Gerald R. Ford famous quotes

A government big enough to give you everything you want is a government big enough to take from you everything you have.
-- Gerald R. Ford

#Inspirational #Success #Peace

There is an old saying, The harder you try the luckier you get. I kind of like that definition of luck.
-- Gerald R. Ford

#Motivational #Luck #Trying

There is no undertaking more challenging, no responsibility more awesome, than that of being a mother.
-- Gerald R. Ford

#Mother #Responsibility #Challenges

I am acutely aware that you have not elected me as your President by your ballots, so I ask you to confirm me with your prayers.
-- Gerald R. Ford

#Prayer #Patriotic #President

I believe that truth is the glue that holds government together, not only our government, but civilization itself.
-- Gerald R. Ford

#Believe #Government #Civilization

The spirit of seeking understanding through personal contact with people of other nations and other cultures deserves the respect and support of all.
-- Gerald R. Ford

#Other Cultures #People #Support

In all my public and private acts as your president, I expect to follow my instincts of openness and candor with full confidence that honesty is always the best policy in the end.
-- Gerald R. Ford

#Honesty #President #Instinct

America now is stumbling through the darkness of hatred and divisiveness. Our values, our principles, and our determination to succeed as a free and democratic people will give us a torch to light the way. And we will survive and become the strongernot only because of a patriotism that stands for love of country, but a patriotism that stands for love of people.
-- Gerald R. Ford

#Love #Country #Determination

It's the quality of the ordinary, the straight, the square, that accounts for the great stability and success of our nation. It's a quality to be proud of. But it's a quality that many people seem to have neglected.
-- Gerald R. Ford

#Patriotic #Squares #People

My commitment to the security and future of Israel is based upon basic morality as well as enlightened self-interest. Our role in supporting Israel honors our own heritage.
-- Gerald R. Ford

#Pregnancy #Commitment #Israel

We have come tardily to the tremendous task of cleaning up our environment. We should have moved with similar zeal at least a decade ago. But no purpose is served by post-mortems. With visionary zeal but the greatest realism, we must now address ourselves to the vast problems that confront us.
-- Gerald R. Ford

#Addresses #Tasks #Purpose

Nothing in life is more important than the ability to communicate effectively.
-- Gerald R. Ford

#Important #Life Is #Ability To Communicate

Music education opens doors that help children pass from school into the world around them - a world of work, culture, intellectual activity, and human involvement. The future of our nation depends on providing our children with a complete education that includes music.
-- Gerald R. Ford

#Children #School #Carpe Diem

The three-martini lunch is the epitome of American efficiency. Where else can you get an earful, a bellyful and a snootful at the same time?
-- Gerald R. Ford

#Patriotic #Lunch #Three

I would like to deny all allegations by Bob Hope that during my last game of golf, I hit an eagle, a birdie, an elk and a moose.
-- Gerald R. Ford

#Golf #Eagles #Games

History and experience tell us that moral progress comes not in comfortable and complacent times, but out of trial and confusion.
-- Gerald R. Ford

#Confusion #Progress #Trials

Even though this is late in an election year, there is no way we can go forward except together and no way anybody can win except by serving the people's urgent needs. We cannot stand still or slip backwards. We must go forward now together.
-- Gerald R. Ford

#Winning #Years #People

The pat on the back, the arm around the shoulder, the praise for what was done right and the sympathetic nod for what wasn't are as much a part of golf as life itself.
-- Gerald R. Ford

#Golf #Hands #Done

I am a Ford, not a Lincoln.
-- Gerald R. Ford

#Presidential

I know I am getting better at golf because I am hitting fewer spectators.
-- Gerald R. Ford

#Funny #Sports #Golf

All my children have spoken for themselves since they first learned to speak, and not always with my advance approval, and I expect that to continue in the future.
-- Gerald R. Ford

#Children #Appreciate #Firsts

For millions of men and women, the church has been the hospital for the soul, the school for the mind and the safe depository for moral ideas.
-- Gerald R. Ford

#School #Men #Ideas

Our great Republic is a government of laws and not of men. Here, the people rule.
-- Gerald R. Ford

#Work #Men #Law

I had a lot of experience with people smarter than I am.
-- Gerald R. Ford

#Patriotic #People

I once told you that I am not a saint, and I hope never to see the day that I cannot admit having made a mistake. So I will close with another confession. Frequently, along the tortuous road of recent months from this chamber to the Presidents House, I protested that I was my own man. Now I realize that I was wrong. I am your man, for it was your carefully weighed confirmation that changed my occupation. The truth is I am the peoples man, for you acted in their name, and I accepted and began my new and solemn trust with a promise to serve all the people and do the best that I can for America.
-- Gerald R. Ford

