What are the most profound words you have heard

[n2mark]

or read from a President?

[SnoopDog]

1. "Ask not what your country can do for you, ..

ask what you can do for your country" JFK

[n2mark]

3. I second that one

[devilgrrl]

2. Nook-ya-lure

Is our children learning?

[SlavesandBulldozers]

4. hahaha

i know. goddamn it. he's ruined everything.

[NeoTraitors]

5. * did unleash the truth once, accidentally

paraphrase: 'They (terrorists) never stop thinking of new ways to hurt the American people, and neither do we.'

[SlavesandBulldozers]

6. that was a great quote

i had nearly forgotten about that one. a true classic.

[stavka]

7. Johnson - "I shall not seek or accept..."

This was a THINKING war president

http://www.lbjlib.utexas.edu/johnson/archives.hom/speeches.hom/680331.asp

[ClassicDem]

8. I have two Presidents.

I believe that every individual is naturally entitled to do as he pleases with himself and the fruits of his labor, so far as it in no way interferes with any other men's rights. – Abraham Lincoln

And

Peace, commerce and honest friendship with all nations; entangling alliances with none. – Thomas Jefferson

[anarchy1999]

18. Welcome to DU. Many of us here have forgotten our manners.

Peace.

[OneBlueSky]

9. George H.W. Bush . . .

"Sorry I puked in your lap, Jap" . . .

[gauguin57]

10. Jimmy Carter's speech, taking responsibility for the helicopters crashing

in the desert while U.S. troops were trying to rescue the hostages in Iran. A president taking RESPONSIBILITY for something! What a CONCEPT!


This from Lincoln's Second Inaugural speech is OK, too ...

"... With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations."

And John Adams (before he was president): "Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence."

And, of course, I agree the "ask not what your country can do for you" was absolutely marvelous political rhetoric.

[gauguin57]

11. From Grover Cleveland:

"Your every voter, as surely as your chief magistrate, exercises a public trust."

Amen, brother!

And from William McKinley:

"War should never be entered upon until every agency of peace has failed."

[gauguin57]

12. From FDR:

"The only thing we have to fear is fear itself - nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror." (what administration does THAT sound like?)

and

"Freedom of conscience, of education, of speech, of assembly are among the very fundamentals of democracy and all of them would be nullified should freedom of the press ever be successfully challenged."

[gauguin57]

13. Give 'em Hell, Harry ...

(Truman):

"Isolationism is the road to war. Worse than that, isolationism is the road to defeat in war."

"America was not built on fear. America was built on courage, on imagination and an unbeatable determination to do the job at hand."

"You can not stop the spread of an idea by passing a law against it."

[gauguin57]

14. And, from Teddy Roosevelt ...

"No man is justified in doing evil on the ground of expediency."

Are you listening, Mishter Preshident?

[Elwood P Dowd]

15. Greetings, you are ordered to report to local board number (?)

for induction into the US Army......

Richard M. Nixon
1970

What a fun vacation from little Dick.

[doodadem]

16. "Call me a liberal........"

"... if by a liberal they mean someone who looks ahead and not behind,
someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions,
someone who cares about the welfare of the people-
their health, their housing, their schools, their jobs,
their civil rights, their civil liberties..
if that is what they mean
then I am proud to be a liberal."

John F. Kennedy

[VOX]

17. Ike's farewell-warning of the dangers of the military-industrial complex.

Sorry, Ike, but the radical right wing of your party has let you down.
- - - - -
"This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence – economic, political, even spiritual – is felt in every city, every Statehouse, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.

"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

"We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together."