Presidents Day

Now I cannot say what the reason is as to why I never have written a completed Presidents Day essay except that I never have. Let me tell you that it had little to do with inspiration a scroll through the quotes I give you today will tell you that.

Many of these quotes have inspired others to reach out and take hold of their dreams. While some quotes have forged in the hearts and minds of those that have heard or read them the ideals of a country that has endured its share of hardships, and came out of them strong and more resolved that it will not be torn down. Therefore on this day that we honor our Presidents I give you these quotes, some may not be as famous as others, so that we all remember them yet they all have, in some way I am sure, inspired someone. While some I really just added for fun…

“The foundation of our national policy will be laid in the pure and immutable principles of private morality; …the propitious smiles of Heaven can never be expected on a nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and right which Heaven itself has ordained…”
“Government is not reason; it is not eloquence; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.”
George Washington

America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.
As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy.
Books serve to show a man that those original thoughts of his aren’t very new at all.
Abraham Lincoln

Great lives never go out; they go on.
Benjamin Harrison

The very definition of tyranny is when all powers are gathered under one place.
James Madison

The instrument by which it [government] must act are either the AUTHORITY of the laws or FORCE. If the first be destroyed, the last must be substituted; and where this becomes the ordinary instrument of government there is an end to liberty!
Alexander Hamilton

I have always done my duty. I am ready to die. My only regret is for the friends I leave behind me.
Zachary Taylor

I know only two tunes: one of them is “Yankee Doodle,” and the other isn’t.
I know no method to secure the repeal of bad or obnoxious laws so effective as their stringent execution
Ulysses S Grant

I like the noise of democracy.
James Buchanan

The government should not be guided by Temporary Excitement, but by Sober Second Thought.
Martin Van Buren

A typical vice of American politics is the avoidance of saying anything real on real issues.
A vote is like a rifle; its usefulness depends upon the character of the user.
Theodore Roosevelt

I contend that the strongest of all governments is that which is most free.
William Henry Harrison

America did not invent human rights. In a very real sense human rights invented America.
Jimmy Carter

Officeholders are the agents of the people, not their masters.
Grover Cleveland

Contrary to the claims of some of my critics and some of the editorial pages, I am an ardent believer in the free market.
Barack Obama

Don’t expect to build up the weak by pulling down the strong.
Calvin Coolidge

An intellectual is a man who takes more words than necessary to tell more than he knows.
Dwight D Eisenhower

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

Nobody but radicals have ever accomplished anything in a great crisis.
Man cannot live by bread alone; he must have peanut butter.
James A Garfield

I have opinions of my own, strong opinions, but I don’t always agree with them.
George H. W. Bush

I have no trouble with my enemies. I can take care of my enemies in a fight. But my friends, my goddamned friends, they’re the ones who keep me walking the floor at nights!
Warren G Harding

Each generation goes further than the generation preceding it because it stands on the shoulders of that generation. You will have opportunities beyond anything we’ve ever known.
Facts are stubborn things.
Ronald Reagan

The President of the United States should strive to be always mindful of the fact that he serves his party best who serves his country best.
Rutherford B Hayes

As long as our government is administered for the good of the people, and is regulated by their will; as long as it secures to us the rights of persons and of property, liberty of conscience and of the press, it will be worth defending.
Andrew Jackson

Caution is the confidential agent of selfishness.
Woodrow Wilson

I am a freeman, an American, a United States Senator, and a Democrat, in that order.
Lyndon B. Johnson

A nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people.
John F Kennedy

The mission of the United States is one of benevolent assimilation.
William McKinley

One way or the other, we are determined to deny Iraq the capacity to develop weapons of mass destruction and the missiles to deliver them. That is our bottom line.
William J. Clinton

Everywhere that freedom stirs, let tyrants fear.
George W. Bush

A man is not finished when he is defeated. He is finished when he quits.
Richard M. Nixon

The dangers of a concentration of all power in the general government of a confederacy so vast as ours are too obvious to be disregarded.
Franklin Pierce

One great object of the Constitution was to restrain majorities from oppressing minorities or encroaching upon their just rights.
James K Polk

Are you laboring under the impression that I read these memoranda of yours? I can’t even lift them.
Franklin D. Roosevelt

The best form of government is that which is most likely to prevent the greatest sum of evil.
James Monroe

Don’t write so that you can be understood, write so that you can’t be misunderstood.
Enthusiasm for a cause sometimes warps judgment.
William Howard Taft

May God save the country, for it is evident that the people will not.
Millard Fillmore

The extravagant expenditure of public money is an evil not to be measured by the value of that money to the people who are taxed for it.
Chester A. Arthur

A leader in the Democratic Party is a boss, in the Republican Party he is a leader.
Harry S Truman

I hold it the duty of the executive to insist upon frugality in the expenditure, and a sparing economy is itself a great national source.
There are no good laws but such as repeal other laws.
Andrew Johnson

Popularity, I have always thought, may aptly be compared to a coquette – the more you woo her, the more apt is she to elude your embrace.
John Tyler

Blessed are the young for they shall inherit the national debt.
Herbert Hoover

The two enemies of the people are criminals and government, so let us tie the second down with the chains of the Constitution so the second will not become the legalized version of the first.
Thomas Jefferson

So to you my friends and family and family of friends and those of you that have just happened by I hope that as you enjoy your day off (if you have one) you take a minute and remember the men that have held the office for which we honor today. Lift up your beverage of choice and offer a toast those that have filled it, whether you agree with them or not for today is not about the politics it is about the office that the politics created.