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Woodrow Wilson

151 quotes

“I yield to no one precedence in love for the South. But because I love the South, I rejoice in the failure of the Confederacy.”
Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924) first seen 1880 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Essay on John Bright, Virginia University Magazine, 19:354-370 (March 1880)
“Congress in session is Congress on public exhibition, whilst Congress in its committee-rooms is Congress at work.”
Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924) first seen 1885 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Congressional Government, A Study in American Politics (1885; republished 1981), chapter 2, p. 69 (1981)
“The Senate of the United States has been both extravagantly praised and unreasonably disparaged, according to the predisposition and temper of its various critics... The truth is, in this case as in so many others, something quite commonplace and practical. The Senate is just what the mode of its election and the conditions of public life in this country make it.”
Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924) first seen 1885 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Congressional Government, A Study in American Politics (1885; republished 1981), chapter 4, p. 135 (1981)
“In fundamental theory socialism and democracy are almost if not quite one and the same. They both rest at bottom upon the absolute right of the community to determine its own destiny and that of its members. Men as communities are supreme over men as individuals.”
Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924) first seen 1887 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Socialism and Democracy,” essay published in The Papers of Woodrow Wilson, Arthur S. Link, ed., Vol. 5, Princeton University Press, 1968, pp. 559-62, (first published, August 22, 1887)
“We grow great by dreams. All big men are dreamers. They see things in the soft haze of a spring day or in the red fire of a long winter's evening. Some of us let these great dreams die, but others nourish and protect them; nurse them through bad days till they bring them to the sunshine and light which comes always to those who sincerely hope that their dreams will come true.”
Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924) said by 1924 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted by Thomas A. Bruno in Take your dreams and Run (South Plainfield: Bridge, 1984), p. 2-3. Source: Dr. Preston Williams (2002): By the Way - A Snapshot Diagnosis of the Inner-City Dilemma, p. 38-39. Xulun Press,…
“It is getting to be harder to run a constitution than to frame one.”
Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924) said by 1924 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Administration is the most obvious part of government; it is government in action; it is the executive, the operative, the most visible side of government, and is of course as old as government itself.”
Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924) said by 1924 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Like a lusty child, government with us has expanded in nature and grown great in stature, but has also become awkward in movement... English and American political history has been a history, not of administrative development, but of legislative oversight-not of progress in governmental organization, but of advance in law-making and political criticism... We go on criticising when we ought to be creating.”
Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924) said by 1924 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: p. 203; as cited in: Dimock (1937;28)
“The principles on which to base a science of administration for America, must be principles which have democratic policy very much at heart.”
Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924) said by 1924 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The English race, consequently, has long and successfully studied the art of curbing executive power to the constant neglect of the art of perfecting executive methods. It has exercised itself much more in controlling than in energizing government, It has been more concerned to render government just and moderate than to make it facile, well-ordered,and effective.”
Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924) said by 1924 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The ear of the leader must ring with the voices of the people.”
Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924) first seen 1890 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Leaders of Men”, speech at the University of Tennessee (17 June 1890), in The Politics of Woodrow Wilson, p. 74
“Uncompromising thought is the luxury of the closeted recluse.”
Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924) first seen 1890 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Leaders of Men”, (17 June 1890), p. 75
“It has never been natural, it has seldom been possible, in this country for learning to seek a place apart and hold aloof from affairs. It is only when society is old, long settled to its ways, confident in habit, and without self-questioning upon any vital point of conduct, that study can affect seclusion and despise the passing interests of the day.”
Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924) first seen 1896 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Princeton for the Nation's Service” (21 October 1896)
“Negro rule under unscrupulous adventurers had been finally put an end to in the South, and the natural, inevitable ascendancy of the whites, the responsible class, established.”
Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924) first seen 1829 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Division and Reunion, 1829-1889 Longmans, Green, & Company (1893) p. 273
“The object of education is not merely to draw out the powers of the individual mind: it is rather its right object to draw all minds to a proper adjustment to the physical and social world in which they are to have their life and their development: to enlighten, strengthen and make fit.”
Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924) first seen 1896 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Princeton In The Nation's Service" (21 October 1896)
“Adventurers swarmed out of the North, as much the enemies of one race as of the other, to cozen, beguile and use the negroes. The white men were aroused by a mere instinct of self-preservation — until at last there sprung into existence a great Kuklux Klan, a veritable empire of the South, to protect the Southern country.”
Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924) first seen 1902 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: A History of the American People (1902), describing the Klan as a brotherhood of politically disenfranchised white men; famously quoted in The Birth of a Nation (1915)
“The white men of the South were aroused by the mere instinct of self-preservation to rid themselves, by fair means or foul, of the intolerable burden of governments sustained by the votes of ignorant negroes.”
Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924) first seen 1902 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: A History of the American People (1902), Documentary Edition, Vol. IX, p. 58
“No doubt a lot of nonsense has been talked about the inalienable rights of the individual, and a great deal that was mere vague sentiment and pleasing speculation has been put forward as fundamental principle.”
Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924) first seen 1908 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Constitutional Government in the United States, New York: NY, Columbia University Press, (1908) p. 16.
“We are not put into this world to sit still and know; we are put into it to act. It is true that in order to learn men must for a little while withdraw from action, must seek some quiet place of remove from the bustle of affairs, where their thoughts may run clear and tranquil, and the heats of business be for the time put off; but that cloistered refuge is no place to dream in.”
Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924) first seen 1896 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Princeton for the Nation's Service”, Inaugural address as President of Princeton (25 October 1902); this speech is different from his 1896 speech of the same title.
“There are two beings who assess character instantly by looking into the eyes,—dogs and children. If a dog not naturally possessed of the devil will not come to you after he has looked you in the face, you ought to go home and examine your conscience; and if a little child, from any other reason than mere timidity, looks you in the face, and then draws back and will not come to your knee, go home and look deeper yet into your conscience.”
Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924) first seen 1904 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Young People and the Church“ (13 October 1904)
“[W]e are not bound to adhere to the doctrine held by the signers of the Declaration of Independence.”
Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924) first seen 1907 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Woodrow Wilson, “The Author and Signers of the Declaration,” (July 1907), The Papers of Woodrow Wilson (PWW), 17:251
“The only reason I read a book is because I cannot see and converse with the man who wrote it.”
Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924) first seen 1905 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in Kansas City (12 May 1905), PWW (The Papers of Woodrow Wilson) 16:99
“Generally young men are regarded as radicals. This is a popular misconception. The most conservative persons I ever met are college undergraduates. The radicals are the men past middle life.”
Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924) first seen 1905 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in New York City, (19 Nov 1905), The Papers of Woodrow Wilson 16:228
“The only thing that has ever distinguished America among the nations is that she has shown that all men are entitled to the benefits of the law.”
Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924) first seen 1906 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Address in New York, 14 December 1906
“Since trade ignores national boundaries and the manufacturer insists on having the world as a market, the flag of his nation must follow him, and the doors of the nations which are closed must be battered down. Concessions obtained by financiers must be safeguarded by ministers of state, even if the sovereignty of unwilling nations be outraged in the process. Colonies must be obtained or planted, in order that no useful corner of the world may be overlooked or left unused.”
Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924) first seen 1907 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: An unpublished paper of 1907, as quoted in The Rising American Empire (1960) by Richard Warner Van Alstyne, p. 201; also quoted in On Power and Ideology (1987) by Noam Chomsky; accounts of this as being from a lecture o…
“We want one class of persons to have a liberal education, and we want another class of persons, a very much larger class, of necessity, in every society, to forego the privileges of a liberal education and fit themselves to perform specific difficult manual tasks.”
Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924) first seen 1909 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Meaning of a Liberal Education”, Address to the New York City High School Teachers Association (9 January 1909)
“At every crisis in one's life, it is absolute salvation to have some sympathetic friend to whom you can think aloud without restraint or misgiving.”
Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924) first seen 1909 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Mary Allen Hulbert Peck (1 August 1909), PWW 19:321
“The Southern legislatures which Mr. Johnson authorized set up saw the need for action no less than Congress did. It was a menace to society itself that the negroes should thus of a sudden be set free and left without tutelage or restraint. Some stayed very quietly by their old masters and gave no trouble, but most yielded, as was to have been expected, to the novel impulses and excitement of freedom and made their way to the camps and cities, where the blue-coated soldiers were, and the agents of the Freedman’s Bureau.”
Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924) said by 1924 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The white men of the South were aroused by the mere instinct of self-preservation to rid themselves, by fair means or foul, of the intolerable burden of governments sustained by the votes of ignorant negroes and conducted in the interest of adventurers.”
Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924) said by 1924 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Every country-side wished to have its own Ku Klux, founded in secrecy and mystery like the mother ‘Den’ at Pulaski, until at last there had sprung into existence a great Ku Klux Klan, an ‘Invisible Empire of the South,’ bound together in loose organization to protect the southern country from some of the ugliness hazards of a time of revolution.”
Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924) said by 1924 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It was plain to see that the trouble in the southern States arose out of the exclusion of the better whites from the electoral suffrage no less than from the admission of the most ignorant blacks.”
Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924) said by 1924 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The great voice of America does not come from the seats of learning, but in a murmur from the hills and the woods and the farms and the factories and the mills, rolling on and gaining volume until it comes to us the voice from the homes of the common men. Do these murmurs come into the corridors of the university? I have not heard them.”
Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924) first seen 1910 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Address to Princeton University alumni, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (April 17, 1910); reported in The Papers of Woodrow Wilson, ed. Arthur S. Link (1975), vol. 20, p. 365
“RADICAL—one who goes too far. CONSERVATIVE—one who does not go far enough. REACTIONARY—one who does not go at all.”
Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924) first seen 1911 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech to Kansas Society of New York (23 January 1911) — Wilson's definition of different groups, PWW 22:389
“No man can sit down and withhold his hands from the warfare against wrong and get peace from his acquiescence.”
Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924) first seen 1911 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: A Book Which Reveals Men to Themselves”, Address on the Tercentenary of the Tranlation of the Bible (7 May 1911) in The Politics of Woodrow Wilson, p. 104
“Most men are individuals no longer so far as their business, its activities, or its moralities are concerned. They are not units but fractions; with their individuality and independence of choice in matters of business they have lost all their individual choice within the field of morals.”
Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924) first seen 1910 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Annual address, American Bar Association, Chattanooga (31 August 1910)
“America lives in the heart of every man everywhere who wishes to find a region where he will be free to work out his destiny as he chooses.”
Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924) first seen 1912 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Campaign speech in Chicago (6 April 1912)
“Business underlies everything in our national life, including our spiritual life. Witness the fact that in the Lord's Prayer, the first petition is for daily bread. No one can worship God or love his neighbor on an empty stomach.”
Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924) first seen 1912 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in New York (23 May 1912)
“You know that it was Jefferson who said that the best government is that which does as little governing as possible…. But that time is passed. America is not now and cannot in the future be a place for unrestricted individual enterprise.”
Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924) first seen 1912 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Campaign Address in Scranton, Penn.,” (September 23, 1912)
“Prosperity … is necessarily the first theme of a political campaign.”
Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924) first seen 1912 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Campaign speech, 1912, PWW 25:99
“I always remember that America was established not to create wealth—though any nation must create wealth which is going to make an economic foundation for its life—but to realize a vision, to realize an ideal. America has put itself under bonds to the earth to discover and maintain liberty now among men, and if she cannot see liberty now with the clear, unerring vision she had at the outset, she has lost her title, she has lost every claim to the leadership and respect of the nations of the world.”
Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924) first seen 1912 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Coming On of a New Spirit”, speech to Chicago Democrat's Iriquois Club (12 February 1912), The Politics of Woodrow Wilson, p. 180
“Liberty is its own reward.”
Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924) first seen 1912 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in New York City (9 September 1912)
“I would … rather lose in a cause that I know some day will triumph than triumph in a cause that I know some day will lose.”
Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924) first seen 1912 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in Syracuse (12 September 1912) PWW 25:145
“Liberty has never come from the government. Liberty has always come from the subjects of the government. The history of liberty is a history of resistance. The history of liberty is a history of the limitation of governmental power, not the increase of it.”
Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924) first seen 1912 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech at New York Press Club (9 September 1912), in The papers of Woodrow Wilson, 25:124
“Mr. House is my second personality. He is my independent self. His thoughts and mine are one. If I were in his place I would do just as he suggested.”
Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924) first seen 1912 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in The Intimate Papers of Colonel House, vol. I (Houghton Mifflin) by Charles Seymour, p. 114-115; also referenced here. (1912)
“There can be no equality or opportunity, the first essential of justice in the body politic, if men and women and children be not shielded in their lives, their very vitality, from the consequences of great industrial and social processes which they can not alter, control, or singly cope with.”
Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924) first seen 1913 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: First Inaugural Address (4 March 1913)
“The success of a party means little except when the Nation is using that party for a large and definite purpose.”
Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924) first seen 1913 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: First Inaugural Address (4 March 1913)
“Power consists in one's capacity to link his will with the purpose of others, to lead by reason and a gift of cooperation.”
Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924) first seen 1913 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: From a letter to Mary A. Hulbert (21 September 1913)
“If you think too much about being re-elected, it is very difficult to be worth re-electing.”
Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924) first seen 1913 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Rededication and restoration of Congress Hall, Philadelphia (25 October 1913)
“You are not here merely to prepare to make a living. You are here to enable the world to live more amply, with greater vision, and with a finer spirit of hope and achievement. You are here to enrich the world, and you impoverish yourself if you forget this errand.”
Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924) first seen 1913 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Ideals of College”, Swarthmore (25 October 1913)
“You cannot be friends upon any other terms than upon the terms of equality.”
Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924) first seen 1913 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Address on Latin American Policy before the Southern Commercial Congress Mobile, Alabama (27 October 1913)