Gerald R. Ford Quotes

One of the enduring truths of the nation's capital is that bureaucrats survive.

I am acutely aware that you have not elected me as your President by your ballots, so I ask you to confirm me with your prayers.

Real assistance is to help people to help themselves. We can't do everything for everybody, but there is room for all who try to make it.

I cannot imagine any other country in the world where the opposition would seek, and the chief executive would allow, the dissemination of his most private and personal conversations with his staff, which, to be honest, do not exactly confer sainthood on anyone concerned.

A government big enough to give you everything you want is a government big enough to take from you everything you have.

It's discouraging how hard it is for a President to slice away large chunks of a $305 billion budget.

The veto is a President's Constitutional right, given to him by the drafters of the Constitution because they wanted it as a checkagainst irresponsible Congressional action. The veto forces Congress to take another look at legislation that has been passed. I think this is a responsible tool for a president of the United States, and I have sought to use it responsibly.

I don't know what the future may hold for me-or for any of us. But I want you to know that I am a man who likes having critics who are not enemies.

For millions of men and women, the church has been the hospital for the soul, the school for the mind and the safe depository for moral ideas.

We are bound together by the most powerful of all ties, our fervent love for freedom and independence, which knows no homeland but the human heart.

I would hope that understanding and reconciliation are not limited to the 19th hole alone.

There are no adequate substitutes for father, mother, and children bound together in a loving commitment to nurture and protect. No government, no matter how well-intentioned, can take the place of the family in the scheme of things.

I just don't think we should go hellfire damnation around the globe freeing people, unless it is directly related to our own national security.

I watch a lot of baseball on the radio.

I can assure you the National Federation is an organization of Republican women whose power, prestige, perception, and purpose will never be underestimated by anyone.

My commitment to the security and future of Israel is based upon basic morality as well as enlightened self-interest. Our role in supporting Israel honors our own heritage.

I have always felt that the real purpose of government is to enhance the lives of people and that a leader can best do that by restraining government in most cases instead of enlarging it at every opportunity.

Even though this is late in an election year, there is no way we can go forward except together and no way anybody can win except by serving the people's urgent needs. We cannot stand still or slip backwards. We must go forward now together.

I am a Ford, not a Lincoln.

It's the quality of the ordinary, the straight, the square, that accounts for the great stability and success of our nation. It's a quality to be proud of. But it's a quality that many people seem to have neglected.

In all my public and private acts as your president, I expect to follow my instincts of openness and candor with full confidence that honesty is always the best policy in the end.

We came from many roots, and we have many branches.

There is no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe and there never will be under a Ford administration.... The United States does notconcede that those countries are under the domination of the Soviet Union.

I love sports. Whenever I can, I always watch the Detroit Tigers on the radio.

Without God there could be no American form of government, nor an American way of life.

I know I am getting better at golf because I am hitting fewer spectators.

I do believe that the buck stops here, that I cannot rely upon public opinion polls to tell me what is right. I do believe that right makes might and that if I am wrong, 10 angels swearing I was right would make no difference. I do believe, with all my heart and mind and spirit, that I, not as President but as a humble servant of God, will receive justice without mercy if I fail to show mercy.

History and experience tell us that moral progress comes not in comfortable and complacent times, but out of trial and confusion.

The length of one's days matters less than the love of one's family and friends.

I am determined to seek self-sufficiency in energy as an urgent national priority. My goal is to make America independent of foreign energy sources by 1985.

Ronald Regan doesn't dye his hair - he's just prematurely orange.

I'm a Ford, not a Lincoln. My addresses will never be as eloquent as Mr. Lincoln's. But I will do my very best to equal his brevity and his plain speaking.

Conservatism has always meant more to me than simply sticking up for private property & free enterprise. It has also meant defending our heritage & preserving our values.

The American dream does not come to those who fall asleep.

It's more like it is now than it ever has been.

The tough decisions that a president has to make in the Oval Office are in no way related to the capability of a person to do well on television. On the other hand, the capability of a person to project favorably on television enhances that person's odds of being elected so he can serve in the Oval Office. So you can't ignore the talents, one, to be very effective on television, and on the other hand, to be very effective as an operating president.