They criticize me for harping on the obvious; if all the folks in the United States would do the few simple things they know they ought to do, most of our big problems would take care of themselves.
Calvin CoolidgeRead
Character is the only secure foundation of the state.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Character is essential for a stable and trustworthy government.
This quote by Calvin Coolidge emphasizes that the character of individuals is paramount for the integrity and security of a state. Without strong moral and ethical values, the foundation of governance becomes unstable, leading to potential chaos and mistrust among the citizens.
Themes
CharacterStateFoundationIntegrityGovernance
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used in a speech about the importance of ethical leadership in politics.
More from Calvin Coolidge
All quotes →It is difficult for men in high office to avoid the malady of self-delusion. They are always surrounded by worshipers. They are constantly, and for the most part sincerely, assured of their greatness.
Calvin CoolidgeRead
America's present need is not heroics, but healing; not nostrums, but normalcy; not revolution, but restoration; not agitation, but adjustment; not surgery, but serenity; not the dramatic, but the dispassionate; not experiment, but equipoise; not submergence in internationality, but sustainment in triumphant nationality.
Calvin CoolidgeRead
No method of procedure has ever been devised by which liberty could be divorced from local self-government. No plan of centralization has ever been adopted which did not result in bureaucracy, tyranny, inflexibility, reaction, and decline.
Calvin CoolidgeRead
Whether one traces his Americanism back three centuries to the Mayflower, or three years to the steerage, is not half so important as whether his Americanism of today is real and genuine. No matter by what various crafts we came here, we are all now in the same boat.
Calvin CoolidgeRead
The foundations of our society and our government rest so much on the teachings of the Bible that it would be difficult to support them if faith in these teachings would cease to be practically universal in our country.
Calvin CoolidgeRead
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All freed, fast-frozen relations, with their train of ancient and venerable prejudices and opinions, are swept away, all new-formed ones become antiquated before they can ossify. All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled to face with sober senses, his real conditions of life, and his relations with his kind.
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A world of nice people, content in their own niceness, looking no further, turned away from God, would be just as desperately in need of salvation as a miserable world-and might be even more difficult to save.
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I'm not a walking extra in a Chekhov play; I'm no Slavic gloom or Irish gloom.
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