Jimmy Carter

Aggression unopposed becomes a contagious disease.
Jimmy Carter

America did not invent human rights. In a very real sense human rights invented America.
Jimmy Carter

At the Carter Center we work with victims of oppression, and we give support to human rights heroes.
Jimmy Carter

For this generation, ours, life is nuclear survival, liberty is human rights, the pursuit of happiness is a planet whose resources are devoted to the physical and spiritual nourishment of its inhabitants.
Jimmy Carter

Globalization, as defined by rich people like us, is a very nice thing... you are talking about the Internet, you are talking about cell phones, you are talking about computers. This doesn't affect two-thirds of the people of the world.
Jimmy Carter

Government is a contrivance of human wisdom to provide for human wants. People have the right to expect that these wants will be provided for by this wisdom.
Jimmy Carter

Human rights is the soul of our foreign policy, because human rights is the very soul of our sense of nationhood.
Jimmy Carter

I hate to see complacency prevail in our lives when it's so directly contrary to the teaching of Christ.
Jimmy Carter

I have often wanted to drown my troubles, but I can't get my wife to go swimming.
Jimmy Carter

I look forward to these confrontations with the press to kind of balance up the nice and pleasant things that come to me as president.
Jimmy Carter

I say to you quite frankly that the time for racial discrimination is over.
Jimmy Carter

I think what's going on in Guantanamo Bay and other places is a disgrace to the U.S.A. I wouldn't say it's the cause of terrorism, but it has given impetus and excuses to potential terrorists to lash out at our country and justify their despicable acts.
Jimmy Carter

I thought then, and I think now, that the invasion of Iraq was unnecessary and unjust. And I think the premises on which it was launched were false.
Jimmy Carter

I've looked on many women with lust. I've committed adultery in my heart many times. God knows I will do this and forgives me.
Jimmy Carter

If you fear making anyone mad, then you ultimately probe for the lowest common denominator of human achievement.
Jimmy Carter

If you're totally illiterate and living on one dollar a day, the benefits of globalization never come to you.
Jimmy Carter

In this outward and physical ceremony we attest once again to the inner and spiritual strength of our Nation. As my high school teacher, Miss Julia Coleman, used to say: 'We must adjust to changing times and still hold to unchanging principles.'
Jimmy Carter

It is difficult for the common good to prevail against the intense concentration of those who have a special interest, especially if the decisions are made behind locked doors.
Jimmy Carter

It is good to realize that if love and peace can prevail on earth, and if we can teach our children to honor nature's gifts, the joys and beauties of the outdoors will be here forever.
Jimmy Carter

It's not necessary to fear the prospect of failure but to be determined not to fail.
Jimmy Carter

Like music and art, love of nature is a common language that can transcend political or social boundaries.
Jimmy Carter

My decision to register women confirms what is already obvious throughout our society-that women are now providing all types of skills in every profession. The military should be no exception.
Jimmy Carter

People make a big fuss over you when you're President. But I'm very serious about doing everything I can to make sure that it doesn't go to my head.
Jimmy Carter

Republicans are men of narrow vision, who are afraid of the future.
Jimmy Carter

Sadat was a great and good man, and his most bitter and dangerous enemies were people who were obsessed with hatred for his peaceful goals.
Jimmy Carter

Testing oneself is best when done alone.
Jimmy Carter

The awareness that health is dependent upon habits that we control makes us the first generation in history that to a large extent determines its own destiny.
Jimmy Carter

The best way to enhance freedom in other lands is to demonstrate here that our democratic system is worthy of emulation.
Jimmy Carter

The experience of democracy is like the experience of life itself-always changing, infinite in its variety, sometimes turbulent and all the more valuable for having been tested by adversity.
Jimmy Carter

There should be an honest attempt at the reconciliation of differences before resorting to combat.
Jimmy Carter

To deal with individual human needs at the everyday level can be noble sometimes.
Jimmy Carter

Unless both sides win, no agreement can be permanent.
Jimmy Carter

War may sometimes be a necessary evil. But no matter how necessary, it is always an evil, never a good. We will not learn how to live together in peace by killing each other's children.
Jimmy Carter

We become not a melting pot but a beautiful mosaic. Different people, different beliefs, different yearnings, different hopes, different dreams.
Jimmy Carter

We cannot be both the world's leading champion of peace and the world's leading supplier of the weapons of war.
Jimmy Carter

We must adjust to changing times and still hold to unchanging principles.
Jimmy Carter

We must make it clear that a platform of 'I hate gay men and women' is not a way to become president of the United States.
Jimmy Carter

We should live our lives as though Christ were coming this afternoon.
Jimmy Carter

We will not learn how to live together in peace by killing each other's children.
Jimmy Carter

What has happened at Guantanamo Bay... does not represent the will of the American people. I'm embarrassed about it, I think its wrong. I think it does give terrorists an unwarranted excuse to use the despicable means to hurt innocent people.
Jimmy Carter

Whatever starts in California unfortunately has an inclination to spread.
Jimmy Carter

You can do what you have to do, and sometimes you can do it even better than you think you can.
Jimmy Carter

You can not divorce religious belief and public service. I've never detected any conflict between God's will and my political duty. If you violate one, you violate the other.
Jimmy Carter

You can't divorce religious belief and public service I've never detected any conflict between God's will and my political duty. If you violate one, you violate the other.
Jimmy Carter

You just have to have a simple faith.
Jimmy Carter

George W. Bush

A dictatorship would be a heck of a lot easier, there's no question about it.
George W. Bush

After the chaos and carnage of September 11th, it is not enough to serve our enemies with legal papers.
George W. Bush

America is a friend to the people of Iraq. Our demands are directed only at the regime that enslaves them and threatens us. When these demands are met, the first and greatest benefit will come to Iraqi men, women and children.
George W. Bush

America is a Nation with a mission - and that mission comes from our most basic beliefs. We have no desire to dominate, no ambitions of empire. Our aim is a democratic peace - a peace founded upon the dignity and rights of every man and woman.
George W. Bush

America is the land of the second chance - and when the gates of the prison open, the path ahead should lead to a better life.
George W. Bush

America must not ignore the threat gathering against us. Facing clear evidence of peril, we cannot wait for the final proof, the smoking gun that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud.
George W. Bush

America will never seek a permission slip to defend the security of our people.
George W. Bush

Americans are rising to the tasks of history, and they expect the same of us.
George W. Bush

And the cornerstone of my economic policies, when I first got elected, was cutting taxes on everybody on who paid taxes.
George W. Bush

And what's interesting, and I don't think a lot of Americans understand this fact, is that, one, most new jobs are created by small businesses; two, most small businesses pay tax at the individual income tax, or many small businesses pay tax there.
George W. Bush

Any government that supports, protects or harbours terrorists is complicit in the murder of the innocent and equally guilty of terrorist crimes.
George W. Bush

Bring them on.
George W. Bush

Do I think faith will be an important part of being a good president? Yes, I do.
George W. Bush

Every nation in every region now has a decision to make. Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists.
George W. Bush

Everywhere that freedom stirs, let tyrants fear.
George W. Bush

Faith crosses every border and touches every heart in every nation.
George W. Bush

For all who love freedom and peace, the world without Saddam Hussein's regime is a better and safer place.
George W. Bush

For diplomacy to be effective, words must be credible - and no one can now doubt the word of America.
George W. Bush

Free nations are peaceful nations. Free nations don't attack each other. Free nations don't develop weapons of mass destruction.
George W. Bush

Freedom itself was attacked this morning by a faceless coward, and freedom will be defended.
George W. Bush

Government does not create wealth. The major role for the government is to create an environment where people take risks to expand the job rate in the United States.
George W. Bush

Great tragedy has come to us, and we are meeting it with the best that is in our country, with courage and concern for others because this is America. This is who we are.
George W. Bush

Hundreds of thousands of American servicemen and women are deployed across the world in the war on terror. By bringing hope to the oppressed, and delivering justice to the violent, they are making America more secure.
George W. Bush

I am mindful not only of preserving executive powers for myself, but for predecessors as well.
George W. Bush

I believe a marriage is between a man and a woman.
George W. Bush

I believe in the transformational power of liberty. I believe that the free Iraq is in this nation's interests. I believe a free Afghanistan is in this nation's interest.
George W. Bush

I believe that God has planted in every heart the desire to live in freedom.
George W. Bush

I believe the most solemn duty of the American president is to protect the American people. If America shows uncertainty and weakness in this decade, the world will drift toward tragedy. This will not happen on my watch.
George W. Bush

I can hear you, the rest of the world can hear you and the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon.
George W. Bush

