Quotes by Calvin Coolidge

No man ever listened himself out of a job.

All growth depends upon activity. There is no development physically or intellectually without effort, and effort means work.

It takes a great man to be a good listener.

Heroism is not only in the man, but in the occasion.

There is no escaping the fact that when the taxation of large incomes is excessive, they tend to disappear.

Christmas is not a time or a season but a state of mind. To cherish peace and good will, to be plenteous in mercy, is to have the real spirit of Christmas.

Patriotism is easy to understand in America -- it means looking out for yourself by looking out for your country.

No person was ever honored for what he received. Honor has been the reward what he gave.

Press on nothing can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Perseverance and determination alone are omnipotent.

Few people are lacking in capacity, but they fail because they are lacking in application.

The reason a man has so much trouble with the Senate is that there isn't a man in the Senate who doesn't think he is better suited to be President than the President, and thinks he might have been President except for luck.

Well, farmers never have made money. I don't believe we can do much about it. But of course we will have to seem to be doing something; do the best we can and without much hope. The life of the farmer has its compensations but it has always been one of hardship.

Knowledge comes, but Wisdom lingers. It may not be difficult to store up in the mind a vast quantity of facts within a comparatively short time, but the ability to form judgments requires the severe discipline of hard work and the tempering heat of experience and maturity.

Wherever despotism abounds, the sources of public information are the first to be brought under its control.

Nature is inexorable. If men do not follow the truth they cannot live.

Inflation is repudiation.

The things I never say never get me into trouble.

History reveals no civilized people among whom there was not a highly educated class and large aggregations of wealth. Large profits mean large payrolls.

The right of the police of Boston to affiliate has always been questioned, never granted, is now prohibited.... There is no rightto strike against the public safety by anybody, anywhere, any time.

There is no right to strike against the public safety by anybody, anywhere, any time.

You don't have to explain something you haven't said.

In a republic the first rule for the guidance of the citizen is obedience of the law.

Despotism has forever had a powerful hold upon the world. Autocratic government, not self-government, has been the prevailing state of mankind. The record of past history is the record, not of the success of republics, but of their failure.

I am for economy. After that I am for more economy. At this time and under present conditions that is my conception of serving all the people.

Character is the only secure foundation of the state.

There is no escaping the fact that when the taxation of large incomes is excessive, they tend to disappear.

No matter what anyone may say about making the rich and the corporations pay taxes, in the end they come out of the people who toil.

Advertising ministers to the spiritual side of trade.

It would be folly to argue that the people cannot make political mistakes. They can and do make grave mistakes. They know it, they pay the penalty, but compared with the mistakes which have been made by every kind of autocracy they are unimportant.

What the end of the carnage of World War II meant to those who remember it, can never be forgotten, but to all those who don't, its meaning can never be fully understood!

Economy is idealism in its most practical form.

I appeal to Amherst men to reiterate the Amherst doctrine that the man who builds a factory builds a temple, that the man who works there worships there, and to each is due not scorn and blame but reverence and praise.

There is no dignity
quite so impressive,
and no independence
quite so important,
as living within your means.

Eat it up, make it do, wear it out.

After order and liberty, economy is one of the highest essentials of a free government.

The welfare of the weakest and the welfare of the most powerful are inseparably bound together. ... The general welfare cannot be provided for in any one act, but it is well to remember that the benefit of one is the benefit of all, and the neglect of one is the neglect of all.

The benefit of one is the benefit of all, and the neglect of one is the neglect of all.

The country is not in good condition.

We live an age of science and of abounding accumulation of material things. These did not create the Declaration. Our Declaration created them. ... If we are to maintain the great heritage which has been bequeathed to us, we must be like-minded as the fathers who created it.

Of course, the accumulation of wealth cannot be justified as the chief end of existence.

Human nature provides sufficient distrust of all that is alien, so that there is no need of any artificial supply.

If American democracy is to remain the greatest hope of humanity, it must continue abundantly in the faith of the Bible.

It is hard to see how a great man can be an atheist... We need to feel that behind us is intelligence and love.

It is only when people can feel that their lives and the property which their industry has produced today will continue to be safe...that there can be...stability of value and...economic progress.

To place your name by gift or bequest in the keeping of an active educational institution is to...make a permanent contribution to the welfare of humanity.

If the people lose control of the arteries of trade and the natural sources of mechanical power, the nationalization of all industry should soon be expected. Our forefathers were alert to resist all encroachments upon their rights. If we wish to maintain our rights, we can do no less.

Unless we lay our course in accordance with this principle, the great power for good in the world with which we have been intrusted by a Divine Providence will be turned to a power for evil.

Education should be the handmaid of citizenship.

This country would not be a land of opportunity, America could not be America, if the people were shackled with government monopolies.

It is much more important to kill bad bills than to pass good ones.

Whether one traces his Americanism back three centuries to the Mayflower, or three years to the steerage, is not half so important as whether his Americanism of today is real and genuine. No matter by what various crafts we came here, we are all now in the same boat.

We do not need more knowledge, we need more character!

I have found it advisable not to give too much heed to what people say when I am trying to accomplish something of consequence. Invariably they proclaim it can't be done.

Men do not make laws. They do but discover them.

We demand entire freedom of action and then expect the government in some miraculous way to save us from the consequences of our own acts.... Self-government means self-reliance.

Self-government means self support.

Teaching is one of the noblest of professions. It requires an adequate preparation and training, patience, devotion, and a deep sense of responsibility. Those who mold the human mind have wrought not for time, but for eternity.

