The Autobiography of Calvin Coolidge Quotes

“The only way I know to drive out evil from the country is by the constructive method of filling it with good.”
― Calvin Coolidge, The Autobiography of Calvin Coolidge

“Wealth comes from industry and from the hard experience of human toil. To dissipate it in waste and extravagance is disloyalty to humanity.”
― Calvin Coolidge, The Autobiography of Calvin Coolidge

“When a man begins to feel that he is the only one who can lead in this republic, he is guilty of treason to the spirit of our institutions.”
― Calvin Coolidge, The Autobiography of Calvin Coolidge

“There is only one form of political strategy in which I have any confidence, and that is to try to do the right thing and sometimes be able to succeed.”
― Calvin Coolidge, The Autobiography of Calvin Coolidge

“Any reward that is worth having only comes to the industrious. The success which is made in any walk of life is measured almost exactly by the amout of hard work that is put into it.”
― Calvin Coolidge, The Autobiography of Calvin Coolidge

“It is a great advantage to a President, and a major source of safety to the country, for him to know that he is not a great man. When a man begins to feel that he is the only one who can lead in this republic, he is guilty of treason to the spirit of our institutions.”
― Calvin Coolidge, Autobiography of Calvin Coolidge

“Any man who has been placed in the White House cannot feel that it is the result of his own exertions or his own merit. Some power outside and beyond him becomes manifest through him. As he contemplates the workings of his office, he comes to realize with an increasing sense of humility that he is but an instrument in the hands of God.”
― Calvin Coolidge, Autobiography of Calvin Coolidge

“She was practically an invalid ever after I could remember her, but used what strength she had in lavish care upon me and my sister, who was three years younger. There was a touch of mysticism and poetry in her nature which made her love to gaze at the purple sunsets and watch the evening stars. Whatever was grand and beautiful in form and color attracted her. It seemed as though the rich green tints of the foliage and the blossoms of the flowers came for her in the springtime, and in the autumn it was for her that the mountain sides were struck with crimson and with gold.”
― Calvin Coolidge, Autobiography of Calvin Coolidge

“IT is a very old saying that you never can tell what you can do until you try. The more I see of life the more I am convinced of the wisdom of that observation.”
― Calvin Coolidge, Autobiography of Calvin Coolidge

“It has been my observation in life that, if one will only exercise the patience to wait, his wants are likely to be filled.”
― Calvin Coolidge, Autobiography of Calvin Coolidge

“The words of the President have an enormous weight and ought not to be used indiscriminately. It would be exceedingly easy to set the country all by the ears and foment hatreds and jealousies, which, by destroying faith and confidence, would help nobody and harm everybody. The end would be the destruction of all progress.”
― Calvin Coolidge, Autobiography of Calvin Coolidge

“The only way I know to drive out evil from the country is by the constructive method of filling it with good. The country is better off tranquilly considering its blessings and merits, and earnestly striving to secure more of them, than it would be in nursing hostile bitterness about its deficiencies and faults.”
― Calvin Coolidge, Autobiography of Calvin Coolidge

“Wealth comes from industry and from the hard experience of human toil. To dissipate it in waste and extravagance is disloyalty to humanity. This is by no means a doctrine of parsimony. Both men and nations should live in accordance with their means and devote their substance not only to productive industry, but to the creation of the various forms of beauty and the pursuit of culture which give adornments to the art of life.”
― Calvin Coolidge, Autobiography of Calvin Coolidge

“It seems impossible that any man could adequately describe his mother. I cannot describe mine.”
― Calvin Coolidge, Autobiography of Calvin Coolidge

“But this does not detract from the wisdom of his faith in the people and his constant insistence that they be left to manage their own affairs. His opposition to bureaucracy will bear careful analysis, and the country could stand a great deal more of its application. The trouble with us is that we talk about Jefferson but do not follow him. In his theory that the people should manage their government, and not be managed by it, he was everlastingly right.”
― Calvin Coolidge, Autobiography of Calvin Coolidge

“The college of that day had a very laudable desire to get students, and having admitted them, it was equally alert in striving to keep them and help them get an education, with the result that very few left of their own volition and almost none were dropped for failure in their work. There was no marked exodus at the first examination period, which was due not only to the attitude of the college but to the attitude of the students, who did not go there because they wished to experiment for a few months with college life and be able to say thereafter they had been in college, but went because they felt they had need of an education, and expected to work hard for that purpose until the course was finished. There were few triflers.”
― Calvin Coolidge, Autobiography of Calvin Coolidge

“I have often said that there was no cause for feeling disturbed at being misrepresented in the press. It would be only when they began to say things detrimental to me which were true that I should feel alarm.”
― Calvin Coolidge, The Autobiography of Calvin Coolidge

“Fate bestows its rewards on those who put themselves in the proper attitude to receive them.”
― Calvin Coolidge, Autobiography of Calvin Coolidge

“While we should not refuse to spend and be spent in the service of our country, it is hazardous to attempt what we feel is beyond our strength to accomplish.”
― Calvin Coolidge, Autobiography of Calvin Coolidge

“It is a great advantage to a President, and a major source of safety to the country, for him to know that he is not a great man. When a man begins to feel that he is the only one who can lead in this republic, he is guilty of treason to the spirit of our institutions. .”
― Calvin Coolidge, Autobiography of Calvin Coolidge

“Ever since I was in Amherst College I have remembered how Garman told his class in philosophy that if they would go along with events and have the courage and industry to hold to the main stream, without being washed ashore by the immaterial cross currents, they would someday be men of power. He meant that we should try to guide ourselves by general principles and not get lost in particulars. That may sound like mysticism, but it is only the mysticism that envelopes every great truth. One of the greatest mysteries in the world is the success that lies in conscientious work.”
― Calvin Coolidge, Autobiography of Calvin Coolidge

“Of course our school life was not free from pranks. The property of the townspeople was moved to strange places in the night. One morning as the janitor was starting the furnace he heard a loud bray from one of the class rooms. His investigation disclosed the presence there of a domestic animal noted for his long ears and discordant voice. In some way during the night he had been stabled on the second floor. About as far as I deem it prudent to discuss my own connection with these escapades is to record that I was never convicted of any of them and so must be presumed innocent.”
― Calvin Coolidge, Autobiography of Calvin Coolidge

“I appreciate how impossible it is to convey an adequate realization of the office of President. A few short paragraphs in the Constitution of the United States describe all his fundamental duties. Various laws passed over a period of nearly a century and a half have supplemented his authority. All of his actions can be analyzed. All of his goings and comings can be recited. The details of his daily life can be made known. The effect of his policies on his own country and on the world at large can be estimated. His methods of work, his associates, his place of abode, can all be described. But the relationship created by all these and more, which constitutes the magnitude of the office, does not yield to definition. Like the glory of a morning sunrise, it can only be experienced it cannot be told.”
― Calvin Coolidge, Autobiography of Calvin Coolidge

“[Man is] a true son of God and a partaker of the Divine nature. This is the warrant for his freedom and the demonstration of his equality. It does not assume all are equal in degree but all are equal in kind. On that precept rests a foundation for democracy that cannot be shaken. It justifies faith in the people.”
― Calvin Coolidge, The Autobiography of Calvin Coolidge