I Like Ike

Via Wikiquote - Dwight D. Eisenhower quotes

* I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its stupidity.

* A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both.

* All of us have heard this term 'preventative war' since the earliest days of Hitler. I recall that is about the first time I heard it. In this day and time... I don't believe there is such a thing; and, frankly, I wouldn't even listen to anyone seriously that came in and talked about such a thing.

* Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.

* I was against it on two counts. First, the Japanese were ready to surrender, and it wasn't necessary to hit them with that awful thing. Second, I hated to see our country be the first to use such a weapon.
-Newsweek (11 November 1963) On his stated opposition to the use of the atomic bomb against the Japanese.

* (On military character) Character in many ways is everything in leadership. It is made up of many things, but i would say character is really integrity. When you delegate something to a subordinate, for example, it is absolutely your responsibility, and he must understand this. You as a leader must take complete responsibility for what the subordinate does. I once said, as a sort of wisecrack, that leadership consists of nothing but taking responsibility for everything that goes wrong and giving your subordinates credit for everything that goes well.

* May we never confuse honest dissent with disloyal subversion.