Presidents on Politics – Dwight D. Eisenhower

Politics ought to be the part-time profession of every citizen who would protect the rights and privileges of free people and who would preserve what is good and fruitful in our national heritage.

Politics is a profession; a serious, complicated and, in its true sense, a noble one.

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

From this day forward, the millions of our schoolchildren will daily proclaim in every city and town, every village and rural schoolhouse, the dedication of our nation and our people to the Almighty.

I despise people who go to the gutter on either the right or the left and hurl rocks at those in the center.

I have one yardstick by which I test every major problem - and that yardstick is: Is it good for America?


I like to believe that people in the long run are going to do more to promote peace than our governments. Indeed, I think that people want peace so much that one of these days governments had better get out of the way and let them have it.

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.

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

Do not needlessly endanger your lives until I give you the signal.

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.

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.

The spirit of man is more important than mere physical strength, and the spiritual fiber of a nation than its wealth.

There are a number of things wrong with Washington. One of them is that everyone is too far from home.

There is nothing wrong with America that faith, love of freedom, intelligence, and energy of her citizens cannot cure.

Whatever America hopes to bring to pass in the world must first come to pass in the heart of America.

Only our individual faith in freedom can keep us free.

Peace and justice are two sides of the same coin.