January 27 Is America a weakling, to shrink from the work of the great world powers? No! …Our nation, glorious in youth and strength, looks into the future with eager eyes and rejoices as a strong man to run a race.Theodore Roosevelt, 25th President, 1901-1909

Presidential Proverbs Daily: September 26

Presidential Proverbs Daily: September 26: "When there is lack of honor in government, the morals of the whole people are poisoned." Herbert Hoover, 31st President, 1929-1933. Most ...

Presidential Proverbs Daily: September 25

Presidential Proverbs Daily: September 25: "You don't win campaigns with a diet of dish water and milk toast." Richard Nixon, 37th President, 1969-1974- It seems the more things cha...

July 31 If there is not the war, you don’t get the great general; if there is not a great occasion, you don’t get the great statesman; if Lincoln had lived in a time of peace, no one would have known his name. Theodore Roosevelt, 26th President, 1901-1909 The Conditions of Success, An Address at the Cambridge Union, May 26, 1910 I have spoken only of the great successes; but what I have said applies just as much to the success that is within the reach of almost every one of us. I think that any man who has had what is regarded in the world as great success must realize the the element of chance has played a great part in it. Of course a man has to take advantage of his opportunities; but the opportunities have to come. There are two kinds of success. One is the very rare kind that comes to the man who has the power to do what no one else has the power to do. That is genius. The average man who is successful,_the average statesman, the average public servant, the average soldier, who wins what we call great success_is not a genius. He is a man who has merely the ordinary qualities that he shares with his fellows, but who has developed those ordinary qualities to a more than ordinary degree.

July 30 Let us remember that revolutions do not always establish freedom. Our own free constitutions were not the offspring of our Revolution. They existed before. Millard Fillmore, 13th President, 1850-1853 State of the Union 1852 France had no sooner established a republican form of government than she manifested a desire to force its blessings on all the world. In less than ten years her Government was changed from a republic to an empire, and finally, after shedding rivers of blood, foreign powers restored her exiled dynasty and exhausted Europe sought peace and repose in the unquestioned ascendency of monarchical principles. Let us learn wisdom from her example. Let us remember that revolutions do not always establish freedom. Our own free institutions were not the offspring of our Revolution. They existed before. They were planted in the free charters of self-government under which the English colonies grew up, and our Revolution only freed us from the dominion of a foreign power whose government was at variance with those institutions. But European nations have had no such training for self-government, and every effort to establish it by bloody revolutions has been, and must without that preparation continue to be, a failure. Liberty unregulated by law degenerates into anarchy, which soon becomes the most horrid of all despotisms.

July 29 We must strengthen the ability of free nations everywhere to develop their independence and raise their standard of living, and thereby frustrate those who prey on poverty and chaos. To do this, the rich must help the poor and we must do our part. Lyndon B. Johnson, 36th President, 1963-1969 First State of the Union Address delivered 8 January 1964 For our ultimate goal is a world without war, a world made safe for diversity, in which all men, goods, and ideas can freely move across every border and every boundary. Third, we must make increased use of our food as an instrument of peace -- making it available by sale or trade or loan or donation-to hungry people in all nations which tell us of their needs and accept proper conditions of distribution. Eighth, we must strengthen the ability of free nations everywhere to develop their independence and raise their standard of living, and thereby frustrate those who prey on poverty and chaos. To do this, the rich must help the poor -- and we must do our part. We must achieve a more rigorous administration of our development assistance, with larger roles for private investors, for other industrialized nations, and for international agencies and for the recipient nations themselves.

July 28 In reading the lives of great men, I found that the first victory they won was over themselves…self discipline with all came first. Harry S. Truman, 33rd President, 1945-1953 Corresponding Biblical Proverb: "A patient man is better than a warrior, and he who rules his temper, than he who takes a city." Proverbs 16:32