Woodrow Wilson Quotes

The seed of revolution is repression.

You know that it was Jefferson who said that the best government is that which does as little governing as possible…. But that time is passed. America is not now and cannot in the future be a place for unrestricted individual enterprise.

[W]e are not bound to adhere to the doctrine held by the signers of the Declaration of Independence.

The man who is swimming against the stream knows the strength of it.

[o]f course like every other man of intelligence and education I do believe in organic evolution. It surprises me that at this late date such questions should be raised.

Adventurers swarmed out of the North, as much the enemies of one race as of the other, to cozen, beguile and use the negroes. The white men were aroused by a mere instinct of self-preservation — until at last there sprung into existence a great Kuklux Klan, a veritable empire of the South, to protect the Southern country.

We are all agreed that there can be no peace obtained by any kind of bargain or compromise with the governments of the Central Empires, because we have dealt with them already and have seen them deal with other governments that were parties to this struggle, at Brest Litovsk and Bucharest. They have convinced us that they are without honour and do not intend justice. They observe no covenants, accept no principle but force and their own interest. We cannot “come to terms” with them. They have made it impossible. The German people must by this time be fully aware that we cannot accept the word of those who forced this war upon us. We do not think the same thoughts or speak the same language of agreement.

Some of the biggest men in the United States, in the field of commerce and manufacture, are afraid of somebody, are afraid of something. They know that there is a power somewhere so organized, so subtle, so watchful, so interlocked, so complete, so pervasive that they had better not speak above their breath when they speak in condemnation of it.

The highest and best form of efficiency is the spontaneous cooperation of a free people.

I not only use all the brains I have, but all I can borrow, and I have borrowed a lot since I read it to you first.

The working people of America, — if they must be distinguished from the minority that constitutes the rest of it, — are, of course, the backbone of the Nation. No law that safeguards their lives, that improves the physical and moral conditions under which they live, that makes their hours of labor rational and tolerable, that gives them freedom to act in their own interest, and that protects them where they cannot project themselves, can properly be regarded as class legislation or as anything but as a measure taken in the interest of the whole people, whose partnership in right action we are trying to establish and make real and practical. It is in this spirit that we shall act if we are genuine spokesmen of the whole country.

No doubt a lot of nonsense has been talked about the inalienable rights of the individual, and a great deal that was mere vague sentiment and pleasing speculation has been put forward as fundamental principle.

Uncompromising thought is the luxury of the closeted recluse.

It was plain to see that the trouble in the southern States arose out of the exclusion of the better whites from the electoral suffrage no less than from the admission of the most ignorant blacks.

I am going to teach the South American republics to elect good men.