#Mistake #Men #Names

That, in part, is why the Constitution's framers gave justices life tenure ? to enable them to rule wherever the law and the Constitution led them, without obligation or fear of political reprisal. Former Republican president Gerald Ford recently paid tribute to John Paul Stevens, his only appointee to the Supreme Court, who is also far more liberal than Republicans expected. He has served his nation well, ... with dignity, intellect and without partisan political concerns.
-- Gerald R. Ford

#Law #Justice #Political

So much of what passes for public life consists of little more than candidates without ideas, hiring consultants without conviction, to stage campaigns without content. The result, increasingly, is elections without voters.
-- Gerald R. Ford

#Ideas #Campaigns #Littles

Now, therefore, I, Gerald R. Ford, President of the United States, pursuant to the pardon power conferred upon me by Article II, Section 2, of the Constitution, have granted and by these presents do grant a full, free, and absolute pardon unto Richard Nixon for all offenses against the United States which he, Richard Nixon, has committed or may have committed or taken part in during the period from January 20, 1969 through August 9, 1974.
-- Gerald R. Ford

#Taken #August #President

The power and diversity of the Armed Forces, active Guard and Reserve, the resolve of our fellow citizens, the flexibility in our command to navigate international waters that remain troubled are all essential to our security.
-- Gerald R. Ford

#Water #Diversity #Essentials

We must proceed with our own energy development. Exploitation of domestic petroleum and natural gas potentialities, along with nuclear, solar, geothermal, and non-fossil fuels is vital. We will never again permit any foreign nation to have Uncle Sam over a barrel of oil.
-- Gerald R. Ford

#Uncles #Oil #Energy

It is good to be back in the Peoples House. But this cannot be a real homecoming. Under the Constitution, I now belong to the executive branch. The Supreme Court has even ruled that I am the executive branchhead, heart, and hand.
-- Gerald R. Ford

#Real #Heart #Hands

I remember as a ranger the first time I stood alone on Inspiration Point over at Canyon Station looking out over this beautiful land. I thought to myself how lucky I was that my parents' and grandparents' generation had the vision and the determination to save it for us. Now it is our turn to make our own gift outright to those who will come after us, 15 years, 40 years, 100 years from now. I want to be as faithful to my grandchildren's generation as Old Faithful has been to ours. What better way can we add a new dimension to our third century of freedom?
-- Gerald R. Ford

#Beautiful #Determination #Inspiration

We have too long treated the natural world as an adversary rather than as a life-sustaining gift from the Almighty. If man has the genius to build, which he has, he must also have the ability and the responsibility to preserve.
-- Gerald R. Ford

#Responsibility #Men #Long

In the firm belief that the American public deserves a better explanation than that thus far given by the Air Force, I strongly recommend that there be a committee investigation of the UFO phenomena. I think we owe it to the people to establish credibility regarding UFOs, and to produce the greatest possible enlightenment of the subject.
-- Gerald R. Ford

#Thinking #Air #People

We cannot stand still or slip backwards. We must go forward now together.
-- Gerald R. Ford

#Together #Backwards #Stills

During the day on Monday, Washington time, the airport at Saigon came under persistent rocket as well as artillery fire and was effectively closed. The military situation in the area deteriorated rapidly. I therefore ordered the evacuation of all American personnel remaining in South Vietnam.
-- Gerald R. Ford

#Monday #Military #War

Mr. President, putting it bluntly, wouldn't we just be continuing a bloodbath that already exists in Cambodia if we voted the 222 million in aid?
-- Gerald R. Ford

#War #President #Aids

I couldn't wait to start the day.
-- Gerald R. Ford

#Waiting #Start The Day

I remain convinced that pardoning Nixon was the right thing to do.
-- Gerald R. Ford

#Right Thing

I was dumbfounded by the stupidity of the Watergate break-in.
-- Gerald R. Ford

#Stupidity #Break

Humor can help you to disagree without being disagreeable. The key in democracy is not necessarily that we agree, but that we participate....Despite all the heavy problems- domestic and international- there is humor. Humor transcends partisanship.
-- Gerald R. Ford

#Humor #Keys #Democracy

I am a Ford, not a Lincoln. My addresses will never be as eloquent as Mr. Lincoln's. But I will do my very best to equal his brevity and his plain speaking.
-- Gerald R. Ford

#Addresses #Plain Speaking #Equal

The length of one's days matters less than the love of one's family and friends.
-- Gerald R. Ford

