Quotes from Dwight D. Eisenhower

May we never confuse honest dissent with disloyal subversion.

Never send a battalion to take a hill if a regiment is available.

The problem in defense is how far you can go without destroying from within what you are trying to defend from without.

As we peer into society's future, we -- you and I, and our government -- must avoid the impulse to live only for today, plundering for our own ease and convenience the precious resources of tomorrow. We cannot mortgage the material assets of our grandchildren without risking the loss also of their political and spiritual heritage. We want democracy to survive for all generations to come, not to become the insolvent phantom of tomorrow.

Leadership consists of nothing but taking responsibility for everything that goes wrong and giving your subordinates credit for everything that goes well.

I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity.

The history of free men is never written by chance but by choice - their choice.

We are going to have peace even if we have to fight for it.

Pull the string and it will follow wherever you wish. Push it, and it will go nowhere at all.

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.

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.

I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity.

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.

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

Our real problem, then, is not our strength today; it is rather the vital necessity of action today to ensure our strength tomorrow.

We must achieve both security and solvency. In fact, the foundation of military strength is economic strength.

I believe we must be strong militarily, but beyond a certain point military strength can become a national weakness.

So long as we govern our nation by the letter and spirit of the Bill of Rights, we can be sure that our nation will grow in strength and wisdom and freedom.

Knowledge-full, unfettered knowledge of its own heritage, of freedom's enemies, of the whole world of men and ideas-this knowledge is a free people's surest strength.

Despite the present, temporary interests that Israel has in common with France and Britain, you ought not to forget that the strength of Israel and her future are bound up with the United States.

The supreme quality for leadership is unquestionably integrity. Without it, no real success is possible, no matter whether it is on a section gang, a football field, in an army, or in an office.

Some people wanted champagne and caviar when they should have had beer and hot dogs.

The opportunist thinks of me and today. The statesman thinks of us and tomorrow.

The past sharpens perspective, warns against pitfalls, and helps to point the way.