"Plans are nothing; planning is everything."

"There is no victory at bargain basement prices."

"Pull the string, and it will follow wherever you wish. Push it, and it will go nowhere at all."

"You do not lead by hitting people over the head -- that's assault, not leadership."

"Work should be for all of us a word as honorable and appealing as patriotism"

"I think that people want peace so much that one of these days governments had better get out of the way and let them have it. (31 August 1959)"

"We have heard much of the phrase, ''peace and friendship.'' This phrase, in expressing the aspiration of America, is not complete. We should say instead, ''peace and friendship, in freedom.'' This, I think, is America's real message to the rest of the world."

"We seek peace, knowing that peace is the climate of freedom."

"I would rather try to persuade a man to go along, because once I have persuaded him, he will stick. If I scare him, he will stay just as long as he is scared, and then he is gone."

"In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable."

"The future of this republic is in the hands of the American voter."

"The clearest way to show what the rule of law means to us in everyday life is to recall what has happened when there is no rule of law."

"The best morale exist when you never hear the word mentioned. When you hear a lot of talk about it, it's usually lousy."

"Motivation is the art of getting people to do what you want them to do because they want to do it."

"Here and there, there are some people who are supremely endowed, ... My memory goes back to Jim Thorpe. He never practiced in his life, and he could do anything better than any other football player I ever saw."

"Our real problem, then, is not our strength today; it is rather the vital necessity of action today to ensure our strength tomorrow."

"You don't lead by hitting people over the head-that's assault, not leadership."

"Leadership is a word and a concept that has been more argued than almost any other I know. I am not one of the desk-pounding types that likes to stick out his jaw and look like he is bossing the show. I would far rather get behind and, recognizing the frailties and the requirements of human nature, would rather try to persuade a man to go along, because once I have persuaded him, he will stick. If I scare him, he will stay just as long as he is scared, and then he is gone."

"Dollars and guns are no substitutes for brains and will power"

"I have found out in later years that my family was very poor, but the glory of America is that we didn't know it. [On his childhood]"

"How has retirement affected my golf game? A lot more people beat me now."

"Neither a wise nor a brave man lies down on the tracks of history to wait for the train of the future to run over him."

"Every gun that's made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed. This world in arms...is spending the genius of its scientists, the sweat of its laborers,"

"There is no glory in battle worth the blood it costs"

"Without God there could be no American form of government nor an American way of life. Recognition of the Supreme Being is the first the most basic expression of Americanism."

"I like to believe that people in the long run are going to do more to promote peace than our governments. Indeed, I think that people want peace so much that one of these days governments had better get out of the way and let them have it."

"An intellectual is a man who takes more words than necessary to tell more than he knows."

"History does not long entrust the care of freedom to the weak or the timid."

"Only our individual faith in freedom can keep us free."

"The free world must not prove itself worthy of its own past."

"I believe that without free enterprise there can be no democracy"

"Some people wanted champagne and caviar when they should have had beer and hot dogs."

"The history of free men is never really written by chance but by choice; their choice!"

"The purpose is clear. It is safety with solvency. The country is entitled to both."

"Ankles are nearly always neat and good-looking, but knees are nearly always not."

"From behind the Iron Curtain, there are signs that tyranny is in trouble and reminders that its structure is as brittle as its surface is hard."

"We are tired of aristocratic explanations in Harvard words."

"Farming looks mighty easy when your plow is a pencil, and you're a thousand miles from the corn field."

"What counts is not necessarily the size of the dog in the fight; it's the size of the fight in the dog"

"The qualities of a great man are vision, integrity, courage, understanding, the power of articulation, and profundity of character."

"In the final choice a soldier's pack is not so heavy as a prisoner's chains."

"Any man who wants to be president is either an egomaniac or crazy."

"I despise people who go to the gutter on either the right or the left and hurl rocks at those in the center."

"The sergeant is the Army."

"What counts is not necessarily the size of the dog in the fight; it's the size of the fight in the dog."

"The spirit of man is more important than mere physical strength, and the spiritual fiber of a nation than its wealth"

"There is nothing wrong with America that the faith, love of freedom, intelligence, and energy of her citizens can not cure."

"Only strength can cooperate. Weakness can only beg."

"Don't join the book burners. Do not think you are going to conceal thoughts by concealing evidence that they ever existed."

"Though force can protect in emergency, only justice, fairness, consideration and cooperation can finally lead men to the dawn of eternal peace."