I had to abandon free market principles in order to save the free market system.
George W. Bush

I have a different vision of leadership. A leadership is someone who brings people together.
George W. Bush

I have written a book. This will come as quite a shock to some. They didn't think I could read, much less write.
George W. Bush

I have zero desire, just so you know, to be in the limelight. I don't think it's good for the country to have a former president criticize his successor. You're not going to see me giving my opinions in the public arena, until I start selling my book. I'm going to emerge then submerge.
George W. Bush

I just didn't want to get out there anymore; I didn't want to get back into what I call 'the swamp.' And the other reason why is I don't think it's good for the presidency for a former president to be opining about his successor. President Obama's got plenty of critics - and I'm just not gonna be one.
George W. Bush

I just want you to know that, when we talk about war, we're really talking about peace.
George W. Bush

I know it's going to be the private sector that leads this country out of the current economic times we're in. You can spend your money better than the government can spend your money.
George W. Bush

I sent American troops to Iraq to make its people free, not to make them American. Iraqis will write their own history and find their own way.
George W. Bush

I think we ought to raise the age at which juveniles can have a gun.
George W. Bush

I think you can judge from somebody's actions a kind of a stability and sense of purpose perhaps created by strong religious roots. I mean, there's a certain patience, a certain discipline, I think, that religion helps you achieve.
George W. Bush

I told you I'm not going to criticize my successor. I'll just tell you that there are people at Gitmo that will kill American people at a drop of a hat and I don't believe that persuasion isn't going to work. Therapy isn't going to cause terrorists to change their mind.
George W. Bush

I understand everybody in this country doesn't agree with the decisions I've made. And I made some tough decisions. But people know where I stand.
George W. Bush

I want to thank you for taking time out of your day to come and witness my hanging.
George W. Bush

I will never relent in defending America - whatever it takes.
George W. Bush

I would like to be remembered as a guy who had a set of priorities, and was willing to live by those priorities. In terms of accomplishments, my biggest accomplishment is that I kept the country safe amidst a real danger.
George W. Bush

I'm hopeful. I know there is a lot of ambition in Washington, obviously. But I hope the ambitious realize that they are more likely to succeed with success as opposed to failure.
George W. Bush

If you're sick and tired of the politics of cynicism and polls and principles, come and join this campaign.
George W. Bush

Iraq is no diversion. It is a place where civilization is taking a decisive stand against chaos and terror, we must not waver.
George W. Bush

It is clear our nation is reliant upon big foreign oil. More and more of our imports come from overseas.
George W. Bush

It's clearly a budget. It's got a lot of numbers in it.
George W. Bush

It's going to be the year of the sharp elbow and the quick tongue.
George W. Bush

Leadership to me means duty, honor, country. It means character, and it means listening from time to time.
George W. Bush

Look, when you're the president, there's all kinds of things said about us. I mean, it's just the nature of the job.
George W. Bush

Natural gas is hemispheric. I like to call it hemispheric in nature because it is a product that we can find in our neighborhoods.
George W. Bush

No one was more shocked or angry than I was when we didn't find the weapons. I had a sickening feeling every time I thought about it. I still do.
George W. Bush

Now, there are some who would like to rewrite history - revisionist historians is what I like to call them.
George W. Bush

On September 11 2001, America felt its vulnerability even to threats that gather on the other side of the Earth. We resolved then, and we are resolved today, to confront every threat from any source that could bring sudden terror and suffering to America.
George W. Bush

One of my proudest moments is I didn't sell my soul for the sake of popularity.
George W. Bush

Only a liberal senator from Massachusetts would say that a 49 percent increase in funding for education was not enough.
George W. Bush

Our nation must come together to unite.
George W. Bush

Our Nation must defend the sanctity of marriage.
George W. Bush

People forget... that we structured it so that the government, or the people, would be repaid with a really good rate of return. And as it turns out, that aspect of TARP, that's what happened.
George W. Bush

People make suggestions on what to say all the time. I'll give you an example; I don't read what's handed to me. People say, 'Here, here's your speech, or here's an idea for a speech.' They're changed. Trust me.
George W. Bush

Saddam Hussein is a homicidal dictator who is addicted to weapons of mass destruction.
George W. Bush

Senator Kerry has been in Washington long enough to take both sides on just about every issue.
George W. Bush

So, for example, a country was into recession right after I was sworn in, a dot-com bust had taken place. Then the attacks of September the 11th, and then of course the great financial meltdown in the -the fundamental question facing any presidency is how do you deal with the hand you're dealt?
George W. Bush

So, I'm lying on the couch and Laura walks in and I say, 'Free at last,' and she says 'You're free all right, you're free to do the dishes.' So I say, 'You're talking to the former president, baby,' and she said, 'consider this your new domestic policy agenda.'
George W. Bush

Some folks look at me and see a certain swagger, which in Texas is called "walking."
George W. Bush

Some have argued that confronting the threat from Iraq could detract from the war against terror. To the contrary, confronting the threat posed by Iraq is crucial to winning the war on terror.
George W. Bush

States should have the right to enact laws... particularly to end the inhumane practice of ending a life that otherwise could live.
George W. Bush

Terrorist attacks can shake the foundations of our biggest buildings, but they cannot touch the foundation of America. These acts shatter steel, but they cannot dent the steel of American resolve.
George W. Bush

The action we take and the decisions we make in this decade will have consequences far into this century. If America shows weakness and uncertainty, the world will drift toward tragedy. That will not happen on my watch.
George W. Bush

The California crunch really is the result of not enough power-generating plants and then not enough power to power the power of generating plants.
George W. Bush

The course of this conflict is not known, yet its outcome is certain. Freedom and fear, justice and cruelty, have always been at war, and we know that God is not neutral between them.
George W. Bush

The deliberate and deadly attacks which were carried out yesterday against our country were more than acts of terror. They were acts of war.
George W. Bush

The financial crisis should not become an excuse to raise taxes, which would only undermine the economic growth required to regain our strength.
George W. Bush

The legislature's job is to write law. It's the executive branch's job to interpret law.
George W. Bush

The men and women of Afghanistan are building a nation that is free, and proud, and fighting terror - and America is honored to be their friend.
George W. Bush

The momentum of freedom in our world is unmistakable - and it is not carried forward by our power alone. We can trust in that greater power Who guides the unfolding of the years. And in all that is to come, we can know that His purposes are just and true.
George W. Bush

The once all-powerful ruler of Iraq was found in a hole, and now sits in a prison cell.
George W. Bush

The resolve of our great nation is being tested. But make no mistake, we will show the world that we will pass the test.
George W. Bush

The terrorists and their supporters declared war on the United States - and war is what they got.
George W. Bush

The terrorists are fighting freedom with all their cunning and cruelty because freedom is their greatest fear - and they should be afraid, because freedom is on the march.
George W. Bush

The true history of my administration will be written 50 years from now, and you and I will not be around to see it.
George W. Bush

The tyrant has fallen, and Iraq is free.
George W. Bush

The United States and our allies are determined: we refuse to live in the shadow of this ultimate danger.
George W. Bush

The United States of America will never be intimidated by thugs and assassins. The killers will fail, and the Iraqi people will live in freedom.
George W. Bush

The United States prefers that Iraq meet its obligations voluntarily, yet we are prepared for the alternative.
George W. Bush

The wisest use of American strength is to advance freedom.
George W. Bush

There's no bigger task than protecting the homeland of our country.
George W. Bush

This was not an act of terrorism, but it was an act of war.
George W. Bush

This way of life is worth defending.
George W. Bush

This young century will be liberty's century.
George W. Bush

To those of you who received honours, awards and distinctions, I say well done. And to the C students, I say you, too, can be president of the United States.
George W. Bush

Today we affirm a new commitment to live out our nation's promise through civility, courage, compassion and character.
George W. Bush

Use power to help people. For we are given power not to advance our own purposes nor to make a great show in the world, nor a name. There is but one just use of power and it is to serve people.
George W. Bush

We can't allow the world's worst leaders to blackmail, threaten, hold freedom-loving nations hostage with the world's worst weapons.
George W. Bush

We cannot let terrorists hold this nation hostile or hold our allies hostile.
George W. Bush

We don't believe in planners and deciders making the decisions on behalf of Americans.
George W. Bush

We know that dictators are quick to choose aggression, while free nations strive to resolve differences in peace.
George W. Bush

We will build new ships to carry man forward into the universe, to gain a new foothold on the moon and to prepare for new journeys to the worlds beyond our own.
George W. Bush

We will make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbour them.
George W. Bush

