Quotes by Presidents - Page 4

He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature, when she made them, like fire, expansible over all space, without lessening their density in any point, and like the air in which we breathe, move, and have our physical being, incapable of confinement or exclusive appropriation.
Thomas Jefferson
Writing is the great invention of the world.
Abraham Lincoln
Those who expect to be both ignorant and free, expect what never was and never will be.
Thomas Jefferson
I steer my bark with hope in my heart leaving fear astern.
Thomas Jefferson
Our progress in degeneracy appears to me to be pretty rapid. As a nation, we began by declaring that 'all men are created equal.' We now practically read it, 'all men are created equal, except negroes.' When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read, 'all men are created equal, except negroes, and foreigners, and Catholics.' When it comes to this I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretense of loving liberty—to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocrisy.
Abraham Lincoln
Advertisements contain the only truth to be relied on in a newspaper.
Thomas Jefferson
Whatever you are, be a good one.
Abraham Lincoln
Always bear in mind that your own resolution to success is more important than any other one thing.
Abraham Lincoln
They (religions) dread the advance of science as witches do the approach of daylight and scowl on the fatal harbinger announcing the subversions of the duperies on which they live.
Thomas Jefferson
As a nation, we began by declaring that 'all men are created equal.' We now practically read it 'all men are created equal, except negroes.' When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read 'all men are created equal, except negroes, and foreigners, and Catholics.' When it comes to this I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretense of loving liberty – to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocrisy.
Abraham Lincoln
No man will ever bring out of the Presidency the reputation which carries him into it.
Thomas Jefferson
Every man wishes to pursue his occupation and to enjoy the fruits of his labours and the produce of his property in peace and safety and with the least possible expense. When these things are accomplished all the objects for which government ought to be established are answered.
Thomas Jefferson
I'm a great believer in luck and I find the harder I work the more I have of it.
Thomas Jefferson
While the people retain their virtue, and vigilance, no administration, by any extreme of wickedness or folly, can very seriously injure the government, in the short space of four years.
Abraham Lincoln
I succeed him no one could replace him.
Thomas Jefferson
Cultivators of the earth are the most valuable citizens. They are the most vigorous, the most independent, the most virtuous, and they are tied to their country and wedded to its liberty and interests by the most lasting bonds.
Thomas Jefferson
The most fortunate of us, in our journey through life, frequently meet with calamities and misfortunes which may greatly afflict us; and, to fortify our minds against the attacks of these calamities and misfortunes should be one of the principal studies and endeavors of our lives. The only method of doing this is to assume a perfect resignation to the Divine will, to consider that whatever does happen, must happen; and that, by our uneasiness, we cannot prevent the blow before it does fall, but we may add to its force after it has fallen. These considerations, and others such as these, may enable us in some measure to surmount the difficulties thrown in our way; to bear up with a tolerable degree of patience under the burden of life; and to proceed with a pious and unshaken resignation, till we arrive at our journey's end.
Thomas Jefferson
The best thing about the future is that it comes only one day at a time.
Abraham Lincoln
Democracy is the government of the people by the people for the people.
Abraham Lincoln
Every citizen should be a soldier. This was the case with the Greeks and Romans, and must be that of every free state.
Thomas Jefferson
Whatever enables us to go to war, secures our peace
Thomas Jefferson
The most valuable of all talents is that of never using two words when one will do.
Thomas Jefferson
The Lord prefers common-looking people. That is why he made so many of them.
Abraham Lincoln
I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty, than those attending too small a degree of it.
Thomas Jefferson
The probable accumulation of the surpluses of revenue beyond what can be applied to the payment of the public debt... merits the consideration of Congress. Shall it lie unproductive in the public vaults?...Or shall it rather be appropriated to the improvements of roads, canals, rivers, education, and other great foundations of prosperity and union
Thomas Jefferson
I am growing old enough not to care much for the MANNER of doing things.
Abraham Lincoln
If a due participation of office is a matter of right how are vacancies to be obtained? Those by death are few by resignation none.
Thomas Jefferson
Don't believe everything you read on the Internet.
Abraham Lincoln
When a man assumes a public trust he should consider himself as public property.
Thomas Jefferson
Get books, sit yourself down anywhere, and go to reading them yourself.
Abraham Lincoln
New York, like London, seems to be a cloacina [toilet] of all the depravities of human nature.
