Herbert Hoover Quotes

150 Sourced Quotes

When there is a lack of honor in government, the morals of the whole people are poisoned.

Herbert Hoover
Absolute freedom of the press to discuss public questions is a foundation stone of American liberty.

Herbert Hoover
The basis of successful relief in national distress is to mobilize and organize the infinite number of agencies of self help in the community. That has been the American way.

Herbert Hoover
Along with currency manipulation, the New Deal introduced to Americans the spectacle of Fascist dictation to business, labor, and agriculture.

Herbert Hoover
Once the day's work starts there is little chance to walk, to ride or to take part in a game. Taking walks or rides early in the morning is a lonesome business, and the inevitable Secret Service guard when the president leaves the White House grounds is not enlivening company.

Herbert Hoover
The priceless treasure of boyhood is his endless enthusiasm, his high store of idealism, his affections and his hopes. When we preserve these, we have made men. We have made citizens and we have made Americans.

Herbert Hoover
It is always possible that occasional individuals may have overstepped the law and humanity in treatment of criminals and those charged with crime, and if so, they should be severely punished.

Herbert Hoover
The more complex the problems of the Nation become, the greater is the need for more and more advanced instruction.

Herbert Hoover
I hope you will forgive my dreadful curiosity, but I should like awfully to know — what is your profession? I replied that I was an engineer. She emitted an involuntary exclamation, and said Why, I thought you were a gentleman!

Herbert Hoover
Any practice of business which would dominate the country by its own selfish interest is a destruction of equality of opportunity. Government in business, except in emergency, is also a destruction of equal opportunity and the incarnation of tyranny through bureaucracy.

Herbert Hoover
The party should stand for a constantly wider diffusion of property. That is the greatest social and economic security that can come to free men. It makes free men. We want a nation of proprietors, not a state of collectivists. That is attained by creating a national wealth and income, not by destroying it. The income and estate taxes create an orderly movement to diffuse swollen fortunes more effectively than all the quacks.

Herbert Hoover
The structure of human betterment cannot be built upon foundations of materialism or business, but upon the bedrock of individual character in free men and women.

Herbert Hoover
Our fathers and grandfathers who poured over the Midwest were self-reliant, rugged, God-fearing people of indomitable courage....They asked only for freedom of opportunity and equal chance. In these conceptions lies the real basis of American democracy. They and their fathers give a genius to American institutions that distinguished our people from any other in the world.

Herbert Hoover
Fishing is a constant reminder of the democracy of life, of humility, and of human frailty. The forces of nature discriminate for no man.

Herbert Hoover
To the engineer falls the job of clothing the bare bones of science with life, comfort, and hope.

Herbert Hoover
The worst evil of disregard for some law is that it destroys respect for all laws.

Herbert Hoover
Governments know that the life of the world cannot be saved if the soul of the world is allowed to be lost.

Herbert Hoover
Liberalism is a force truly of the spirit proceeding from the deep realization that economic freedom cannot be sacrificed if political freedom is to be preserved.

Herbert Hoover
An ideal is an unselfish aspiration. Its purpose is the general welfare not only of this but of future generations. It is a thing of the spirit. It is a generous and humane desire that all men may share equally in a common good. Our ideals are the cement, which binds human society.

Herbert Hoover
The Union has become not merely a physical union of states, but rather a spiritual union in common ideals of our people. Within it is room for every variety of opinion, every possible experiment in social progress. Out of such variety comes growth, but only if we preserve and maintain our spiritual solidarity.

Herbert Hoover
There are only three ways to meet the unpaid bills of a nation. The first is taxation. The second is repudiation. The third is inflation.

Herbert Hoover
I can at once refute the statement that the people of the West object to conservation of oil resources. They know that there is a limit to oil supplies and that the time will come when they and the Nation will need this oil much more than it is needed now. There are no half measures in conservation of oil.

Herbert Hoover
While the crash only took place six months ago, I am convinced we have passed the worst and with continued unity of effort we shall rapidly recover.

Herbert Hoover
What the world needs today is a definite, spiritual mobilization of the nations who believe in God against this tide of Red agnosticism....And in rejecting an atheistic other world, I am confident that the Almighty God will be with us.

Herbert Hoover
Self-government can succeed only through an instructed electorate.

Herbert Hoover
The greatness of America has grown out of a political and social system and a method of control of economic forces distinctly its own - our American system.

Herbert Hoover
Three qualities of greatness stood out in Woodrow Wilson. He was a man of staunch morals. He was more than just an idealist; he was the personification of the heritage of idealism of the American people. He brought spiritual concepts to the peace table. He was a born crusader.

Herbert Hoover
Progress will march if we hold an abiding faith in the intelligence, the initiative, the character, the courage, and the divine touch in the individual. We can safeguard these ends if we give to each individual that opportunity for which the spirit of America stands.

Herbert Hoover
True American Liberalism utterly denies the whole creed of socialism.

Herbert Hoover
We have learned that social injustice is the destruction of justice itself.

Herbert Hoover