Quotes by Dwight D. Eisenhower

"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."

"Our real problem, then, is not our strength today; it is rather the vital necessity of action today to ensure our strength tomorrow."

"Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history."

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

"Some people wanted champagne and caviar when they should have had beer and hot dogs."

"There is no glory in battle worth the blood it costs."

"In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable."

"When you put on a uniform, there are certain inhibitions that you accept."

"Plans are nothing; planning is everything."

"The older I get the more wisdom I find in the ancient rule of taking first things first. A process which often reduces the most complex human problem to a manageable proportion."

"War settles nothing."

"In most communities it is illegal to cry 'fire' in a crowded assembly. Should it not be considered serious international misconduct to manufacture a general war scare in an effort to achieve local political aims?"

"I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity."

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

"Our real problem, then, is not our strength today it is rather the vital necessity of action today to ensure our strength tomorrow."

"Only strength can cooperate. Weakness can only beg."

"The spirit of man is more important than mere physical strength, and the spiritual fiber of a nation than its wealth."

"A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both."

"Politics is a profession a serious, complicated and, in its true sense, a noble one."

"When you are in any contest, you should work as if there were - to the very last minute - a chance to lose it. This is battle, this is politics, this is anything."