Quotes By Dwight D. Eisenhower

We are tired of aristocratic explanations in Harvard words.

Oh, that lovely title, ex-president.

The history of free men is never really written by chance but by choice; their choice!

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

Don't join the book burners. Do not think you are going to conceal thoughts by concealing evidence that they ever existed.

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

I'm saving that rocker for the day when I feel as old as I really am.

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.

Farming looks mighty easy when your plow is a pencil and you're a thousand miles from the corn field.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

There is no glory in battle worth the blood it costs.

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.

How far you can go without destroying from within what you are trying to defend from without?

What counts is not necessarily the size of the dog in the fight - it's the size of the fight in the dog.

Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it.

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.

If a problem cannot be solved, enlarge it.

Only Americans can hurt America.

Our pleasures were simple - they included survival.

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.

Some people wanted champagne and caviar when they should have had beer and hot dogs.

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.

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?

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

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.