizen who would protect the rights and privileges of free people and who would preserve what is good and fruitful in our national heritage.

• Americans, indeed all free men, remember that inn the final choice, a soldier's pack is not so heavy a burden as a prisoner's chains.

• The middle of the road is all of the usable surface. The extremes, right and left, are in the .

• I like to believe that people in the long run are going to do more to promote peace than our governments. Indeed, I think that people want peace so much that one of these days governments had better get out of the way and let them have it.

• Farming looks mighty easy when your plow is a pencil, and you're a thousand miles from the corn field.

• Don't think you are going to conceal thoughts by concealing evidence that they ever existed.

• We succeed only as we identify in life, or in war, or in anything else, a single overriding objective, and make all other considerations bend to that one objective.

• Don't join the book burners. Don't think you're going to conceal faults by concealing evidence that they ever existed. Don't be afraid to go in your library and read every book...

• When you are in any contest you should work as if there were - to the very last minute - a chance to lose it.

• What counts is not necessarily the size of the dog in the fight - it's the size of the fight in the dog.

• Humility must always be the portion of any man who receives acclaim earned in the blood of his followers and the sacrifices of his friends.