Herbert Hoover Quotes

150 Sourced Quotes

Nor are liberal ideals alone sufficient: Ours is a practical people, to whom ideals furnish the theory of political action, upon which they want not only firm assurance, but also effective practice. They want programmes, but they want action to flow from them. They want constructive common sense. They want the development of the common will, not the views of a single individual. They are beginning to realize that words without action are the assassins of idealism. On the other side, they are equally disgusted with seeking for power by destructive criticism, demagoguery, specious promises and sham.

Herbert Hoover
I returned to the white House after midnight more depressed than ever before. I had long since arranged to attend the World Series in Philadelphia the next day. Although I like baseball, I kept this engagement only because I felt that my presence at a sporting event might be a gesture of reassurance to a country suffering from a severe attack of 'jitters.'

Herbert Hoover
I was not able to work up much enthusiasm over the ball game, and in the midst of it I was handed a note informing me of the sudden death of Senator Dwight morrow. He had proved a great pillar of strength in the senate and his death was a great loss to the country and to me. I left the ballpark with the chant of the crowd ringing in my ears, 'We Want Beer!'

Herbert Hoover
It is well to remember that the office of Chief Executive is in part a symbol of the nation and that leaders in a nation may differ in their own house but they have instant solidarity in the presence of foreign attack

Herbert Hoover
The sole function of Government is to bring about a condition of affairs favorable to the beneficial development of private enterprise.

Herbert Hoover
With impressive proof on all sides of magnificent progress, no one can rightly deny the fundamental correctness of our economic system.

Herbert Hoover
Competition is not only the basis of protection to the consumer, but is the incentive to progress.

Herbert Hoover
All progress and growth is a matter of change, but change must be growth within our social and government concepts if it should not destroy them.

Herbert Hoover
There is no other book so various as the Bible, nor one so full of concentrated wisdom.

Herbert Hoover
Somebody has inquired as to whether I will be going to the opening baseball game. I hope to have that pleasure.

Herbert Hoover
No public man can be just a little crooked. There is no such thing as a no-man's land between honesty and dishonesty.

Herbert Hoover
The imperative need of this nation at all times is the leadership of Uncommon Men or Women.

Herbert Hoover
It is a great profession. There is the fascination of watching a figment of the imagination emerge through the aid of science to a plan on paper. Then it moves to realization in stone or metal or energy. Then it brings jobs and homes to men. Then it elevates the standards of living and adds to the comforts of life. That is the engineer's high privilege.

Herbert Hoover
The thing I enjoyed most were visits from children. They did not want public office.

Herbert Hoover
This is not a showman's job. I will not step out of character.

Herbert Hoover
It was the transcendent fortitude and steadfastness of these men who in adversity and in suffering through the darkest hour of our history held faithful to an ideal. Here men endured that a nation might live.

Herbert Hoover
The ancient bitter opposition to improved methods on the ancient theory that it more than temporarily deprives men of employment... has no place in the gospel of American progress.

Herbert Hoover
Prosperity is no idle expression. It is a job for every worker; it is the safety and safeguard of very business and every home. A continuation of the policies of the Republican party is fundamentally necessary to the future advancement of this progress and to the further building up of this prosperity.

Herbert Hoover
The recognition of Russia on November 16, 1933, started forces which were to have considerable influence in the attempt to collectivize the United States.

Herbert Hoover
You convey too great a compliment when you say that I have earned the right to the presidential nomination. No man can establish such an obligation upon any part of the American people. My country owes me no debt. It gave me, as it gives every boy and girl, a chance. It gave me schooling, independence of action, opportunity for service and honor. In no other land could a boy from a country village, without inheritance or influential friends, look forward with unbounded hope. My whole life has taught me what America means. I am indebted to my country beyond any human power to repay.

Herbert Hoover
Every collectivist revolution rides in on a Trojan horse of "Emergency". It was a tactic of Lenin, Hitler and Mussolini... The invasion of New Deal Collectivism was introduced by this same Trojan horse.

Herbert Hoover
It is those moral and spiritual qualities which rise alone in free men, which will fulfill the meaning of the word American. And with them will come centuries of further greatness to our country.

Herbert Hoover
The American system of rugged individualism.

Herbert Hoover
The grass will grow in the streets of a hundred cities.

Herbert Hoover
Our social and economic system cannot march toward better days unless it is inspired by things of the Spirit. It is here that the higher purposes of individualism must find their sustenance.

Herbert Hoover
Many years ago, I concluded that a few hair shirts were part of the mental wardrobe of every man. The president differs from other men in that he has a more extensive wardrobe.

Herbert Hoover
One of the primary necessities of the world for the maintenance of peace is the elimination of the frictions which arise from competitive armament.

Herbert Hoover
I am willing to pledge myself that if the time should ever come that the voluntary agencies of the country together with the local and state governments are unable to find resources with which to prevent hunger and suffering … I will ask the aid of every resource of the Federal Government.... I have the faith in the American people that such a day will not come.

Herbert Hoover
Many women are now holding posts of grave responsibility in city and country and state and nation, and their number must be greatly increased.

Herbert Hoover
I, with other Americans, have perhaps unduly resented the stream of criticism of American life... more particularly have I resented the sneers at Main Street. For I have known that in the cottages that lay behind the street rested the strength of our national character.

Herbert Hoover