Quotessence
Home / Authors / Calvin Coolidge
Calvin Coolidge

Calvin Coolidge Quotes

30th U.S. President

Filter quotes by topic

AllGovernmentPeopleMenIfsPresidentLibertyAmericaLawCountryHas BeensRightsNationsStatesMeanNeedsPoliticsPresidentialWantCharacterPolitical

Famous Calvin Coolidge Quotes

“While legislation can stimulate and encourage, the real creative ability which builds up and develops the country, and in general makes human existence more tolerable and life more complete, has to be supplied by the genius of the people themselves. The Government can supply no substitute for enterprise.”

PeopleHumansRealCountryGovernmentAbilityExistenceCreativeGeniusEnterpriseSubstitutesLegislationHuman ExistenceTolerable
Book:America's Need for Education: And Other Educational Addresses
Create image

“Governments do not make ideals, but ideals make governments. This is both historically and logically true. Of course the government can help to sustain ideals and can create institutions through which they can be the better observed, but their source by their very nature is in the people. The people have to bear their own responsibilities. There is no method by which that burden can be shifted to the government. It is not the enactment, but the observance of laws, that creates the character of a nation.”

PeopleCharacterHelpingGovernmentLawCoursesNationsPresidentResponsibilitySourceBearsIdealsMethodInstitutionsBurdenObservance
Author:Calvin Coolidge
Create image

“It would be folly to argue that the people cannot make political mistakes. They can and do make grave mistakes. They know it, they pay the penalty, but compared with the mistakes which have been made by every kind of autocracy they are unimportant.”

PeopleKnowsKindHas BeensMadeWould BePoliticalPayMistakeArguingGravesFollyPenaltiesUnimportantAutocracy
Book:Calvin Coolidge, His Ideals of Citizenship as Revealed Through His Speeches and Writings
Create image

“Unless the people, through unified action, arise and take charge of their government, they will find that their government has taken charge of them. Independence and liberty will be gone, and the general public will find itself in a condition of servitude to an aggregation of organized and selfish interest.”

PeopleGovernmentActionInterestLibertyGoneTakenConditionsIndependenceSelfishAriseOrganizedServitudeUnifiedGeneral PublicSelfish Interest
Author:Calvin Coolidge
Create image

“Our government rests upon religion. It is from that source that we derive our reverance for truth and justice, for equality and liberty, and for the rights of mankind. Unless the people believe in these principles they cannot believe in our government.”

PeopleBelieveGovernmentJusticeLibertyPrinciplesRightsMankindSourceTruth And Justice
Book:The Quotable Calvin Coolidge: Sensible Words for a New Century
Create image

“In its main features the Declaration of Independence is a great spiritual document. It is a declaration not of material but of spiritual conceptions. Equality, liberty, popular sovereignty, the rights of man - these are not elements which we can see and touch. They are ideals. They have their source and their roots in the religious convictions. They belong to the unseen world. Unless the faith of the American people in these religious convictions is to endure, the principles of our Declaration will perish. We can not continue to enjoy the result if we neglect and abandon the cause.”

PeopleIfsMenWorldSpiritualCausesEnjoyReligiousResultsLibertyPrinciplesRightsMaterialsSourceElementsIdealsRootsIndependenceEndureConvictionFeaturesAbandonNeglectConceptionDocumentsCan NotDeclarationUnseenSovereigntyDeclaration Of IndependenceGreat SpiritualPopular Sovereignty
Author:Calvin Coolidge
Create image

“No advance, no progress can be made beyond these propositions. If anyone wishes to deny their truth or their soundness, the only direction in which he can proceed historically is not forward, but backward toward a time when there was no equality, no rights of the individual, no rule of the people. Those who wish to proceed in that direction cannot lay claim to progress. They are reactionary. Their ideas are not more modern, but more ancient than those of our Revolutionary ancestors.”

PeopleIfsMadeIdeasIndividualWishRightsProgressModernClaimsLaysAncientEqualityDenyRevolutionaryAncestorPropositionsDeclaration Of IndependenceReactionariesSoundness
Author:Calvin Coolidge
Create image

“It is not in violence and crime that our greatest danger lies. These evils are so perfectly apparent that they very quickly arouse the moral power of the people for their suppression. A far more serious danger lurks in the shirking of those responsibilities of citizenship, where the evil may not be so noticeable but is more insidious and likely to be more devastating.”

PeopleMayLyingEvilResponsibilityMoralViolenceCrimeDangerSeriousCitizenshipSuppressionInsidious
Author:Calvin Coolidge
Create image

“I love Vermont because of her hills and valleys, her scenery and invigorating climate, but most of all because of her indomitable people. They are a race of pioneers who have almost beggared themselves to serve others. If the spirit of liberty should vanish in other parts of the union and support of our institutions should languish, it could all be replenished from the generous store held by the people of this brave little state of Vermont.”

PeopleIfsShouldLittlesStatesSpiritRaceLibertySupportInstitutionsBraveUnionsClimateStoresHillsGenerousValleysPioneersSceneryVermontInvigoratingIndomitableLanguishHills And Valleys
Author:Calvin Coolidge
Create image

“Parties do not maintain themselves. They are maintained by effort. The government is not self-existent. It is maintained by the effort of those who believe in it. The people of America believe in American institutions, the American form of government and the American method of transacting business.”

PeopleBelieveSelfGovernmentAmericaFormPartyEffortMethodInstitutionsForms Of Government
Book:Calvin Coolidge, His Ideals of Citizenship as Revealed Through His Speeches and Writings
Create image