Quotes from Calvin Coolidge

If you see 10 troubles coming down the road, you can be sure 9 will go in the ditch and you have only one to battle with.

The chief business of the American people is business.

It is a great advantage to a President, and a major source of safety to the country, for him to know that he is not a great man. When a man begins to feel that he is the only one who can lead in this republic, he is guilty of treason to the spirit of our institutions. .

We live in an age of science and of abounding accumulation of material things. These did not create our Declaration. Our Declaration created them. The things of the spirit come first. Unless we cling to that, all our material prosperity, overwhelming though it may appear, will turn to a barren scepter in our grasp.

While we should not refuse to spend and be spent in the service of our country, it is hazardous to attempt what we feel is beyond our strength to accomplish.

I have often said that there was no cause for feeling disturbed at being misrepresented in the press. It would be only when they began to say things detrimental to me which were true that I should feel alarm.

Fate bestows its rewards on those who put themselves in the proper attitude to receive them.

I had a heart attack for dinner

Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence.

So far as each individual is concerned all he can do is to take the abilities he has and make the most of them. His power over the past is gone. His power over the future depends on what he does with himself in the present. If he wishes to live and progress he must work.

The man who builds a factory builds a temple, . . . the man who works there worships there, and to each is due, not scorn and blame, but reverence and praise.

No man ever listened himself out of a job.

I do not choose to run for President in 1928.

It would be folly to argue that the people cannot make political mistakes. They can and do make grave mistakes. They know it, they pay the penalty, but compared with the mistakes which have been made by every kind of autocracy they are unimportant.

After order and liberty, economy is one of the highest essentials of a free government.... Economy is always a guarantee of peace.

No person was ever honoured for what he received. Honour has been the reward for what he gave.

One with the law is a majority.

There is no right to strike against the public safety by anybody, anywhere, anytime.

Nothing in the world can take place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful individuals with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.

I have noticed that nothing I never said ever did me any harm.

If you don't say anything, you won't be called on to repeat it.

The presidency does not yield to definition. Like the glory of a morning sunrise, it can be experienced - it can not be told.

I think the American public wants a solemn ass as a president, and I think I'll go along with them.

We cannot do everything at once, but we can do something at once.