Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
The answer to many of the domestic problems we face is not higher taxes and more spending. It is less waste, more results and greater freedom for the individual American to earn a rightful place in his own community - and for States and localities to address their own needs in their own ways, in the light of their own priorities.
... Member Countries shall take necessary action and/or shall establish negotiations, individually or in groups, with the oil companies with a view to adopting ways and means to offset any adverse effects on the per barrel real income of Member Countries resulting from the international monetary developments as of 15th August 1971.
Never has so much military and economic and diplomatic power been used so ineffectively, and if after all of this time, and all of this sacrifice, and all of this support, there is still no end in sight, then I say the time has come for the American people to turn to new leadership not tied to the mistakes and policies of the past.
The easiest period in a crisis situation is actually the battle itself. The most difficult is the period of indecision - whether to fight or run away. And the most dangerous period is the aftermath. It is then, with all his resources spent and his guard down, that an individual must watch out for dulled reactions and faulty judgment.
The average American is just like the child in the family. You give him some responsibility and he is going to amount to something. He is going to do something. If, on the other hand, you make him completely dependent and pamper him and cater to him too much, you are going to make him soft, spoiled and eventually a very weak individual.
Let historians not record that when America was the most powerful nation in the world we passed on the other side of the road and allowed the last hopes for peace and freedom of millions of people to be suffocated by the forces of totalitarianism. And so tonightto you, the great silent majority of my fellow AmericansI ask for your support.
The recent upsurge of public concern over environmental questions reflects a belated recognition that man has been too cavalier in his relations with nature. Unless we arrest the depredations that have been inflicted so carelessly on our natural systems-which exist in an intricate set of balances-we face the prospect of ecological disaster.
If in order to avoid further Communist expansion in Asia and particularly in Indo-China, if in order to avoid it we must take the risk by putting American boys in, I believe that the executive branch of the government has to take the politically unpopular position of facing up to it and doing it, and I personally would support such a decision.
[T]here may be some truth in that if the Arabs have some complaints about my policy towards Israel, they have to realize that the Jews in the U. S. control the entire information and propaganda machine, the large newspapers, the motion pictures, radio and television, and the big companies, and there is a force that we have to take into consideration.
Restoring nature to its natural state is a cause beyond party and beyond factions. It has become a common cause of all the people of this country. It is a cause of particular concern to young Americans, because they more than we will reap the grim consequences of our failure to act on programs which are needed now if we are to prevent disaster later.
I have the greatest affection for them but I know they're not going to make it for 500 years. They aren't. You know it, too. The Mexicans are a different cup of tea. They have a heritage. At the present time they steal, they're dishonest, but they do have some concept of family life. They don't live like a bunch of dogs, which the Negroes do live like.
While technically I did not commit a crime, an impeachable offense... these are legalisms, as far as the handling of this matter is concerned; it was so botched up, I made so many bad judgments. The worst ones, mistakes of the heart, rather than the head. But let me say, a man in that top job - he's got to have a heart, but his head must always rule his heart.
Neil and Buzz, I am talking to you by telephone from the Oval Office at the White House, and this certainly has to be the most historic telephone call ever made. . . . Because of what you have done, the heavens have become a part of man's world. As you talk to us from the Sea of Tranquility, it inspires us to redouble our efforts to bring peace and tranquility to Earth.
Government has the responsibility to provide the climate in which Americans, all Americans, have an opportunity for good jobs; and not only for good jobs, but an opportunity if they have the ability and the desire, to be owners and managers, to have a piece of the action, because if they have a piece of the action, then they believe in the system rather than fighting against it.
We must adopt reforms which will expand the range of opportunities for all Americans. We can fulfill the American dream only when each person has a fair chance to fulfill his own dreams. This means equal voting rights, equal employment opportunity and new opportunities for expanded ownership, because in order to be secure in their human rights, people need access to property rights.
I don't mind the homosexuality. I understand it. Nevertheless, goddamn, I don't think you glorify it on public television, homosexuality, even more than you glorify whores. We all know we have weaknesses. But, goddammit, what do you think that does to kids? You know what happened to the Greeks! Homosexuality destroyed them. Sure, Aristotle was a homo. We all know that. So was Socrates.
There is an international disease which feeds on the notion that if you have a cause to defend, you can use any means to further your cause, since the end justifies the means. As an international community, we must oppose this notion, whether it be in Canada, in the United States, or anywhere else. No cause justifies violence as long as the system provides for change by peaceful means.
When I spoke at the St. Lawrence Seaway ceremonies in 1969, I borrowed some words from the monument there which I had joined Queen Elizabeth in dedicating just 10 years before. That monument, as its inscription puts it, 'bears witness to the common purpose of two nations whose frontiers are the frontiers of friendship, whose ways are the ways of freedom, whose works are the works of peace'.
The Soviet Union began by banishing God. The United States began as a community of people who wanted to worship God as they chose. . . Man does not live by bread alone. Those in the United States whose desire to create a strictly secular society is as strong as Lenin's was should study this Cold War lesson closely. Communism was defeated by an alliance spearheaded by 'one nation under God.'
The peace we seek in the world is not the flimsy peace which is merely an interlude between wars, but a peace which can endure for generations to come. It is important that we understand both the necessity and the limitations of America's role in maintaining that peace. Unless we in America work to preserve the peace, there will be no peace. Unless we in America work to preserve freedom, there will be no freedom.
We believe that part of the answer lies in pricing energy on the basis of its full costs to society. One reason we use energy so lavishly today is that the price of energy does not include all of the social costs of producing it. The costs incurred in protecting the environment and the health and safety of workers, for example, are part of the real costs of producing energy-but they are not now all included in the price of the product.