#Family And Friends #Matter #Family Friends

I am the first to admit that I am no great orator or no person that got where I have gotten by any William Jennings Bryan technique.
-- Gerald R. Ford

#Technique #Firsts #Rhetoric

I do believe that the buck stops here, that I cannot rely upon public opinion polls to tell me what is right.
-- Gerald R. Ford

#Believe #Public Opinion #Bucks

I do believe, with all my heart and mind and spirit, that I, not as President but as a humble servant of God, will receive justice without mercy if I fail to show mercy.
-- Gerald R. Ford

#Believe #Heart #Humble

I don't know what the future may hold for me-or for any of us. But I want you to know that I am a man who likes having critics who are not enemies.
-- Gerald R. Ford

#Men #Enemy #May

One of the enduring truths of the nation's capital is that bureaucrats survive.
-- Gerald R. Ford

#Bureaucracy #Endure

I have always felt that the real purpose of government is to enhance the lives of people and that a leader can best do that by restraining government in most cases instead of enlarging it at every opportunity.
-- Gerald R. Ford

#Real #Opportunity #Government

Compromise is the oil that makes governments go.
-- Gerald R. Ford

#Oil #Government #Compromise

An impeachable offense is whatever a majority of the House of Representatives considers it to be at a given moment in history.
-- Gerald R. Ford

#House #Majority #Moments

To me, the Presidency and the Vice-Presidency were not prizes to be won, but a duty to be done.
-- Gerald R. Ford

#Vices #Done #Duty

Speaker, with mixed emotions we mark the 50th anniversary of the Turkish genocide of the Armenian people. In taking notice of the shocking events in 1915, we observe this anniversary with sorrow in recalling the massacres of Armenians and with pride in saluting those brave patriots who survived to fight on the side of freedom during World War I.
-- Gerald R. Ford

#War #Fighting #Pride

It's discouraging how hard it is for a President to slice away large chunks of a $305 billion budget.
-- Gerald R. Ford

#President #Discouraging #Billions

I am determined to seek self-sufficiency in energy as an urgent national priority. My goal is to make America independent of foreign energy sources by 1985.
-- Gerald R. Ford

#Independent #Self #America

He was one of the few political leaders I have ever met whose public speeches revealed more than his private conversations. [On Ronald Reagan]
-- Gerald R. Ford

#Leader #Political #Speech

I recognize the need for technology that enriches life while preserving our natural environment. My goal is to stimulate productivity, but use technology to redeem, not to destroy our environment.
-- Gerald R. Ford

#Technology #Goal #Needs

Let America symbolize humanity's struggle to conquer nature and master technology. The time has now come for our Government to facilitate the individual's control over his or her future-and of the future of America.
-- Gerald R. Ford

#Struggle #Technology #Government

Let us put an end to self-inflicted wounds. Let us remember that our national unity is a most priceless asset. Let us deny our adversaries the satisfaction of using Vietnam to pit Americans against Americans.
-- Gerald R. Ford

#Self #Unity #Vietnam

My goal is for a cooperative world at peace, using its resources to build, not to destroy.
-- Gerald R. Ford

#Goal #World #Resources

Obviously, it's a great privilege and pleasure to be here at the Yale Law School Sesquicentennial Convocation. And I defy anyone to say that and chew gum at the same time.
-- Gerald R. Ford

#Funny #School #Yale

The Federal role in overcoming barriers to needed health care should emphasize health care financing programs-such as Medicare and Medicaid.
-- Gerald R. Ford

#Overcoming #Roles #Care

We came from many roots, and we have many branches.
-- Gerald R. Ford

#Roots #Branches

America's leadership is essential. America's resources are vast. America's opportunities are unprecedented.
-- Gerald R. Ford

#Opportunity #America #Essentials

As a man of the Congress, let me reaffirm my conviction that the collective wisdom of our two great legislative bodies, while not infallible, will in the end serve the people faithfully and very, very well.
-- Gerald R. Ford

#Men #Two #People

As President, I am determined to offer leadership to overcome our current economic problems. My goal is for jobs for all who want to work and economic opportunity for all who want to achieve.
-- Gerald R. Ford

#Jobs #Opportunity #Goal

Conservatism has always meant more to me than simply sticking up for private property & free enterprise. It has also meant defending our heritage & preserving our values.
-- Gerald R. Ford

#Heritage #Enterprise #Conservatism

The three-martini lunch is the epitome of American efficiency.
-- Gerald R. Ford

#Lunch #Alcohol #Three