Herbert Hoover Quotes

Be patient and calm; no one can catch fish in anger.

There are some principles that cannot be compromised. Either we shall have a society based upon ordered liberty and the initiative of the individual, or we shall have a planned society that means dictation no matter what you call it or who does it. There is no half-way ground. They cannot be mixed.

American life is builded, and can alone survive, upon . . . [the] fundamental philosophy announced by the Savior nineteen centuries ago.

Two courses were open to us. We might have done nothing. That would have been utter ruin. Instead, we met the situation with proposals to private business and to the Congress of the most gigantic program of economic defense and counterattack ever evolved in the history of the Republic. We put that program in action. Our measures have repelled these attacks of fear and panic. . . . We have used the credit of the Government to aid and protect our institutions, both public and private. We have provided methods and assurances that none suffer from hunger or cold amongst our people. We have instituted measures to assist our farmers and our homeowners. We have created vast agencies for employment.

Leadership cannot be created synthetically. Men must be what they were made by the Almighty or the American people will find them out in time.

There is no economic failure so terrible in its import as that of a country possessing a surplus of every necessity of life in which numbers willing and anxious to work, are deprived of dire necessities. It simply cannot be if our moral and economic system is to survive.

This is not a showman’s job. I will not step out of character.

My conception of America is a land where men and women may walk in ordered freedom in the independent conduct of their occupations; where they may enjoy the advantages of wealth, not concentrated in the hands of the few but spread through the lives of all; where they build and safeguard their homes, and give to their children the fullest advantages and opportunities of American life; where every man shall be respected in the faith that his conscience and his heart direct him to follow; where a contented and happy people, secure in their liberties, free from poverty and fear, shall have the leisure and impulse to seek a fuller life.
Some may ask where all this may lead beyond mere material progress. It leads to a release of the energies of men and women from the dull drudgery of life to a wider vision and a higher hope. It leads to the opportunity for greater and greater service, not alone from man in our own land, but from our country to the whole world. It leads to an America, healthy in body, healthy in spirit, unfettered, youthful, eager — with a vision searching beyond the farthest horizons, with an open mind, sympathetic and generous.

Many years ago, I concluded that a few hair shirts were part of the mental wardrobe of every man. The president differs from other men in that he has a more extensive wardrobe.

We have gold because we cannot trust governments

No country can squander itself to prosperity on the ruin of its taxpayers.

America - a great social and economic experiment, noble in motive and far-reaching in purpose.

The only problem with capitalism is the capitalists.

With impressive proof on all sides of magnificent progress, no one can rightly deny the fundamental correctness of our economic system.

The only trouble with capitalism is capitalists; they're too damned greedy.