We will stand up for our friends in the world. And one of the most important friends is the State of Israel. My administration will be steadfast in support Israel against terrorism and violence, and in seeking the peace for which all Israelis pray.
George W. Bush

We've climbed the mighty mountain. I see the valley below, and it's a valley of peace.
George W. Bush

When I take action, I'm not going to fire a $2 million missile at a $10 empty tent and hit a camel in the butt. It's going to be decisive.
George W. Bush

When you turn your heart and your life over to Christ, when you accept Christ as the savior, it changes your heart.
George W. Bush

With those attacks, the terrorists and their supporters declared war on the United States. And war is what they got.
George W. Bush

You can fool some of the people all the time, and those are the ones you want to concentrate on.
George W. Bush

You can't put democracy and freedom back into a box.
George W. Bush

You teach a child to read, and he or her will be able to pass a literacy test.
George W. Bush

George H. W. Bush

America is never wholly herself unless she is engaged in high moral principle. We as a people have such a purpose today. It is to make kinder the face of the nation and gentler the face of the world.
George H. W. Bush

But let me tell you, this gender thing is history. You're looking at a guy who sat down with Margaret Thatcher across the table and talked about serious issues.
George H. W. Bush

Gulf Lesson One is the value of airpower.
George H. W. Bush

I am not one who - who flamboyantly believes in throwing a lot of words around.
George H. W. Bush

I can tell you this: If I'm ever in a position to call the shots, I'm not going to rush to send somebody else's kids into a war.
George H. W. Bush

I do not like broccoli. And I haven't liked it since I was a little kid and my mother made me eat it. And I'm President of the United States and I'm not going to eat any more broccoli.
George H. W. Bush

I have opinions of my own, strong opinions, but I don't always agree with them.
George H. W. Bush

I think I'd be a better president because I was in combat.
George H. W. Bush

I'll be glad to reply to or dodge your questions, depending on what I think will help our election most.
George H. W. Bush

I'm conservative, but I'm not a nut about it.
George H. W. Bush

I'm going to be so much better a president for having been at the CIA that you're not going to believe it.
George H. W. Bush

It's a very good question, very direct, and I'm not going to answer it.
George H. W. Bush

It's no exaggeration to say that the undecideds could go one way or another.
George H. W. Bush

Please don't ask me to do that which I've just said I'm not going to do, because you're burning up time. The meter is running through the sand on you, and I am now filibustering.
George H. W. Bush

Read my lips: no new taxes.
George H. W. Bush

We are a nation of communities... a brilliant diversity spread like stars, like a thousand points of light in a broad and peaceful sky.
George H. W. Bush

We are not the sum of our possessions.
George H. W. Bush

We don't want an America that is closed to the world. What we want is a world that is open to America.
George H. W. Bush

What's wrong with being a boring kind of guy?
George H. W. Bush

You cannot be President of the United States if you don't have faith. Remember Lincoln, going to his knees in times of trial in the Civil War and all that stuff.
George H. W. Bush

Martin Van Buren

As to the presidency, the two happiest days of my life were those of my entrance upon the office and my surrender of it.
Martin Van Buren

Banks properly established and conducted are highly useful to the business of the country, and will doubtless continue to exist in the States so long as they conform to their laws and are found to be safe and beneficial.
Martin Van Buren

Between Russia and the United States sentiments of good will continue to be mutually cherished.
Martin Van Buren

Every proper exertion has been made and will be continued to carry out the wishes of Congress in relation to the tobacco trade, as indicated in the several resolutions of the House of Representatives and the legislation of the two branches.
Martin Van Buren

For myself, therefore, I desire to declare that the principle that will govern me in the high duty to which my country calls me is a strict adherence to the letter and spirit of the Constitution as it was designed by those who framed it.
Martin Van Buren

I tread in the footsteps of illustrious men... in receiving from the people the sacred trust confided to my illustrious predecessor.
Martin Van Buren

If laws acting upon private interests can not always be avoided, they should be confined within the narrowest limits, and left wherever possible to the legislatures of the States.
Martin Van Buren

In a government whose distinguishing characteristic should be a diffusion and equalization of its benefits and burdens the advantage of individuals will be augmented at the expense of the community at large.
Martin Van Buren

It affords me sincere pleasure to be able to apprise you of the entire removal of the Cherokee Nation of Indians to their new homes west of the Mississippi.
Martin Van Buren

It seems proper, at all events, that by an early enactment similar to that of other countries the application of public money by an officer of Government to private uses should be made a felony and visited with severe and ignominious punishment.
Martin Van Buren

Mutual forbearance and reciprocal concessions: thro' their agency the Union was established - the patriotic spirit from which they emanated will forever sustain it.
Martin Van Buren

My conviction of the necessity of further legislative provisions for the safe-keeping and disbursement of the public moneys and my opinion in regard to the measures best adapted to the accomplishment of those objects have been already submitted to you.
Martin Van Buren

No evil can result from its inhibition more pernicious than its toleration.
Martin Van Buren

On receiving from the people the sacred trust twice confided on my illustrious predecessor, and which he has discharged so faithfully and so well, I know that I can not expect to perform the arduous task with equal ability and success.
Martin Van Buren

Our country presents on every side the evidences of that continued favor under whose auspices it, has gradually risen from a few feeble and dependent colonies to a prosperous and powerful confederacy.
Martin Van Buren

The case of the Seminoles constitutes at present the only exception to the successful efforts of the Government to remove the Indians to the homes assigned them west of the Mississippi.
Martin Van Buren

The condition of the tribes which occupy the country set apart for them in the West is highly prosperous, and encourages the hope of their early civilization. They have for the most part abandoned the hunter state and turned their attention to agricultural pursuits.
Martin Van Buren

The connection which formerly existed between the Government and banks was in reality injurious to both, as well as to the general interests of the community at large.
Martin Van Buren

The government should not be guided by Temporary Excitement, but by Sober Second Thought.
Martin Van Buren

The law increasing and organizing the military establishment of the United States has been nearly carried into effect, and the Army has been extensively and usefully employed during the past season.
Martin Van Buren

The less government interferes with private pursuits, the better for general prosperity.
Martin Van Buren

The national will is the supreme law of the Republic, and on all subjects within the limits of his constitutional powers should be faithfully obeyed by the public servant.
Martin Van Buren

The people under our system, like the king in a monarchy, never dies.
Martin Van Buren

The United States have fulfilled in good faith all their treaty stipulations with the Indian tribes, and have in every other instance insisted upon a like performance of their obligations.
Martin Van Buren

There is a power in public opinion in this country - and I thank God for it: for it is the most honest and best of all powers - which will not tolerate an incompetent or unworthy man to hold in his weak or wicked hands the lives and fortunes of his fellow-citizens.
Martin Van Buren

Those who have wrought great changes in the world never succeeded by gaining over chiefs; but always by exciting the multitude. The first is the resource of intrigue and produces only secondary results, the second is the resort of genius and transforms the universe.
Martin Van Buren

We remain at peace with all nations, and no efforts on my part consistent with the preservation of our rights and the honor of the country shall be spared to maintain a position so consonant to our institutions.
Martin Van Buren

With European powers no new subjects of difficulty have arisen, and those which were under discussion, although not terminated, do not present a more unfavorable aspect for the future preservation of that good understanding which it has ever been our desire to cultivate.
Martin Van Buren

With respect to the northeastern boundary of the United States, no official correspondence between this Government and that of Great Britain has passed since that communicated to Congress toward the close of their last session.
Martin Van Buren

James Buchanan

I like the noise of democracy.
James Buchanan

If you are as happy in entering the White House as I shall feel on returning to Wheatland, you are a happy man indeed.
James Buchanan

The ballot box is the surest arbiter of disputes among free men.
James Buchanan

The test of leadership is not to put greatness into humanity, but to elicit it, for the greatness is already there.
James Buchanan

To avoid entangling alliances has been a maxim of our policy ever since the days of Washington, and its wisdom no one will attempt to dispute.
James Buchanan

What is right and what is practicable are two different things.
James Buchanan

Chester A. Arthur

I may be president of the United States, but my private life is nobody's damned business.
Chester A. Arthur

Men may die, but the fabrics of free institutions remains unshaken.
Chester A. Arthur

The extravagant expenditure of public money is an evil not to be measured by the value of that money to the people who are taxed for it.
Chester A. Arthur

John Quincy Adams

All men profess honesty as long as they can. To believe all men honest would be folly. To believe none so is something worse.
John Quincy Adams

Always vote for principle, though you may vote alone, and you may cherish the sweetest reflection that your vote is never lost.
John Quincy Adams

America does not go abroad in search of monsters to destroy.
John Quincy Adams

Courage and perseverance have a magical talisman, before which difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish into air.
John Quincy Adams

