Society and the World

If when the chips are down, the world’s most powerful nation . . . acts like a pitiful, helpless giant, the forces of totalitarianism and anarchy will threaten free nations and free institutions throughout the world.

North Vietnam cannot defeat or humiliate the United States. Only Americans can do that.

North Vietnam cannot defeat or humiliate the United States. Only Americans can do that.

North Vietnam cannot defeat or humiliate the United States. Only Americans can do that.

Let historians not record that when America was the most powerful nation in the world we passed on the other side of the road and allowed the last hopes for peace and freedom of millions of people to be suffocated by the forces of totalitarianism. And so tonight—to you, the great silent majority of my fellow Americans—I ask for your support.

Let historians not record that when America was the most powerful nation in the world we passed on the other side of the road and allowed the last hopes for peace and freedom of millions of people to be suffocated by the forces of totalitarianism. And so tonight—to you, the great silent majority of my fellow Americans—I ask for your support.

After a third of a century of power flowing from the people and the States to Washington it is time for a New Federalism in which power, funds, and responsibility will flow from Washington to the States and to the people.

After a third of a century of power flowing from the people and the States to Washington it is time for a New Federalism in which power, funds, and responsibility will flow from Washington to the States and to the people.

[ Welcoming back the crew of Apollo 11 from the first moon landing :] This is the greatest week in the history of the world since the Creation.

The greatest honor history can bestow is the title of peacemaker.

The greatest honor history can bestow is the title of peacemaker.

[ Quoting a sign held up by a young girl on the campaign trail :] Bring us together again.

What America needs most today is what it once had, but has lost: the lift of a driving dream.

Pat [his wife] doesn’t have a mink coat. But she does have a respectable Republican cloth coat.

Pat [his wife] doesn’t have a mink coat. But she does have a respectable Republican cloth coat.

Liberal institutions straightway cease to be liberal, as soon as they are attained: later on, there are no worse and no more thorough injurers of freedom than liberal institutions.

Liberal institutions straightway cease to be liberal, as soon as they are attained: later on, there are no worse and no more thorough injurers of freedom than liberal institutions.

I believe only in French culture and consider everything else in Europe today that calls itself “culture” a misunderstanding—not to speak of German culture.

What can largely be achieved by punishment, in man or beast, is the increase of fear, the intensification of intelligence, the mastering of desires: punishment tames man in this way but does not make him “better”—we would be more justified in asserting the opposite.

Every tradition now continually grows more venerable the farther away its origin lies and the more this origin is forgotten; the respect paid to it increases from generation to generation, the tradition at last becomes holy and evokes awe and reverence; and thus the morality of piety is in any event a much older morality than that which demands unegoistic actions.

Every tradition now continually grows more venerable the farther away its origin lies and the more this origin is forgotten; the respect paid to it increases from generation to generation, the tradition at last becomes holy and evokes awe and reverence; and thus the morality of piety is in any event a much older morality than that which demands unegoistic actions.

Errors are not in the art but in the artificers.

I frame no hypotheses; for whatever is not deduced from the phenomena is to be called an hypothesis; and hypotheses, whether metaphysical or physical, whether of occult qualities or mechanical, have no place in experimental philosophy.

I frame no hypotheses; for whatever is not deduced from the phenomena is to be called an hypothesis; and hypotheses, whether metaphysical or physical, whether of occult qualities or mechanical, have no place in experimental philosophy.