43 Presidents, 43 Quotes

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I know I’m foreign but I have always liked 4th of July, even before I moved here. So in honor of 4th of July, here are 43 quotes by the 43 presidents that have served this great nation. (For the record, I know there has technically been 44 presidencies but Cleveland had two non-consecutive terms. So we’ve still only had 43 people who have served.) Quotes were chosen at my own personal discretion and I’m not saying they are the best ones of all time from any president. Anyway, ‘Merica!
Be courteous to all, but intimate with few, and let those few be well tried before you give them your confidence. George Washington
Power always thinks it has a great soul and vast views beyond the comprehension of the weak; and that it is doing God’s service when it is violating all his laws. John Adams
The God who gave us life, gave us liberty at the same time. Thomas Jefferson
If men were angels, no government would be necessary. James Madison
A little flattery will support a man through great fatigue. James Monroe
Posterity! You will never know how much it has cost my generation to preserve your freedom. I hope you will make good use of it. John Quincy Adams
Take time to deliberate; but when the time for action arrives, stop thinking and go in. Andrew Jackson
Those who have wrought great changes in the world never succeeded by gaining over chiefs; but always by exciting the multitude. The first is the resource of intrigue and produces only secondary results, the second is the resort of genius and transforms the universe. Martin Van Buren
There is nothing more corrupting, nothing more destructive of the noblest and finest feelings of our nature, than the exercise of unlimited power. William Henry Harrison
Patronage is the sword and cannon by which war may be made on the liberty of the human race. John Tyler
No president who performs his duties faithfully and conscientiously can have any leisure. James K. Polk
It would be judicious to act with magnanimity towards a prostrate foe. Zachary Taylor
An honorable defeat is better than a dishonorable victory. Millard Fillmore
If your past is limited, your future is boundless. Franklin Pierce
What is right and what is practicable are two different things. James Buchanan
With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds. Abraham Lincoln
The goal to strive for is a poor government but a rich people. Andrew Johnson
Labor disgraces no man; unfortunately, you occasionally find men who disgrace labor. Ulysses S. Grant
“Let every man, every corporation, and especially let every village, town, and city, every county and State, get out of debt and keep out of debt. It is the debtor that is ruined by hard times. Rutherford B. Hayes
A brave man is a man who dares to look the Devil in the face and tell him he is a Devil. James A. Garfield
Men may die, but the fabrics of free institutions remains unshaken. Chester A. Arthur
I would rather the man who presents something for my consideration subject me to a zephyr of truth and a gentle breeze of responsibility rather than blow me down with a curtain of hot wind. Grover Cleveland
I pity the man who wants a coat so cheap that the man or woman who produces the cloth will starve in the process. Benjamin Harrison
That’s all a man can hope for during his lifetime – to set an example – and when he is dead, to be an inspiration for history. William McKinley
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are. Theodore Roosevelt
Politics makes me sick. William Howard Taft
You are not here merely to make a living. You are here in order to enable the world to live more amply, with greater vision, with a finer spirit of hope and achievement. You are here to enrich the world, and you impoverish yourself if you forget the errand. Woodrow Wilson
I have no trouble with my enemies. I can take care of my enemies in a fight. But my friends, my goddamned friends, they’re the ones who keep me walking the floor at nights! Warren G. Harding
Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated failures. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. Calvin Coolidge
Blessed are the young for they shall inherit the national debt. Herbert Hoover
Men are not prisoners of fate, but only prisoners of their own minds. Franklin D. Roosevelt
America was not built on fear. America was built on courage, on imagination and an unbeatable determination to do the job at hand. Harry S. Truman
A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both. Dwight D. Eisenhower
Our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children’s future. And we are all mortal. John F. Kennedy
The fifth freedom is freedom from ignorance. Lyndon B. Johnson
Remember, always give your best. Never get discouraged. Never be petty. Always remember, others may hate you. But those who hate you don’t win unless you hate them. And then you destroy yourself. Richard Nixon
History and experience tell us that moral progress comes not in comfortable and complacent times, but out of trial and confusion. Gerald Ford
We must adjust to changing times and still hold to unchanging principles. Jimmy Carter
Above all, we must realize that no arsenal, or no weapon in the arsenals of the world, is so formidable as the will and moral courage of free men and women. It is a weapon our adversaries in today’s world do not have. Ronald Reagan
What’s wrong with being a boring kind of guy? George H. W. Bush
Promising too much can be as cruel as caring too little. Bill Clinton
I believe that God has planted in every heart the desire to live in freedom. George W. Bush
There is not a liberal America and a conservative America — there is the United States of America. There is not a Black America and a White America and Latino America and Asian America – there’s the United States of America. Barack Obama

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