If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.
John Quincy Adams

Nip the shoots of arbitrary power in the bud, is the only maxim which can ever preserve the liberties of any people.
John Quincy Adams

Patience and perseverance have a magical effect before which difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish.
John Quincy Adams

Posterity: you will never know how much it has cost my generation to preserve your freedom. I hope you will make good use of it.
John Quincy Adams

The highest glory of the American Revolution was this: it connected in one indissoluble bond the principles of civil government with the principles of Christianity.
John Quincy Adams

Where annual elections end where slavery begins.
John Quincy Adams

John Adams

A desire to be observed, considered, esteemed, praised, beloved, and admired by his fellows is one of the earliest as well as the keenest dispositions discovered in the heart of man.
John Adams

A government of laws, and not of men.
John Adams

Abuse of words has been the great instrument of sophistry and chicanery, of party, faction, and division of society.
John Adams

All the perplexities, confusion and distress in America arise, not from defects in their Constitution or Confederation, not from want of honor or virtue, so much as from the downright ignorance of the nature of coin, credit and circulation.
John Adams

As much as I converse with sages and heroes, they have very little of my love and admiration. I long for rural and domestic scene, for the warbling of birds and the prattling of my children.
John Adams

Because power corrupts, society's demands for moral authority and character increase as the importance of the position increases.
John Adams

Democracy... while it lasts is more bloody than either aristocracy or monarchy. Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There is never a democracy that did not commit suicide.
John Adams

Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.
John Adams

Fear is the foundation of most governments.
John Adams

Genius is sorrow's child.
John Adams

Great is the guilt of an unnecessary war.
John Adams

Here is everything which can lay hold of the eye, ear and imagination - everything which can charm and bewitch the simple and ignorant. I wonder how Luther ever broke the spell.
John Adams

I always consider the settlement of America with reverence and wonder, as the opening of a grand scene and design in providence, for the illumination of the ignorant and the emancipation of the slavish part of mankind all over the earth.
John Adams

I have accepted a seat in the House of Representatives, and thereby have consented to my own ruin, to your ruin, and to the ruin of our children. I give you this warning that you may prepare your mind for your fate.
John Adams

I must not write a word to you about politics, because you are a woman.
John Adams

I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy.
John Adams

If we do not lay out ourselves in the service of mankind whom should we serve?
John Adams

In politics the middle way is none at all.
John Adams

Let us tenderly and kindly cherish, therefore, the means of knowledge. Let us dare to read, think, speak, and write.
John Adams

Liberty cannot be preserved without general knowledge among the people.
John Adams

Liberty, according to my metaphysics is a self-determining power in an intellectual agent. It implies thought and choice and power.
John Adams

My country has contrived for me the most insignificant office that ever the invention of man contrived or his imagination conceived.
John Adams

Old minds are like old horses; you must exercise them if you wish to keep them in working order.
John Adams

Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.
John Adams

Power always thinks it has a great soul and vast views beyond the comprehension of the weak.
John Adams

Power always thinks... that it is doing God's service when it is violating all his laws.
John Adams

Property is surely a right of mankind as real as liberty.
John Adams

Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.
John Adams

The Declaration of Independence I always considered as a theatrical show. Jefferson ran away with all the stage effect of that... and all the glory of it.
John Adams

The essence of a free government consists in an effectual control of rivalries.
John Adams

The fundamental law of the militia is, that it be created, directed and commanded by the laws, and ever for the support of the laws.
John Adams

The happiness of society is the end of government.
John Adams

The Hebrews have done more to civilize men than any other nation. If I were an atheist, and believed blind eternal fate, I should still believe that fate had ordained the Jews to be the most essential instrument for civilizing the nations.
John Adams

The right of a nation to kill a tyrant in case of necessity can no more be doubted than to hang a robber, or kill a flea.
John Adams

There are two educations. One should teach us how to make a living and the other how to live.
John Adams

There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty.
John Adams

When people talk of the freedom of writing, speaking or thinking I cannot choose but laugh. No such thing ever existed. No such thing now exists; but I hope it will exist. But it must be hundreds of years after you and I shall write and speak no more.
John Adams

While all other sciences have advanced, that of government is at a standstill - little better understood, little better practiced now than three or four thousand years ago.
John Adams

George Washington

A slender acquaintance with the world must convince every man that actions, not words, are the true criterion of the attachment of friends.
George Washington

Arbitrary power is most easily established on the ruins of liberty abused to licentiousness.
George Washington

Associate with men of good quality if you esteem your own reputation; for it is better to be alone than in bad company.
George Washington

Bad seed is a robbery of the worst kind: for your pocket-book not only suffers by it, but your preparations are lost and a season passes away unimproved.
George Washington

Be courteous to all, but intimate with few, and let those few be well tried before you give them your confidence.
George Washington

Discipline is the soul of an army. It makes small numbers formidable; procures success to the weak, and esteem to all.
George Washington

Experience teaches us that it is much easier to prevent an enemy from posting themselves than it is to dislodge them after they have got possession.
George Washington

Few men have virtue to withstand the highest bidder.
George Washington

Firearms are second only to the Constitution in importance; they are the peoples' liberty's teeth.
George Washington

Friendship is a plant of slow growth and must undergo and withstand the shocks of adversity before it is entitled to the appellation.
George Washington

Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.
George Washington

Guard against the impostures of pretended patriotism.
George Washington

Happiness and moral duty are inseparably connected.
George Washington

I can only say that there is not a man living who wishes more sincerely than I do to see a plan adopted for the abolition of slavery.
George Washington

I have no other view than to promote the public good, and am unambitious of honors not founded in the approbation of my Country.
George Washington

I hope I shall possess firmness and virtue enough to maintain what I consider the most enviable of all titles, the character of an honest man.
George Washington

I walk on untrodden ground. There is scarcely any part of my conduct which may not hereafter be drawn into precedent.
George Washington

If the freedom of speech is taken away then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.
George Washington

If we desire to avoid insult, we must be able to repel it; if we desire to secure peace, one of the most powerful instruments of our rising prosperity, it must be known, that we are at all times ready for War.
George Washington

It is better to be alone than in bad company.
George Washington

It is better to offer no excuse than a bad one.
George Washington

It is far better to be alone, than to be in bad company.
George Washington

It is impossible to rightly govern a nation without God and the Bible.
George Washington

It may be laid down as a primary position, and the basis of our system, that every Citizen who enjoys the protection of a Free Government, owes not only a proportion of his property, but even of his personal services to the defense of it.
George Washington

It will be found an unjust and unwise jealousy to deprive a man of his natural liberty upon the supposition he may abuse it.
George Washington

Labor to keep alive in your breast that little spark of celestial fire, called conscience.
George Washington

Laws made by common consent must not be trampled on by individuals.
George Washington

Lenience will operate with greater force, in some instances than rigor. It is therefore my first wish to have all of my conduct distinguished by it.
George Washington

Let us raise a standard to which the wise and honest can repair; the rest is in the hands of God.
George Washington

Let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.
George Washington

Let your Discourse with Men of Business be Short and Comprehensive.
George Washington

Let your heart feel for the afflictions and distress of everyone, and let your hand give in proportion to your purse.
George Washington

Liberty, when it begins to take root, is a plant of rapid growth.
George Washington

Mankind, when left to themselves, are unfit for their own government.
George Washington

My first wish is to see this plague of mankind, war, banished from the earth.
George Washington

My mother was the most beautiful woman I ever saw. All I am I owe to my mother. I attribute all my success in life to the moral, intellectual and physical education I received from her.
George Washington

My observation is that whenever one person is found adequate to the discharge of a duty... it is worse executed by two persons, and scarcely done at all if three or more are employed therein.
George Washington

Nothing can be more hurtful to the service, than the neglect of discipline; for that discipline, more than numbers, gives one army the superiority over another.
George Washington

Observe good faith and justice toward all nations. Cultivate peace and harmony with all.
George Washington

Over grown military establishments are under any form of government inauspicious to liberty, and are to be regarded as particularly hostile to republican liberty.
George Washington

Some day, following the example of the United States of America, there will be a United States of Europe.
George Washington

The administration of justice is the firmest pillar of government.
George Washington

The basis of our political system is the right of the people to make and to alter their constitutions of government.
George Washington

The Constitution is the guide which I never will abandon.
George Washington

The constitution vests the power of declaring war in Congress; therefore no offensive expedition of importance can be undertaken until after they shall have deliberated upon the subject and authorized such a measure.
George Washington

The foolish and wicked practice of profane cursing and swearing is a vice so mean and low that every person of sense and character detests and despises it.
George Washington

