You can always amend a big plan, but you can never expand a little one. I don’t believe in little plans. I believe in plans big enough to meet a situation which we can’t possibly foresee now.
The responsibility of the great states is to serve, and not to dominate, the world.
About the meanest thing you can say about a man is that he means well.
John Adams and Thomas Jefferson were political enemies, but they became fast friends. And when they passed away on the same day, the last words of one of them was, The country is safe. Jefferson still lives. And the last words of the other was, John Adams will see that things go forward.
We have to get tough with the Russians. They don’t know how to behave. They are like bulls in a china shop. They are only 25 years old. We are over 100 and the British are centuries older. We have got to teach them how to behave.
He’ll sit there are he’ll say “Do this! Do that!” and nothing will happen. Poor Ike – it won’t be a bit like the army.
He wanted to know what assurance we could give the American people that we aren’t getting the tar licked out of us by the North Korean army. It has never happened to us. It won’t happen this time.
We worship money instead of honour.
In periods where there is no leadership, society stands still.
A man who is influenced by the polls or is afraid to make decisions which make him unpopular is not a man to represent the welfare of the country.
I believe that it must be the policy of the United States to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures.
No nation on this globe should be more internationally minded than America because it was built by all nations.
As you get older, you get tired of doing the same things over and over again, so you think Christmas has changed. It hasn’t. It’s you who has changed.
I think there is an immense shortage of Christian charity among so-called Christians.
I have little patience with people who take the Bill of Rights for granted. The Bill of Rights, contained in the first ten amendments to the Constitution, is every American’s guarantee of freedom.
Beware of the guy praying loudest in the amen corner.
I have had enough experience in all my years, and have read enough of the past, to know that advice to grandchildren is usually wasted.
One of the difficulties with all our institutions is the fact that we’ve emphasized the reward instead of the service.
I enjoyed my new position as vice president, but it took me a while to get used to the fact that I no longer had the voting privileges I had enjoyed for 10 years as a senator.
I have to decide Japanese strategy – shall we invade Japan proper or shall we bomb and blockade? That is my hardest decision to date. But I’ll make it when I have all the facts.