"As the sword was the last resort for the preservation of
our liberties, so it ought to be the first laid aside when
those liberties are firmly established." --General George
Washington
"Modesty is a virtue that can never thrive in public...A
man must be his own trumpeter...he must get his picture drawn,
his statue made, and must hire all the artists in his turn, to
set about works to spread his name, make the mob stare and
gape, and perpetuate his fame." --John Adams
"Education...engrafts a new man on the native stock, and
improves what in his nature was vicious and perverse into
qualities of virtue and social worth..."--Thomas
Jefferson
"A popular Government without popular information, or the
means of acquiring it, is but a prologue to a farce or a
tragedy; or, perhaps both. Knowledge will forever govern
ignorance; and a people who mean to be their own Governors,
must arm themselves with the power which knowledge
gives." --James Madison
"The earth was given to mankind to support the greatest
number of which it is capable, and no tribe or people have a
right to withhold from the wants of others more than is
necessary for their own support and comfort." --James
Monroe
"Individual liberty is individual power, and as the power
of a community is a mass compounded of individual powers, the
nation which enjoys the most freedom must necessarily be in
proportion to its numbers the most powerful nation..."
--John Quincy Adams
"I...believe...that just laws can make no distinction of
privilege between the rich and the poor, and that when men of
high standing attempt to trample upon the rights of the weak,
they are the fittest objects for example and punishment. In
general, the great can protect themselves, but the poor and
humble require the arm and shield of the law." --General
Andrew Jackson
"There is a power in public opinion in this country--and
I thank God for it: for it is the most honest and best of all
powers--which will not tolerate an incompetent or unworthy man
to hold in his weak or wicked hands the lives and fortunes of
his fellow citizens." --Martin Van Buren
"I wish you to understand the true principles of
government. I wish them carried out. I ask nothing more."
--last words of General William Henry Harrison
"Patronage is the sword and cannon by which war may be
made on the liberty of the human race...Give the president
control over the purse--the power to place the immense
revenues of the country into any hands he may please, and I
care not what you call him, he is 'every inch a king.'"
--John Tyler
"Public opinion: May it always perform one of its
appropriate offices, by teaching the public functionaries of
the State and of the Federal Government that neither shall
assume the exercise of powers entrusted by the Constitution to
the other." --James K. Polk
"For more than half a century, during which kingdoms and
empires have fallen, this Union has stood unshaken. The
patriots who formed it have long since descended to the grave;
yet it still remains the proudest monument to their
memory...In my judgment, its dissolution would be the greatest
of calamities." --General Zachary Taylor
"The government of the United States is a limited
government. It is confined to the exercise of powers expressly
granted, and such others as may be necessary for carrying
those powers into effect; and it is at all times an especial
duty to guard against any infringement on the just rights of
the States." --Millard Fillmore
"We have to maintain inviolate the great doctrine of the
inherent right of popular self-government;...to render
cheerful obedience to the laws of the land, to unite in
enforcing their execution, and to frown indignantly on all
combinations to resist them..." --General Franklin Pierce
"I believe [slavery] to be a great political and a great
moral evil. I thank God, my lot has been cast in a State where
it does not exist. But, while I entertain my opinions, I know
it is an evil at present without a remedy...one of those moral
evils, from which it is impossible for us to escape, without
the introduction of evils much greater." --James Buchanan
"You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all
of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the
people all of the time." --Abraham Lincoln
"There are some who lack confidence in the integrity and
capacity of the people to govern themselves. To all who
entertain such fears I will most respectfully say that I
entertain none...If man is not capable, and is not to be
trusted with the government of himself, is he to be trusted
with the government of others...Who, then, will govern?"
--Andrew Johnson
"It was my fortune, or misfortune, to be called to the
office of Chief Executive without any previous political
training...Mistakes have been made, as all can see and I
admit, but it seems to me oftener in the selections made of
the assistants appointed to aid in carrying out the various
duties of administering the Government." --General
Ulysses S. Grant, responding to scandals that plagued his
second term
"There can be no complete and permanent reform of the
civil service until public opinion emancipates Congressmen
from all control and influence over government
patronage." --Rutherford B. Hayes
"I would rather believe something and suffer for it, than
to slide along into success without opinions." --James A.
