Dwight D. Eisenhower Quotes (136 Quotes)

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

That was not the biggest battle that ever was, but for me it always typified one thing-the dash, the ingenuity, the readiness at the first opportunity that characterizes the American soldier.

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.

We are tired of aristocratic explanations in Harvard words.

Freedom bestows on us the priceless gift of opportunity - if we neglect our opportunities we shall certainly lose our freedom

I would rather try to persuade a man to go along, because once I have persuaded him, he will stick. If I scare him, he will stay just as long as he is scared, and then he is gone.

I have one yardstick by which I test every major problem - and that yardstick is: Is it good for America?

It is far more important to be able to hit the target than it is to haggle over who makes a weapon or who pulls a trigger.

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

The sergeant is the Army.

Together we must learn how to compose differences, not with arms, but with intellect and decent purpose.

Organizations cannot make a genius out of an incompetent. On the other hand, disorganization can scarcely fail to result in efficiency.

The purpose is clear. It is safety with solvency. The country is entitled to both.

I tell this story to illustrate the truth of the statement I heard long ago in the Army Plans are worthless, but planning is everything. There is a very great distinction because when you are planning for an emergency you must start with this one thing the very definition of 'emergency' is that it is unexpected, therefore it is not going to happen the way you are planning.

Oh yes, I studied dramatics under him for 12 years.

A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both.

Here in America we are descended in blood and in spirit from revolutionists and rebels - men and women who dare to dissent from accepted doctrine. As their heirs, may we never confuse honest dissent with disloyal subversion.

The free world must not prove itself worthy of its own past.

When you put on a uniform, there are certain inhibitions that you accept.

Plans are nothing; planning is everything.

Speeches are for the younger men who are going places. And I'm not going anyplace except six feet under the floor of that little chapel adjoining the museum and library at Abilene.

I deplore the need or the use of troops anywhere to get American citizens to obey the orders of constituted courts.

Remember that it is not by a tyrant's words, but only by his deeds that we can know him

War settles nothing.

I have found out in later years that my family was very poor, but the glory of America is that we didn't know it. On his childhood

When people speak to you about a preventive war, you tell them to go and fight it. After my experience, I have come to hate war.

The older I get the more wisdom I find in the ancient rule of taking first things first. A process which often reduces the most complex human problem to a manageable proportion.

When you are in any contest, you should work as if there were - to the very last minute - a chance to lose it. This is battle, this is politics, this is anything.

You will enter the continent of Europe and, in conjunction with the other United Nations, undertake operations aimed at the heart of Germany and the destruction of her armed forces.

What counts is not necessarily the size of the dog in the fight - it's the size of the fight in the dog.

This desk of mine is one at which a man may die, but from which he cannot resign.

We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security.

You don't lead by hitting people over the head - that's assault, not leadership.

Our best protection against bigger government in Washington is better government in the states

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

Neither a wise man nor a brave man lies down on the tracks of history to wait for the train of the future to run over him.