The marvel of all history is the patience with which men and women submit to burdens unnecessarily laid upon them by their governments.
George Washington

The time is near at hand which must determine whether Americans are to be free men or slaves.
George Washington

The very atmosphere of firearms anywhere and everywhere restrains evil interference - they deserve a place of honor with all that's good.
George Washington

There can be no greater error than to expect, or calculate, upon real favors from nation to nation. It is an illusion which experience must cure, which a just pride ought to discard.
George Washington

To be prepared for war is one of the most effective means of preserving peace.
George Washington

True friendship is a plant of slow growth, and must undergo and withstand the shocks of adversity, before it is entitled to the appellation.
George Washington

Truth will ultimately prevail where there is pains to bring it to light.
George Washington

War - An act of violence whose object is to constrain the enemy, to accomplish our will.
George Washington

We should not look back unless it is to derive useful lessons from past errors, and for the purpose of profiting by dearly bought experience.
George Washington

When we assumed the Soldier, we did not lay aside the Citizen.
George Washington

Worry is the interest paid by those who borrow trouble.
George Washington

Theodore Roosevelt

A man who has never gone to school may steal from a freight car; but if he has a university education, he may steal the whole railroad.
Theodore Roosevelt

A man who is good enough to shed his blood for the country is good enough to be given a square deal afterwards.
Theodore Roosevelt

A thorough knowledge of the Bible is worth more than a college education.
Theodore Roosevelt

A typical vice of American politics is the avoidance of saying anything real on real issues.
Theodore Roosevelt

A vote is like a rifle; its usefulness depends upon the character of the user.
Theodore Roosevelt

Absence and death are the same - only that in death there is no suffering.
Theodore Roosevelt

Appraisals are where you get together with your team leader and agree what an outstanding member of the team you are, how much your contribution has been valued, what massive potential you have and, in recognition of all this, would you mind having your salary halved.
Theodore Roosevelt

Behind the ostensible government sits enthroned an invisible government owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people.
Theodore Roosevelt

Believe you can and you're halfway there.
Theodore Roosevelt

Big jobs usually go to the men who prove their ability to outgrow small ones.
Theodore Roosevelt

Character, in the long run, is the decisive factor in the life of an individual and of nations alike.
Theodore Roosevelt

Courtesy is as much a mark of a gentleman as courage.
Theodore Roosevelt

Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
Theodore Roosevelt

Don't hit at all if it is honorably possible to avoid hitting; but never hit soft.
Theodore Roosevelt

Every immigrant who comes here should be required within five years to learn English or leave the country.
Theodore Roosevelt

Every reform movement has a lunatic fringe.
Theodore Roosevelt

Far and away the best prize that life has to offer is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.
Theodore Roosevelt

Far better is it to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure... than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much, because they live in a gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat.
Theodore Roosevelt

For unflagging interest and enjoyment, a household of children, if things go reasonably well, certainly all other forms of success and achievement lose their importance by comparison.
Theodore Roosevelt

Freedom from effort in the present merely means that there has been effort stored up in the past.
Theodore Roosevelt

Germany has reduced savagery to a science, and this great war for the victorious peace of justice must go on until the German cancer is cut clean out of the world body.
Theodore Roosevelt

Get action. Seize the moment. Man was never intended to become an oyster.
Theodore Roosevelt

Great thoughts speak only to the thoughtful mind, but great actions speak to all mankind.
Theodore Roosevelt

I am a part of everything that I have read.
Theodore Roosevelt

I am only an average man but, by George, I work harder at it than the average man.
Theodore Roosevelt

I care not what others think of what I do, but I care very much about what I think of what I do! That is character!
Theodore Roosevelt

I don't pity any man who does hard work worth doing. I admire him. I pity the creature who does not work, at whichever end of the social scale he may regard himself as being.
Theodore Roosevelt

I think there is only one quality worse than hardness of heart and that is softness of head.
Theodore Roosevelt

I took the Canal Zone and let Congress debate; and while the debate goes on, the canal does also.
Theodore Roosevelt

I wish to preach, not the doctrine of ignoble ease, but the doctrine of the strenuous life.
Theodore Roosevelt

If there is not the war, you don't get the great general; if there is not a great occasion, you don't get a great statesman; if Lincoln had lived in a time of peace, no one would have known his name.
Theodore Roosevelt

If you could kick the person in the pants responsible for most of your trouble, you wouldn't sit for a month.
Theodore Roosevelt

In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing, the next best thing is the wrong thing, and the worst thing you can do is nothing.
Theodore Roosevelt

It behooves every man to remember that the work of the critic is of altogether secondary importance, and that, in the end, progress is accomplished by the man who does things.
Theodore Roosevelt

It is difficult to make our material condition better by the best law, but it is easy enough to ruin it by bad laws.
Theodore Roosevelt

It is essential that there should be organization of labor. This is an era of organization. Capital organizes and therefore labor must organize.
Theodore Roosevelt

It is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed.
Theodore Roosevelt

It is only through labor and painful effort, by grim energy and resolute courage, that we move on to better things.
Theodore Roosevelt

Keep your eyes on the stars, and your feet on the ground.
Theodore Roosevelt

Leave it as it is. The ages have been at work on it and man can only mar it.
Theodore Roosevelt

Never throughout history has a man who lived a life of ease left a name worth remembering.
Theodore Roosevelt

Nine-tenths of wisdom is being wise in time.
Theodore Roosevelt

No great intellectual thing was ever done by great effort.
Theodore Roosevelt

No man is above the law and no man is below it: nor do we ask any man's permission when we ask him to obey it.
Theodore Roosevelt

No man is justified in doing evil on the ground of expedience.
Theodore Roosevelt

No man is worth his salt who is not ready at all times to risk his well-being, to risk his body, to risk his life, in a great cause.
Theodore Roosevelt

No people is wholly civilized where a distinction is drawn between stealing an office and stealing a purse.
Theodore Roosevelt

Nobody cares how much you know, until they know how much you care.
Theodore Roosevelt

Obedience of the law is demanded; not asked as a favor.
Theodore Roosevelt

Old age is like everything else. To make a success of it, you've got to start young.
Theodore Roosevelt

Order without liberty and liberty without order are equally destructive.
Theodore Roosevelt

People ask the difference between a leader and a boss. The leader leads, and the boss drives.
Theodore Roosevelt

Probably the greatest harm done by vast wealth is the harm that we of moderate means do ourselves when we let the vices of envy and hatred enter deep into our own natures.
Theodore Roosevelt

Rhetoric is a poor substitute for action, and we have trusted only to rhetoric. If we are really to be a great nation, we must not merely talk; we must act big.
Theodore Roosevelt

Some men can live up to their loftiest ideals without ever going higher than a basement.
Theodore Roosevelt

Speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far.
Theodore Roosevelt

The American people abhor a vacuum.
Theodore Roosevelt

The best executive is one who has sense enough to pick good people to do what he wants done, and self-restraint enough to keep from meddling with them while they do it.
Theodore Roosevelt

The boy who is going to make a great man must not make up his mind merely to overcome a thousand obstacles, but to win in spite of a thousand repulses and defeats.
Theodore Roosevelt

The first requisite of a good citizen in this republic of ours is that he shall be able and willing to pull his own weight.
Theodore Roosevelt

The government is us; we are the government, you and I.
Theodore Roosevelt

The human body has two ends on it: one to create with and one to sit on. Sometimes people get their ends reversed. When this happens they need a kick in the seat of the pants.
Theodore Roosevelt

The man who loves other countries as much as his own stands on a level with the man who loves other women as much as he loves his own wife.
Theodore Roosevelt

The most important single ingredient in the formula of success is knowing how to get along with people.
Theodore Roosevelt

The most practical kind of politics is the politics of decency.
Theodore Roosevelt

The most successful politician is he who says what the people are thinking most often in the loudest voice.
Theodore Roosevelt

The one thing I want to leave my children is an honorable name.
Theodore Roosevelt

The only man who never makes a mistake is the man who never does anything.
Theodore Roosevelt

The only time you really live fully is from thirty to sixty. The young are slaves to dreams; the old servants of regrets. Only the middle-aged have all their five senses in the keeping of their wits.
Theodore Roosevelt

The pacifist is as surely a traitor to his country and to humanity as is the most brutal wrongdoer.
Theodore Roosevelt

The reactionary is always willing to take a progressive attitude on any issue that is dead.
Theodore Roosevelt

The things that will destroy America are prosperity-at-any-price, peace-at-any-price, safety-first instead of duty-first, the love of soft living, and the get-rich-quick theory of life.
Theodore Roosevelt

