Quotes from US Presidents

 

John Adams

Arms in the hands of citizens may be used at individual discretion... in private self-defense.  

Let us tenderly and kindly cherish, therefore, the means of knowledge. Let us dare to read, think, speak, and write.  

John Quincy Adams  

All men profess honesty as long as they can. To believe all men honest would be folly. To believe none so is something worse.  

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.

 

Chester A. Arthur  

Men may die, but the fabrics of free institutions remains unshaken  

The extravagant expenditure of public money is an evil not to be measured by the value of that money to the people who are taxed for it.

 

James Buchanan  

The ballot box is the surest arbiter of disputes among free men  

What is right and what is practicable are two different things.

 

Martin Van Buren  

If laws acting upon private interests can not always be avoided, they should be confined within the narrowest limits, and left wherever possible to the legislatures of the States.  

The government should not be guided by Temporary Excitement, but by Sober Second Thought.

 

George H. W. Bush  

I have opinions of my own, strong opinions, but I don't always agree with them.  

It's no exaggeration to say that the undecideds could go one way or another.

 

George W. Bush  

America will never seek a permission slip to defend the security of our people.  

Every nation in every region now has a decision to make. Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists.

 

Jimmy Carter  

Government is a contrivance of human wisdom to provide for human wants. People have the right to expect that these wants will be provided for by this wisdom.  

America did not invent human rights. In a very real sense human rights invented America .

 

Grover Cleveland  

Communism is a hateful thing, and a menace to peace and organized government.  

Public officers are the servants and agents of the people, to execute the laws which the people have made.

 

William J. Clinton  

Let me say this as clearly as I can: No matter how sharp a grievance or how deep a hurt, there is no justification for killing innocents.  

Strength and wisdom are not opposing values.

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