Calvin Coolidge Quotes

261 Sourced Quotes

No person was ever honored for what he received. Honor has been the reward for what he gave.

Calvin Coolidge
Don't expect to build up the weak by pulling down the strong.

Calvin Coolidge
Ultimately property rights and personal rights are the same thing.

Calvin Coolidge
When a great many people are unable to find work, unemployment results.

Calvin Coolidge
After all, the chief business of the American people is business.

Calvin Coolidge
If you don't say anything, you won't be called on to repeat it.

Calvin Coolidge
The nation which forgets its defenders will be itself forgotten.

Calvin Coolidge
There is no other foundation on which freedom has ever found a permanent abiding place. We shall have to make our decision whether we wish to maintain our present institutions, or whether we wish to exchange them for something else. If we permit some one to come to support us, we can not prevent some one coming to govern us. If we are too weak to take charge of our own mortality, we shall not be strong enough to take charge of our own liberty. If we can not govern ourselves, if we can not observe the law, nothing remains but to have some one else govern us, to have the law enforced against us, and to step down from the honorable abiding place of freedom to the ignominious abode of servitude.

Calvin Coolidge
Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan "press on" has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.

Calvin Coolidge
Mrs Coolidge: What the sermon was about
Calvin: Sins
Mrs Coolidge: Well, what did he say about sin?
Calvin: He was against it.

Calvin Coolidge
We have been constantly besought to engage in competitive armaments. Frequent reports will reach us of the magnitude of the military equipment of other, nations. We shall do well to be little impressed by such reports or such actions. Any nation undertaking to maintain a military establishment with aggressive and imperialistic designs will find itself severely handicapped in the economic development of the world. I believe thoroughly in the Army and Navy, in adequate defense and preparation. But I am opposed to any policy of competition in building and maintaining land or sea armaments.

Calvin Coolidge
That statement can not be too much emphasized. The country's growth has compelled the Federal establishment to exceed by far the Government plants of even the greatest States. With this growth in physical extent, in revenue, in personnel, there has inevitably been the suggestion that the Federal Government was overshadowing the States. Yet the State governments deal with far more various and more intimate concerns of the people than does the National Government. All the operations of the minor civil divisions, parishes, wards, school districts, towns, cities, counties, and the like, are dependencies of the State. The maintenance of order through police, the general business of enforcing law, is left to the States. So is education.

Calvin Coolidge
Is it possible for us to make an analysis which will disclose this element that has wrought such a strangely different result here in our country? It must be an element that was present among the peoples of Europe while they were still in Europe. It could not have been brought here except by them. There has been nobody else to bring it. The original human materials were the same in both cases.

Calvin Coolidge
Civil service. The merit system has long been recognized as the correct basis for employment in our, civil service. I believe that first second, and third class postmasters, and without covering in the present membership tile field force of prohibition enforcement, should be brought within the classified service by statute law. Otherwise the Executive order of one administration is changed by the Executive order of another administration, and little real progress is made. Whatever its defects, the merit system is certainly to be preferred to the spoils system.

Calvin Coolidge
Of course we are all aware that the recognition of brotherhood brings in the requirement of charity. But it is only on the basis of individual property that there can be any charity. Our very conception of the term means that we deny ourselves of what belongs to us, in order to give it to another. If that which we give is not really our own, but belongs to the person to whom we give it, such an act may rightfully be called justice, but it cannot be regarded as charity.

Calvin Coolidge
While this day was legally established many years ago as an occasion to be devoted to the memory of our country's dead, it can not but each year refresh the sentiment of respect and honor in which our country holds their living comrades. Of those great armies that maintained the long struggle from 1861 to 1865, which ranked in size with any the world had ever before seen, but a few shattered ranks now remain. The old valor yet lives. The old devotion to country, the old loyalty to the flag remain: But the youth and physical vigor which caused them to be characterized as the boys in blue are gone from these heroes of a former generation.

Calvin Coolidge
To be independent to my mind does not mean to be isolated, to be the priest or the Levite, but rather to be the good Samaritan. There is no real independence save only as we secure it through the law of service.

Calvin Coolidge
This lesson was firmly in the minds of those who made the American Constitution. They proposed to adopt institutions under which the people should be supreme, and the government should derive its just powers from the consent of the governed. They were determined to be a sovereign people under a government having such powers as they from time to time should confer upon it by a written constitution. They did not propose to be under the tyranny of either the executive or the legislature.

Calvin Coolidge
It was here that I first saw the light of day; here I received my bride, here my dead lie pillowed on the loving breast of our eternal hills.

Calvin Coolidge
The progress of the colored people on this continent is one of the marvels of modern history. We are perhaps even yet too near to this phenomenon to be able fully to appreciate its significance. That can be impressed on us only as we study and contrast the rapid advancement of the colored people in America with the slow and painful upward movement of humanity as a whole throughout the long human story.

Calvin Coolidge
He had a deep appreciation of this action, but always refused to support the Napoleonic regime. After Waterloo he insisted that Napoleon must abdicate and that the nation must guarantee his life and liberty. When the Bourbons were restored he denounced usurpations in the name of royalty, as he had formerly denounced usurpations in the name of liberty. As a consequence he was charged with treason. He defied the Assembly to try him on such a charge. 'During the whole of a life devoted entirely to liberty I have constantly been attacked by the enemies of that cause', he declared. 'I demand a public inquiry within the walls of this chamber and in the face of this nation'. As his enemies dared riot meet the challenge, he was acquitted.

Calvin Coolidge
The Nation has need of all that can be contributed to it through the best efforts of all its citizens. The colored people have repeatedly proved their devotion to the high ideals of our country. They gave their services in the war with the same patriotism and readiness that other citizens did. The records of the selective draft show that somewhat more than 2,250,000 colored men were registered. The records further prove that, far from seeking to avoid participation in the national defense, they showed that they wished to enlist before the selective service act was put into operation, and they did not attempt to evade that act afterwards.

Calvin Coolidge
Civilization and profits go hand in hand.

Calvin Coolidge
An occasion such as this which has brought us here can not but direct our consideration to these things. It has been a painful and difficult experience, this by which another race has been recruited to the standard of civilization and enlightenment; for that is really what has been going on; and the episodes of Negro slavery in America, of civil war, and emancipation, and, following that, the rapid advancement of the American colored people both materially and spiritually, must be recognized as parts of a long evolution by which all mankind is gradually being led to higher levels, expanding its understanding of its mission here, approaching nearer and nearer to the realization of its full and perfected destiny.

Calvin Coolidge
While the written word was the foundation, it is apparent that the spoken word was the vehicle for convincing the people. This came with great force and wide range from the successors of Hooker and Wise, It was carried on with a missionary spirit which did not fail to reach the Scotch-Irish of North Carolina, showing its influence by significantly making that Colony the first to give instructions to its delegates looking to independence. This preaching reached the neighborhood of Thomas Jefferson, who acknowledged that his "best ideas of democracy" had been secured at church meetings.

Calvin Coolidge