The unforgivable crime is soft hitting. Do not hit at all if it can be avoided; but never hit softly.
Theodore Roosevelt

There has never yet been a man in our history who led a life of ease whose name is worth remembering.
Theodore Roosevelt

To announce that there must be no criticism of the president... is morally treasonable to the American public.
Theodore Roosevelt

To educate a man in mind and not in morals is to educate a menace to society.
Theodore Roosevelt

Wars are, of course, as a rule to be avoided; but they are far better than certain kinds of peace.
Theodore Roosevelt

We can have no '50-50' allegiance in this country. Either a man is an American and nothing else, or he is not an American at all.
Theodore Roosevelt

When they call the roll in the Senate, the Senators do not know whether to answer "Present" or "Not guilty."
Theodore Roosevelt

When you are asked if you can do a job, tell 'em, 'Certainly I can!' Then get busy and find out how to do it.
Theodore Roosevelt

When you play, play hard; when you work, don't play at all.
Theodore Roosevelt

With self-discipline most anything is possible.
Theodore Roosevelt

Thomas Jefferson

A Bill of Rights is what the people are entitled to against every government, and what no just government should refuse, or rest on inference.
Thomas Jefferson

A coward is much more exposed to quarrels than a man of spirit.
Thomas Jefferson

A strong body makes the mind strong. As to the species of exercises, I advise the gun. While this gives moderate exercise to the body, it gives boldness, enterprise and independence to the mind. Games played with the ball, and others of that nature, are too violent for the body and stamp no character on the mind. Let your gun therefore be your constant companion of your walks.
Thomas Jefferson

A wise and frugal government, which shall leave men free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned - this is the sum of good government.
Thomas Jefferson

A wise and frugal Government, which shall retrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned.
Thomas Jefferson

Advertisements contain the only truths to be relied on in a newspaper.
Thomas Jefferson

All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.
Thomas Jefferson

All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression.
Thomas Jefferson

Always take hold of things by the smooth handle.
Thomas Jefferson

An association of men who will not quarrel with one another is a thing which has never yet existed, from the greatest confederacy of nations down to a town meeting or a vestry.
Thomas Jefferson

An enemy generally says and believes what he wishes.
Thomas Jefferson

An injured friend is the bitterest of foes.
Thomas Jefferson

As our enemies have found we can reason like men, so now let us show them we can fight like men also.
Thomas Jefferson

Be polite to all, but intimate with few.
Thomas Jefferson

Bodily decay is gloomy in prospect, but of all human contemplations the most abhorrent is body without mind.
Thomas Jefferson

Books constitute capital. A library book lasts as long as a house, for hundreds of years. It is not, then, an article of mere consumption but fairly of capital, and often in the case of professional men, setting out in life, it is their only capital.
Thomas Jefferson

But friendship is precious, not only in the shade, but in the sunshine of life, and thanks to a benevolent arrangement the greater part of life is sunshine.
Thomas Jefferson

Commerce with all nations, alliance with none, should be our motto.
Thomas Jefferson

Conquest is not in our principles. It is inconsistent with our government.
Thomas Jefferson

Delay is preferable to error.
Thomas Jefferson

Dependence begets subservience and venality, suffocates the germ of virtue, and prepares fit tools for the designs of ambition.
Thomas Jefferson

Determine never to be idle. No person will have occasion to complain of the want of time who never loses any. It is wonderful how much may be done if we are always doing.
Thomas Jefferson

Difference of opinion is advantageous in religion. The several sects perform the office of a Censor - over each other.
Thomas Jefferson

Do not bite at the bait of pleasure, till you know there is no hook beneath it.
Thomas Jefferson

Do you want to know who you are? Don't ask. Act! Action will delineate and define you.
Thomas Jefferson

Don't talk about what you have done or what you are going to do.
Thomas Jefferson

Educate and inform the whole mass of the people... They are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty.
Thomas Jefferson

Enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day.
Thomas Jefferson

Errors of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it.
Thomas Jefferson

Every citizen should be a soldier. This was the case with the Greeks and Romans, and must be that of every free state.
Thomas Jefferson

Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves are its only safe depositories.
Thomas Jefferson

Experience demands that man is the only animal which devours his own kind, for I can apply no milder term to the general prey of the rich on the poor.
Thomas Jefferson

Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.
Thomas Jefferson

Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear.
Thomas Jefferson

For a people who are free, and who mean to remain so, a well-organized and armed militia is their best security.
Thomas Jefferson

Force is the vital principle and immediate parent of despotism.
Thomas Jefferson

Friendship is but another name for an alliance with the follies and the misfortunes of others. Our own share of miseries is sufficient: why enter then as volunteers into those of another?
Thomas Jefferson

Happiness is not being pained in body or troubled in mind.
Thomas Jefferson

He who knows best knows how little he knows.
Thomas Jefferson

He who knows nothing is closer to the truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods and errors.
Thomas Jefferson

History, in general, only informs us of what bad government is.
Thomas Jefferson

Honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom.
Thomas Jefferson

How much pain they have cost us, the evils which have never happened.
Thomas Jefferson

I abhor war and view it as the greatest scourge of mankind.
Thomas Jefferson

I am an Epicurean. I consider the genuine (not the imputed) doctrines of Epicurus as containing everything rational in moral philosophy which Greek and Roman leave to us.
Thomas Jefferson

I am mortified to be told that, in the United States of America, the sale of a book can become a subject of inquiry, and of criminal inquiry too.
Thomas Jefferson

I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies.
Thomas Jefferson

I believe that every human mind feels pleasure in doing good to another.
Thomas Jefferson

I cannot live without books.
Thomas Jefferson

I do not take a single newspaper, nor read one a month, and I feel myself infinitely the happier for it.
Thomas Jefferson

I find that he is happiest of whom the world says least, good or bad.
Thomas Jefferson

I have no ambition to govern men; it is a painful and thankless office.
Thomas Jefferson

I have no fear that the result of our experiment will be that men may be trusted to govern themselves without a master.
Thomas Jefferson

I have seen enough of one war never to wish to see another.
Thomas Jefferson

I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.
Thomas Jefferson

I hope our wisdom will grow with our power, and teach us, that the less we use our power the greater it will be.
Thomas Jefferson

I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial by strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country.
Thomas Jefferson

I know of no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them but to inform their discretion.
Thomas Jefferson

I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past.
Thomas Jefferson

I never considered a difference of opinion in politics, in religion, in philosophy, as cause for withdrawing from a friend.
Thomas Jefferson

I never will, by any word or act, bow to the shrine of intolerance or admit a right of inquiry into the religious opinions of others.
Thomas Jefferson

I own that I am not a friend to a very energetic government. It is always oppressive.
Thomas Jefferson

I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.
Thomas Jefferson

I think with the Romans, that the general of today should be a soldier tomorrow if necessary.
Thomas Jefferson

I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that his justice cannot sleep forever.
Thomas Jefferson

I was bold in the pursuit of knowledge, never fearing to follow truth and reason to whatever results they led, and bearding every authority which stood in their way.
Thomas Jefferson

I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than those attending too small a degree of it.
Thomas Jefferson

If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.
Thomas Jefferson

If God is just, I tremble for my country.
Thomas Jefferson

If the present Congress errs in too much talking, how can it be otherwise in a body to which the people send one hundred and fifty lawyers, whose trade it is to question everything, yield nothing, and talk by the hour?
Thomas Jefferson

If there is one principle more deeply rooted in the mind of every American, it is that we should have nothing to do with conquest.
Thomas Jefferson

Ignorance is preferable to error, and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing than he who believes what is wrong.
Thomas Jefferson

In defense of our persons and properties under actual violation, we took up arms. When that violence shall be removed, when hostilities shall cease on the part of the aggressors, hostilities shall cease on our part also.
Thomas Jefferson

In every country and every age, the priest had been hostile to Liberty.
Thomas Jefferson

In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock.
Thomas Jefferson

In truth, politeness is artificial good humor, it covers the natural want of it, and ends by rendering habitual a substitute nearly equivalent to the real virtue.
Thomas Jefferson

It behooves every man who values liberty of conscience for himself, to resist invasions of it in the case of others: or their case may, by change of circumstances, become his own.
Thomas Jefferson

It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no God.
Thomas Jefferson

It is always better to have no ideas than false ones; to believe nothing, than to believe what is wrong.
Thomas Jefferson

It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself.
Thomas Jefferson

It is in our lives and not our words that our religion must be read.
Thomas Jefferson

It is incumbent on every generation to pay its own debts as it goes. A principle which if acted on would save one-half the wars of the world.
Thomas Jefferson