That man has offered me unsolicited advice for six years, most of it bad.

To expect to increase prices and then to maintain them at a higher level by means of a plan which must of necessity increase production while decreasing consumption is to fly in the face of an economic law as well established as any law of nature.

We have found that when men and women are left free to find the places for which they are best fitted, some few of them will indeed attain less exalted stations than under a regime of privilege; but the vast multitude will rise to a higher level, to wider horizons, to worthier attainments.

What we need is not more Federal government, but better local government.

I shouldn't want you to be surprised, or to draw any particular inference from my making speeches, or not making speeches, out there. I don't recall any candidate for President that ever injured himself very much by not talking.

We do not need to import any foreign economic ideas or any foreign government. We had better stick to the American brand of government, the American brand of equality, and the American brand of wages. America had better stay American.

One of the greatest perils to an extensive republic is the disregard of individual rights.

Liberty is not collective, it is personal. All liberty is individual liberty.

I sometimes wish that people would put a little more emphasis on the observance of the law than they do upon its enforcement.

There is no substitute for a militant freedom.

Don't hesitate to be as revolutionary as science. Don't hesitate to be as reactionary as the multiplication table.

Everyone has an influence on public affairs if he will take the trouble to exert it.

We must have no carelessness in our dealings with public property or the expenditure of public money. Such a condition is characteristic either of an undeveloped people, or of a decadent civilization. America is neither.

Nothing is easier than spending public money. It does not appear to belong to anybody. The temptation is overwhelming to bestow it on somebody.

The collection of taxes which are not absolutely required, which do not beyond reasonable doubt contribute to public welfare, is only a species of legalized larceny. Under this Republic the rewards of industry belong to those who earn them.

Work is not a curse; it is the prerogative of intelligence, the only means to manhood, and the measure of civilization.

There is far more danger of harm than there is hope of good in any radical changes.

A government which lays taxes on the people not required by urgent public necessity and sound public policy is not a protector of liberty, but an instrument of tyranny. It condemns the citizen to servitude.

It is difficult for men in high office to avoid the malady of self-delusion.

I always figured the American public wanted a solemn ass for president, so I went along with them.

It is characteristic of the unlearned that they are forever proposing something which is old, and because it has recently come to their own attention, supposing it to be new.

Wealth comes from industry and from the hard experience of human toil. To dissipate it in waste and extravagance is disloyalty to humanity.

The door of opportunity swings wide open in our country. Through it, in constant flow, go those who toil. America recognizes no aristocracy save those who work. The badge of service is the sole requirement for admission to the ranks of our nobility.

Theodore Roosevelt was always getting himself in hot water by talking before he had to commit himself upon issues not well-defined.

Faith is the great motive power, and no man realizes his full possibilities unless he has the deep conviction that life is eternally important and that his work well done is a part of an unending plan.

Workmen's compensation, hours and conditions of labor are cold consolations, if there be no employment.

Honorable Senators: My sincerest thanks I offer you. Conserve the firm foundations of our institutions. Do your work with the spirit of a soldier in the public service. Be loyal to the Commonwealth and to yourselves and be brief; above all be brief.

School is not the end but only the beginning of an education.

No nation ever had an army large enough to guarantee it against attack in time of peace, or ensure it of victory in time of war.

Governments are necessarily continuing concerns. They have to keep going in good times and in bad. They therefore need a wide margin of safety. If taxes and debt are made all the people can bear when times are good, there will be certain disaster when times are bad.

The best help that benevolence and philanthropy can give is that which induces everybody to help himself.

If the people fail to vote, a government will be developed which is not their government... The whole system of American Government rests on the ballot box. Unless citizens perform their duties there, such a system of government is doomed to failure.

The Constitution is the sole source and guaranty of national freedom.

The world is full of educated derelicts.

Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.

If you don't say anything, you won't be called on to repeat it.

Duty is not collective; it is personal.

No enterprise can exist for itself alone. It ministers to some great need, it performs some great service, not for itself, but for others; or failing therein, it ceases to be profitable and ceases to exist.

When people are bewildered they tend to become credulous.

Prosperity is only an instrument to be used, not a deity to be worshipped.

They criticize me for harping on the obvious; if all the folks in the United States would do the few simple things they know they ought to do, most of our big problems would take care of themselves.

If you see ten troubles coming down the road, you can be sure that nine will run into the ditch before they reach you.

Economy is the method by which we prepare today to afford the improvements of tomorrow.

Ultimately property rights and personal rights are the same thing.

Never go out to meet trouble. If you just sit still, nine cases out of ten, someone will intercept it before it reaches you.

The business of America is business.

Any man who does not like dogs and want them about does not deserve to be in the White House.

The nation which forgets its defenders will be itself forgotten.

Perhaps one of the most important accomplishments of my administration has been minding my own business.

In the discharge of the duties of this office, there is one rule of action more important than all others. It consists in never doing anything that someone else can do for you.

Four-fifths of all our troubles would disappear, if we would only sit down and keep still.

There is no force so democratic as the force of an ideal.

We need more of the Office Desk and less of the Show Window in politics. Let men in office substitute the midnight oil for the limelight.

We do not need more intellectual power, we need more spiritual power. We do not need more of the things that are seen, we need more of the things that are unseen.

Those who trust to chance must abide by the results of chance.

We cannot do everything at once, but we can do something at once.

I have noticed that nothing I never said ever did me any harm.

When more and more people are thrown out of work, unemployment results.

I have never been hurt by what I have not said.