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Dwight D. Eisenhower Quotes

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We the people, elect leaders not to rule but to serve

We the people, elect leaders not to rule but to serve

Dwight D. Eisenhower
People, Leader
First Inaugural Address, delivered 20 January 1953

Never let yourself be persuaded that any one Great Man, any one leader, is necessary to the salvation of America. When America consists of one leader and 158 million followers, it will no longer be America.

Dwight D. Eisenhower
Men, America, Leader

If a political party does not have its foundation in the determination to advance a cause that is right and that is moral, then it is not a political party; it is merely a conspiracy to seize power.

Dwight D. Eisenhower
Determination, Party, Political
Eisenhower, Dwight D (1958). “Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1956”, p.281, Best Books on

Teachers need our active support and encouragement. They are doing one of the most necessary and exacting jobs in the land. They are developing our most precious national resource: our children, our future citizens.

Dwight D. Eisenhower
Teacher, Encouragement, Jobs

Leadership consists of nothing but taking responsibility for everything that goes wrong and giving your subordinates credit for everything that goes well.

Dwight D. Eisenhower
Responsibility, Giving, Credit
"Nineteen Stars: A Study in Military Character and Leadership". Book by Edgar F. Puryear Jr., p. 289, 1971.

For every obstacle there is a solution. Persistence is the key. The greatest mistake is giving up!

Dwight D. Eisenhower
Inspiring, Giving Up, Mistake

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. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the clouds of war, it is humanity hanging on a cross of iron.

Dwight D. Eisenhower
Peace, Children, Military
Speech in Washington, 16 Apr. 1953, in Public Papers of Presidents 1953 (1960) p. 182

No one should ever sit in this office over 70 years old, and that I know.

Dwight D. Eisenhower
Years, Office, Should

The supreme quality of leadership is integrity.

Dwight D. Eisenhower
Leadership, Integrity, Vision

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. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.

Dwight D. Eisenhower
Military, Farewell, Government
Farewell radio and television address to the American people, 17 Jan. 1961

The only way to win World War III is to prevent it.

Dwight D. Eisenhower
War, Winning, World

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

Dwight D. Eisenhower
Success, Witty, Memorial Day
First Inaugural Address, delivered 20 January 1953

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.

Dwight D. Eisenhower
Freedom, Patriotic, Vaccines

The middle of the road is all of the usable surface. The extremes, right and left, are in the gutters.

Dwight D. Eisenhower
Gutters, Compromise, Resolution

Some day there is going to be a man sitting in my present chair who has not been raised in the military services and who will have little understanding of where slashes in their estimates can be made with little or no damage. If that should happen while we still have the state of tension that now exists in the world, I shudder to think of what could happen in this country

Dwight D. Eisenhower
Country, Military, Men
Letter to Everett E. ("Swede") Hazlett, as quoted in "Eisenhower the President" (1981) by William Bragg Ewald, Jr., p. 248, August 20, 1956.

The qualities of a great man are vision, integrity, courage, understanding, the power of articulation, and profundity of character.

Dwight D. Eisenhower
Integrity, Character, Men

Any man who wants to be president is either an egomaniac or crazy.

Dwight D. Eisenhower
Life, Crazy, Military

Plans are nothing; planning is everything.

Dwight D. Eisenhower
Inspiring, Military, Statistics

Beware the military-industrial complex.

Dwight D. Eisenhower
Military, Sirius, Military Industrial Complex

Our American heritage is threatened as much by our own indifference as it is by the most unscrupulous office or by the most powerful foreign threat. The future of this republic is in the hands of the American voter.

Dwight D. Eisenhower
Powerful, Hands, Office

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. There is a tiny splinter group of course that believes you can do these things. Among them are a few other Texas oil millionaires and an occasional politician or business man from other areas. Their number is negligible and they are stupid.

Dwight D. Eisenhower
Stupid, Party, Believe
Letter to Edgar Newton Eisenhower, teachingamericanhistory.org. November 08, 1954.

If our founding fathers were alive today, they'd roll over in their graves.

Dwight D. Eisenhower
Father, Live For Today, Alive

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.

Dwight D. Eisenhower
Patriotic, Men, America
Speech at Columbia University's bicentennial on May 31, 1954. "Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Dwight D. Eisenhower". Book by Dwight D. Eisenhower, p. 524, 1961.

Inflation is not a Robin Hood, taking from the rich to give to the poor. Rather, it deals most cruelly with those who can least protect themselves. It strikes hardest those millions of our citizens whose incomes do not quickly rise with the cost of living. When prices soar, the pensioner and the widow see their security undermined, the man of thrift sees his savings melt away; the white collar worker, the minister, and the teacher see their standards of living dragged down.

Dwight D. Eisenhower
Teacher, Men, White

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

Dwight D. Eisenhower
Veterans Day, Freedom, Military
1953 Inaugural address, 20 Jan.