Calvin Coolidge Quotes

president of the United States from 1923 to 1929

John Calvin Coolidge Jr. (4 July 1872 – 5 January 1933) was the 30th president of the United States (1923–29). A Republican lawyer from Vermont, Coolidge worked his way up the ladder of Massachusetts state politics, eventually becoming governor of that state. His response to the Boston Police Strike of 1919 thrust him into the national spotlight and gave him a reputation as a man of decisive action. Soon after, he was elected as the 29th vice president in 1920 and succeeded to the presidency upon the sudden death of Warren G. Harding in 1923. Elected in his own right in 1924, he gained a reputation as a small-government conservative.

From: Wikiquote (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Birth Name: John Calvin

Alternative Names: John Calvin Coolidge Jr. • John Calvin Coolidge • President Coolidge • J. C. Coolidge • C. Coolidge • Silent Cal • Silent Cal Coolidge

From Wikidata (CC0)

Well, they’re going to elect that Superman Hoover, and he’s going to have some trouble. He’s going to have to spend money, but it won’t be enough. Then the Democrats will come in. But they don’t know anything about money.
[To his Secret Service man, Edmund Starling]

I have found it advisable not to give too much heed to what people say when I am trying to accomplish something of consequence. Invariably they proclaim it can't be done.

Any man who has been placed in the White House cannot feel that it is the result of his own exertions or his own merit. Some power outside and beyond him becomes manifest through him. As he contemplates the workings of his office, he comes to realize with an increasing sense of humility that he is but an instrument in the hands of God.

You don't have to explain something you haven't said.

IT is a very old saying that you never can tell what you can do until you try. The more I see of life the more I am convinced of the wisdom of that observation.

"The Business of Our Firm is Business"
-Donald W. Hudspeth from:

"The Business of America is Business"
-Calvin Coolidge

Economy is idealism in its most practical form.

It has been my observation in life that, if one will only exercise the patience to wait, his wants are likely to be filled.

The nation which forgets its defenders will itself be forgotten.

It is characteristic of the unlearned that they are forever proposing something which is old, and because it has recently come to their own attention, supposing it to be new.

Chapter 95
Fairfield, Connecticut – May 8, 2015

“No nation ever had an army large enough to guarantee it against attack in time of peace, or ensure it of victory in time of war.

The words of the President have an enormous weight and ought not to be used indiscriminately. It would be exceedingly easy to set the country all by the ears and foment hatreds and jealousies, which, by destroying faith and confidence, would help nobody and harm everybody. The end would be the destruction of all progress.

About the Declaration there is a finality that is exceedingly restful. It is often asserted that the world has made a great deal of progress since 1776, that we have had new thoughts and new experiences which have given us a great advance over the people of that day, and that we may therefore very well discard their conclusions for something more modern. But that reasoning can not be applied to this great charter. 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. If anyone wishes to deny their truth or their soundness, the only direction in which he can proceed historically is not forward, but backward toward the time when there was no equality, no rights of the individual, no rule of the people. Those who wish to proceed in that direction can not lay claim to progress. They are reactionary. Their ideas are not more modern, but more ancient, than those of the Revolutionary fathers.

Those who trust to chance must abide by the results of chance.

Collecting more taxes than is absolutely necessary is legalized robbery.