Dwight D. Eisenhower > Quotes

“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. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the clouds of war, it is humanity hanging on a cross of iron.”
― Dwight D. Eisenhower

“Don't join the book burners. Don't think you're going to conceal faults by concealing evidence that they ever existed. Don't be afraid to go in your library and read every book...”
― Dwight D. Eisenhower

“Never waste a minute thinking about people you don't like.”
― Dwight D. Eisenhower

“Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it.”
― Dwight D. Eisenhower

“A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both.”
― Dwight D. Eisenhower

“Extremes to the right and to the left of any political dispute are always wrong.”
― Dwight D. Eisenhower

“In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.”
― Dwight D. Eisenhower

“If you want total security, go to prison. There you're fed, clothed, given medical care and so on. The only thing lacking... is freedom. ”
― Dwight D. Eisenhower

“The search for a scapegoat is the easiest of all hunting expeditions.”
― Dwight D. Eisenhower

“You do not lead by hitting people over the head -- that's assault, not leadership.”
― Dwight D. Eisenhower

“Never question another man's motive. His wisdom, yes, but not his motives.”
― Dwight D. Eisenhower

“A sense of humor is part of the art of leadership, of getting along with people, of getting things done.”
― Dwight D. Eisenhower

“The supreme quality for leadership is unquestionably integrity. Without it, no real success is possible, no matter whether it is on a section gang, a football field, in an army, or in an office.”
― Dwight D. Eisenhower

“Never let yourself be persuaded that any one Great Man, any one leader, is necessary to the salvation of America. When America consists of one leader and 158 million followers, it will no longer be America.”
― Dwight D. Eisenhower

“What counts is not necessarily the size of the dog in the fight- it's the size of the fight in the dog.”
― Dwight D. Eisenhower

“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. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.”
― Dwight D. Eisenhower

“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 a few other Texas oil millionaires and an occasional politician or business man from other areas. Their number is negligible and they are stupid.”
― Dwight D. Eisenhower

“Never send a battalion to take a hill if a regiment is available.”
― Dwight D. Eisenhower

“No man is worth your tears, but once you find one that is, he won't make you cry.”
― Dwight D. Eisenhower

“We are going to have peace even if we have to fight for it.”
― Dwight D. Eisenhower

“May we never confuse honest dissent with disloyal subversion. ”
― Dwight D. Eisenhower

“Pull the string and it will follow wherever you wish. Push it, and it will go nowhere at all.”
― Dwight D. Eisenhower

“I like to believe that people in the long run are going to do more to promote peace than our governments. Indeed, I think that people want peace so much that one of these days governments had better get out of the way and let them have it.”
― Dwight D. Eisenhower

“Pessimism never won any battle.”
― Dwight D. Eisenhower

“Get it all on record now - get the films - get the witnesses -because somewhere down the road of history some bastard will get up and say that this never happened.”
― Dwight D. Eisenhower

“The world could be fixed of its problems if every child understood the necessity of their existence.”
― Dwight D. Eisenhower

“An intellectual is a man who takes more words than necessary to tell more than he knows.”
― Dwight D. Eisenhower

“The problem in defense is how far you can go without destroying from within what you are trying to defend from without.”
― Dwight D. Eisenhower

“As we peer into society's future, we -- you and I, and our government -- must avoid the impulse to live only for today, plundering for our own ease and convenience the precious resources of tomorrow. We cannot mortgage the material assets of our grandchildren without risking the loss also of their political and spiritual heritage. We want democracy to survive for all generations to come, not to become the insolvent phantom of tomorrow.”
― Dwight D. Eisenhower

“The history of free men is never written by chance but by choice - their choice.”
― Dwight D. Eisenhower