Politics is a profession; a serious, complicated and, in its true sense, a noble one.
The purpose is clear. It is safety with solvency. The country is entitled to both.
When you put on a uniform, there are certain inhibitions that you accept.
Oh, that lovely title, ex-president.
There is no person in this room whose basic rights are not involved in any successful defiance to the carrying out of court orders.
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.