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.
The world could be fixed of its problems if every child understood the necessity of their existence.
Preventive war was an invention of Hitler. I would not even listen to anyone seriously that came and talked about such a thing.
The supreme belief of our society is the dignity and freedom of the individual. To the respect of that dignity, to the defense of that freedom, all effort is pledged.
Kinship among nations is not determined in such measurements as proximity of size and age. Rather we should turn to those inner things – call them what you will – I mean those intangibles that are the real treasures free men possess.
Knowledge-full, unfettered knowledge of its own heritage, of freedom’s enemies, of the whole world of men and ideas-this knowledge is a free people’s surest strength.
There can be no peace without law.
I despise all adjectives that try to describe people as liberal or conservative, rightist or leftist, as long as they stay in the useful part of the road.
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.
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.
Our pleasures were simple – they included survival.
Unlike presidential administrations, problems rarely have terminal dates.
I shall make that trip. I shall go to Korea.
I thought it completely absurd to mention my name in the same breath as the presidency.
I’m saving that rocker for the day when I feel as old as I really am.
No one should ever sit in this office over 70 years old, and that I know.
The free world must not prove itself worthy of its own past.
Well, when you come down to it, I don’t see that a reporter could do much to a president, do you?
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.
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.