Quotes by Presidents - Page 5

The God who gave us life gave us liberty at the same time.
Thomas Jefferson
The probability that we may fail in the struggle ought not to deter us from the support of a cause we believe to be just.
Abraham Lincoln
I'm a great believer in luck and I find the harder I work the more I have of it.
Thomas Jefferson
Upon the subject of education, not presuming to dictate any plan or system respecting it, I can only say that I view it as the most important subject which we as a people can be engaged in.
Abraham Lincoln
Nature intended me for the tranquil pursuits of science, by rendering them my supreme delight. But the enormities of the times in which I have lived, have forced me to take a part in resisting them, and to commit myself on the boisterous ocean of political passions.
Thomas Jefferson
The sun - my almighty physician.
Thomas Jefferson
The distant rear of an army engaged in battle is not the best place from which to judge correctly what is going on in front.
Ulysses S. Grant
The forgotten man at the bottom of the economic pyramid.
F. D. Roosevelt
Experience declares that man is the only animal which devours his own kind; for I can apply no milder term to the governments of Europe, and to the general prey of the rich on the poor.
Thomas Jefferson
I was a little cross.I ask pardon. If I do get up a little temper I have no sufficient time to keep it up.
Abraham Lincoln
While the people retain their virtue and vigilence no administration by any extreme of wickedness or folly can very seriously injure the government in the short space of four years.
Abraham Lincoln
God must have loved the plain people: He made so many of them.
Abraham Lincoln
i have never advocated war except as a mean of peace
Ulysses S. Grant
Honesty is the first chapter of the book wisdom.
Thomas Jefferson
That government is best which governs the least because its people discipline themselves.
Thomas Jefferson
Experience demands that man is the only animal which devours his own kind, for I can apply no milder term to the general prey of the rich on the poor.
Thomas Jefferson
Most folk are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.
Abraham Lincoln
Do not bite at the bait of pleasure till you know there is no hook beneath it.
Thomas Jefferson
In this sad world of ours, sorrow comes to all; and, to the young, it comes with bitterest agony, because it takes them unawares. The older have learned to ever expect it. I am anxious to afford some alleviation of your present distress. Perfect relief is not possible, except with time. You can not now realize that you will ever feel better. Is not this so? And yet it is a mistake. You are sure to be happy again. To know this, which is certainly true, will make you some less miserable now. I have had experience enough to know what I say; and you need only to believe it, to feel better at once.
Abraham Lincoln
And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.
Thomas Jefferson
Let no feeling of discouragement prey upon you and in the end you are sure to succeed.
Abraham Lincoln
The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers.
Thomas Jefferson
I don't like to hear cut and dried sermons. No—when I hear a man preach, I like to see him act as if he were fighting bees.
Abraham Lincoln
The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present.
Abraham Lincoln
I am a firm believer in the people. If given the truth, they can be depended upon to meet any national crisis. The great point is to bring them the real facts, and beer.
Abraham Lincoln
If I could not go to Heaven but with a party I would not go there at all.
Thomas Jefferson
As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy. Whatever differs from this, to the extent of the difference, is no democracy.
Abraham Lincoln
All authority belongs to the people.
Thomas Jefferson
To the corruptions of Christianity I am, indeed opposed; but not to the genuine precepts of Jesus himself. I am a Christian, in the only sense in which he wished any one to be; sincerely attached to his doctrines, in preference to all others.
Thomas Jefferson
In regards to this great Book [the Bible], I have but to say it is the best gift God has given to man. All the good the Savior gave to the world was communicated through this Book. But for it we could not know right from wrong. All things most desirable for man's welfare, here and hereafter, are found portrayed in it.
Abraham Lincoln
It is difficult to make a man miserable while he feels worthy of himself and claims kindred to the great God who made him.
Abraham Lincoln
If it is believed that these elementary schools will be better managed by the governor and council or any other general authority of the government, than by the parents within each ward, it is a belief against all experience.
Thomas Jefferson
Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power.
Abraham Lincoln
I am not bound to win, but I am bound to be true. I am not bound to succeed, but I am bound to live up to what light I have.
Abraham Lincoln
The habit of using ardent spirits by men in office has occasioned more injury to the public and more trouble to me than all other causes. Were I to commence my administration again the first question I would ask respecting a candidate for office would be Does he use ardent spirits?