It is more dangerous that even a guilty person should be punished without the forms of law than that he should escape.
Thomas Jefferson

It is neither wealth nor splendor; but tranquility and occupation which give you happiness.
Thomas Jefferson

It is our duty still to endeavor to avoid war; but if it shall actually take place, no matter by whom brought on, we must defend ourselves. If our house be on fire, without inquiring whether it was fired from within or without, we must try to extinguish it.
Thomas Jefferson

It takes time to persuade men to do even what is for their own good.
Thomas Jefferson

Leave all the afternoon for exercise and recreation, which are as necessary as reading. I will rather say more necessary because health is worth more than learning.
Thomas Jefferson

Leave no authority existing not responsible to the people.
Thomas Jefferson

Mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.
Thomas Jefferson

Merchants have no country. The mere spot they stand on does not constitute so strong an attachment as that from which they draw their gains.
Thomas Jefferson

Money, not morality, is the principle commerce of civilized nations.
Thomas Jefferson

My only fear is that I may live too long. This would be a subject of dread to me.
Thomas Jefferson

My reading of history convinces me that most bad government results from too much government.
Thomas Jefferson

My theory has always been, that if we are to dream, the flatteries of hope are as cheap, and pleasanter, than the gloom of despair.
Thomas Jefferson

Never put off till tomorrow what you can do today.
Thomas Jefferson

Never spend your money before you have earned it.
Thomas Jefferson

No duty the Executive had to perform was so trying as to put the right man in the right place.
Thomas Jefferson

No freeman shall be debarred the use of arms.
Thomas Jefferson

No government ought to be without censors; and where the press is free no one ever will.
Thomas Jefferson

No man will ever carry out of the Presidency the reputation which carried him into it.
Thomas Jefferson

No occupation is so delightful to me as the culture of the earth, and no culture comparable to that of the garden.
Thomas Jefferson

None but an armed nation can dispense with a standing army. To keep ours armed and disciplined is therefore at all times important.
Thomas Jefferson

Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal; nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong mental attitude.
Thomas Jefferson

Nothing gives one person so much advantage over another as to remain always cool and unruffled under all circumstances.
Thomas Jefferson

Nothing is unchangeable but the inherent and unalienable rights of man.
Thomas Jefferson

One loves to possess arms, though they hope never to have occasion for them.
Thomas Jefferson

One man with courage is a majority.
Thomas Jefferson

One travels more usefully when alone, because he reflects more.
Thomas Jefferson

Only aim to do your duty, and mankind will give you credit where you fail.
Thomas Jefferson

Our country is now taking so steady a course as to show by what road it will pass to destruction, to wit: by consolidation of power first, and then corruption, its necessary consequence.
Thomas Jefferson

Our greatest happiness does not depend on the condition of life in which chance has placed us, but is always the result of a good conscience, good health, occupation, and freedom in all just pursuits.
Thomas Jefferson

Peace and abstinence from European interferences are our objects, and so will continue while the present order of things in America remain uninterrupted.
Thomas Jefferson

Peace and friendship with all mankind is our wisest policy, and I wish we may be permitted to pursue it.
Thomas Jefferson

Peace, commerce and honest friendship with all nations; entangling alliances with none.
Thomas Jefferson

Politics is such a torment that I advise everyone I love not to mix with it.
Thomas Jefferson

Power is not alluring to pure minds.
Thomas Jefferson

Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blind-folded fear.
Thomas Jefferson

Resort is had to ridicule only when reason is against us.
Thomas Jefferson

Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add 'within the limits of the law' because law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual.
Thomas Jefferson

So confident am I in the intentions, as well as wisdom, of the government, that I shall always be satisfied that what is not done, either cannot, or ought not to be done.
Thomas Jefferson

Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then be trusted with the government of others? Or have we found angels in the form of kings to govern him? Let history answer this question.
Thomas Jefferson

Speeches that are measured by the hour will die with the hour.
Thomas Jefferson

Taste cannot be controlled by law.
Thomas Jefferson

That government is the strongest of which every man feels himself a part.
Thomas Jefferson

The advertisement is the most truthful part of a newspaper.
Thomas Jefferson

The boisterous sea of liberty is never without a wave.
Thomas Jefferson

The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only object of good government.
Thomas Jefferson

The constitutions of most of our States assert that all power is inherent in the people; that... it is their right and duty to be at all times armed.
Thomas Jefferson

The Creator has not thought proper to mark those in the forehead who are of stuff to make good generals. We are first, therefore, to seek them blindfold, and then let them learn the trade at the expense of great losses.
Thomas Jefferson

The earth belongs to the living, not to the dead.
Thomas Jefferson

The glow of one warm thought is to me worth more than money.
Thomas Jefferson

The God who gave us life, gave us liberty at the same time.
Thomas Jefferson

The good opinion of mankind, like the lever of Archimedes, with the given fulcrum, moves the world.
Thomas Jefferson

The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers.
Thomas Jefferson

The moment a person forms a theory, his imagination sees in every object only the traits which favor that theory.
Thomas Jefferson

The most successful war seldom pays for its losses.
Thomas Jefferson

The natural cause of the human mind is certainly from credulity to skepticism.
Thomas Jefferson

The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground.
Thomas Jefferson

The republican is the only form of government which is not eternally at open or secret war with the rights of mankind.
Thomas Jefferson

The second office in the government is honorable and easy; the first is but a splendid misery.
Thomas Jefferson

The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive.
Thomas Jefferson

The spirit of this country is totally adverse to a large military force.
Thomas Jefferson

The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.
Thomas Jefferson

The way to silence religious disputes is to take no notice of them.
Thomas Jefferson

The whole commerce between master and slave is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous passions, the most unremitting despotism on the one part, and degrading submissions on the other. Our children see this, and learn to imitate it.
Thomas Jefferson

The world is indebted for all triumphs which have been gained by reason and humanity over error and oppression.
Thomas Jefferson

There is a natural aristocracy among men. The grounds of this are virtue and talents.
Thomas Jefferson

There is not a sprig of grass that shoots uninteresting to me.
Thomas Jefferson

There is not a truth existing which I fear... or would wish unknown to the whole world.
Thomas Jefferson

Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of liberty.
Thomas Jefferson

To compel a man to furnish funds for the propagation of ideas he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.
Thomas Jefferson

To penetrate and dissipate these clouds of darkness, the general mind must be strengthened by education.
Thomas Jefferson

Truth is certainly a branch of morality and a very important one to society.
Thomas Jefferson

Walking is the best possible exercise. Habituate yourself to walk very fast.
Thomas Jefferson

War is an instrument entirely inefficient toward redressing wrong; and multiplies, instead of indemnifying losses.
Thomas Jefferson

We are not to expect to be translated from despotism to liberty in a featherbed.
Thomas Jefferson

We did not raise armies for glory or for conquest.
Thomas Jefferson

We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Thomas Jefferson

We may consider each generation as a distinct nation, with a right, by the will of its majority, to bind themselves, but none to bind the succeeding generation, more than the inhabitants of another country.
Thomas Jefferson

We never repent of having eaten too little.
Thomas Jefferson

Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.
Thomas Jefferson

When a man assumes a public trust he should consider himself a public property.
Thomas Jefferson

When angry count to ten before you speak. If very angry, count to one hundred.
Thomas Jefferson

When the people fear the government, there is tyranny. When the government fears the people, there is liberty.
Thomas Jefferson

When we get piled upon one another in large cities, as in Europe, we shall become as corrupt as Europe.
Thomas Jefferson

When you reach the end of your rope, tie a knot in it and hang on.
Thomas Jefferson

Whenever a man has cast a longing eye on offices, a rottenness begins in his conduct.
Thomas Jefferson

Whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government.
Thomas Jefferson

Whenever you do a thing, act as if all the world were watching.
Thomas Jefferson

Where the press is free and every man able to read, all is safe.
Thomas Jefferson

Wisdom I know is social. She seeks her fellows. But Beauty is jealous, and illy bears the presence of a rival.
Thomas Jefferson

Franklin D. Roosevelt

A conservative is a man with two perfectly good legs who, however, has never learned how to walk forward.
Franklin D. Roosevelt

A nation that destroys its soils destroys itself. Forests are the lungs of our land, purifying the air and giving fresh strength to our people.
Franklin D. Roosevelt

A reactionary is a somnambulist walking backwards.
Franklin D. Roosevelt

Are you laboring under the impression that I read these memoranda of yours? I can't even lift them.
Franklin D. Roosevelt

Art is not a treasure in the past or an importation from another land, but part of the present life of all living and creating peoples.
Franklin D. Roosevelt

