Some years ago I became president of Columbia University and learned within 24 hours to be ready to speak at the drop of a hat, and I learned something more, the trustees were expected to be ready to speak at the passing of the hat.

Things are more like they are now than they ever were before.

There is no person in this room whose basic rights are not involved in any successful defiance to the carrying out of court orders.

The people of the world genuinely want peace. Some day the leaders of the world are going to have to give in and give, it to them.

Oh, that lovely title, ex-president.

The most terrible job in warfare is to be a second lieutenant leading a platoon when you are on the battlefield.

Disarmament, with mutual honor and confidence, is a continuing imperative.

I despise people who go to the gutter on either the right or the left and hurl rocks at those in the center.

I think that people want peace so much that one of these days government had better get out of their way and let them have it.

Unlike presidential administrations, problems rarely have terminal dates.

The supreme quality for leadership is unquestionably integrity. Without it, no real success is possible, no matter whether it is on a section gang, a football field, in an army, or in an office.

How far you can go without destroying from within what you are trying to defend from without?

There is no victory at bargain basement prices.

May we never confuse honest dissent with disloyal subversion.

Our pleasures were simple - they included survival.

I thought it completely absurd to mention my name in the same breath as the presidency.

The best morale exist when you never hear the word mentioned. When you hear a lot of talk about it, it's usually lousy.

Don't join the book burners. Do not think you are going to conceal thoughts by concealing evidence that they ever existed.

If the United Nations once admits that international disputes can be settled by using force, then we will have destroyed the foundation of the organization and our best hope of establishing a world order.

The United States strongly seeks a lasting agreement for the discontinuance of nuclear weapons tests. We believe that this would be an important step toward reduction of international tensions and would open the way to further agreement on substantial measures of disarmament.

The free world must not prove itself worthy of its own past.

When you are in any contest, you should work as if there were - to the very last minute - a chance to lose it. This is battle, this is politics, this is anything.

Pull the string, and it will follow wherever you wish. Push it, and it will go nowhere at all.

Some people wanted champagne and caviar when they should have had beer and hot dogs.

There is no glory in battle worth the blood it costs.

We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security.

History does not long entrust the care of freedom to the weak or the timid.

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.

Well, when you come down to it, I don't see that a reporter could do much to a president, do you?

Don't think you are going to conceal thoughts by concealing evidence that they ever existed.

Pessimism never won any battle.

We are going to have peace even if we have to fight for it.

Neither a wise man nor a brave man lies down on the tracks of history to wait for the train of the future to run over him.

Our real problem, then, is not our strength today; it is rather the vital necessity of action today to ensure our strength tomorrow.

The problem in defense is how far you can go without destroying from within what you are trying to defend from without.

When you put on a uniform, there are certain inhibitions that you accept.

Farming looks mighty easy when your plow is a pencil and you're a thousand miles from the corn field.

'Worry' is a word that I don't allow myself to use.

Plans are nothing; planning is everything.

Humility must always be the portion of any man who receives acclaim earned in the blood of his followers and the sacrifices of his friends.

Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it.

Whatever America hopes to bring to pass in the world must first come to pass in the heart of America.

Peace and justice are two sides of the same coin.

I have only one yardstick by which I test every major problem - and that yardstick is: Is it good for America?

You have a row of dominoes set up; you knock over the first one, and what will happen to the last one is that it will go over very quickly.

I shall make that trip. I shall go to Korea.

I have one yardstick by which I test every major problem - and that yardstick is: Is it good for America?

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

Only our individual faith in freedom can keep us free.