Woodrow Wilson Quotations | Page 5

The literary gift is a very dangerous gift to possess if you are not telling the truth, and I would a great deal rather, for my part, have a man stumble in his speech than to feel he was so exceedingly smooth that he had better be watched both day and night.

The masters of the government of the United States are the combined capitalists and manufacturers of the United States.

The presidential office is not a rosewater affair. This is an office in which a man must put on his war paint.

A nation is as great, and only as great, as her rank and file.

A presidential campaign may easily degenerate into a mere personal contest, and so lose its real dignity. There is no indispensable man.

Every man who takes office in Washington either grows or swells, and when I give a man an office, I watch him carefully to see whether he is swelling or growing. The mischief of it is that when they swell, they do not swell enough to burst.

Americanism consists in utterly believing in the principles of America.

There is such a thing as man being too proud to fight. There is such a thing as a nation being so right that it does not need to convince others by force that it is right.

I have sometimes heard men say politics must have nothing to do with business, and I have often wished that business had nothing to do with politics.

If I cannot retain my moral influence over a man except by occasionally knocking him down, if that is the only basis upon which he will respect me, then for the sake of his soul I have got occasionally to knock him down.