Tuesday, July 17, 2007

Presidents on Politics – Woodrow Wilson part I

America is not anything if it consists of each of us. It is something only if it consists of all of us.

America was established not to create wealth but to realize a vision, to realize an ideal - to discover and maintain liberty among men.

Democracy is not so much a form of government as a set of principles.

Every man who takes office in Washington either grows or swells, and when I give a man an office, I watch him carefully to see whether he is growing or swelling.

Never attempt to murder a man who is committing suicide.

Generally young men are regarded as radicals. This is a popular misconception. The most conservative persons I ever met are college undergraduates. The radicals are the men past middle life.

There are blessed intervals when I forget by one means or another that I am President of the United States.

If you think too much about being re-elected, it is very difficult to be worth re-electing.

If you want to make enemies, try to change something.

Interest does not tie nations together; it sometimes separates them. But sympathy and understanding does unite them.

My dream of politics all my life has been that it is the common business, that it is something we owe to each other to understand and discuss with absolute frankness.

Property as compared with humanity, as compared with the red blood in the American people, must take second place, not first place.

Prosperity is necessarily the first theme of a political campaign.

Sometimes people call me an idealist. Well, that is the way I know I am an American. America is the only idealistic nation in the world.

The awakening of the people of China to the possibilities under free government is the most significant, if not the most momentous, event of our generation.

The ear of the leader must ring with the voices of the people.

The history of liberty is a history of resistance.

The world must be made safe for democracy. Its peace must be planted upon the tested foundations of political liberty.

That a peasant may become king does not render the kingdom democratic.
The American Revolution was a beginning, not a consummation.

No comments: