Quotes By Dwight Eisenhower

War implies a contest; when you get to the point that contest is no longer involved and the outlook comes close to destruction of the enemy and suicide for ourselves-an outlook that neither side can ignore - then arguments as to the exact amount of available strength as compared to somebody else's are no longer the vital issues.

When we get to the point, as we one day will, that both sides know that in any outbreak of general hostilities, regardless of the element of surprise, destruction will be both reciprocal and complete, possibly we will have sense enough to meet at the conference table with the understanding that the era of armaments has ended and the human race must conform its actions to this truth or die.

We look upon this shaken Earth, and we declare our firm and fixed purpose - the building of a peace with justice in a world where moral law prevails. The building of such a peace is a bold and solemn purpose. To proclaim it is easy. To serve it will be hard.

We know clearly what we seek, and why. We seek peace, knowing that peace is the climate of freedom. And now, as in no other age, we seek it because we have been warned, by the power of modern weapons, that peace may be the only climate possible for human life itself.

This peace we seek cannot be born of fear alone: it must be rooted in the lives of nations. There must be justice, sensed and shared by all peoples, for, without justice the world can know only a tense and unstable truce.

Splendid as can be the blessings of such a peace, high will be its cost: in toil patiently sustained, in help honorably given, in sacrifice calmly borne.

May the light of freedom, coming to all darkened lands, flame brightly - until at last the darkness is no more. May the turbulence of our age yield to a true time of peace, when men and nations shall share a life that honors the dignity of each, the brotherhood of all.

Mob rule cannot be allowed to override the decisions of our courts.

A foundation of our American way of life is our national respect for law.

If the use of local police powers had been sufficient, our traditional method of leaving the problems in those hands would have been pursued. But when large gatherings of obstructionists made it impossible for the decrees of the Court to be carried out, both the law and the national interest demanded that the President take action.

Freedom under law is like the air we breathe. It is only as we govern ourselves that we are well-governed.

Wait a minute, boys. We're not going to be reconstructing the dollar. We're going to be grubbing for worms.

You might as well go out and shoot everyone you see then shoot yourself.

Let's do in the federal Government only those things that people themselves cannot do at all, or cannot so well do in their individual capacities.

The Founders conceived government as the servant, not the master of the individual.

I had been conscious of a feeling of depression and so I voiced to him my grave misgivings, first on the basis of my belief that Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary.

I thought that our country should avoid shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon whose employment was, I thought, no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives.

I am convinced that the French could not win the war because the internal political situation in Vietnam, weak and confused, badly weakened their military position.

Un-American activity cannot be prevented or routed out by employing un-American methods; to preserve freedom we must use the tools that freedom provides.

I was against it on two counts. First, the Japanese were ready to surrender, and it wasn't necessary to hit them with that awful thing. Second, I hated to see our country be the first to use such a weapon.