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Calvin Coolidge

Calvin Coolidge Quotes

30th U.S. President

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Famous Calvin Coolidge Quotes

“The property of the people belongs to the people. To take it from them by taxation cannot be justified except by urgent public necessity. Unless this principle be recognized our country is no longer secure, our people no longer free.”

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Book:Calvin Coolidge, His Ideals of Citizenship as Revealed Through His Speeches and Writings
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“We insist on producing a farm surplus, but think the government should find a profitable market for it. We overindulge in speculation, but ask the government to prevent panics. Now the only way to hold the government entirely responsible for conditions is to give up our liberty for a dictatorship. If we continue the more reasonable practice of managing our own affairs we must bear the burdens of our own mistakes. A free people cannot shift their responsibility for them to the government. Self-government means self-reliance.”

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Book:Calvin Coolidge says: dispatches written by former-president Coolidge and syndicated to newspapers in 1930-1931 : gathered for issuance in book form on the one-hundredth anniversary of Mr. Coolidge's birth, 4 July 1972
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“I should be very sorry to see the United States holding anyone in confinement on account of any opinion that that person might hold. It is a fundamental tenet of our institutions that people have a right to believe what they want to believe and hold such opinions as they want to hold without having to answer to anyone for their private opinion.”

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Book:TALKATIVE PRESIDENT OFF
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“Nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent.”

PeopleCommonTalentDeterminationPerseverancePersistenceProcrastinationPersistKey To SuccessMy AttitudeExamUnsuccessfulGraffitiOmnipotentDetermination And SuccessWill And DeterminationResiliencyDetermination PerseveranceKnowledge EducationEducation And KnowledgePerseverance And DeterminationInspirational PerseveranceDetermination And PersistenceWill To SucceedPerseverencePersistence InspirationalTalent And GeniusMotivation And DeterminationDesire To AchieveStreet ArtStrength And PerseveranceCourage And DeterminationWall And PiecePerseverance MotivationalCool StatusExam MotivationalDerelictPersistence In BusinessPersistence LoveAdversity And PerseveranceGraffiti ArtGraffiti ArtistPersistence And LoveFunny ExamSingle StatusPressing OnStrength And DeterminationClass StatusPeople LeavingWasted TalentBanging Your HeadStatus Updates
Author:Calvin Coolidge
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“I have done it [appointed commissions] regretfully and with the hope that it would be temporary. But after a commission is established you find it always wants to enlarge itself, employ more people, is very busy with Senators and Congressmen to impress upon them the great value of the services of the commission, and even when I talk to people that I appoint to commissions and tell them I would like them to go on to various boards with the idea that they may be abolished, they say they ought to be abolished, but when they have taken their position they very soon seem to change their mind.”

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Author:Calvin Coolidge
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“There has been abroad many times some criticism of our Government, of our people, and our ways, but that has demonstrated, I think, that when they are in real trouble and real difficulty over there, they turn to us as a nation that will be fair with them--one in whose judgment and in whose character they can rely; and that not withstanding differences that have seemed to exist, they are willing to abide by the faith that they have in us, and I think that is a very substantial accomplishment.”

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Author:Calvin Coolidge
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“Some of the offers that have come to me would never have come if I had not been President. That means these people are trying to hire not Calvin Coolidge, but a former President of the United States. I can't make that kind of use of the office.... I can't do anything that might take away from the Presidency any of its dignity, or any of the faith people have in it.”

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Author:Calvin Coolidge
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“July 4, 1776 was the historic day on which the representatives of three millions of people vocalized Concord, and Lexington, and Bunker Hill, which gave notice to the world that they proposed to establish an independent nation on the theory that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

PeopleMenWorldCertainThreeNationsLibertyMillionsRightsTheoryEqualIndependentCreatorPursuitHillsRepresentativesHistoricPursuit Of HappinessJulyInalienable RightsBunkersLife Liberty And The Pursuit Of HappinessJuly 4LexingtonBunker Hill
Author:Calvin Coolidge
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“Numbered among our population are some 12,000,000 colored people. Under our Constitution their rights are just as sacred as those of any other citizen. It is both a public and a private duty to protect those rights. The Congress ought to exercise all its powers of prevention and punishment against the hideous crime of lynching, of which the negroes are by no means the sole sufferers, but for which they furnish a majority of the victims.”

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Author:Calvin Coolidge
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“There are racial considerations too grave to be brushed aside for any sentimental reasons. Biological laws tell us that certain divergent people will not mix or blend. The Nordics propagate themselves successfully. With other races, the outcome shows deterioration on both sides. Quality of mind and body suggests that observance of ethnic law is as great a necessity to a nation as immigration law.”

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Author:Calvin Coolidge
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“The budget idea, I may admit, is a sort of obsession with me. I believe in budgets. I want other people to believe in them. I have had a small one to run my own home; and besides that, I am the head of the organization that makes the greatest of all budgets, that of the United States Government. Do you wonder, then, that at times I dream of balance sheets and sinking funds?”

