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
If men can develop weapons that are so terrifying as to make the thought of global war include almost a sentence for suicide, you would think that man's intelligence and his comprehension... would include also his ability to find a peaceful solution.

Dwight D. Eisenhower
Our arms must be mighty... ready for instant action, so that no potential aggressor may be tempted to risk his own destruction

Dwight D. Eisenhower
Before all else, we seek, upon our common labor as a nation, the blessings of Almighty God.

Dwight D. Eisenhower
No easy problems ever come to the President of the United States. If they are easy to solve, somebody else has solved them.

Dwight D. Eisenhower
The purpose of the United States, in stating these proposals, is simple. [...] They aspire to this: the lifting, from the backs and from the hearts of men, of their burden of arms and of fears, so that they may find before them a golden age of freedom and of peace.

Dwight D. Eisenhower
Unless each day can be looked back upon by an individual as one in which he has had some fun, some joy, some real satisfaction, that day is a loss.

Dwight D. Eisenhower
A foundation of our American way of life is our national respect for law.

Dwight D. Eisenhower
The peace we seek and need means much more than mere absence of war. It means the acceptance of law, and the fostering of justice, in all the world.

Dwight D. Eisenhower
By mutual respect, understanding and with good will we can find acceptable solutions to any problems which exist or may arise between us.

Dwight D. Eisenhower
Once he called upon General McClellan, and the President went over to the General's house — a process which I as­sure you has been reversed long since — and General McClellan decided he did not want to see the President, and went to bed.
Lincoln's friends criticized him severely for allowing a mere General to treat him that way. And he said, "All I want out of General McClellan is a victory, and if to hold his horse will bring it, I will gladly hold his horse."

Dwight D. Eisenhower
I know only one method of operation: to be as honest with others as I am with myself.

Dwight D. Eisenhower
To have a free, peaceful and prosperous world we must be ever stronger particularly in the spiritual things....It is American belief in decency and justice and progress and the value of individual liberty because of the rights conferred on each of us by our Creator that willcarry us through.... There must be something in the heart as well as the head.

Dwight D. Eisenhower
The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities... We pay for a single fighter with a half million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people.

Dwight D. Eisenhower
A preventive war, to my mind, is an impossibility today. How could you have one if one of its features would be several cities lying in ruins, several cities where many, many thousands of people would be dead and injured and mangled, the transportation systems destroyed, sanitation implements and systems all gone? That isn't preventive war; that is war.

Dwight D. Eisenhower
The work of Dr. Salk is in the highest tradition of selfless and dedicated medical research. He has provided a means for the control of a dread disease. By helping scientists in other countries with technical information; by offering to them the strains of seed virus and professional aid so that the production of vaccine can be started by them everywhere; by welcoming them to his laboratory that they may gain a fuller knowledge, Dr. Salk is a benefactor of mankind.
His achievement, a credit to our entire scientific community, does honor to all the people of the United States.

Dwight D. Eisenhower
Disarmament, with mutual honor and confidence, is a continuing imperative. Together we must learn how to compose differences, not with arms, but with intellect and decent purpose.

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

Dwight D. Eisenhower
My constant prayer, these days, as I start my backswing is, 'Oh, please let me swing slowly.' The trouble is that sometimes I wonder whether I swing at all; whether I am not strictly a chopper.

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
A nation's hope of lasting peace cannot be firmly based upon any race in armaments but rather upon just relations and honest understanding with all other nations.

Dwight D. Eisenhower
Unlike presidential administrations, problems rarely have terminal dates.

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