Explore Quotes by Calvin Coolidge

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.

The things I never say never get me into trouble.

American ideals do not require to be changed so much as they require to be understood and applied.

What we need is not more Federal government, but better local government.

The words of the President have an enormous weight and ought not to be used indiscriminately.

If the Government gets into business on any large scale, we soon find that the beneficiaries attempt to play a large part in the control. While in theory it is to serve the public, in practice it will be very largely serving private interests. It comes to be regarded as a species of government favor and those who are the most adroit get the larger part of it.

America has but one main problem -- the character of the men and women it shall produce.

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.

After order and liberty, economy is one of the highest essentials of a free government.

Changing a college curriculum is like moving a graveyard-you never know how many friends the dead have until you try to move them!

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.

Any reward that is worth having only comes to the industrious. The success which is made in any walk of life is measured almost exactly by the amount of hard work that is put into it.

In a republic the first rule for the guidance of the citizen is obedience of the law.

What we need in appointive positions is men of knowledge and experience who have sufficient character to resist temptations.

Of course, the accumulation of wealth cannot be justified as the chief end of existence.

Baseball is our national game.

It would be difficult to conceive a finer example of true sport.

Governments do not make ideals, but ideals make governments. This is both historically and logically true. Of course the government can help to sustain ideals and can create institutions through which they can be the better observed, but their source by their very nature is in the people. The people have to bear their own responsibilities. There is no method by which that burden can be shifted to the government. It is not the enactment, but the observance of laws, that creates the character of a nation.

The chief business of the American people is business.

No one ever lost his job by listening too much.

Why don't we just buy one airplane and let the pilots take turns flying it.