Last of two parts
Elizabeth Lombardo, Ph.D. Psychology Today thought it would be inspirational to gain wisdom from each of our 45 presidents.
Part one examined the best quotes from the first president, George Washington, to the 22nd president Grover Cleveland. Following Benjamin Harrison, Cleveland was elected again, the only president elected to a second term without re-election.
“In all fairness, I could not spontaneously name all the presidents in order. So, not only was this an exercise in finding motivating quotes from our country’s leaders, but a good lesson in history,” Lombardo wrote.
Benjamin Harrison: “Great lives never go out; they go on.”
Grover Cleveland: “Unswerving loyalty to duty, constant devotion to truth, and a clear conscience will overcome every discouragement and surely lead the way to usefulness and high achievement.”
William McKinley: “In the time of darkest defeat, victory may be nearest.”
Theodore Roosevelt: “If you could kick the person in the pants responsible for most of your trouble, you wouldn’t sit for a month.”
William Howard Taft: “We must dare to be great; and we must realize that greatness is the fruit of toil and sacrifice and high courage.”
Woodrow Wilson: “The object of love is to serve, not to win.”
Warren G. Harding: “There’s good in everybody. Boost. Don’t knock.”
Calvin Coolidge: “If you see 10 troubles coming down the road, you can be sure that nine will run into the ditch before they reach you.”
Herbert Hoover: “Be patient and calm; no one can catch a fish with anger.”
Franklin D. Roosevelt: “Men are not prisoners of fate, but only prisoners of their own minds.”
Harry S Truman: “It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit.”
Dwight D. Eisenhower: “Pessimism never won any battle.”
John F. Kennedy: “Efforts and courage are not enough without purpose and direction.”
Lyndon B. Johnson: “Yesterday is not ours to recover, but tomorrow is ours to win or lose.”
Richard M. Nixon: “Remember, always give your best. Never get discouraged. Never be petty. Always remember, others may hate you. But those who hate you don’t win unless you hate them. And then you destroy yourself.”
Gerald R. Ford: “Never be satisfied with less than your very best effort. If you strive for the top and miss, you’ll still ‘beat the pack.’”
Jimmy Carter: “You can do what you have to do, and sometimes you can do it even better than you think you can.”
Ronald Reagan: “Heroes may not be braver than anyone else. They’re just braver five minutes longer.”
George H. W. Bush: “No problem of human-making is too great to be overcome by human ingenuity, human energy, and the untiring hope of the human spirit.”
Bill Clinton: “If you live long enough, you’ll make mistakes. But if you learn from them, you’ll be a better person. It’s how you handle adversity, not how it affects you. The main thing is never quit, never quit, never quit.”
George W. Bush: “A leadership is someone who brings people together.”
Barack Obama: “Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.”
Donald Trump: “Without passion you don’t have energy, without energy you have nothing.”