Quotes from Dwight D. Eisenhower

The problem is not merely man against man or nation against nation. It is man against war.

Those who take the extreme positions in American political and economic life are always wrong.

There's no tragedy in life like the death of a child. Things never get back to the way they were.

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

The time has passed for dilly-dallying. We must demand satisfactory performance.

To the USSR on Stalin's death: Regardless of the identity of government personalities, the prayer of us Americans continues to be that the Almighty will watch over the people of that vast country and bring them in His wisdom opportunity to live their lives in a world where all men, and women, and children, dwell in peace and comradeship.

Wars are stupid and they can start stupidly.

If a political party does not have its foundation in the determination to advance a cause that is right and that is moral, then it is not a political party; it is merely a conspiracy to seize power.

History teaches that, when powerful despots can gain something through aggression, they try, by the same methods, to gain more and more and more.

Statesmanship is developed in the hard knocks of general experience, private and public.

Things are more like they are now than they ever were before.

We are ready in short, to dedicate our strength to serving the needs, rather than the fears, of the world.

If you are waging peace, you can't be too particular sometimes about the special attitudes that different countries take. We were a young country once, and our whole policy for the first 150 years was, we were neutral. We must not be parsimonious, as long as we are not shooting, we are not spending one tenth as much.

If any blame or fault attaches to the attempt, it is mine alone.

Don't be afraid to go to your library and read every book as long as any document does not offend your own ideas of decency.

One day the people of the world will want peace so much that the governments will have to get out of their way and give it to them.

War is mankind's most tragic and stupid folly; to seek or advise its deliberate provocation is a black crime against all men.

Our form of government has no sense unless it is founded in a deeply felt religious faith, and I don't care what it is.

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in a final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed — those who are cold and not clothed. This world in arms is not spending its money alone — it is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.

True delegation implies the courage and readiness to back up a subordinate to the full; it is not to be confused with the slovenly practice of merely ignoring an unpleasant situation in the hope that someone else will handle it.

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.

The right to challenge a man's judgment carries with it no automatic right to question his honor.

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.

Through knowledge and understanding we will drive from the temple of freedom all those who seek to establish over us thought control, whether they be agents of a foreign state or demagogues thirsty for personal power and public notice.