Neither a wise man nor a brave man lies down on the tracks of history to wait for the train of the future to run over him.

Government always finds a need for whatever money it gets.

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

Thomas Jefferson once said, ‘We should never judge a president by his age, only by his works.’ And ever since he told me that, I stopped worrying.

The sergeant is the Army.

May God save the country, for it is evident that the people will not.

One way to make sure crime doesn’t pay would be to let the government run it.

What we have found in this country, and maybe we’re more aware of it now, is one problem that we’ve had, even in the best of times, and that is the people who are sleeping...

The dangers of a concentration of all power in the general government of a confederacy so vast as ours are too obvious to be disregarded.

I shall make that trip. I shall go to Korea.

Inflation is as violent as a mugger, as frightening as an armed robber and as deadly as a hit man.

They say the world has become too complex for simple answers. They are wrong.

You know, if I listened to Michael Dukakis long enough, I would be convinced we’re in an economic downturn and people are homeless and going without food and medical attention and that we’ve got to...

Politics is a profession; a serious, complicated and, in its true sense, a noble one.

The United States strongly seeks a lasting agreement for the discontinuance of nuclear weapons tests. We believe that this would be an important step toward reduction of international tensions and would open the way to...

Today we did what we had to do. They counted on America to be passive. They counted wrong.

Before I refuse to take your questions, I have an opening statement.

Protecting the rights of even the least individual among us is basically the only excuse the government has for even existing.

I have only one yardstick by which I test every major problem — and that yardstick is: Is it good for America?

It is not strange… to mistake change for progress.

There are no easy answers’ but there are simple answers. We must have the courage to do what we know is morally right.

No matter what time it is, wake me, even if it’s in the middle of a Cabinet meeting.

I like the noise of democracy.

I thought it completely absurd to mention my name in the same breath as the presidency.

Unemployment insurance is a pre-paid vacation for freeloaders.

Government is like a baby. An alimentary canal with a big appetite at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other.

Don’t be afraid to see what you see.

We are tired of aristocratic explanations in Harvard words.

Together we must learn how to compose differences, not with arms, but with intellect and decent purpose.

Life is one grand, sweet song, so start the music.

It’s silly talking about how many years we will have to spend in the jungles of Vietnam when we could pave the whole country and put parking stripes on it and still be home by...

But there are advantages to being elected President. The day after I was elected, I had my high school grades classified Top Secret.

Disarmament, with mutual honor and confidence, is a continuing imperative.

I can never consent to being dictated to.

We are never defeated unless we give up on God.

If the Soviet Union let another political party come into existence, they would still be a one-party state, because everybody would join the other party.

To avoid entangling alliances has been a maxim of our policy ever since the days of Washington, and its wisdom no one will attempt to dispute.

I can think of nothing more boring for the American people than to have to sit in their living rooms for a whole half hour looking at my face on their television screens.

Going to college offered me the chance to play football for four more years.

I’ve often said there’s nothing better for the inside of a man than the outside of a horse.

A baby is an alimentary canal with a loud voice at one end and no responsibility at the other.

An atheist is a man who watches a Notre Dame — Southern Methodist University game and doesn’t care who wins.

‘Worry’ is a word that I don’t allow myself to use.

How do you tell a communist? Well, it’s someone who reads Marx and Lenin. And how do you tell an anti-Communist? It’s someone who understands Marx and Lenin.

One picture is worth 1,000 denials.

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

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.

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