Famous Woodrow Wilson Quotations

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"There is no question what the roll of honor in America is. The roll of honor consists of the names of men who have squared their conduct by ideals of duty."
by Woodrow Wilson
"No man has ever risen to the real stature of spiritual manhood until he has found that it is finer to serve somebody else than it is to serve himself."
by Woodrow Wilson
"Loyalty means nothing unless it has at its heart the absolute principle of self-sacrifice."
by Woodrow Wilson
"There is no higher religion than human service. To work for the common good is the greatest creed."
by Woodrow Wilson
"...it is as hard to do your duty when men are sneering at you as when they are shooting at you."
by Woodrow Wilson
"A conservative is someone who makes no changes and consults his grandmother when in doubt."
by Woodrow Wilson
"A conservative is a man who sits and thinks, mostly sits."
by Woodrow Wilson
"A nation which does not remember what it was yesterday, does not know what it is today, nor what it is trying to do. We are trying to do a futile thing if we do not know where we came from or what we have been about."
by Woodrow Wilson
"Anyone who is not a socialist at 16 has no heart, but anyone who still is at 32 has no mind."
by Woodrow Wilson
"Business underlies everything in our national life, including our spiritual life. Witness the fact that in the Lord's Prayer, the first petition is for daily bread. No one can worship God or love his neighbor on an empty stomach."
by Woodrow Wilson
"Cherish your visions and your dreams as they are the children of your soul; the blue prints of your ultimate achievements"
by Woodrow Wilson
"Changing a college curriculum is like moving a graveyard--you never know how many friends the dead have until you try to move them!"
by Calvin Coolidge or Woodrow Wilson
"Here is a great body of our Jewish citizens from whom have sprung men of genius in every walk of our varied life; men who have conceived of its ideals with singular clearness; and led enterprises with sprit & sagacity... They are not Jews in America, they are American citizens."
by Woodrow Wilson
"I am not sure that it is of the first importance that you should be happy. Many an unhappy man has been of deep service to himself and to the world."
by Woodrow Wilson
"I fancy that it is just as hard to do your duty when men are sneering at you as when they are shooting at you"
by Woodrow Wilson
"I have always been among those who believed that the greatest freedom of speech was the greatest safety, because if a man is a fool the best thing to do is to encourage him to advertise the fact by speaking."
by Woodrow Wilson
"I not only use all the brains that I have, but all that I can borrow."
by Woodrow Wilson
"I used to be a lawyer, but now I am a reformed character."
by Woodrow Wilson
"I would rather lose in a cause that will some day win, than win in a cause that will some day lose."
by Woodrow Wilson
"I would rather fail in a cause that will ultimately triumph than to triumph in a cause that will ultimately fail."
by Woodrow Wilson
"I would rather belong to a poor nation that was free than to a rich nation that had ceased to be in love with liberty."
by Woodrow Wilson
"I would never read a book if it were possible for me to talk half an hour with the man who wrote it"
by Woodrow Wilson
"If a dog will not come to you after he has looked you in face, you should go home and examine your consicence."
by Woodrow Wilson
"Just what is it that America stands for? If she stands for one thing more than another it is for the sovereignty of self-governing people."
by Woodrow Wilson
"Just what is it that America stands for If she stands for one thing more than another it is for the sovereignty of self-governing people."
by Woodrow Wilson
"Liberty has never come from the government. Liberty has always come from the subjects of it. The history of liberty is a history of resistance"
by Woodrow Wilson
"Never murder a man who is committing suicide"
by Woodrow Wilson
"No man that does not see visions will ever realize any high hope or undertake any high enterprise"
by Woodrow Wilson
"No man can sit down and withhold his hands from the warfare against wrong and get peace from his acquiescence."
by Woodrow Wilson
"No nation is fit to sit in judgement upon any other nation."
by Woodrow Wilson
"No one who has read official documents needs to be told how easy it is to conceal the essential truth under the apparently candid and all- disclosing phrases of a voluminous and particularizing report...."
by Woodrow Wilson
"Once lead this people into war and they will forget there ever was such a thing as tolerance."
by Woodrow Wilson
"One cool judgment is worth a thousand hasty councils. The thing is to supply light and not heat"
by Woodrow Wilson
"One cool judgment is worth a dozen hasty councils. The thing to do is to supply light and not heat."
