Calvin Coolidge
When a great many people are unable to find work, unemployment results.
Men speak of natural rights, but I challenge any one to show where in nature any rights existed or were recognized until there was established for their declaration and protection a duly promulgated body of corresponding laws.
Mass demand has been created almost entirely through the development of advertising.
When people are bewildered they tend to become credulous.
In the discharge of the duties of this office, there is one rule of action more important than all others. It consists in never doing anything that someone else can do for you.
There is no force so democratic as the force of an ideal.
Duty is not collective; it is personal.
I sometimes wish that people would put a little more emphasis upon the observance of the law than they do upon its enforcement.
You know, I have found out in the course of a long public life that the things I did not say never hurt me.
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.Collection: Selfish
Restricted immigration is not an offensive but purely a defensive action. It is not adopted in criticism of others in the slightest degree, but solely for the purpose of protecting ourselves. We cast no aspersions on any race or creed, but we must remember that every object of our institutions of society and government will fail unless America be kept American.Collection: Race
You can't increase prosperity by taxing success.Collection: Prosperity
Wherever despotism abounds, the sources of public information are the first to be brought under its control.Collection: Information
Your ability to face setbacks and disappointments without giving up will be the measure of your ability to succeed.Collection: Giving Up
A government which lays taxes on the people not required by urgent public necessity and sound public policy is not a protector of liberty, but an instrument of tyranny. It condemns the citizen to servitude.Collection: Government
Silence can never be misquoted.Collection: Silence
Liberty is not collective, it is personal. All liberty is individual liberty.Collection: Liberty
In life there is nothing more common than talent and intelligence. What is missing is passion, persistence, commitment, and dedication.Collection: Passion
The world is full of educated derelicts.Collection: Perseverance
We do not need more material development, we need more spiritual development. We do not need more intellectual power, we need more moral power. We do not need more knowledge, we need more character. We do not need more government, we need more culture. We do not need more law, we need more religion. We do not need more of the things that are seen, we need more of the things that are unseen. It is on that side of life that it is desirable to put the emphasis at the present time. If that side be strengthened, the other side will take care of itself.Collection: Spiritual
Doubters do not achieve; skeptics do not contribute; cynics do not create.Collection: Achievement
What we need is not more Federal government, but better local government.Collection: Government
There is no surer road to destruction than prosperity without character.Collection: Character
You can display no greater wisdom than by resisting proposals for needless legislation. It is much more important to kill bad bills than to pass good ones.Collection: Important
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.Collection: Country
No method of procedure has ever been devised by which liberty could be divorced from local self-government. No plan of centralization has ever been adopted which did not result in bureaucracy, tyranny, inflexibility, reaction, and decline.Collection: Government
If all men are created equal, that is final. If they are endowed with inalienable rights, that is final. If governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, that is final. No advance, no progress can be made beyond these propositions.Collection: Men
Freedom is not only bought with a great price; it is maintained by unremitting effort.Collection: Effort
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.Collection: Country
Despotism has forever had a powerful hold upon the world. Autocratic government, not self-government, has been the prevailing state of mankind. The record of past history is the record, not of the success of republics, but of their failure.Collection: Powerful
No matter what anyone may say about making the rich and the corporations pay taxes, in the end they come out of the people who toilCollection: People
The words of the President have an enormous weight and ought not to be used indiscriminately.Collection: President
I do not want to see any of the people cringing supplicants for the favor of the Government, when they should all be independent masters of their own destiny.Collection: Freedom
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.Collection: Sorry
You don't have to explain something you never said.Collection: Silence
The Constitution is the sole source and guaranty of national freedom.Collection: Freedom
Life is one darn thing after another.Collection: Life Is
We identify the flag with almost everything we hold dear on earth, peace, security, liberty, our family, our friends, our home. . .But when we look at our flag and behold it emblazoned with all our rights we must remember that it is equally a symbol of our duties. Every glory that we associate with it is the result of duty done.Collection: 4th Of July
We demand entire freedom of action and then expect the government in some miraculous way to save us from the consequences of our own acts.... Self-government means self-reliance.Collection: Mean
Those who want their rights respected under the Constitution and the law ought to set the example themselves of observing the Constitution and the law. While there may be those of high intelligence who violate the law at times, the barbarian and the defective always violate it. Those who disregard the rules of society are not exhibiting a superior intelligence, are not promoting freedom and independence, are not following the path of civilization, but are displaying the traits of ignorance, of servitude, of savagery, and treading the way that leads back to the jungle.Collection: Ignorance
Surprisingly few men are lacking in capacity, but they fail because... they are too indolent to apply themselves with the seriousness and the attention that is necessary to solve important problems.Collection: Men
There is new life in the soil for every man. There is healing in the trees for tired minds and for our overburdened spirits, there is strength in the hills, if only we will lift up our eyes. Remember that nature is your great restorer.Collection: Nature
Politics is not an end, but a means. It is not a product, but a process. It is the art of government. Like other values it has its counterfeits. So much emphasis has been placed upon the false that the significance of the true has been obscured and politics has come to convey the meaning of crafty and cunning selfishness, instead of candid and sincere service.Collection: Art
This country would not be a land of opportunity, America could not be America, if the people were shackled with government monopolies.Collection: Country
The final solution for unemployment is work.Collection: Government
If American democracy is to remain the greatest hope of humanity, it must continue abundantly in the faith of the BibleCollection: Presidential
It is difficult for men in high office to avoid the malady of self-delusion. They are always surrounded by worshipers. They are constantly, and for the most part sincerely, assured of their greatness.Collection: Greatness
One day the President and Mrs. Coolidge were visiting a government farm. Soon after their arrival they were taken off on separate tours. When Mrs. Coolidge passed the chicken pens she paused to ask the man in charge if the rooster copulates more than once each day. "Dozens of times, was the reply." "Please tell that to the President," Mrs. Coolidge requested. When the President passed the pens and was told about the roosters, he asked "Same hen every time?" "Oh no, Mr. President, a different one each time." The President nodded slowly, then said, "Tell that to Mrs. Coolidge."Collection: Taken
School is not the end but only the beginning of an education.Collection: Education