Quotes

An intellectual is a man who takes more words than necessary to tell more than he knows.

[Final speech as USA's President, in January of 1961] In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity.

Here in America we are descended in blood and in spirit from revolutionists and rebels - men and women who dare to dissent from accepted doctrine. As their heirs, may we never confuse honest dissent with disloyal subversion.

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.

[from a letter to Edgar Newton Eisenhower, dated Monday, November 8th, 1954] Now it is true that I believe this country is following a dangerous trend when it permits too great a degree of centralization of governmental functions. I oppose this--in some instances the fight is a rather desperate one. But to attain any success it is quite clear that the Federal government cannot avoid or escape responsibilities which the mass of the people firmly believe should be undertaken by it. The political processes of our country are such that if a rule of reason is not applied in this effort, we will lose everything--even to a possible and drastic change in the Constitution. This is what I mean by my constant insistence upon "moderation" in government. Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes you can do these things. Among them are H. L. Hunt (you possibly know his background), a few other Texas oil millionaires, and an occasional politician or business man from other areas. Their number is negligible and they are stupid.

To say, therefore, that in some instances the policies of this Administration have not been radically changed from those of the last is perfectly true. Both Administrations levied taxes, both maintained military establishments, customs officials, and so on.

But in all governmental fields of action a combination of purpose, procedure and objectives must be considered if you are to get a true evaluation of the relative merits.

Pessimism never won any battle.

[in 1960, when asked to name a decision that Richard Nixon made as his Vice President] If you give me a week, I might think of one. I don't remember.

[compliment by Army Staff official, George C. Marshall, on Tuesday, May 8th, 1945] You have made history, great history for the good of mankind.

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

[on Harry S. Truman] The man is a congenital liar.

[on Truman's handling of the Korean conflict] (He's) a fine man who, in the middle of a stormy lake, knows nothing of swimming. Yet a lot of drowning people are forced to look to him as a lifeguard. If his wisdom could only equal his good intent.

[looking at President Kennedy's inaugural reviewing stand, 1961] I feel like the fellow in jail who is watching his scaffold being built.

[from a speech in Abilene, just after V-E Day in 1945] Because no man is really a man who has lost out of himself all of the boy, I want to speak first of the dreams of a barefoot boy.

[on General Douglas MacArthur] I studied dramatics under him for twelve years.

[to the Allied Expeditionary Forces on D-Day, of Tuesday, June 6th, 1944] You are about to embark on a great crusade. The eyes of the world are upon you, and the hopes and prayers of all liberty-loving people go with you.

First, the Japanese were ready to surrender and it wasn't necessary to hit them with that awful thing. Second, I hated to see our country be the first to use such a weapon.

In 1945 Secretary of War Stimson, visiting my headquarters in Germany, informed me that our government was preparing to drop an atomic bomb on Japan. I was one of those who felt that there were a number of cogent reasons to question the wisdom of such an act. During his recitation of the relevant facts, I had been conscious of a feeling of depression and so I voiced to him my grave misgivings, first on the basis of my belief that Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary, and secondly because I thought that our country should avoid shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon whose employment was, I thought, no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives.

There is every assumption that Hitler is dead, but not a bit of conclusive proof that he is dead.

The attractive possibility of quickly turning the German north flank led me to approve the temporary delay in freeing the vital port of Antwerp, the seaward approaches to which were still in German hands.

[on the Suez Crisis] If the Soviets attack the French and British directly, we would be in a war and we would be justified in taking military action even if Congress were not in session.

[on Douglas MacArthur] I just can't understand how such a damn fool could have gotten to be a general.

[on John F. Kennedy] You can always tell a Harvard man, but you can't tell him much.

[on the Suez Crisis] The Soviet Union might be ready for to undertake any wild adventure. They are as scared and furious as Hitler was in his last days. There's nothing more dangerous than a dictatorship in that frame of mind.

If any Republican or Democrat suggests that we pull out of Vietnam and turn our backs on the more than thirteen thousand Americans who died in the cause of freedom there, they will have me to contend with. That's one of the few things that would start me off on a series of stump speeches across the nation.

I have no patience whatsoever with the people that want to pull out of Vietnam at once, or are otherwise prepared to surrender principle.

[on Francisco Franco] I was greatly impressed by the fact that there were no such manners or characteristics that a visitor who did not know would lead him to conclude that he was in the presence of a dictator.

In pursuit and exploitation there is a need for a commander who sees nothing but the necessity of getting ahead. The more he drives his men, the more he will save their lives.

I am very much concerned about the food situation ... We now have no reserves on the Continent of supplies for the civil population.

I know of no more effective means of developing an undying hatred of those responsible for aggressive war than to assume the obligation of attempting to express sympathy to families bereaved by it.

The success or failure of this occupation will be judged by the character of the Germans 50 years from now. Proof will come when they begin to run a democracy of their own and we are going to give the Germans a chance to do that, in time.

In my personal reactions, as the months of conflict wore on, I grew constantly more bitter against the Germans.

Unless immediate steps are taken to develop to the fullest extent possible the food resources in order to provide the minimum wants of the German population, widespread chaos, starvation and disease are inevitable during the coming winter.

[on the Suez Crisis] Those who began this operation should be left to work out their own oil problems - to boil in their own oil, so to speak.

In Lebanon, the question was whether it would be better to incur the deep resentment of nearly all of the Arab world (and some of the rest of the Free World) and in doing so risk general war with the Soviet Union or to do something worse - which was to do nothing.

How could we possibly support Britain and France, if in doing so we lose the whole Arab world?