by Woodrow Wilson
"Our industries have expanded to such a point that they will burst their jackets if they cannot find a free outlet to the markets of the world. Our domestic markets no longer suffice. We need foreign markets"
by Woodrow Wilson
"Power consists in one's capacity to link his will with the purpose of others, to lead by reason and a gift of cooperation."
by Woodrow Wilson
"Prosperity is necessarily the first theme of a political campaign."
by Woodrow Wilson
"Property as compared with humanity, as compared with the red blood in the American people, must take second place, not first place."
by Woodrow Wilson
"Some Americans need hyphens in their names, because only part of them has come over; but when the whole man has come over, heart and thought and all, the hyphen drops of its own weight out of his name"
by Woodrow Wilson
"Some Americans need hyphens in their names because only part of them has come over."
by Woodrow Wilson
"Sometimes people call me an idealist. Well, that is the way I know I am an American. America is the only idealistic nation in the world"
by Woodrow Wilson
"That a peasant may become king does not render the kingdom democratic."
by Woodrow Wilson
"The history of liberty is a history of the limitation of government power."
by Woodrow Wilson
"The history of liberty is a history of limitation of government power, not the increase of it"
by Woodrow Wilson
"The man who is swimming against the stream knows the strength of it."
by Woodrow Wilson
"The sum of the whole matter is this, that our civilization cannot survive materially unless it be redeemed spiritually"
by Woodrow Wilson
"The way you let your hand rest in mine, my bewitching Sweetheart, fills me with happiness. It is the perfection of confiding love. Everything you do, the little unconscious things in particular, charms me and increases my sense of nearness to you, identification with you, till my heart is full to overflowing."
by Woodrow Wilson
"The world must be made safe for democracy. Its peace must be planted upon the tested foundations of political liberty."
by Woodrow Wilson
"The world must be made safe for democracy. Its peace must be planted upon the tested foundations of political liberty."
by Woodrow Wilson
"The world must be made safe for democracy."
by Woodrow Wilson
"There is such a thing as a man being too proud to fight; there is such a thing as a nation being so right that it does not need to convince others by force that it is right."
by Woodrow Wilson
"There is such a thing as a man being too proud to fight there is such a thing as a nation being so right that it does not need to convince others by force that it is right."
by Woodrow Wilson
"Too much law was too much government; and too much government was too little individual privilege,- as too much individual privilege in its turn was selfish license"
by Woodrow Wilson
"We cannot be separated in interest or divided in purpose. We stand together until the end."
by Woodrow Wilson
"We grow great by dreams. All big men are dreamers. They see things in the soft haze of a spring day or in the red fire of a long winter's evening. Some of us let these great dreams die, but others nourish and protect them nurse them through bad days till they bring them to the sunshine and light which comes always to those who sincerely hope that their dreams will come true."
by Woodrow Wilson
"We shall fight for a universal dominion of right by such a concert of free peoples as shall bring peace and safety to all nations and make the world itself at last free"
by Woodrow Wilson
"When men take up arms to set other men free, there is something sacred and holy in the warfare."
by Woodrow Wilson
"When you have read the Bible, you will know it is the word of God, because you will have found it the key to your own heart, your own happiness, and your own duty."
by Woodrow Wilson
"Wilson was once asked how long it took him to write a speech. He answered, 'That depends. If I am to speak 10 minutes, I need a week for preparation. If 15 minutes, 3 days. If half hour, two days. If an hour, I am ready now.'"
by Woodrow Wilson
"You are not here merely to make a living. You are here to enable the world to live more amply, with greater vision, and with a finer spirit of hope and achievement. You are here to enrich the world. You impoverish yourself if you forget this errand."
by Woodrow Wilson
"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."
by Woodrow Wilson
"The interesting and inspiring thing about America is that she asks nothing for herself except what she has a right to ask for humanity itself."
by Woodrow Wilson
"Sometimes people call me an idealist. Well, that is the way I know I am an American. America is the only idealistic nation in the world."
by Woodrow Wilson
"In the Lords prayer, the first petition is for daily bread; no one can worship God, or love his neighbor on an empty stomach."
by Woodrow Wilson
"If you want to make enemies, try to change something."
by Woodrow Wilson
"I believe in democracy, because it releases the energies of every human being."
by Woodrow Wilson
"Democracy is not so much a form of government as a set of principles."
by Woodrow Wilson
"America is the place where you cannot kill your government by killing the men who conduct it."
by Woodrow Wilson
"The truth is, we are all caught in a great economic system which is heartless."
by Woodrow Wilson
"Fear God and you need not fear anyone else."
