Pessimism never won any battle. ... by Dwight D. Eisenhower

Pessimism never won any battle. ...
by Dwight D. Eisenhower

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.
- Dwight D. Eisenhower

Things have never been more like the way they are today in history.
- Dwight D. Eisenhower

An intellectual is a man
who takes more words than necessary
to tell more than he knows.
- Dwight D. Eisenhower

How far you can go without destroying from within
what you are trying to defend from without?
- Dwight D. Eisenhower

There's no tragedy in life like the death of a child.
Things never get back to the way they were.
- Dwight D. Eisenhower

The world moves, and ideas that were
once good are not always good.
- Dwight D. Eisenhower

Well, when you come down to it,
I don't see that a reporter could do much to a president, do you?
- Dwight D. Eisenhower

The older I get, the more wisdom I find
in the ancient rule of taking first things first.
A process which often reduces
the most complex human problem to a manageable proportion.
- Dwight D. Eisenhower

I think that people want peace so much
that one of these days government had better
get out of their way and let them have it.
- Dwight D. Eisenhower

The people of the world genuinely want peace.
Some day the leaders of the world are going to
have to give in and give it to them.
- Dwight D. Eisenhower

I deplore the need or the use of troops anywhere
to get American citizens to obey
the orders of constituted courts.
- Dwight D. Eisenhower

You don't lead by hitting people over the head -
that's assault, not leadership.
- Dwight D. Eisenhower

Pull the string, and it will follow wherever you wish.
Push it, and it will go nowhere at all.
- Dwight D. Eisenhower

Though force can protect in emergency,
only justice, fairness, consideration and cooperation
can finally lead men to the dawn of eternal peace.
- Dwight D. Eisenhower

When you are in any contest,
you should work as if there were -
to the very last minute - a chance to lose it.
This is battle, this is politics, this is anything.
- Dwight D. Eisenhower

Any man who wants to be president
is either an egomaniac or crazy.
- Dwight D. Eisenhower

Our forces saved the remnants of the Jewish people of Europe
for a new life and a new hope in the reborn land of Israel.
Along with all men of good will,
I salute the young state and wish it well.
- Dwight D. Eisenhower

The best morale exist when you never hear the word mentioned.
When you hear a lot of talk about it, it's usually lousy.
- Dwight D. Eisenhower

The purpose is clear. It is safety with solvency.
The country is entitled to both.
- Dwight D. Eisenhower {political}

The clearest way to show what the rule of law
means to us in everyday life
is to recall what has happened when there is no rule of law.
- Dwight D. Eisenhower

Things are more like they are now than they ever were before.
- Dwight D. Eisenhower

I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can,
only as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity.
- Dwight D. Eisenhower

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.
We must never let the weight of this combination
endanger our liberties or democratic processes.
We should take nothing for granted.
- Dwight D. Eisenhower in his Farewell Address of January, 17 1961

In preparing for battle I have always found that
plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.
- Dwight D. Eisenhower

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.
- Dwight D. Eisenhower

It is far more important to be able to hit the target
than it is to haggle over who makes a weapon or who pulls a trigger.
- Dwight D. Eisenhower

Disarmament, with mutual honor and confidence,
is a continuing imperative.
- Dwight D. Eisenhower

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.
- Dwight D. Eisenhower

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.
- Dwight D. Eisenhower

The free world must not prove itself worthy of its own past.
- Dwight D. Eisenhower

Some people wanted champagne and caviar
when they should have had beer and hot dogs.
- Dwight D. Eisenhower

Humility must always be the portion of any man
who receives acclaim earned in the blood of his followers
and the sacrifices of his friends.
- Dwight D. Eisenhower

The supreme quality for leadership is unquestionably integrity.
Without it, no real success is possible,
no matter whether it is on a section gang,
a football field, in an army, or in an office.
- Dwight D. Eisenhower

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

The problem in defense is
how far you can go without destroying from within
what you are trying to defend from without.
- Dwight D. Eisenhower

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

This world of ours... must avoid becoming
a community of dreadful fear and hate,
and be, instead, a proud confederation of mutual trust and respect.
- Dwight D. Eisenhower

I can think of nothing more boring for the American people
than to have to sit in their living rooms for a whole half hour
looking at my face on their television screens.
- Dwight D. Eisenhower

Neither a wise man nor a brave man lies down
on the tracks of history
to wait for the train of the future to run over him.
- Dwight D. Eisenhower

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.
- Dwight D. Eisenhower

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired,
signifies in the final sense
a theft from those who hunger and are not fed,
those who are cold and are not clothed.
- Dwight D. Eisenhower

When you put on a uniform,
there are certain inhibitions that you accept.
- Dwight D. Eisenhower

In most communities it is illegal
to cry "fire" in a crowded assembly.
Should it not be considered serious international misconduct
to manufacture a general war scare
in an effort to achieve local political aims?
- Dwight D. Eisenhower

In the final choice, a soldier's pack
is not so heavy as a prisoner's chains.
- Dwight D. Eisenhower

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

I would rather try to persuade a man to go along,
because once I have persuaded him, he will stick.
If I scare him, he will stay just as long
as he is scared, and then he is gone.
- Dwight D. Eisenhower

The United States strongly seeks a lasting agreement
for the discontinuance of nuclear weapons tests.
We believe that this would be an important step toward reduction
of international tensions and would open the way
to further agreement on substantial measures of disarmament.
- Dwight D. Eisenhower

We will bankrupt ourselves in
the vain search for absolute security.
- 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.
- Dwight D. Eisenhower

There is no person in this room whose basic rights
are not involved in any successful defiance
to the carrying out of court orders.
- Dwight D. Eisenhower

If men can develop weapons that are so terrifying
as to make the thought of global war
include almost a sentence for suicide,
you would think that man's intelligence and his comprehension...
would include also his ability to find a peaceful solution.
- Dwight D. Eisenhower

The most terrible job in warfare is to be a second lieutenant
leading a platoon when you are on the battlefield.
- Dwight D. Eisenhower

You have a row of dominoes set up;
you knock over the first one,
and what will happen to the last one
is that it will go over very quickly.
- Dwight D. Eisenhower

Unlike presidential administrations,
problems rarely have terminal dates.
- Dwight D. Eisenhower

Together we must learn how to compose differences,
not with arms, but with intellect and decent purpose.
- Dwight D. Eisenhower

When people speak to you about a preventive war,
you tell them to go fight it.
After my experience, I have come to hate war.
War settles nothing.
- Dwight D. Eisenhower

From behind the Iron Curtain, there are signs that tyranny
is in trouble and reminders that its structure
is as brittle as its surface is hard.
- Dwight D. Eisenhower

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Pessimism never won any battle. ...by Dwight D. Eisenhower

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Pessimism never won any battle. ...
by Dwight D. Eisenhower