Politics ought to be the part-time profession of every citizen who would protect the rights and privileges of free people and who would preserve what is good and fruitful in our national heritage.
Interpretation
Eisenhower emphasizes that all citizens should engage in politics to safeguard freedom and preserve national values.
In this quote, Dwight D. Eisenhower highlights the importance of political participation as a civic duty. He suggests that for a society to maintain its freedoms and uphold its cherished traditions, every individual should view politics as a part-time responsibility, actively engaging to protect rights and nurture the positive aspects of their national heritage.
In practice
In a community meeting about local governance, one could use this quote to inspire participation.
If a man's associates find him guilty of being phony, if they find that he lacks forthright integrity, he will fail. His teachings and actions must square with each other. The first great need, therefore, is integrity and high purpose.
The libraries of America are and must ever remain the home of free and inquiring minds. To them, our citizens-of all ages and races, of all creeds and persuasions-must be able to turn with clear confidence that there they can freely seek the whole truth, unvarnished by fashion and uncompromised by expediency.
You don't lead by hitting people over the head - that's assault, not leadership.
When pressure mounts and strain increases everyone begins to show the weaknesses in his makeup. It is up to the Commander to conceal his: above all to conceal doubt, fear, and distrust.
Some years ago I became president of Columbia University and learned within 24 hours to be ready to speak at the drop of a hat, and I learned something more, the trustees were expected to be ready to speak at the passing of the hat.
I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity.
An invisible empire has been set up above the forms of Democracy
In the absence of sound oversight,responsible businesses are forced to compete against unscrupulous and underhanded businesses, who are unencumbered by any restrictions on activities that might harm the environment, or take advantage of middle-class families, or threaten to bring down the entire financial system.
The more you read and observe about this Politics thing, the more you've got to admit that each party is worse than the other.
If experience teaches us anything at all, it teaches us this: that a good politician, under democracy, is quite as unthinkable as an honest burglar.
In Palestine, the Israelis claim they found a land without people,' a Syrian officer explained to us. 'Now they will take southern Lebanon and claim they have found another land without people if these refugees do not return.
It is of the nature of war to increase the executive at the expense of the legislative authority.
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