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Author:Calvin Coolidge
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“The people cannot look to legislation generally for success. Industry, thrift, character, are not conferred by act or resolve. Government cannot relieve from toil. It can provide no substitute for the rewards of service. It can, of course, care for the defective and recognize distinguished merit. The normal must care for themselves. Self-government means self-support.”

PeopleLooksMeanSelfCharacterGovernmentCareCoursesSupportIndustryNormalRewardsMeritResolveSubstitutesLegislationToilDistinguishedThriftSelf-governmentDefectiveSelf Support
Book:Calvin Coolidge, His Ideals of Citizenship as Revealed Through His Speeches and Writings
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“To the American People: Christmas is not a time or a season but a state of mind. To cherish peace and good will, to be plenteous in mercy, is to have the real spirit of Christmas. If we think on these things, there will be born in us a Savior and over us will shine a star sending its gleam of hope to the world." ~ Calvin Coolidge (1872-1933), American president. Presidential message (December 25, 1927).”

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Author:Calvin Coolidge
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“I want the people of America to be able to work less for the government and more for themselves. I want them to have the rewards of their own industry. This is the chief meaning of freedom. Until we can reestablish a condition under which the earnings of the people can be kept by the people, we are bound to suffer a very severe and distinct curtailment of our liberty.”

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Author:Calvin Coolidge
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“Do the day's work. If it be to protect the rights of the weak, whoever objects, do it. If it be to help a powerful corporation better to serve the people, whatever the opposition, do that. Expect to be called a stand-patter, but don't be a stand-patter. Expect to be called a demagogue, but don't be a demagogue. Don't hesitate to be as revolutionary as science. Don't hesitate to be as reactionary as the multiplication table. Don't expect to build up the weak by pulling down the strong. Don't hurry to legislate. Give administration a chance to catch up with legislation.”

PeopleIfsGivingHelpingScienceStrongChancePowerfulRightsObjectsHard WorkProtectWeakAccountsTablesAdministrationCorporationsRevolutionaryOppositionPullingLegislationReactionariesMultiplication
Book:Calvin Coolidge, His Ideals of Citizenship as Revealed Through His Speeches and Writings
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“A wholesome regard for the memory of the great men of long ago is the best assurance to a people of a continuation of great men to come, who shall be able to instruct, to lead, and to inspire. A people who worship at the shrine of true greatness will themselves be truly great.”

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Book:The Price of Freedom: Speeches and Addresses
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“It is all the more necessary under a system of free government that the people should be enlightened, that they should be correctly informed, than it is under an absolute government that they should be ignorant. Under a republic the institutions of learning, while bound by the constitution and laws, are in no way subservient to the government.”

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Author:Calvin Coolidge
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“No matter what anyone may say about making the rich and the corporations pay the taxes, in the end they come out of the people who toil. It is your fellow workers who are ordered to work for the Government, every time an appropriation bill is passed. The people pay the expense of government, often many times over, in the increased cost of living. I want taxes to be less, that the people may have more.”

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Author:Calvin Coolidge
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“The appropriation of public money always is perfectly lovely until some one is asked to pay the bill. If we are to have a billion dollars of navy, half a billion of farm relief, etc... the people will have to furnish more revenue by paying more taxes. It is for them, through their Congress, to decide how far they wish to go.”

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Author:Calvin Coolidge
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“I favor the policy of economy, not because I wish to save money, but because I wish to save people. The men and women of this country who toil are the ones who bear the cost of the Government. Every dollar that we carelessly waste means that their life will be so much the more meager. Every dollar that we save means that their life will be so much the more abundant. Economy is idealism in its most practical form.”

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Author:Calvin Coolidge
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“Don't expect to build up the weak by pulling down the strong.”

PeopleRealityPoliticalStrongPeaceSocietyStrengthBuildingExpectationsWeaknessBuiltWeakRaisedConservativePresidentialPatrioticPullingStrength And WeaknessWeakeningStrong PeopleNever ExpectStrength WeaknessWeak PointsUnrealistic ExpectationsWeak And StrongGreat ConservativeWeak WillWeak Government
Book:Calvin Coolidge, His Ideals of Citizenship as Revealed Through His Speeches and Writings
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“We draw our Presidents from the people. It is a wholesome thing for them to return to the people. I came from them. I wish to be one of them again.”

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Book:Calvin Coolidge says: dispatches written by former-president Coolidge and syndicated to newspapers in 1930-1931 : gathered for issuance in book form on the one-hundredth anniversary of Mr. Coolidge's birth, 4 July 1972
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“When people are bewildered they tend to become credulous.”

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Book:Calvin Coolidge says: dispatches written by former-president Coolidge and syndicated to newspapers in 1930-1931 : gathered for issuance in book form on the one-hundredth anniversary of Mr. Coolidge's birth, 4 July 1972
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