Quotes by presidents & politicians

Lincoln's warning that the United States could not stay half slave and half free forever. He borrowed the image from the Gospels, where Jesus uses it to answer critics.

Franklin's advice to Philadelphians on preventing house fires. It is now used about health, but it began as fire safety and led to the city's first volunteer fire company.

A call to public service at the height of the Cold War. The very next sentence widens the same challenge to the whole world, which is the half most people never quote.

Small, regular spending adds up. A habit that seems too minor to matter can drain your money as surely as a big mistake.

Churchill did say this in Parliament in 1947, but in longer words and with a twist most people miss. He introduced it as something “that has been said,” not as his own invention.

Henry's call for Virginia to arm itself against Britain, weeks before the fighting began at Lexington and Concord. The famous words were written down only 42 years later, from listeners' memories.

The last words of the Gettysburg Address, spoken at a cemetery for Union soldiers. Lincoln turned a funeral into a promise that the war was being fought to keep democracy itself alive.

Churchill's first promise as Prime Minister was not victory but hardship. He told Parliament the truth about the war ahead and asked for its support anyway.

A wry aside in a letter about the new U.S. Constitution. Franklin made it famous, but the joke was already in print more than seventy years earlier.

Roosevelt's defense of people who try and fail over critics who never try. It was part of a long speech in Paris about the duties of citizens in a democracy.

Washington, at the request of Congress, set aside a day for Americans to thank God for the country's blessings, above all the chance to set up a new government peacefully.

A direct challenge to the Soviet leader to prove his reforms were real by opening the Berlin Wall. Many of Reagan's own advisers wanted the line removed.

Churchill's tribute to the fighter pilots of the Royal Air Force during the Battle of Britain, a few thousand airmen defending a nation of millions.

An hour spent idle is not free. If you could have been earning during that time, the wages you gave up are a real cost, on top of whatever you spent.

Roosevelt's rule for power: stay calm and polite, but have real strength ready. He called it a West African proverb, though no such proverb has been found.

Said to a country in the depths of the Great Depression, days before he closed the banks. It was a plea to stop a panic that was making the crisis worse, not a general saying about bravery.

In the middle of the Civil War, Lincoln asked Americans to give thanks for good harvests and for the country's blessings, and to pray for widows, orphans and the healing of the nation.

Written by Franklin for the Pennsylvania Assembly in a tax dispute with the colony's proprietors. It was a defense of the elected assembly's power to tax, not an argument against security measures.

The founding claim of the United States, drafted by Thomas Jefferson. Its authors applied it narrowly, but later generations used its own words to demand freedom and equal rights.

Churchill's promise, right after the Dunkirk evacuation, that Britain would never surrender even if invaded. He paired it with a blunt warning that Dunkirk was a defeat, not a victory.

Spoken weeks before the Civil War ended and six weeks before Lincoln was killed. He asked the winning side to heal the nation without revenge.