I have found out in later years that we were very poor, but the glory of America is that we didn’t know it then.

Only two things are necessary to keep one’s wife happy. One is to let her think she is having her own way, and the other is to let her have it.

If we ever forget that we are One Nation Under God, then we will be a nation gone under.

We’re in greater danger today than we were the day after Pearl Harbor. Our military is absolutely incapable of defending this country.

What is right and what is practicable are two different things.

There is no person in this room whose basic rights are not involved in any successful defiance to the carrying out of court orders.

They say hard work never hurt anybody, but I figure why take the chance.

The government’s view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.

If we love our country, we should also love our countrymen.

We must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex.

You have a row of dominoes set up; you knock over the first one, and what will happen to the last one is that it will go over very quickly.

Peace is not the absence of conflict, it is the ability to handle conflict by peaceful means.

A tree’s a tree. How many more do you need to look at?

I’m not worried about the deficit. It is big enough to take care of itself.

Our forces saved the remnants of the Jewish people of Europe for a new life and a new hope in the reborn land of Israel. Along with all men of good will, I salute the...

Until justice is blind to color, until education is unaware of race, until opportunity is unconcerned with the color of men’s skins, emancipation will be a proclamation but not a fact.

Each generation goes further than the generation preceding it because it stands on the shoulders of that generation. You will have opportunities beyond anything we’ve ever known.

How can a president not be an actor?

The ballot box is the surest arbiter of disputes among free men.

This desk of mine is one at which a man may die, but from which he cannot resign.

Today, if you invent a better mousetrap, the government comes along with a better mouse.

Recession is when a neighbour loses his job. Depression is when you lose yours.

Government’s first duty is to protect the people, not run their lives.

The world moves, and ideas that were once good are not always good.

It is far more important to be able to hit the target than it is to haggle over who makes a weapon or who pulls a trigger.

Without God, democracy will not and cannot long endure.

Government does not solve problems; it subsidizes them.

Politics I supposed to be the second-oldest profession. I have come to realize that it bears a very close resemblance to the first.

You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.

Our pleasures were simple – they included survival.

You’ve got to work things out in the cloakroom, and when you’ve got them worked out, you can debate a little before you vote.

Let us be sure that those who come after will say of us in our time, that in our time we did everything that could be done. We finished the race; we kept them free;...

To paraphrase Winston Churchill, I did not take the oath I have just taken with the intention of presiding over the dissolution of the world’s strongest economy.

If you are as happy in entering the White House as I shall feel on returning to Wheatland, you are a happy man indeed.

Any man who wants to be president is either an egomaniac or crazy.

No mother would ever willingly sacrifice her sons for territorial gain, for economic advantage, for ideology.

Above all, we must realize that no arsenal, or no weapon in the arsenals of the world, is so formidable as the will and moral courage of free men and women. It is a weapon...

It doesn’t do good to open doors for someone who doesn’t have the price to get in. If he has the price, he may not need the laws. There is no law saying the Negro...

We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security.

Well, when you come down to it, I don’t see that a reporter could do much to a president, do you?

Entrepreneurs and their small enterprises are responsible for almost all the economic growth in the United States.

All the waste in a year from a nuclear power plant can be stored under a desk.

The greatest security for Israel is to create new Egypts.

I went to Bali for two months and met my wife, and that’s how the story started… We had a very simple beginning, selling art on the street.

This world of ours… must avoid becoming a community of dreadful fear and hate, and be, instead, a proud confederation of mutual trust and respect.

Liberty cannot be preserved without a general knowledge among the people.

I never drink coffee at lunch. I find it keeps me awake for the afternoon.

We can not play innocents abroad in a world that is not innocent.

The purpose is clear. It is safety with solvency. The country is entitled to both.

I despise people who go to the gutter on either the right or the left and hurl rocks at those in the center.