Thomas Jefferson
Take all that you can of this book upon reason, and the balance on faith, and you will live and die a happier man. (When a skeptic expressed surprise to see him reading a Bible)
Abraham Lincoln
We have gold because we cannot trust governments
Herbert Hoover
not to find out new principles, or new arguments, never before thought of . . . but to place before mankind the common sense of the subject, in terms so plain and firm as to command their assent, and to justify ourselves in the independent stand we are compelled to take.
Thomas Jefferson
Your own resolution to success is more important than any other one thing.
Abraham Lincoln
I don't know who my grandfather was I am much more concerned to know what his grandson will be.
Abraham Lincoln
When we see ourselves in a situation which must be endured and gone through it is best to make up our minds to meet it with firmness and accommodate everything to it in the best way practical. This lessons the evil while fretting and fuming only serve to increase your own torments.
Thomas Jefferson
No matter how much the cats fight, there always seem to be plenty of kittens.
Abraham Lincoln
Seriously I do not think I am fit for the presidency.
Abraham Lincoln
Those who labor in the earth are the chosen people of God if He ever had a chosen people whose breasts He has made His peculiar deposit for substantial and genuine virtue.
Thomas Jefferson
What a stupendous, what an incomprehensible machine is man! Who can endure toil, famine, stripes, imprisonment and death itself in vindication of his own liberty, and the next moment . . . inflict on his fellow men a bondage, one hour of which is fraught with more misery than ages of that which he rose in rebellion to oppose.
Thomas Jefferson
I never did or countenanced in public life a single act inconsistent with the strictest good faith having never believed there was one code of morality for a public and another for a private man.
Thomas Jefferson
With high hope for the future no prediction is ventured.
Abraham Lincoln
Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press and that cannot be limited without being lost.
Thomas Jefferson
I have indeed two great measures at heart, without which no republic can maintain itself in strength: 1. That of general education, to enable every man to judge for himself what will secure or endanger his freedom. 2. To divide every county into hundreds, of such size that all the children of each will be within reach of a central school in it
Thomas Jefferson
He who permits himself to tell a lie once, finds it much easier to do it the second time.
Thomas Jefferson
The best way to get a bad law repealed is to enforce it strictly.
Abraham Lincoln
All that I am or hope to be I owe to my angel mother.
Abraham Lincoln
The contest is not between Us and Them, but between Good and Evil, and if those who would fight Evil adopt the ways of Evil, Evil wins.
Thomas Jefferson
It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself.
Thomas Jefferson
...never [enter] into dispute or argument with another. I never saw an instance of one of two disputants convincing the other by argument. I have seen many, on their getting warm, becoming rude, & shooting one another. ... When I hear another express an opinion which is not mine, I say to myself, he has a right to his opinion, as I to mine; why should I question it? His error does me no injury, and shall I become a Don Quixote, to bring all men by force of argument to one opinion? ... There are two classes of disputants most frequently to be met with among us. The first is of young students, just entered the threshold of science, with a first view of its outlines, not yet filled up with the details & modifications which a further progress would bring to their knoledge. The other consists of the ill-tempered & rude men in society, who have taken up a passion for politics. ... Consider yourself, when with them, as among the patients of Bedlam, needing medical more than moral counsel. Be a listener only, keep within yourself, and endeavor to establish with yourself the habit of silence, especially on politics. In the fevered state of our country, no good can ever result from any attempt to set one of these fiery zealots to rights, either in fact or principle. They are determined as to the facts they will believe, and the opinions on which they will act. Get by them, therefore, as you would by an angry bull; it is not for a man of sense to dispute the road with such an animal.
Thomas Jefferson
If this country is ever demoralized, it will come from trying to live without work.
Abraham Lincoln
All men are equal before fish.
Herbert Hoover
The greatest service which can be rendered any country is to add a useful plant to its culture.--The Fruit Hunters
Thomas Jefferson
Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without government I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.
Thomas Jefferson
Peace commerce and honest friendship with all nations - entangling alliances with none.
Thomas Jefferson
In this sad world of ours sorrow comes to all and it often comes with bitter agony. Perfect relief is not possible except with time. You cannot now believe that you will ever feel better. But this is not true. You are sure to be happy again. Knowing this, truly believing it will make you less miserable now. I have had enough experience to make this statement.
Abraham Lincoln
History is philosophy teaching by examples.
Thomas Jefferson
Older men declare war. But it is youth that must fight and die.
Herbert Hoover
The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battle-field, and patriot grave, to every living heart and hearth-stone, all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.--as quoted in THE RIVER OF WINGED DREAMS
Abraham Lincoln