Calvin Coolidge Quotes

The words of the President have an enormous weight and ought not to be used indiscriminately.

Surprisingly few men are lacking in capacity, but they fail because... they are too indolent to apply themselves with the seriousness and the attention that is necessary to solve important problems.

Industry, thrift and self-control are not sought because they create wealth, but because they create character.

Little progress can be made by merely attempting to repress what is evil. Our great hope lies in developing what is good.

After all, the chief business of the American people is business. They are profoundly concerned with producing, buying, selling, investing and prospering in the world.

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.

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

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

Changing a college curriculum is like moving a graveyard-you never know how many friends the dead have until you try to move them!

We want wealth, but there are many other things we want very much more. Among them are peace, honor, charity, and idealism.

Life is one darn thing after another.

If we expect others to rely on our fairness and justice we must show that we rely on their fairness and justice.

Silence can never be misquoted.

Freedom is not only bought with a great price; it is maintained by unremitting effort.

There is no surer road to destruction than prosperity without character.

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

Inflation is repudiation.

The world is full of educated derelicts.

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

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

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.

Christmas is not a time or a season but a state of mind.

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

A display of reason rather than a threat of force should be the determining factor in the intercourse among nations.

Anytime you don't want anything you get it.

All growth depends upon activity.

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

Advertising is the life of trade.

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

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.

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

I favor the policy of economy, not because I wish to save money, but because I wish to save people.

It is not the enactment, but the observance of laws, that creates the character of a nation.

I did not see the sense in chasing a little white ball around a field.

I do not want to see any of the people cringing supplicants for the favor of the Government, when they should all be independent masters of their own destiny.

You don't have to explain something you never said.

Character is the only secure foundation of the state.

I want taxes to be less, that the people may have more.

There is no justification for public interference with purely private concerns.

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

If we judge ourselves only by our aspirations and everyone else only their conduct we shall soon reach a very false conclusion.

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

If I had permitted my failures, or what seemed to me at the time a lack of success, to discourage me I cannot see any way in which I would ever have made progress.

It is only when men begin to worship that they begin to grow.

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

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

Man everywhere has an unconquerable desire to be the master of his own destiny.

We cannot permit any inquisition either within or without the law or apply any religious test to the holding of office. The mind of America must be forever free.

The danger to America is not in the direction of the failure to maintain its economic position, but in the direction of the failure to maintain its ideals.