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.
— Dwight D. Eisenhower
War settles nothing.
How far you can go without destroying from within what you are trying to defend from without?
Some people wanted champagne and caviar when they should have had beer and hot dogs.
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.
Whatever America hopes to bring to pass in the world must first come to pass in the heart of America.
The older I get the more wisdom I find in the ancient rule of taking first things first. A process which often reduces the most complex human problem to a manageable proportion.
Pessimism never won any battle.
The free world must not prove itself worthy of its own past.
The spirit of man is more important than mere physical strength, and the spiritual fiber of a nation than its wealth.
Humility must always be the portion of any man who receives acclaim earned in the blood of his followers and the sacrifices of his friends.
Only strength can cooperate. Weakness can only beg.
I have only one yardstick by which I test every major problem - and that yardstick is: Is it good for America?
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 young state and wish it well.
'Worry' is a word that I don't allow myself to use.
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.
Things have never been more like the way they are today in history.
When people speak to you about a preventive war, you tell them to go and fight it. After my experience, I have come to hate war.
Together we must learn how to compose differences, not with arms, but with intellect and decent purpose.
Disarmament, with mutual honor and confidence, is a continuing imperative.
In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.
There's no tragedy in life like the death of a child. Things never get back to the way they were.
We are going to have peace even if we have to fight for it.
Politics ought to be the part-time profession of every citizen who would protect the rights and privileges of free people and who would preserve what is good and fruitful in our national heritage.
I would rather try to persuade a man to go along, because once I have persuaded him, he will stick. If I scare him, he will stay just as long as he is scared, and then he is gone.
The problem in defense is how far you can go without destroying from within what you are trying to defend from without.
Pull the string, and it will follow wherever you wish. Push it, and it will go nowhere at all.
May we never confuse honest dissent with disloyal subversion.
An atheist is a man who watches a Notre Dame - Southern Methodist University game and doesn't care who wins.
I'm saving that rocker for the day when I feel as old as I really am.
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.
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 further agreement on substantial measures of disarmament.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security.
Politics is a profession; a serious, complicated and, in its true sense, a noble one.
We must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex.
There is no glory in battle worth the blood it costs.
Though force can protect in emergency, only justice, fairness, consideration and cooperation can finally lead men to the dawn of eternal peace.
In the final choice a soldier's pack is not so heavy as a prisoner's chains.
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.
When you are in any contest, you should work as if there were - to the very last minute - a chance to lose it. This is battle, this is politics, this is anything.
Plans are nothing; planning is everything.
We seek peace, knowing that peace is the climate of freedom.
The best morale exist when you never hear the word mentioned. When you hear a lot of talk about it, it's usually lousy.
Only our individual faith in freedom can keep us free.
The history of free men is never really written by chance but by choice; their choice!
Only Americans can hurt America.
There are a number of things wrong with Washington. One of them is that everyone is too far from home.
An intellectual is a man who takes more words than necessary to tell more than he knows.
If men can develop weapons that are so terrifying as to make the thought of global war include almost a sentence for suicide, you would think that man's intelligence and his comprehension... would include also his ability to find a peaceful solution.
If a problem cannot be solved, enlarge it.
