President · American · 1890 – 1969 · 101 quotes
The problem in defense is how far you can go without destroying from within what you are trying to defend from without.
Dwight D. Eisenhower
President · American · 1890 – 1969
Things have never been more like the way they are today in history.
Ankles are nearly always neat and good-looking, but knees are nearly always not.
It is far more important to be able to hit the target than it is to haggle over who makes a weapon or who pulls a trigger.
In the final choice a soldier's pack is not so heavy as a prisoner's chains.
May we never confuse honest dissent with disloyal subversion.
No one should ever sit in this office over 70 years old, and that I know.
When you put on a uniform, there are certain inhibitions that you accept.
A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both.
I can think of nothing more boring for the American people than to have to sit in their living rooms for a whole half hour looking at my face on their television screens.
You have a row of dominoes set up; you knock over the first one, and what will happen to the last one is that it will go over very quickly.
From behind the Iron Curtain, there are signs that tyranny is in trouble and reminders that its structure is as brittle as its surface is hard.
Only strength can cooperate. Weakness can only beg.
'Worry' is a word that I don't allow myself to use.
Things are more like they are now than they ever were before.
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.
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.
Our pleasures were simple - they included survival.
There is no victory at bargain basement prices.
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.
I shall make that trip. I shall go to Korea.
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.
Plans are nothing; planning is everything.
If a problem cannot be solved, enlarge it.
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.
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.
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.
Only Americans can hurt America.
Oh, that lovely title, ex-president.
Pessimism never won any battle.
The sergeant is the Army.
I'm saving that rocker for the day when I feel as old as I really am.
Some years ago I became president of Columbia University and learned within 24 hours to be ready to speak at the drop of a hat, and I learned something more, the trustees were expected to be ready to speak at the passing of the hat.
War settles nothing.
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.
I would rather try to persuade a man to go along, because once I have persuaded him, he will stick. If I scare him, he will stay just as long as he is scared, and then he is gone.
I feel impelled to speak today in a language that in a sense is new-one which I, who have spent so much of my life in the military profession, would have preferred never to use. That new language is the language of atomic warfare.
The United States strongly seeks a lasting agreement for the discontinuance of nuclear weapons tests. We believe that this would be an important step toward reduction of international tensions and would open the way to further agreement on substantial measures of disarmament.
