We have to get tough with the Russians. They don't know how to behave. They are like bulls in a china shop. They are only 25 years old. We are over 100 and the British are centuries older. We have got to teach them how to behave.

I suppose that history will remember my term in office as the years when the Cold War began to overshadow our lives. I have hardly a day in office that has not been dominated by this all-embracing struggle. And always in the background there has been the atomic bomb. But when history says that my term of office saw the begining of the Cold War, it will also say that in those eight years we have set the course that can win it.

Imperfect action is better than perfect inaction.

I never sit on a fence. I am either on one side or another.

If we let Korea down, the Soviet[s] will keep right on going and swallow up one [place] after another.

When the decision is up before you-and on my desk I have a motto which says "The buck stops here"-the decision has to be made.

A leader is the man who has the ability to get other people to do what they don't want to do, and like it.