"Some years ago I became president of Columbia University and learned within 24 hours to be ready to speak at the drop of a hat, and I learned something more, the trustees were expected to be ready to speak at the passing of the hat."

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More quotes from: Dwight D. Eisenhower

• "A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both. "
• "An atheist is a man who watches a Notre Dame - Southern Methodist University game ..."
• "An intellectual is a man who takes more words than necessary to tell more than ..."
• "Ankles are nearly always neat and good-looking, but knees are nearly always not. "
• "Any man who wants to be president is either an egomaniac or crazy. "
• "Controlled, universal disarmament is the imperative of our time. The demand for it by the ..."
• "Disarmament, with mutual honor and confidence, is a continuing imperative. "
• "Do not needlessly endanger your lives until I give you the signal. "
• "Don't join the book burners. Do not think you are going to conceal thoughts by ..."
• "Don't think you are going to conceal thoughts by concealing evidence that they ever existed. "
• "Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final ..."
• "Farming looks mighty easy when your plow is a pencil and you're a thousand miles ..."
• "Few women, I fear, have had such reason as I have to think the long ..."
• "From behind the Iron Curtain, there are signs that tyranny is in trouble and reminders ..."
• "From this day forward, the millions of our schoolchildren will daily proclaim in every city ..."
• "Here in America we are descended in blood and in spirit from revolutionists and rebels ..."
• "History does not long entrust the care of freedom to the weak or the timid. "
• "How far you can go without destroying from within what you are trying to defend ..."
• "Humility must always be the portion of any man who receives acclaim earned in the ..."
• "I can think of nothing more boring for the American people than to have to ..."
• "I deplore the need or the use of troops anywhere to get American citizens to ..."
• "I despise people who go to the gutter on either the right or the left ..."
• "I don't attempt to be a poker player before this crowd. "
• "I feel impelled to speak today in a language that in a sense is new-one ..."
• "I feel like the fellow in jail who is watching his scaffold being built. "
• "I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one ..."
• "I have found out in later years that we were very poor, but the glory ..."
• "I have one yardstick by which I test every major problem-and that yardstick is: Is ..."
• "I have only one yardstick by which I test every major problem - and that ..."
• "I like to believe that people in the long run are going to do more ..."
• "I shall make that trip. I shall go to Korea. "
• "I think that people want peace so much that one of these days government had ..."
• "I thought it completely absurd to mention my name in the same breath as the ..."
• "I would rather try to persuade a man to go along, because once I have ..."
• "I'm saving that rocker for the day when I feel as old as I really ..."
• "If a problem cannot be solved, enlarge it. "
• "If men can develop weapons that are so terrifying as to make the thought of ..."
• "If the United Nations once admits that international disputes can be settled by using force, ..."

• "If you want total security, go to prison. There you're fed, clothed, given medical care ..."
• "In most communities it is illegal to cry "fire" in a crowded assembly. Should it ..."
• "In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is ..."
• "In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether ..."
• "In the final choice a soldier's pack is not so heavy as a prisoner's chains. "
• "It is far more important to be able to hit the target than it is ..."
• "Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because ..."
• "May we never confuse honest dissent with disloyal subversion. "
• "Motivation is the art of getting people to do what you want them to do ..."
• "Neither a wise man nor a brave man lies down on the tracks of history ..."
• "No one should ever sit in this office over 70 years old, and that I ..."
• "Oh yes, I studied dramatics under him for 12 years. "
• "Oh, that lovely title, ex-president. "
• "Only Americans can hurt America. "
• "Only our individual faith in freedom can keep us free. "
• "Only strength can cooperate. Weakness can only beg. "
• "Our forces saved the remnants of the Jewish people of Europe for a new life ..."
• "Our pleasures were simple - they included survival. "
• "Our real problem, then, is not our strength today; it is rather the vital necessity ..."
• "Peace and justice are two sides of the same coin. "
• "Pessimism never won any battle. "
• "Plans are nothing; planning is everything. "
• "Politics is a profession; a serious, complicated and, in its true sense, a noble one. "
• "Politics ought to be the part-time profession of every citizen who would protect the rights ..."
• "Pull the string, and it will follow wherever you wish. Push it, and it will ..."
• "Some people wanted champagne and caviar when they should have had beer and hot dogs. "
• "Speeches are for the younger men who are going places. And I'm not going anyplace ..."
• "That was not the biggest battle that ever was, but for me it always typified ..."
• "The best morale exist when you never hear the word mentioned. When you hear a ..."
• "The clearest way to show what the rule of law means to us in everyday ..."
• "The free world must not prove itself worthy of its own past. "
• "The history of free men is never really written by chance but by choice; their ..."
• "The most terrible job in warfare is to be a second lieutenant leading a platoon ..."
• "The older I get the more wisdom I find in the ancient rule of taking ..."
• "The people of the world genuinely want peace. Some day the leaders of the world ..."
• "The problem in defense is how far you can go without destroying from within what ..."
• "The purpose is clear. It is safety with solvency. The country is entitled to both. "

• "The sergeant is the Army. "
• "The spirit of man is more important than mere physical strength, and the spiritual fiber ..."
• "The supreme quality for leadership is unquestionably integrity. Without it, no real success is possible, ..."
• "The United States pledges its determination to help solve the fearful atomic dilemma-to devote its ..."
• "The United States strongly seeks a lasting agreement for the discontinuance of nuclear weapons tests. ..."
• "The world moves, and ideas that were once good are not always good. "
• "There are a number of things wrong with Washington. One of them is that everyone ..."
• "There is no glory in battle worth the blood it costs. "
• "There is no person in this room whose basic rights are not involved in any ..."
• "There is no victory at bargain basement prices. "
• "There is nothing wrong with America that faith, love of freedom, intelligence, and energy of ..."
• "There's no tragedy in life like the death of a child. Things never get back ..."
• "Things are more like they are now than they ever were before. "
• "Things have never been more like the way they are today in history. "
• "This desk of mine is one at which a man may die, but from which ..."
• "This world of ours... must avoid becoming a community of dreadful fear and hate, and ..."
• "Though force can protect in emergency, only justice, fairness, consideration and cooperation can finally lead ..."
• "Together we must learn how to compose differences, not with arms, but with intellect and ..."
• "Unlike presidential administrations, problems rarely have terminal dates. "
• "War settles nothing. "
• "We are going to have peace even if we have to fight for it. "
• "We are tired of aristocratic explanations in Harvard words. "
• "We have heard much of the phrase, "peace and friendship." This phrase, in expressing the ..."
• "We must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the ..."
• "We seek peace, knowing that peace is the climate of freedom. "
• "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 ..."
• "What counts is not necessarily the size of the dog in the fight - it's ..."
• "Whatever America hopes to bring to pass in the world must first come to pass ..."
• "When people speak to you about a preventive war, you tell them to go and ..."
• "When you are in any contest, you should work as if there were - to ..."
• "When you put on a uniform, there are certain inhibitions that you accept. "
• "'Worry' is a word that I don't allow myself to use. "
• "You can't have this kind of war. There just aren't enough bulldozers to scrape the ..."
• "You don't lead by hitting people over the head-that's assault, not leadership. "
• "You will enter the continent of Europe and, in conjunction with the other United Nations, ..."