Quotes By Woodrow Wilson

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

Neutrality is a negative word. It does not express what America ought to feel. We are not trying to keep out of trouble; we are trying to preserve the foundations on which peace may be rebuilt.

I not only use all the brains that I have, but all that I can borrow.

What we seek is the reign of law, based upon the consent of the governed and sustained by the organized opinion of mankind.

The world is not looking for servants, there are plenty of these, but for masters, men who form their purposes and then carry them out, let the consequences be what they may.

It is like writing history with lightning and my only regret is that it is all so terribly true.

I will not speak with disrespect of the Republican Party. I always speak with respect of the past.

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

America lives in the heart of every man everywhere who wishes to find a region where he will be free to work out his destiny as he chooses.

A conservative is a man who just sits and thinks, mostly sits.

I would rather belong to a poor nation that was free than to a rich nation that had ceased to be in love with liberty.

At every crisis in one's life, it is absolute salvation to have some sympathetic friend to whom you can think aloud without restraint or misgiving.

The only use of an obstacle is to be overcome. All that an obstacle does with brave men is, not to frighten them, but to challenge them.

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

Tell me what is right and I will fight for it.

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 seed of revolution is repression.

I would rather lose in a cause that will some day win, than win in a cause that will some day lose.

Politics I conceive to be nothing more than the science of the ordered progress of society along the lines of greatest usefulness and convenience to itself.

The question of armaments, whether on land or sea, is the most immediately and intensely practical question connected with the future fortunes of nations and of mankind.

If a dog will not come to you after having looked you in the face, you should go home and examine your conscience.

Absolute identity with one's cause is the first and great condition of successful leadership.

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

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.

There is little for the great part of the history of the world except the bitter tears of pity and the hot tears of wrath.

Never attempt to murder a man who is committing suicide.

You cannot, in human experience, rush into the light. You have to go through the twilight into the broadening day before the noon comes and the full sun is upon the landscape.

There is no higher religion than human service. To work for the common good is the greatest creed.

Liberty has never come from Government. Liberty has always come from the subjects of it. The history of liberty is a history of limitations of governmental power, not the increase of it.

By 'radical,' I understand one who goes too far; by 'conservative,' one who does not go far enough; by 'reactionary,' one who won't go at all.