Thomas Jefferson
The people cannot be all, and always, well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented, in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions, it is lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty. ... What country before ever existed a century and half without a rebellion? And what country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.
Thomas Jefferson
And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with His wrath? Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that his justice cannot sleep forever.
Thomas Jefferson
I shall try to correct errors when shown to be errors and I shall adopt new views so fast as they shall appear to be new views.
Abraham Lincoln
I fear you do not fully comprehend the danger of abridging the liberties of the people. Nothing but the very sternest necessity can ever justify it. A government had better go to the very extreme of toleration, than to do aught that could be construed into an interference with, or to jeopardize in any degree, the common rights of its citizens.
Abraham Lincoln
I hope that we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country.
Thomas Jefferson
Happiness is not being pained in body nor troubled in mind.
Thomas Jefferson
The hole and the patch should be commensurate.
Thomas Jefferson
When we see ourselves in a situation which must be endured and gone through it is best to meet it with firmness and accommodate everything to it in the best way practicable. This lessens the evil while fretting and fuming only increase your own torments.
Thomas Jefferson
I am certainly not an advocate for frequent and untried changes in laws and constitutions. I think moderate imperfections had better be borne with; because, when once known, we accommodate ourselves to them, and find practical means of correcting their ill effects. But I know also, that laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths disclosed, and manners and opinions change with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also, and keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy, as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors.
Thomas Jefferson
There are but few important events in the affairs of men brought about by their own choice.
Ulysses S. Grant
I desire so to conduct the affairs of this administration that if at the end ... I have lost every other friend on earth I shall at least have one friend left and that friend shall be down inside of me.
Abraham Lincoln
Bigotry is the disease of ignorance, of morbid minds; enthusiasm of the free and buoyant. Education and free discussion are the antidotes of both. We are destined to be a barrier against the returns of ignorance and barbarism. Old Europe will have to lean on our shoulders, and to hobble along by our side, under the monkish trammels of priests and kings, as she can. What a Colossus shall we be when the Southern continent comes up to our mark! What a stand will it secure as a ralliance for the reason & freedom of the globe! I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past. So good night. I will dream on, always fancying that Mrs Adams and yourself are by my side marking the progress and the obliquities of ages and countries.
Thomas Jefferson
New York! I say New York, let black blood flow into your blood.Let it wash the rust from your steel joints, like an oil of life Let it give your bridges the curve of hips and supple vines. Now the ancient age returns, unity is restored, The recociliation of the Lion and Bull and Tree Idea links to action, the ear to the heart, sign to meaning. See your rivers stirring with musk alligators And sea cows with mirage eyes. No need to invent the Sirens. Just open your eyes to the April rainbow And your eyes, especially your ears, to God Who in one burst of saxophone laughter Created heaven and earth in six days, And on the seventh slept a deep Negro sleep.
Léopold Sédar Senghor
That liberty [is pure] which is to go to all, and not to the few or the rich alone. (to Horatio Gates, 1798)
Thomas Jefferson
In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free -- honorable alike in what we give, and what we preserve. We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best hope of earth
Abraham Lincoln
History, in general, only informs us what bad government is.
Thomas Jefferson
There has never been but one question in all civilization-how to keep a few men from saying to many men: You work and earn bread and we will eat it.
Abraham Lincoln
I predict future happiness for Americans, if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.
Thomas Jefferson
The best way to predict your future is to create it.
Abraham Lincoln
I know no method to secure the repeal of bad or obnoxious laws so effective as their stringent execution.
Ulysses S. Grant
We have the wolf by the ears; and we can neither hold him, nor safely let him go. Justice is in one scale, and self-preservation in the other.
Thomas Jefferson
It is the old practice of despots to use a part of the people to keep the rest in order.
Thomas Jefferson
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 the time.
Abraham Lincoln
I am satisfied, and sufficiently occupied with the things which are, without tormenting or troubling myself about those which may indeed be, but of which I have no evidence.
Thomas Jefferson
There are things in the world that cannot be brought about. There are mistakes that cannot be repaired. But there is one thing sure -- that loyalty and friendship are the most precious possessions a man can have.
Herbert Hoover