Dwight D. Eisenhower Quotes

275 Sourced Quotes

Men and women, inspired by faith in man's dignity, goaded by conviction in man's responsibility, labored that this land might be a better home for those who followed them. Because every American generation attacked its problems with fresh vigor, we have peopled a continent, subdued its prairies and wilderness, tamed its rivers and devoted its resources to the betterment of those who dwell in it.

Dwight D. Eisenhower
Any survey of the free world's defense structure cannot fail to impart a feeling of regret that so much of our effort and resources must be devoted to armaments.

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
War is a contest, and you finally get to a point where you are talking merely about race suicide, and nothing else.

Dwight D. Eisenhower
It is well for us to pause, to acknowledge our debt to those who paid so large a share of freedom's price.

Dwight D. Eisenhower
If we make ourselves worthy of America's ideals, if we do not forget that our nation was founded on the premise that all men are creatures of God's making, the world will come to know that it is free men who carry forward the true promise of human progress and dignity.

Dwight D. Eisenhower
In all those things which deal with people, be liberal, be human. In all those things which deal with the people's money or their economy or their form of government, be conservative.

Dwight D. Eisenhower
Through knowledge and understanding we will drive from the temple of freedom all who seek to establish over us thought control - whether they be agents of a foreign power or demagogues thirsty for personal power and public notice.

Dwight D. Eisenhower
For all that we cherish and justly desire - for ourselves or for our children - the securing of peace is the first requisite.

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
Arms alone can give the world no permanent peace, no confident security. Arms are solely for defense - to protect from violent assault what we already have. They are only a costly insurance. They cannot add to human progress.

Dwight D. Eisenhower
Four other pieces of equipment that most senior officers came to regard as among the most vital to our success in Africa and Europe were the bulldozer, the jeep, the 2--ton truck, and the C-47 airplane. Curiously, none of these is designed for combat.

Dwight D. Eisenhower
When shallow critics denounce the profit motive inherent in our system of private enterprise, they ignore the fact that it is an economic support of every human right we possess and without it, all rights would disappear.

Dwight D. Eisenhower
Ideas more than once have prevailed against naked power. Guns and aircraft alone do not make a state powerful. Unless force is backed up by the will of the great body of people it loses its meaning.

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
First, separate ground, sea and air warfare is gone forever. If ever again we should be involved in war, we will fight it in all elements, with all services, as one single concentrated effort.

Dwight D. Eisenhower
The hope of the world is that wisdom can arrest conflict between brothers. I believe that war is the deadly harvest of arrogant and unreasoning minds. And I find grounds for this belief in the wisdom literature of Proverbs. It says in effect this: Panic strikes like a storm and calamity comes like a whirlwind to those who hate knowledge and ignore their God.

Dwight D. Eisenhower
I have said time and again there is no place on this earth to which I would not travel, there is no chore I would not undertake if I had any faintest hope that, by so doing, I would promote the general cause of world peace.

Dwight D. Eisenhower
We have won an armistice on a single battlefield, not peace in our world. We may not now relax our guard nor cease our quest.

Dwight D. Eisenhower
Hope spurs humans everywhere to work harder to endure more now that the future may be better.

Dwight D. Eisenhower
So - our readiness to meet and defeat this kind of possible attack is forced upon us, both as a potent preventive of actual war and to insure survival in event of attack. This alertness to danger has to be translated into specific policies and activities in the several parts of the world where our rights - our way of life - can be seriously damaged. Work of this kind occupies my days and nights.

Dwight D. Eisenhower
In this hope, among the things we teach to the young are such truths as the transcendent value of the individual and the dignity of all people, the futility and stupidity of war, its destructiveness of life and its degradation of human values.

Dwight D. Eisenhower
For any American who had the great and priceless privilege of being raised in a small town there always remains with him nostalgic memories... And the older he grows the more he senses what he owed to the simple honesty and neighborliness, the integrity that he saw all around him in those days.

Dwight D. Eisenhower
Give us, we pray, the power to discern clearly right from wrong, and allow all our words and actions to be governed thereby, and by the laws of this land. Especially we pray that our concern shall be for all the people regardless of station, race, or calling.

Dwight D. Eisenhower
Morale - the will to win, the fighting heart - are the honored hallmarks of the football coach and player. Likewise, they are characteristic of the enterprising executive, the successful troop leader, the established artist and the dedicated teacher and scientist.

Dwight D. Eisenhower
Since the advent of nuclear weapons, it seems clear that there is no longer any alternative to peace, if there is to be a happy and well world.

Dwight D. Eisenhower
In opposing Communism, we are defeating ourselves if we use methods that do not conform to the American sense of justice.

Dwight D. Eisenhower
You will enter the continent of Europe and, in conjunction with the other United Nations, undertake operations aimed at the heart of Germany and the destruction of her armed forces.

Dwight D. Eisenhower
The unity of all who dwell in freedom is their only sure defense.

Dwight D. Eisenhower
No man can always be right. So the struggle is to do one's best, to keep the brain and conscience clear, never be swayed by unworthy motives or inconsequential reasons, but to strive to unearth the basic factors involved, then do one's duty.

Dwight D. Eisenhower