It has been said that Canada is bounded 'on the north by gold, on the west by the East, on the east by history - and on the south by friends'.* We hope that will always be the case and we hope it will be the case not only with respect to the United States, your immediate neighbor to the south, but with respect to all your southern neighbors - and ours - who are bound by the great forces of geography and history which are distinctive to the New World.
Sharp increases in the minimum wage rate are also inflationary. Frequently workers paid more than the minimum gauge their wages relative to it. This is especially true of those workers who are paid by the hour. An increase in the minimum therefore increases their demands for higher wages in order to maintain their place in the structure of wages. And when the increase is as sharp as it is in H.R. 7935, the result is sure to be a fresh surge of inflation.
I made my mistakes, but in all of my years in public life, I have never profited, never profited from public serviceI have earned every cent. And in all of my years of public life, I have never obstructed justice. And I think, too, that I could say that in my years of public life, that I welcome this kind of examination, because people have got to know whether or not their President is a crook. Well, I am not a crook. I have earned everything I have got.
The Constitution supposes what the history of all governments demonstrates, that the executive is the branch of power most interested in war and most prone to it. It has accordingly with studied care, vested the question of war in the legislature. [If a president is successful in bypassing the Congress] it is evident that the people are cheated out of the best ingredients in the government, the safeguards of peace which is the greatest of their blessings.
Let us build a structure of peace in the world in which the weak are as safe as the strong in which each respects the right of the other to live by a different system in which those who would influence others will do so by the strength of their ideas, and not by the force of their arms. Let us accept that high responsibility not as a burden, but gladly gladly because the chance to build such a peace is the noblest endeavor in which a nation can engage.
Nothing matters more to the future of this Nation than insuring that our young men and women learn to believe in themselves and believe in their dreams, and that they develop this capacitythat you develop this capacity, so that you keep it all of your lives. I believe one of Americas most priceless assets is the idealism which motivates the young people of America. My generation has invested all that it has, not only its love but its hope and faith, in yours.
It is sad that it was necessary that Santa Barbara should be the example that had to bring it to the attention of the American people. What is involved is the use of our resources of the sea and of the land in a more effective way and with more concern for preserving the beauty and the natural resources that are so important to any kind of society that we want for the future. The Santa Barbara incident has frankly touched the conscience of the American people.
When the strongest nation in the world can be tied up for years in a war with no end in sight, when the richest nation in the world can't manage its own economy, when the nation with the greatest tradition of the rule of law is plagued by unprecedented lawlessness, and when the President of the United States cannot travel abroad or to any major city at home without fear of a hostile demonstration - then it's time for new leadership for the United States of America.
No president in history has been more vilified or was more vilivied during the time he was President than Lincoln. Those who knew him, his secretaries, have written that he was deeply hurt by what was said about him and drawn about him, but on the other hand, Lincoln had the great strength of character never to display it, always able to stand tall and strong and firm no matter how harsh or unfair the criticism might be. These elements of greatness, of course, inspire us all today.
We must recognize that the goal of a cleaner environment will not be achieved by rhetoric or moral dedication alone. It will not be cheap or easy and the costs will have to be borne by each citizen, consumer and taxpayer. How clean is clean enough can only be answered in terms of how much we are willing to pay and how soon we seek success... It is simplistic to seek ecological perfection at the cost of bankrupting the very tax-paying enterprises which must pay for the social advances we seek.
'Environment' is not an abstract concern, or simply a matter of aesthetics, or of personal taste - although it can and should involve these as well. Man is shaped to a great extent by his surroundings. Our physical nature, our mental health, our culture and institutions, our opportunities for challenge and fulfillment, our very survival - all of these are directly related to and affected by the environment in which we live. They depend upon the continued healthy functioning of the natural systems of the Earth.
Our youth can not understand why society chooses to criminalize a behavior with so little visible ill effect or adverse social impact... These young people have jumped the fence and found no cliff. And the disrespect for the possession laws fosters a disrespect for laws and the system in general... On top of this is the distinct impression among the youth that some police may use the marihuana laws to arrest people they don't like for other reasons, whether it be their politics, their hair style or their ethnic background.
But above all, what this Congress can be remembered for is opening the way to a new American revolutiona peaceful revolution in which power was turned back to the peoplein which government at all levels was refreshed and renewed and made truly responsive. This can be a revolution as profound, as far-reaching, as exciting as that first revolution almost 200 years agoand it can mean that just 5 years from now America will enter its third century as a young nation new in spirit, with all the vigor and the freshness with which it began its first century.
Most days I feel like the sole survivor of a shipwreck, rowing my paddleboat across a sea of people on waves made of an infinite array of hands and crests that reveal anonymous faces. On a good day, the clouds part to alight on-lo and behold-an island! I step ashore, only find that it too is made of people, mangled bodies somehow still alive. They grab at my feet, pulling me under like quicksand. The last thing I see before suffocating is the sky, a billion eyes staring down, blinking in undulating electric ripples. The cold rain I feel on my cheeks is the tears of the people.
We have been through, over these years, some difficult times. During the period that I have served as President of the United States, we have been through some difficult times together, and I can only say that the friendship that we have for this nation, the respect and the admiration we have for the people of this nation, their courage, their tenacity, their firmness in the face of very great odds, is one that makes us proud to stand with Israel, as we have in the past in times of trouble, and now to work with Israel in a better time, a time that we trust will be a time of peace.