Garfield
"Men may die, but the fabrics of our free institutions
remain unshaken. No higher or more assuring proof could exist
of the strength and permanence of popular government than the
fact that though the chosen of the people be struck down his
constitutional successor is peacefully installed without shock
or strain except the sorrow which mourns the
bereavement." --Chester A. Arthur, on his predecessor
James Garfield's assassination
"Every thoughtful and patriotic man has, at times, been
disappointed by the apparent indifference and demoralization
of the people." --Grover Cleveland, on the politics of
the Gilded Age
"The indiscriminate denunciation of the rich is
mischievous...It is quite as illogical to despise a man
because his rich as because he is poor. Not what a man has,
but what he is, settles his class." --Benjamin Harrison
"Unlike any other nation, here the people rule, and their
will is the supreme law. It is sometimes sneeringly said by
those who do not like free government that here we count
heads. True, heads are counted, but brains also. And the
general sense of 63 millions of free people is better and
safer than the sense of any favored few, born to nobility and
ruling by inheritance." --William McKinley
"To announce that there must be no criticism of the
President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or
wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally
treasonable to the American public." --Theodore Roosevelt
"I have come to the conclusion that the major part of the
President is to increase the gate receipts of expositions and
fairs and bring tourists into the town." --William Howard
Taft, dryly observing the role of President
"It is not men that interest or disturb me primarily; it
is ideas. Ideas live; men die." --Woodrow Wilson
"My God, this is a hell of a job! I have no trouble with
my enemies...But my damn friends, they're the ones that keep
me walking the floor nights." --Warren G. Harding
"Four-fifths of all our troubles in this life would
disappear if we would only sit down and keep still."
--Calvin Coolidge
"True Liberalism is found not in striving to spread
bureaucracy but in striving to set bounds by it."
--Herbert Hoover
"A radical is a man with both feet firmly planted--in the
air. A conservative is a man with two perfectly good legs who,
however, has never learned to walk forward. A reactionary is a
somnambulist walking backwards. A liberal is a man who uses
his legs and his hands at the behest of his head."
--Franklin Delano Roosevelt
"Within the first few months, I discovered being
President is like riding a tiger. A man has to keep riding or
be swallowed." --Harry S. Truman
"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." --General Dwight D. Eisenhower
"It should be clear by now that a nation can be no
stronger abroad that she is at home. Only an America which
practices what it preaches about equal rights and social
justice will be respected by those whose choice affects our
future." --John F. Kennedy
"I do not want to be the President who built empires, or
sought grandeur, or extended dominion. I want to be the
President who educated young children to the wonders of their
world...who helped to feed the hungry and to prepare them to
be taxpayers instead of tax-eaters...who helped the poor to
find their own way and who protected the right of every
citizen to vote in every election...who helped to end hatred
among his fellow men and who promoted love among the people of
all races and all regions and all parties...who helped to end
war among the brothers of this earth." --Lyndon Baines
Johnson
"A man who has never lost himself in a cause bigger than
himself has missed one of life's mountaintop experiences. Only
in losing himself does he find himself. Only then does he
discover all the latent strengths he never knew he had and
which would otherwise have remained dormant." --Richard
M. Nixon
"I believe that truth is the glue that holds government
together, not only our government but civilization itself.
That bond, though strained, is unbroken at home and
abroad." --Gerald R. Ford
"Confidence has defined our course [as a nation] and has
served as the link between generations. We've always believed
in something called progress. We've always had a faith that
the days of our children would be better than our own. Our
people are losing the faith...not only in government itself
but in the ability as citizens to serve as the ultimate rulers
and shapers of our democracy." --Jimmy Carter
"What I'd really like to do is to go down in history as
the President who made Americans believe in themselves
again." --Ronald Reagan
"The surest way to win the war against poverty is to win
the battle against ignorance." --George H.W. Bush (yes, I
know, I know, but bear with me.)
"Strength and wisdom are not opposing values."
--William Jefferson Clinton
"I believe that the human being and fish can coexist
peacefully." --George W. Bush
Go on, guess. One of these doesn't belong. Which one?
Editing for errors.
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