Herbert Hoover Quotes

It [freedom] is a thing of the spirit. Men must be free to worship, to think, to hold opinions, to speak without fear. They must be free to challenge wrong and oppression with the surety of justice.

An ideal is an unselfish aspiration. Its purpose is the general welfare not only of this but of future generations. It is a thing of the spirit. It is a generous and humane desire that all men may share equally in a common good. Our ideals are the cement, which binds human society.

Our strength lies in spiritual concepts. It lies in public sensitivities to evil. Our greatest danger is not from invading armies. Our dangers are that we may commit suicide from within by complaisance with evil, or by public tolerance of scandalous behavior.

All men are equal before fish.

Wisdom consists not so much in knowing what to do in the ultimate as in knowing what to do next.

Let us not forget that the value of this great system does not lie primarily in its extent or even in its efficiency. Its worth depends on the use that is made of it... For the first time in human history we have available to us the ability to communicate simultaneously with millions of our fellowmen, to furnish entertainment, instruction, widening vision of national problems and national events. An obligation rests on us to see that it is devoted to real service and to develop the material that is transmitted into that which is really worthwhile.

The only problem with capitalism is the capitalists.

The thing I enjoyed most were visits from children. They did not want public office.

The only trouble with capitalism is capitalists; they're too damn greedy.

Children are our most valuable natural resource.

The President is not only the leader of a party, he is the President of the whole people. He must interpret the conscience of America. He must guide his conduct by the idealism of our people.

The association of Mount Ararat and Noah, the staunch Christians who were massacred periodically by the Mohammedan Turks, and the Sunday School collections over fifty years for alleviating their miseries-all cumulate to impress the name Armenia on the front of the American mind.

The job is nothing but a twenty-ring circus-with a whole lot of bad actors.

It is obvious that while science is struggling to bring Heaven to earth some men are using its materials in the construction of Hell.

No greater nor more affectionate honor can be conferred on an American than to have a public school named after him.

The pause between the errors and trials of the day and the hopes of the night.

The advancement of knowledge must be translated into increasing health and education for the children.

Freedom conceives that the mind and spirit of man can be free only if he is free to pattern his own life, to develop his own talents, free to earn, to spend, to save, to acquire property as the security of his old age and his family.

In the larger view the major forces of the depression now lie outside of the United States, and our recuperation has been retarded by the unwarranted degree of fear and apprehension created by these outside forces.

If America is to be run by the people, it is the people who must think. And we do not need to put on sackcloth and ashes to think. Nor should our minds work like a sundial which records only sunshine. Our thinking must square against some lessons of history, some principles of government and morals, if we would preserve the rights and dignity of men to which this nation is dedicated.

Let me remind you that credit is the lifeblood of business, the lifeblood of prices and jobs.

We cannot change ideas in the minds of men and races with machine guns or battle ships.

Engineering without imagination sinks to a trade.

I can at once refute the statement that the people of the West object to conservation of oil resources. They know that there is a limit to oil supplies and that the time will come when they and the Nation will need this oil much more than it is needed now. There are no half measures in conservation of oil.

Presidents have only two moments of personal seclusion. One is prayer; the other fishing - and they cannot pray all the time!

Eat plenty, wisely, without waste.

The people have a vital interest in the conservation of their natural resources; in the prevention of wasteful practices.

We have gold because we cannot trust governments

Above all, we know that although Americans can be led to make great sacrifices, they do not like to be driven.

No prosaic description can portray the grandeur of 40 miles of rugged mountains rising beyond a placid lake in which each shadowy precipice and each purple gorge is reflected with a vividness that rivals the original.

New discoveries in science and their flow of new inventions will continue to create a thousand new frontiers for those who still would adventure.

It was the transcendent fortitude and steadfastness of these men who in adversity and in suffering through the darkest hour of our history held faithful to an ideal. Here men endured that a nation might live.

The Constitution is America's glue, Democracy is the Constitution's glue.

You convey too great a compliment when you say that I have earned the right to the presidential nomination. No man can establish such an obligation upon any part of the American people. My country owes me no debt. It gave me, as it gives every boy and girl, a chance. It gave me schooling, independence of action, opportunity for service and honor. In no other land could a boy from a country village, without inheritance or influential friends, look forward with unbounded hope. My whole life has taught me what America means. I am indebted to my country beyond any human power to repay.

I am convinced that ... we have reestablished confidence. Wages should remain stable. A very large degree of industrial unemployment and suffering which would otherwise have occurred has been prevented.

Many women are now holding posts of grave responsibility in city and country and state and nation, and their number must be greatly increased.

The worst evil of disregard for some law is that it destroys respect for all laws.

Liberalism is a force truly of the spirit proceeding from the deep realization that economic freedom cannot be sacrificed if political freedom is to be preserved.

Fishing is a constant reminder of the democracy of life, of humility, and of human frailty. The forces of nature discriminate for no man.

Liberalism should be found not striving to spread bureaucracy but striving to set bounds to it. True liberalism seeks all legitimate freedom first in the confident belief that without such freedom the pursuit of all other blessings and benefits is vain. That belief is the foundation of all American progress, political as well as economic.

The ancient bitter opposition to improved methods [of production] on the ancient theory that it more than temporarily deprives men of employment... has no place in the gospel of American progress.

When I decided to go into politics I weighed the costs. I would get criticism. But I went ahead. So when virulent criticism came I wasn't surprised. I was better able to handle it.

Along this road of spending, the government either takes over, which is Socialism, or dictates institutional and economic life, which is Fascism.

Our individualism is rooted in our very nature. It is based on conviction born of experience. Equal opportunity, the demand for a fair chance, became the formula of American Individualism because it is the method of American achievement.

Our fathers and grandfathers who poured over the Midwest were self-reliant, rugged, God-fearing people of indomitable courage...They asked only for freedom of opportunity and equal chance. In these conceptions lies the real basis of American democracy. They and their fathers give a genius to American institutions that distinguished our people from any other in the world.

There are only two occasions when Americans respect privacy, especially in Presidents. Those are prayer and fishing.

. And it is youth who must inherit the tribulation, the sorrow and the triumphs that are the aftermath of war.

[Professional engineers] must for years abandon their white collars except for Sunday.