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Calvin Coolidge Quotes - Page 2

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You can display no greater wisdom than by resisting proposals for needless legislation. It is much more important to kill bad bills than to pass good ones.

You can display no greater wisdom than by resisting proposals for needless legislation. It is much more important to kill bad bills than to pass good ones.

Calvin Coolidge
Important, Bills, Proposal

No method of procedure has ever been devised by which liberty could be divorced from local self-government. No plan of centralization has ever been adopted which did not result in bureaucracy, tyranny, inflexibility, reaction, and decline.

Calvin Coolidge
Government, Self, Liberty

To live under the American Constitution is the greatest political privilege that was ever accorded to the human race.

Calvin Coolidge
Patriotic, Race, Political
"Ceremonies Mark Constitution Day". The New York Times. Message to the National Security League in honor of Constitution Day, September 17, 1923.

I favor the policy of economy, not because I wish to save money, but because I wish to save people. The men and women of this country who toil are the ones who bear the cost of the Government. Every dollar that we carelessly waste means that their life will be so much the more meager. Every dollar that we save means that their life will be so much the more abundant. Economy is idealism in its most practical form.

Calvin Coolidge
Country, Mean, Men
Presidential Inaugural Address, delivered 4 March 1925

If all men are created equal, that is final. If they are endowed with inalienable rights, that is final. If governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, that is final. No advance, no progress can be made beyond these propositions.

Calvin Coolidge
Men, Rights, Progress
Calvin Coolidge (2001). “The Quotable Calvin Coolidge: Sensible Words for a New Century”, Images from the Past Incorporated

It is much more important to kill bad bills than to pass good ones.

Calvin Coolidge
Government, Libertarian Party, Important
Calvin Coolidge (2001). “The Quotable Calvin Coolidge: Sensible Words for a New Century”, Images from the Past Incorporated

There are always those who are willing to surrender local self-government and turn over their affairs to some national authority in exchange for a payment of money out of the Federal Treasury. Whenever they find some abuse needs correction in their neighborhood, instead of applying the remedy themselves they seek to have a tribunal sent on from Washington to discharge their duties for them, regardless of the fact that in accepting such supervision they are bartering away their freedom.

Calvin Coolidge
Freedom, Self, Government

The people cannot look to legislation generally for success. Industry, thrift, character, are not conferred by act or resolve. Government cannot relieve from toil. It can provide no substitute for the rewards of service. It can, of course, care for the defective and recognize distinguished merit. The normal must care for themselves. Self-government means self-support.

Calvin Coolidge
Character, Mean, Government
Calvin Coolidge (1924). “Calvin Coolidge, His Ideals of Citizenship as Revealed Through His Speeches and Writings”

This country would not be a land of opportunity, America could not be America, if the people were shackled with government monopolies.

Calvin Coolidge
Country, Opportunity, Government

It is difficult for men in high office to avoid the malady of self-delusion. They are always surrounded by worshipers. They are constantly, and for the most part sincerely, assured of their greatness.

Calvin Coolidge
Greatness, Men, Self
"The Autobiography Of Calvin Coolidge". Book by Calvin Coolidge, 1929.

I should be very sorry to see the United States holding anyone in confinement on account of any opinion that that person might hold. It is a fundamental tenet of our institutions that people have a right to believe what they want to believe and hold such opinions as they want to hold without having to answer to anyone for their private opinion.

Calvin Coolidge
Sorry, Believe, People
Ferrell, Calvin Coolidge, Robert H. Ferrell, Howard H. Quint (1979). “TALKATIVE PRESIDENT OFF”, Dissertations-G

One day the President and Mrs. Coolidge were visiting a government farm. Soon after their arrival they were taken off on separate tours. When Mrs. Coolidge passed the chicken pens she paused to ask the man in charge if the rooster copulates more than once each day. "Dozens of times, was the reply." "Please tell that to the President," Mrs. Coolidge requested. When the President passed the pens and was told about the roosters, he asked "Same hen every time?" "Oh no, Mr. President, a different one each time." The President nodded slowly, then said, "Tell that to Mrs. Coolidge."

Calvin Coolidge
Taken, Men, One Day

If the people fail to vote, a government will be developed which is not their government... The whole system of American Government rests on the ballot box. Unless citizens perform their duties there, such a system of government is doomed to failure.

Calvin Coolidge
Government, People, Citizens

If American democracy is to remain the greatest hope of humanity, it must continue abundantly in the faith of the Bible

Calvin Coolidge
Presidential, Humanity, Democracy

We cannot do everything at once, but we can do something at once.

Calvin Coolidge
Time, Ambition, Effort

Our government rests upon religion. It is from that source that we derive our reverance for truth and justice, for equality and liberty, and for the rights of mankind. Unless the people believe in these principles they cannot believe in our government.

Calvin Coolidge
Believe, Rights, Government
Calvin Coolidge (2001). “The Quotable Calvin Coolidge: Sensible Words for a New Century”, Images from the Past Incorporated

I did not see the sense in chasing a little white ball around a field.

Calvin Coolidge
Golf, White, Balls

In its main features the Declaration of Independence is a great spiritual document. It is a declaration not of material but of spiritual conceptions. Equality, liberty, popular sovereignty, the rights of man - these are not elements which we can see and touch. They are ideals. They have their source and their roots in the religious convictions. They belong to the unseen world. Unless the faith of the American people in these religious convictions is to endure, the principles of our Declaration will perish. We can not continue to enjoy the result if we neglect and abandon the cause.

Calvin Coolidge
Spiritual, Religious, Men
Speech on the Occasion of the 150th Anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, July 5, 1926.

A display of reason rather than a threat of force should be the determining factor in the intercourse among nations.

Calvin Coolidge
Reason, Should, Force
Presidential Inaugural Address, delivered 4 March 1925

There is no dignity quite so impressive, and no one independence quite so important, as living within your means.

Calvin Coolidge
Money, Freedom, Mean

Nothing is easier than spending public money. It does not appear to belong to anybody. The temptation is overwhelming to bestow it on somebody.

Calvin Coolidge
Money, Carpe Diem, Government

One of the first lessons a president has to learn is that every word he says weighs a ton.

Calvin Coolidge
President, Lessons, Firsts

We are too solicitous for government intervention, on the theory, first, that the people themselves are helpless, and second, that the Government has superior capacity for action. Often times both of these conclusions are wrong.

Calvin Coolidge
Government, People, Firsts

The best help that benevolence and philanthropy can give is that which induces everybody to help himself.

Calvin Coolidge
Giving, Self Reliance, Helping

When people are bewildered they tend to become credulous.

Calvin Coolidge
People, Gullibility, Bewildered
Calvin Coolidge (1972). “Calvin Coolidge says: dispatches written by former-president Coolidge and syndicated to newspapers in 1930-1931 : gathered for issuance in book form on the one-hundredth anniversary of Mr. Coolidge's birth, 4 July 1972”