24/11/2018
Dear Americans!
Your country has seen many presidents.
Some were good, some were fair and many were remarkable.
But every single one of them left us with a memorable phrase to summon up the essence of his thoughts:
1. George Washington: „If the freedom of speech is taken away then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.“
2. John Adams: „I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy.“
3. Thomas Jefferson: „Honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom.“
4. James Madison: „The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted.“
5. James Monroe: „The best form of government is that which is most likely to prevent the greatest sum of evil.“
6. John Quincy Adams: „Patience and perseverance have a magical effect before which difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish.“
7. Andrew Jackson: „You must pay the price if you wish to secure the blessing.“
8. Martin van Buren: „The government should not be guided by Temporary Excitement, but by Sober Second Thought.“
9. William Henry Harrison: „The only legitimate right to govern is an express grant of power from the governed.“
10. John Tyler: „I can never consent to being dictated to.“
11. James K. Polk: „Minorities have a right to appeal to the Constitution as a shield against such oppression.“
12. Zachary Taylor: „Never judge a stranger by his clothes.“
13. Millard Fillmore: „It is not strange... to mistake change for progress.“
14. Franklin Pierce: „Frequently the more trifling the subject, the more animated and protracted the discussion.“
15. James Buchanan: „The ballot box is the surest arbiter of disputes among free men.“
16. Abraham Lincoln: „Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.“
17. Andrew Johnson: „Honest conviction is my courage; the Constitution is my guide.“
18. Ulysses S. Grant: „Labor disgraces no man; unfortunately, you occasionally find men who disgrace labor.“
19. Rutherford B. Hayes: „To vote is like the payment of a debt, a duty never to be neglected, if its performance is possible.“
20. James A. Garfield: „The truth will set you free, but first it will make you miserable.“
21. Chester A. Arthur: „Men may die, but the fabrics of free institutions remains unshaken.“
22. Grover Cleveland: „It is better to be defeated standing for a high principle than to run by committing subterfuge.“
23. Benjamin Harrison: „We Americans have no commission from God to police the world.“
24. Grover Cleveland ( again ): „The ship of democracy, which has weathered all storms, may sink through the mutiny of those on board.“
25. William McKinley: „That's all a man can hope for during his lifetime - to set an example - and when he is dead, to be an inspiration for history.“
26. Theodore Roosevelt: „Nobody cares how much you know, until they know how much you care.“
27. William Howard Taft: „Don't write so that you can be understood, write so that you can't be misunderstood.“
28. Woodrow Wilson: „There is no higher religion than human service. To work for the common good is the greatest creed.“
29. Warren G. Harding: „America's present need is not heroics but healing; not nostrums but normalcy; not revolution but restoration.“
30. Calvin Coolidge: „No person was ever honored for what he received. Honor has been the reward for what he gave.“
31. Herbert Hoover: „Freedom is the open window through which pours the sunlight of the human spirit and human dignity.“
32. Franklin D. Roosevelt: „Happiness lies in the joy of achievement and the thrill of creative effort.“
33. Harry S. Truman: „Actions are the seed of fate deeds grow into destiny.“
34. Dwight D. Eisenhower: „I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity.“
35. John F. Kennedy: „As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them.“
36. Lyndon B. Johnson: „Yesterday is not ours to recover, but tomorrow is ours to win or lose.“
37. Richard Nixon: „Only if you have been in the deepest valley, can you ever know how magnificent it is to be on the highest mountain.“
38. Gerald Ford: „History and experience tell us that moral progress comes not in comfortable and complacent times, but out of trial and confusion.“
39. Jimmy Carter: „America did not invent human rights. In a very real sense human rights invented America.“
40. Ronald Reagan: „Peace is not absence of conflict, it is the ability to handle conflict by peaceful means.“
41. George H.W. Bush: „We are a nation of communities... a brilliant diversity spread like stars, like a thousand points of light in a broad and peaceful sky.“
42. Bill Clinton: „Being president is like running a cemetery: you've got a lot of people under you and nobody's listening.“
43. George W. Bush: „Faith crosses every border and touches every heart in every nation.“
44. Barack Obama: „Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.
And then came No. 45 Donald Trump
Do you really consider re-electing a man, whose contribution to American history is neither printable, nore in any way deemed to celebrate the „Land of the Free“?
Please America - for your sake: think again!
ROUGH EDGES - thinking out of the box!
(Photo by Aria Wilson)
