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."

"War settles nothing."

"Oh, that lovely title, ex-president."

"The people of the world genuinely want peace. Some day the leaders of the world are going to have to give in and give, it to them."

"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."

"Though force can protect in emergency, only justice, fairness, consideration and cooperation can finally lead men to the dawn of eternal peace."

"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."

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

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

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

"An intellectual is a man who takes more words than necessary to tell more than he knows."

"I have only one yardstick by which I test every major problem - and that yardstick is: Is it good for America?"

"I have one yardstick by which I test every major problem - and that yardstick is: Is it good for America?"

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

"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."

"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."

"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."

"Things have never been more like the way they are today in history."

"The history of free men is never really written by chance but by choice their choice!"

"History does not long entrust the care of freedom to the weak or the timid."

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

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

"When people speak to you about a preventive war, you tell them to go and fight it. After my experience, I have come to hate war."

"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."

"The supreme quality for leadership is unquestionably integrity. Without it, no real success is possible, no matter whether it is on a section gang, a football field, in an army, or in an office."

"The most terrible job in warfare is to be a second lieutenant leading a platoon when you are on the battlefield."

"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."

"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."

"If men can develop weapons that are so terrifying as to make the thought of global war include almost a sentence for suicide, you would think that man's intelligence and his comprehension... would include also his ability to find a peaceful solution."

"I think that people want peace so much that one of these days government had better get out of their way and let them have it."

"Only our individual faith in freedom can keep us free."

"If the United Nations once admits that international disputes can be settled by using force, then we will have destroyed the foundation of the organization and our best hope of establishing a world order."

"Here in America we are descended in blood and in spirit from revolutionists and rebels - men and women who dare to dissent from accepted doctrine. As their heirs, may we never confuse honest dissent with disloyal subversion."

"Neither a wise man nor a brave man lies down on the tracks of history to wait for the train of the future to run over him."

"There are a number of things wrong with Washington. One of them is that everyone is too far from home."

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

"We seek peace, knowing that peace is the climate of freedom."

"If you want total security, go to prison. There you're fed, clothed, given medical care and so on. The only thing lacking... is freedom."

"Motivation is the art of getting people to do what you want them to do because they want to do it."

"Peace and justice are two sides of the same coin."

"The best morale exist when you never hear the word mentioned. When you hear a lot of talk about it, it's usually lousy."

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

"We are going to have peace even if we have to fight for it."

"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."

"Few women, I fear, have had such reason as I have to think the long sad years of youth were worth living for the sake of middle age."

"This world of ours... must avoid becoming a community of dreadful fear and hate, and be, instead, a proud confederation of mutual trust and respect."

"You don't lead by hitting people over the head - that's assault, not leadership."

"Our forces saved the remnants of the Jewish people of Europe for a new life and a new hope in the reborn land of Israel. Along with all men of good will, I salute the young state and wish it well."

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

"Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it."

"There's no tragedy in life like the death of a child. Things never get back to the way they were."

"Plans are nothing; planning is everything."

"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."