What we need in appointive positions is men of knowledge and experience who have sufficient character to resist temptations.
Calvin CoolidgeHuman nature provides sufficient distrust of all that is alien, so that there is no need of any artificial supply.
Calvin CoolidgeNot long ago I heard a Navy chaplain refer to the sage advice of the Apostle to put first things first...If we are to heed the admonition to put first things first...one of the main essentials which lies at the very beginning of civilization is that of security.
Calvin CoolidgeGovernments do not make ideals, but ideals make governments. This is both historically and logically true. Of course the government can help to sustain ideals and can create institutions through which they can be the better observed, but their source by their very nature is in the people. The people have to bear their own responsibilities. There is no method by which that burden can be shifted to the government. It is not the enactment, but the observance of laws, that creates the character of a nation.
Calvin Coolidge