President Calvin Coolidge Quotes & Sayings

[Speaking of Chinese president Sun Yat-sen] ... combined Benjamin Franklin and George Washington of China. — Calvin Coolidge

What kind of life had he suffered, to have to craft memories from his imagination? — Jodi Picoult

So yesterday you fell off the wagon? Or maybe you blew your diet? Or lost your temper and shot off your mouth? Well, that was yesterday. Today is a brand-new day with a clean slate, so forget yesterday! — Abigail Van Buren

After Harding's death, the taciturn vice president, Calvin Coolidge, moved into the White House. In contrast to his predecessor's political cronyism and outgoing style, Coolidge personified austere rectitude. As vice president "Silent Cal" often sat through official functions without uttering a word. A dinner partner once challenged him by saying, "Mr. Coolidge, I've made a rather sizable bet with my friends that I can get you to speak three words this evening." Responded Coolidge icily, "You lose. — James A. Henretta

He [Calvin Coolidge] is the first president to discover that what the American people want is to be left alone. — Will Rogers

I shouldn't want you to be surprised, or to draw any particular inference from my making speeches, or not making speeches, out there. I don't recall any candidate for President that ever injured himself very much by not talking. — Calvin Coolidge

It is a great advantage to a President, and a major source of safety to the country, for him to know he is not a great man. — Calvin Coolidge

Where does your soul walk? Does it walk in the sunlit woods or hide in the shadowy forest? — Seth Adam Smith

[The reason a man has] so much trouble with the Senate is that there isn't a man in the Senate who doesn't think he is better suited to be President than the President, and thinks he might have been President except for luck. — Calvin Coolidge

The words of the President have an enormous weight and ought not to be used indiscriminately. — Calvin Coolidge

The president stands between the twin mirrors of the past and future, causing his being to become reflected an infinite amount of times. At first, this can be very disorienting. But it induces the president to move quickly. He may, for example, mimic a wave with his arms in order to see how his actions extend across this mirroring of time, observing if the figure at the end acts at the same instant as the figure before him, and so on and so forth. — Calvin Coolidge

The prohibition amendment to the Constitution requires the Congress. and the President to provide adequate laws to prevent its violation. It is my duty to enforce such laws.To prevent smuggling, the Coast Card should be greatly strengthened, and a supply of swift power boats should be provided. The major sources of production should be rigidly regulated, and every effort should be made to suppress interstate traffic ... It is the duty of a citizen not only to observe the law but to let it be known that he is opposed to its violation. — Calvin Coolidge

I appreciate how impossible it is to convey an adequate realization of the office of President. A few short paragraphs in the Constitution of the United States describe all his fundamental duties. Various laws passed over a period of nearly a century and a half have supplemented his authority. All of his actions can be analyzed. All of his goings and comings can be recited. The details of his daily life can be made known. The effect of his policies on his own country and on the world at large can be estimated. His methods of work, his associates, his place of abode, can all be described. But the relationship created by all these and more, which constitutes the magnitude of the office, does not yield to definition. Like the glory of a morning sunrise, it can only be experienced it cannot be told. — Calvin Coolidge

I do not choose to run for President in 1928. — Calvin Coolidge

Young sir, this merchant is in the right, and whatever his trade may be, his blood is as good as your own. After your brave words, either you should fight him or take back the blow you gave. Then he leaned down — H. Rider Haggard

As I went about with my father, when he collected taxes, I knew that when taxes were laid someone had to work hard to earn the money to pay them. — Calvin Coolidge

I still live as normal a life as anybody else. I have two homes to run. I have my staff to take care of. I work, pay bills and attend society meetings like everybody else. — Deepika Padukone

It has become the custom in our country to expect all Chief Executives, from the President down, to conduct activities analogous to an entertainment bureau. No occasion is too trivial for its promoters to invite them to attend and deliver an address. — Calvin Coolidge

In January 1924, as a sweeping immigration measure awaited presidential signature, American Jewish Committee leader Louis Marshall asked to meet with President Calvin Coolidge to urge a veto. Coolidge refused to see him. The president's views were summed up in an article he had written a few years earlier in Good Housekeeping magazine, titled "Whose Country Is This?" "[B]iological laws show us that Nordics deteriorate when mixed with other races," Coolidge wrote. — J.J. Goldberg

One of the first lessons a president has to learn is that every word he says weighs a ton. — Calvin Coolidge

If you don't say anything, you won't be called on to repeat it. — Calvin Coolidge

I always figured the American public wanted a solemn ass for president, so I went along with them. — Calvin Coolidge

Nature is inexorable. If men do not follow the truth they cannot live. — Calvin Coolidge

I also knew you wouldn't stop your staring until you learned the cold, hard truth. So, consider yourself warned. I might not be the kind of guy that reads textbooks at the beach," he said, glancing back at my open book, "but I'm smart enough to know girls like you should stay away from guys like me. So stay away. — Nicole Williams

One day the President and Mrs. Coolidge were visiting a government farm. Soon after their arrival they were taken off on separate tours. When Mrs. Coolidge passed the chicken pens she paused to ask the man in charge if the rooster copulates more than once each day. "Dozens of times, was the reply." "Please tell that to the President," Mrs. Coolidge requested. When the President passed the pens and was told about the roosters, he asked "Same hen every time?" "Oh no, Mr. President, a different one each time." The President nodded slowly, then said, "Tell that to Mrs. Coolidge." — Calvin Coolidge

Nothing can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent. Genius will not; unrecognized genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are the omnipotent. Calvin Coolidge 30th President — R. Padfield

On being told of the death of former President Calvin Coolidge: How could they tell? — Dorothy Parker

Buddhist monk Sogyal Rinpoche put it this way: "Perhaps it is only those who understand just how fragile life is who know how precious it is. — Lionel Fisher

I was a tomboy and most of my close friends were male. — S.E. Hinton

I think the American public wants a solemn ass as a president, and I think I'll go along with them. — Calvin Coolidge

A married woman is a slave whom one must put on a throne. — Honore De Balzac

Messianic Judaism is not Christianity. — Sipporah Joseph