Dwight D. Eisenhower Quotes

275 Sourced Quotes

You do not lead by hitting people over the head—that's assault, not leadership.

Dwight D. Eisenhower
A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both.

Dwight D. Eisenhower
Now I think, speaking roughly, by leadership we mean the art of getting someone else to do something that you want done because he wants to do it.

Dwight D. Eisenhower
Military power serves the cause of security by making prohibitive the cost of any aggressive attack. It serves the cause of peace by holding up a shield behind which the patient constructive work of peace can go on.

Dwight D. Eisenhower
The hunger for peace is too great, the hour in history too late, for any government to mock men's hopes with mere words and promises and gestures. [...] There is, before all peoples, a precarious chance to turn the black tide of events. If we failed to strive to seize this chance, the judgment of future ages will be harsh and just. If we strive but fail and the world remains armed against itself, it at least would need be divided no longer in its clear knowledge of who has condemned humankind to this fate.

Dwight D. Eisenhower
The people of Israel, like those of the United States, are imbued with a religious faith and a sense of moral values

Dwight D. Eisenhower
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?

Dwight D. Eisenhower
It is still a fact that our common frontier grows stronger every year, defended only by friendship.

Dwight D. Eisenhower
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.

Dwight D. Eisenhower
The future of this republic is in the hands of the American voter.

Dwight D. Eisenhower
I deplore the need or the use of troops anywhere to get American citizens to obey the orders of constituted courts.

Dwight D. Eisenhower
You are no longer an Arctic frontier. You constitute a bridge to the continent of Asia and all its people.

Dwight D. Eisenhower
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.

Dwight D. Eisenhower
There can be no true disarmament without peace, and there can be no real peace without very material disarmament.

Dwight D. Eisenhower
Peace is more the product of our day-to-day living than of a spectacular program, intermittently executed.

Dwight D. Eisenhower
Each and all of us must summon to mind the words of Him whom we honor this Easter time: 'When a strong man, armed, keepeth his palace, his goods are in peace'.

Dwight D. Eisenhower
Against the dark background of the atomic bomb, the United States does not wish merely to present strength, but also the desire and the hope for peace.

Dwight D. Eisenhower
Freedom bestows on us the priceless gift of opportunity - if we neglect our opportunities we shall certainly lose our freedom.

Dwight D. Eisenhower
And the other was this: the doctor did want to take off my leg because he thought it was necessary. But you must remember boys in those days were raised for two things: work, and then they made their play; and if you couldn't play baseball and box and play football, why, your life was ended. That was in our boyish minds.

Dwight D. Eisenhower
The one quality that can be developed by studious reflection and practice is the leadership of men.

Dwight D. Eisenhower
Engineers build for the future, not merely for the needs of men but for their dreams as well. Thus, inherently, the engineer's work is a fearless optimism that life will go forward, and that the future is worth working for.

Dwight D. Eisenhower
I have no use for those- regardless of their political party- who hold some foolish dream of spinning the clock back to days when unorganized labor was a huddled, almost helpless mass.

Dwight D. Eisenhower
We do not keep security establishments merely to defend property or territory or rights abroad or at sea. We keep the security forces to defend a way of life.

Dwight D. Eisenhower
The quest for peace is the statesman's most exacting duty... Practical progress to lasting peace is his fondest hope.

Dwight D. Eisenhower
Possibly my hatred of war blinds me so that I cannot comprehend the arguments they adduce. But, in my opinion, there is no such thing as a preventive war. Although this suggestion is repeatedly made, none has yet explained how war prevents war. Worse than this, no one has been able to explain away the fact that war creates the conditions that beget war.

Dwight D. Eisenhower