Be sincere; be brief; be seated.
Franklin D. Roosevelt

But while they prate of economic laws, men and women are starving. We must lay hold of the fact that economic laws are not made by nature. They are made by human beings.
Franklin D. Roosevelt

Competition has been shown to be useful up to a certain point and no further, but cooperation, which is the thing we must strive for today, begins where competition leaves off.
Franklin D. Roosevelt

Confidence... thrives on honesty, on honor, on the sacredness of obligations, on faithful protection and on unselfish performance. Without them it cannot live.
Franklin D. Roosevelt

Democracy cannot succeed unless those who express their choice are prepared to choose wisely. The real safeguard of democracy, therefore, is education.
Franklin D. Roosevelt

Don't forget what I discovered that over ninety percent of all national deficits from 1921 to 1939 were caused by payments for past, present, and future wars.
Franklin D. Roosevelt

Favor comes because for a brief moment in the great space of human change and progress some general human purpose finds in him a satisfactory embodiment.
Franklin D. Roosevelt

Happiness lies in the joy of achievement and the thrill of creative effort.
Franklin D. Roosevelt

Here is my principle: Taxes shall be levied according to ability to pay. That is the only American principle.
Franklin D. Roosevelt

Human kindness has never weakened the stamina or softened the fiber of a free people. A nation does not have to be cruel to be tough.
Franklin D. Roosevelt

I am a Christian and a Democrat, that's all.
Franklin D. Roosevelt

I am neither bitter nor cynical but I do wish there was less immaturity in political thinking.
Franklin D. Roosevelt

I ask you to judge me by the enemies I have made.
Franklin D. Roosevelt

I believe that in every country the people themselves are more peaceably and liberally inclined than their governments.
Franklin D. Roosevelt

I do not look upon these United States as a finished product. We are still in the making.
Franklin D. Roosevelt

I pledge you, I pledge myself, to a new deal for the American people.
Franklin D. Roosevelt

I think we consider too much the good luck of the early bird and not enough the bad luck of the early worm.
Franklin D. Roosevelt

I'm not the smartest fellow in the world, but I can sure pick smart colleagues.
Franklin D. Roosevelt

If civilization is to survive, we must cultivate the science of human relationships - the ability of all peoples, of all kinds, to live together, in the same world at peace.
Franklin D. Roosevelt

If I went to work in a factory the first thing I'd do is join a union.
Franklin D. Roosevelt

If we can boondoggle ourselves out of this depression, that word is going to be enshrined in the hearts of the American people for years to come.
Franklin D. Roosevelt

If you treat people right they will treat you right... ninety percent of the time.
Franklin D. Roosevelt

In our personal ambitions we are individualists. But in our seeking for economic and political progress as a nation, we all go up or else all go down as one people.
Franklin D. Roosevelt

In our seeking for economic and political progress, we all go up - or else we all go down.
Franklin D. Roosevelt

In politics, nothing happens by accident. If it happens, you can bet it was planned that way.
Franklin D. Roosevelt

It is an unfortunate human failing that a full pocketbook often groans more loudly than an empty stomach.
Franklin D. Roosevelt

It is common sense to take a method and try it. If it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something.
Franklin D. Roosevelt

It is fun to be in the same decade with you.
Franklin D. Roosevelt

It is the duty of the President to propose and it is the privilege of the Congress to dispose.
Franklin D. Roosevelt

It isn't sufficient just to want - you've got to ask yourself what you are going to do to get the things you want.
Franklin D. Roosevelt

It takes a long time to bring the past up to the present.
Franklin D. Roosevelt

Let us never forget that government is ourselves and not an alien power over us. The ultimate rulers of our democracy are not a President and senators and congressmen and government officials, but the voters of this country.
Franklin D. Roosevelt

Men are not prisoners of fate, but only prisoners of their own minds.
Franklin D. Roosevelt

More than an end to war, we want an end to the beginning of all wars - yes, an end to this brutal, inhuman and thoroughly impractical method of settling the differences between governments.
Franklin D. Roosevelt

No government can help the destinies of people who insist in putting sectional and class consciousness ahead of general weal.
Franklin D. Roosevelt

No group and no government can properly prescribe precisely what should constitute the body of knowledge with which true education is concerned.
Franklin D. Roosevelt

Nobody will ever deprive the American people of the right to vote except the American people themselves and the only way they could do this is by not voting.
Franklin D. Roosevelt

Not only our future economic soundness but the very soundness of our democratic institutions depends on the determination of our government to give employment to idle men.
Franklin D. Roosevelt

One thing is sure. We have to do something. We have to do the best we know how at the moment... If it doesn't turn out right, we can modify it as we go along.
Franklin D. Roosevelt

Our national determination to keep free of foreign wars and foreign entanglements cannot prevent us from feeling deep concern when ideals and principles that we have cherished are challenged.
Franklin D. Roosevelt

Physical strength can never permanently withstand the impact of spiritual force.
Franklin D. Roosevelt

Prosperous farmers mean more employment, more prosperity for the workers and the business men of every industrial area in the whole country.
Franklin D. Roosevelt

Put two or three men in positions of conflicting authority. This will force them to work at loggerheads, allowing you to be the ultimate arbiter.
Franklin D. Roosevelt

Remember you are just an extra in everyone else's play.
Franklin D. Roosevelt

Rules are not necessarily sacred, principles are.
Franklin D. Roosevelt

Self-interest is the enemy of all true affection.
Franklin D. Roosevelt

Selfishness is the only real atheism; aspiration, unselfishness, the only real religion.
Franklin D. Roosevelt

Somoza may be a son of a bitch, but he's our son of a bitch.
Franklin D. Roosevelt

Take a method and try it. If it fails, admit it frankly, and try another. But by all means, try something.
Franklin D. Roosevelt

The nation that destroys its soil destroys itself.
Franklin D. Roosevelt

The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today.
Franklin D. Roosevelt

The only sure bulwark of continuing liberty is a government strong enough to protect the interests of the people, and a people strong enough and well enough informed to maintain its sovereign control over the goverment.
Franklin D. Roosevelt

The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.
Franklin D. Roosevelt

The overwhelming majority of Americans are possessed of two great qualities a sense of humor and a sense of proportion.
Franklin D. Roosevelt

The point in history at which we stand is full of promise and danger. The world will either move forward toward unity and widely shared prosperity - or it will move apart.
Franklin D. Roosevelt

The school is the last expenditure upon which America should be willing to economize.
Franklin D. Roosevelt

The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much it is whether we provide enough for those who have little.
Franklin D. Roosevelt

The truth is found when men are free to pursue it.
Franklin D. Roosevelt

The United States Constitution has proved itself the most marvelously elastic compilation of rules of government ever written.
Franklin D. Roosevelt

The virtues are lost in self-interest as rivers are lost in the sea.
Franklin D. Roosevelt

There are as many opinions as there are experts.
Franklin D. Roosevelt

There are many ways of going forward, but only one way of standing still.
Franklin D. Roosevelt

There is a mysterious cycle in human events. To some generations much is given. Of other generations much is expected. This generation of Americans has a rendezvous with destiny.
Franklin D. Roosevelt

There is nothing I love as much as a good fight.
Franklin D. Roosevelt

This generation of Americans has a rendezvous with destiny.
Franklin D. Roosevelt

Those newspapers of the nation which most loudly cried dictatorship against me would have been the first to justify the beginnings of dictatorship by somebody else.
Franklin D. Roosevelt

To reach a port, we must sail - sail, not tie at anchor - sail, not drift.
Franklin D. Roosevelt

True individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence. People who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made.
Franklin D. Roosevelt

War is a contagion.
Franklin D. Roosevelt

We are trying to construct a more inclusive society. We are going to make a country in which no one is left out.
Franklin D. Roosevelt

We continue to recognize the greater ability of some to earn more than others. But we do assert that the ambition of the individual to obtain for him a proper security is an ambition to be preferred to the appetite for great wealth and great power.
Franklin D. Roosevelt

We have always held to the hope, the belief, the conviction that there is a better life, a better world, beyond the horizon.
Franklin D. Roosevelt

We must lay hold of the fact that economic laws are not made by nature. They are made by human beings.
Franklin D. Roosevelt

When you get to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on.
Franklin D. Roosevelt

When you see a rattlesnake poised to strike, you do not wait until he has struck to crush him.
Franklin D. Roosevelt

Whoever seeks to set one religion against another seeks to destroy all religion.
Franklin D. Roosevelt

Yesterday, December seventh, 1941, a date which will live in infamy, the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan.
Franklin D. Roosevelt