by Woodrow Wilson
"The nation's honor is dearer than the nation's comfort; yes, than the nation's life itself."
by Woodrow Wilson
"America is not anything if it consists of each of us. It is something only if it consists of all of us."
by Woodrow Wilson
"I don't let facts cloud my opions."
by Woodrow Wilson
"They imply, first of all, that it must be a peace without victory. It is not pleasant to say this. I beg that I may be permitted to put my own interpretation upon it and that it may be understood that no other interpretation was in my thought. I am seeking only to face realities and to face them without soft concealments. Victory would mean peace forced upon the loser, a victor's terms imposed upon the vanquished. It would be accepted in humiliation, under duress, at an intolerable sacrifice, and would leave a sting, a resentment, a bitter memory upon which terms of peace would rest, not permanently, but only as upon quicksand. Only a peace between equals can last, only a peace the very principle of which is equality and a common participation in a common benefit. The right state of mind, the right feeling between nations, is as necessary for a lasting peace as is the just settlement of vexed questions of territory or of racial and national allegiance."
by Woodrow Wilson
"A conservative is a man who just sits and thinks, mostly sits."
by Woodrow Wilson
"Today's greatest labor-saving device is tomorrow."
by Woodrow Wilson
"Since I entered politics, I have chiefly had men's views confided to me privately. Some of the biggest men in the United States, in the Field of commerce and manufacture, are afraid of something. They know that there is a power somewhere -- so organized, so subtle, so watchful, so interlocked, so complete, so pervasive -- that they better not speak above their breath when they speak in condemnation of it."
by Woodrow Wilson
"I not only use all the brains I have but all I can borrow."
by Woodrow Wilson
"I have always been among those who believed that the greatest freedom of speech was the greatest safety, because if a man is a fool, the best thing to do is to encourage him to advertise the fact by speaking."
by Woodrow Wilson
"Generally young men are regarded as radicals. This is a popular misconception. The most conservative persons I ever met are college undergraduates. The radicals are the men past middle life."
by Woodrow Wilson
"I would rather lose in a cause that will some day win, than win in a cause that will some day lose!"
by Woodrow Wilson
"There is no such thing as a man being too proud to fight; there is such a thing as a nation being so right that it does not need to convince others by force that it is right."
by Woodrow Wilson
"The most conservative persons I ever met are college undergraduates. The radicals are the men past middle life."
by Woodrow Wilson
"It must be a peace without victory.... Victory would mean peace forced upon the losers, a victor's terms imposed upon the vanquished. It would..."
by Woodrow Wilson
"Neutrality is a negative word. It does not express what America ought to feel.... We are not trying to keep out of trouble; we are trying to p..."
by Woodrow Wilson
"My dream of politics all my life has been that it is the common business, that it is something we owe to each other to understand and ... disc..."
by Woodrow Wilson
"No one can doubt the purpose for which the Nation now seeks to use the Democratic Party. It seeks to use it to interpret a change in its own p..."
by Woodrow Wilson
"Senator Albert B. Fall: 'We have been praying for you, Sir.' President Wilson: 'Which way, Senator?'"
by Woodrow Wilson
"The example of America must be the example, not merely of peace because it will not fight, but of peace because it is the healing and elevatin..."
by Woodrow Wilson
"The light that shined upon the summit now seems almost to shine at our feet."
by Woodrow Wilson
"The life—the home—of my youth is cut off, and now it is you and me, my sweet one."
by Woodrow Wilson
"The rule for every man is, not to depend on the education which other men have prepared for him,—not even to consent to it; but to strive to..."
by Woodrow Wilson
"There is one thing that the American people always rise to and extend their hand to and that is the truth of justice, and of liberty, and of p..."
by Woodrow Wilson
"The world can be at peace only if the world is stable, and there can be no stability where the will is in rebellion, where there is not tranqu..."
by Woodrow Wilson
"There will be no greater burden on our generation than to organize the forces of liberty in our time in order to make our quest of a new freed..."
by Woodrow Wilson
"Today, supremely, it behooves us to remember that a nation shall be saved by the power that sleeps in its own bosom; or by none; shall be rene..."
by Woodrow Wilson
"Where the great force lies, there must be the sanction of peace."
by Woodrow Wilson
"Would that we could do something, at once dignified and effective, to knock Mr. Bryan once and for all into a cocked hat."
by Woodrow Wilson
"America lives in the heart of every man everywhere who wishes to find a region where he will be free to work out his destiny as he chooses."
by Woodrow Wilson


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