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.

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.

Motivation is the art of getting people to do what you want them to do because they want to do it.

Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it.

If you want total security, go to prison. There you're fed, clothed, given medical care and so on. The only thing lacking... is freedom.

History does not long entrust the care of freedom to the weak or the timid.

We seek peace, knowing that peace is the climate of freedom.

There is nothing wrong with America that faith, love of freedom, intelligence, and energy of her citizens cannot cure.

Only our individual faith in freedom can keep us free.

This world of ours... must avoid becoming a community of dreadful fear and hate, and be, instead, a proud confederation of mutual trust and respect.

Few women, I fear, have had such reason as I have to think the long sad years of youth were worth living for the sake of middle age.

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

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.

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

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.

I think that people want peace so much that one of these days government had better get out of their way and let them have it.

The spirit of man is more important than mere physical strength, and the spiritual fiber of a nation than its wealth.

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

Only strength can cooperate. Weakness can only beg.

Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history.

The most terrible job in warfare is to be a second lieutenant leading a platoon when you are on the battlefield.

The history of free men is never really written by chance but by choice; their choice!

Things have never been more like the way they are today in history.

An intellectual is a man who takes more words than necessary to tell more than he knows.

If men can develop weapons that are so terrifying as to make the thought of global war include almost a sentence for suicide, you would think that man's intelligence and his comprehension... would include also his ability to find a peaceful solution.

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

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.

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.

Peace and justice are two sides of the same coin.

Though force can protect in emergency, only justice, fairness, consideration and cooperation can finally lead men to the dawn of eternal peace.

Politics ought to be the part-time profession of every citizen who would protect the rights and privileges of free people and who would preserve what is good and fruitful in our national heritage.

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

Oh, that lovely title, ex-president.

The people of the world genuinely want peace. Some day the leaders of the world are going to have to give in and give it to them.

Politics is a profession; a serious, complicated and, in its true sense, a noble one.

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.

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

If the United Nations once admits that international disputes can be settled by using force, then we will have destroyed the foundation of the organization and our best hope of establishing a world order.

Our forces saved the remnants of the Jewish people of Europe for a new life and a new hope in the reborn land of Israel. Along with all men of good will, I salute the young state and wish it well.

There are a number of things wrong with Washington. One of them is that everyone is too far from home.