I Like Ike

I can't say that I did like Ike when he ran for and was elected President. But that's not the only mistake I've made in my life. Here are some quotes from Ike that were relevant 40+ years ago and are relevant today. They were compiled by Michael Beaver, a reader of The Washington Note.

How far you can go without destroying from within what you are trying to defend from without?

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

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

I 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.

If men can develop weapons that are so terrifying as to make the thought of global war include almost a sentence for suicide, you would think that man's intelligence and his comprehension. . . would include also his ability to find a peaceful solution.

If you want total security, go to prison. There you're fed, clothed, given medical care and so on. The only thing lacking. . . is freedom.

In most communities it is illegal to cry "fire" in a crowded assembly. Should it not be considered serious international misconduct to manufacture a general war scare in an effort to achieve local political aims?

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

May we never confuse honest dissent with disloyal subversion.

Only Americans can hurt America.

The problem in defense is how far you can go without destroying from within what you are trying to defend from without.

Together we must learn how to compose differences, not with arms, but with intellect and decent purpose.

War settles nothing.

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

We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security.

When people speak to you about a preventive war, you tell them to go and fight it. After my experience, I have come to hate war.