Do you have a favorite Presidential quote?

[Josie]

There are so many to choose from, but I was reminded tonight of one that gives me chills when I read it.

We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battle-field, and patriot grave, to every living heart and hearth-stone, all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature. - Abraham Lincoln

 

[spud_meister]

from mijnheer van Buren, my favourite American president.

It affords me sincere pleasure to be able to apprise you of the entire removal of the Cherokee Nation of Indians to their new homes west of the Mississippi.

 

[CaptainCourtesy]

I have a few:

From Andrew Johnson:

If the rabble were lopped off at one end and the aristocrats at the other, all would be well with the country.

From FDR:

A radical is a man with both feet firmly planted — in the air. A conservative is a man with two perfectly good legs who, however, has never learned to walk forward. A reactionary is a somnambulist walking backwards. A liberal is a man who uses his legs and his hands at the behest-at the command — of his head.

From John Adams:

There is nothing which I dread so much as a division of the republic into two great parties, each arranged under its leader, and concerting measures in opposition to each other. This, in my humble apprehension, is to be dreaded as the greatest political evil under our Constitution.

 

[masonkiller]

They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety

Benjamin Franklin

Also almost everything written or spoken by Rothbard or Molyneux.

 

[Hoplite]

"They cant touch me while I'm alive and after I'm dead, who cares?"
John F. Kennedy

 

[pro-bipartisan]

Benjamin Franklin

Also almost everything written or spoken by Rothbard or Molyneux.

I wasn't aware Franklin, Rothbard, or Molyneux were Presidents.

 

[CaptainCourtesy]

Benjamin Franklin

Also almost everything written or spoken by Rothbard or Molyneux.

Not Presidents.

 

[masonkiller]

I wasn't aware Franklin, Rothbard, or Molyneux were Presidents.

Woops wow misread title

 

[MaggieD]

Ronald Reagan had some great ones --

Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it was once like in the United States where men were free.

I don't believe in a government that protects us from ourselves.

Politics is supposed to be the second oldest profession. I have come to realize that it bears a very close resemblance to the first.

The nine most terrifying words in the English language are, 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help.'

And my personal favorite --

Thomas Jefferson once said, 'We should never judge a president by his age, only by his works.' And ever since he told me that, I stopped worrying.

 

[Mensch]

This man SHOULD have been president!

"Those who seek absolute power, even though they seek it to do what they regard as good, are simply demanding the right to enforce their own version of heaven on earth. And let me remind you, they are the very ones who always create the most hellish tyrannies. Absolute power does corrupt, and those who seek it must be suspect and must be opposed. Their mistaken course stems from false notions of equality, ladies and gentlemen. Equality, rightly understood, as our founding fathers understood it, leads to liberty and to the emancipation of creative differences. Wrongly understood, as it has been so tragically in our time, it leads first to conformity and then to despotism."

Acceptance Speech as the Republican Presidential candidate, San Francisco (July 1964)

"I have little interest in streamlining government or in making it more efficient, for I mean to reduce its size. I do not undertake to promote welfare, for I propose to extend freedom. My aim is not to pass laws, but to repeal them. It is not to inaugurate new programs, but to cancel old ones that do violence to the Constitution, or that have failed their purpose, or that impose on the people an unwarranted financial burden. I will not attempt to discover whether legislation is "needed" before I have first determined whether it is constitutionally permissible. And if I should later be attacked for neglecting my constituents' "interests," I shall reply that I was informed that their main interest is liberty and that in that cause I am doing the very best I can."

The Conscience of A Conservative (1960), p. 15

"I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice! And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue!"

-Barry Goldwater

 

[Goof Noodle]

The Bible is the rock on which this Republic rests. - Andrew Jackson

 

[BDBoop]

"Only thing we have to fear is fear itself." FDR

 

[VanceMack]

"Only thing we have to fear is fear itself." FDR

and spiders. Big ass spiders...with hairy legs and little fangs...(that part always gets left off the quote)

 

[CaptainCourtesy]

and spiders. Big ass spiders...with hairy legs and little fangs...(that part always gets left off the quote)

OK. That was funny. :lol:

 

[mac]

"Every reform movement has a lunatic fringe."
---Theodore Roosevelt

And pretty much everything else he ever said. If it could be said I had a hero, he'd be a shoe in for the number 1 spot. Lincoln and Truman would be 2 and 3.

 

[BDBoop]

/me runs screaming into the night

and spiders. Big ass spiders...with hairy legs and little fangs...(that part always gets left off the quote)

Actually, one of the most amazing things I ever saw was probably about 15 years ago. My daughter has a huge issue with spiders. She saw one of the jumping (OMFG!!) varieties in our kitchen. She leapt straight in the air and BACK A FOOT and landed on the kitchen counter behind her. I think she defied some natural law to get there.

My husband killed it for her.

 

[pro-bipartisan]

"Jefferson still survives"- John Adams

 

[Johnny]

"Liberty, when it begins to take root, is a plant of rapid growth."
-George Washington

 

[GayLibertarian]

My favorite President is Calvin Coolidge. Here is a great quote from Wikipedia:

As Vice-President, Coolidge and his vivacious wife Grace were invited to quite a few parties, where the legend of "Silent Cal" was born. It was from this time most of the jokes and anecdotes involving Coolidge originate. Although Coolidge was known to be a skilled and effective public speaker, in private he was a man of few words and was therefore commonly referred to as "Silent Cal." A possibly apocryphal story has it that Dorothy Parker, seated next to him at a dinner, said to him, "Mr. Coolidge, I've made a bet against a fellow who said it was impossible to get more than two words out of you." His famous reply: "You lose."

 

[Cyberhwk]

"My fellow Americans, I'm pleased to tell you today that I've signed legislation that will outlaw Russia forever. We begin bombing in five minutes."

Hey...say what you want about the guy, but that's funny!

On a more sober note:

Every once in a while, there's a day with an absolute right and an absolute wrong, but those days almost always include body counts.

 

[GayLibertarian]

Hmm ... I miss President Reagan.

That simple message of freedom, sanctity of life and purity of capitalism.

 

[Johnny]

"The means of defense against foreign danger historically have become the instruments of tyranny at home."
-James Madison

 

[BDBoop]

That was an amazing show for at least the first three years. Then they kind of took a wrong turn.

Hey...say what you want about the guy, but that's funny!

On a more sober note: