Frasi di Calvin Coolidge (421 frasi, pagina 10)

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Calvin Coolidge frasi celebri

“Niente nel mondo può sostituire la perseveranza. Non il talento: non c'è nulla di più comune di uomini di talento privi di successo. Non il genio: il genio non riconosciuto è un luogo comune. Solo la perseveranza e la determinazione possono tutto.”

Calvin Coolidge

Origine: Citato in Julia Butterfly Hill, Ognuno può fare la differenza, traduzione di Isabella Bolech, Corbaccio, Milano, 2002, p. 9. ISBN 88-7972-542-4

“Gli affari dell'America sono affari.”

Calvin Coolidge

“La civilizzazione e il profitto vanno mano nella mano.”

Calvin Coolidge

“La nazione che dimentica i suoi difensori sarà essa stessa dimenticata.”

Calvin Coolidge

“La prosperità è solo uno strumento da usare, non una dieta da osservare.”

Calvin Coolidge

“Non esiste alcuna forza così democratica come la forza esercitata da un ideale.”

Calvin Coolidge

“Se non dici nulla, non sarai chiamato a risponderne.”

Calvin Coolidge

“Se dieci guai ti vengono incontro lungo la strada puoi star tranquillo che nove cadranno in qualche buca prima di raggiungerti, e dovrai vedertela con uno soltanto.”

Calvin Coolidge

Origine: Citato in «Spigolature», La settimana enigmistica, N. 4361, p. 12.

“Il processo di civilizzazione consiste nella scoperta, da parte degli uomini, delle leggi dell'universo, e nel vivere in armonia con queste leggi. Le più importanti delle quali per gli uomini sono le leggi della loro propria natura.”

Calvin Coolidge

Incipit di The process of civilization

Calvin Coolidge: Frasi in inglese

“Excellent poetry, but not a good working philosophy. Goldsmith would have been right, if, in fact, the accumulation of wealth meant the decay of men. It is rare indeed that the men who are accumulating wealth decay. It is only when they cease production, when accumulation stops, that an irreparable decay begins. Wealth is the product of industry, ambition, character and untiring effort. In all experience, the accumulation of wealth means the multiplication of schools, the increase of knowledge, the dissemination of intelligence, the encouragement of science, the broadening of outlook, the expansion of liberties, the widening of culture. Of course, the accumulation of wealth cannot be justified as the chief end of existence. But we are compelled to recognize it as a means to well-nigh every desirable achievement. So long as wealth is made the means and not the end, we need not greatly fear it. And there never was a time when wealth was so generally regarded as a means, or so little regarded as an end, as today. Just a little time ago we read in your newspapers that two leaders of American business, whose efforts at accumulation had been most astonishingly successful, had given fifty or sixty million dollars as endowments to educational works. That was real news. It was characteristic of our American experience with men of large resources. They use their power to serve, not themselves and their own families, but the public. I feel sure that the coming generations, which will benefit by those endowments, will not be easily convinced that they have suffered greatly because of these particular accumulations of wealth.”

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Calvin Coolidge

1920s, The Press Under a Free Government (1925)

“Howard University is but one of the many institutions which have grown up in this country, dedicated to this purpose of preserving one of the races of men and fitting it for its largest usefulness. Here is a people adapted, as most people are not, to life in the tropics. They are capable of redeeming vast luxuriant areas of unexampled productivity, and of reclaiming them for the sustenance of mankind and the increasing security of the human community. It is a great destiny, to which we may now look forward with confidence that it will be fully realized.”

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Calvin Coolidge

1920s, The Progress of a People (1924)

“Very little danger exists of an open and avowed assault upon the principle of individual freedom. It is more likely to be in peril indirectly perhaps from the avowed intention of protecting it or enlarging it. Out of a long experience with many tyrannies abroad and a weak and inefficient government at home, the Constitution of the United States was adopted and ratified. The people who largely contributed to the early settlement of America came to escape the impositions of despotic kings. Many of the early inhabitants were separatists from the established church. They fled under the threat of the English King, that he would make them conform or harry them out of the land. Their descendants fought the Revolutionary war in order that they might escape the impositions of a despotic parliament.”

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Calvin Coolidge

1920s, Ordered Liberty and World Peace (1924)

“District of Columbia welfare. The welfare work of the District of Columbia is administered by several different boards dealing with charities and various correctional efforts. It would be an improvement if this work were consolidated and placed under the direction of a single commission.”

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Calvin Coolidge

1920s, Second State of the Union Address (1924)

“The idea that the people have a right to choose their own rulers was not new in political history. It was the foundation of every popular attempt to depose an undesirable king. This right was set out with a good deal of detail by the Dutch when as early as July 26, 1581, they declared their independence of Philip of Spain. In their long struggle with the Stuarts the British people asserted the same principles, which finally culminated in the Bill of Rights deposing the last of that house and placing William and Mary on the throne. In each of these cases sovereignty through divine right was displaced by sovereignty through the consent of the people. Running through the same documents, though expressed in different terms, is the clear inference of inalienable rights. But we should search these charters in vain for an assertion of the doctrine of equality. This principle had not before appeared as an official political declaration of any nation. It was profoundly revolutionary. It is one of the corner stones of American institutions.”

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Calvin Coolidge

1920s, Speech on the Anniversary of the Declaration of Independence (1926)

“It is gratifying to report that the progress of industry, the enormous increase in individual productivity through labor-saving devices, and the high rate of wages have all combined to furnish our people in general with such an abundance not only of the necessaries but of the conveniences of life that we are by a natural evolution solving our problems of economic and social justice.”

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Calvin Coolidge

1920s, Second State of the Union Address (1924)

“French spoliation claims. During the last session of the Congress legislation was introduced looking to the payment of the remaining claims generally referred to as the French spoliation claims. The Congress has provided for the payment of many similar claims. Those that remain unpaid have been long pending. The beneficiaries thereunder have every reason to expect payment. These claims have been examined by the Court of Claims and their validity and amount determined. The United States ought to pay its debts. I recommend action by the Congress which will permit of the payment of these remaining claims.”

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Calvin Coolidge

1920s, Second State of the Union Address (1924)

“Placing every man on a plane where he acknowledged no superiors, where no one possessed any right to rule over him, he must inevitably choose his own rulers through a system of self-government. This was their theory of democracy. In those days such doctrines would scarcely have been permitted to flourish and spread in any other country. This was the purpose which the fathers cherished. In order that they might have freedom to express these thoughts and opportunity to put them into action, whole congregations with their pastors had migrated to the colonies. These great truths were in the air that our people breathed. Whatever else we may say of it, the Declaration of Independence was profoundly American.”

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Calvin Coolidge

1920s, Speech on the Anniversary of the Declaration of Independence (1926)

“If no one is to be accounted as born into a superior station, if there is to be no ruling class, and if all possess rights which can neither be bartered away nor taken from them by any earthly power, it follows as a matter of course that the practical authority of the Government has to rest on the consent of the governed. While these principles were not altogether new in political action, and were very far from new in political speculation, they had never been assembled before and declared in such a combination. But remarkable as this may be, it is not the chief distinction of the Declaration of Independence. The importance of political speculation is not to be under-estimated, as I shall presently disclose. Until the idea is developed and the plan made there can be no action.”

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Calvin Coolidge

1920s, Speech on the Anniversary of the Declaration of Independence (1926)

“Let Massachusetts continue to regard with the greatest solicitude the well-being of her people. By prescribed law, by authorized publicity, by informed public opinion, let her continue to strive to provide that all conditions under which her citizens live are worthy of the highest faith of man. Healthful housing, wholesome food, sanitary working conditions, reasonable hours, a fair wage for a fair day's work, opportunity — full and free, justice — speedy and impartial, and at a cost within the reach of all, are among the objects not only to be sought, but made absolutely certain and secure.”

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Calvin Coolidge

1920s, Law and Order (1920)

“A few years ago a majority of the States had adopted prohibition or rigid restrictions on the traffic in intoxicating liquor. But other States did not cooperate in advancing this policy, and ultimately by national action it was extended to all the Union. By failing to meet the requirements of a national demand the States became deprived of the power to act. If questions which the States will not fairly settle on their own account shall have to be settled for them by the Federal authority, it will only be because some States will have refused to discharge obvious duties.”

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Calvin Coolidge

1920s, The Reign of Law (1925)

“They did not deny the existence of authority. They recognized it and undertook to abide by it, and through obedience to it secure their freedom. They made their appeal and rested their cause not merely upon earthly authority, but in the very first paragraph of the Declaration of Independence asserted that they proposed 'to assume, among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them.' And as they closed that noble document in which they submitted their claims to the opinions of mankind they again revealed what they believed to be the ultimate source of authority by stating that they were also 'appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of' their 'intentions.'.”

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Calvin Coolidge

1920s, Authority and Religious Liberty (1924)

“Our constitutional history started with the States retaining all powers of sovereignty unimpaired, save those conferred upon the National Government. The evolution of the constitutional system has consisted largely in determining the line of demarcation between State and national authority. The cases involved are many and complicated, but there is a fairly good popular understanding of this continuing struggle between these contending sovereignties. Because of better communication and transportation, the constant tendency has been to more and more social and economic unification. The present continent-wide union of forty-eight States is much closer than was the original group of thirteen States.”

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Calvin Coolidge

1920s, The Reign of Law (1925)

“That these ideas were prevalent in Virginia is further revealed by the Declaration of Rights, which was prepared by George Mason and presented to the general assembly on May 27, 1776. This document asserted popular sovereignty and inherent natural rights, but confined the doctrine of equality to the assertion that "All men are created equally free and independent." It can scarcely be imagined that Jefferson was unacquainted with what had been done in his own Commonwealth of Virginia when he took up the task of drafting the Declaration of Independence. But these thoughts can very largely be traced back to what John Wise was writing in 1710. He said, "Every man must be acknowledged equal to every man." Again, "The end of all good government is to cultivate humanity and promote the happiness of all and the good of every man in all his rights, his life, liberty, estate, honor, and so forth…". And again, "For as they have a power every man in his natural state, so upon combination they can and do bequeath this power to others and settle it according as their united discretion shall determine." And still again, "Democracy is Christ's government in church and state."”

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Calvin Coolidge

Here was the doctrine of equality, popular sovereignty, and the substance of the theory of inalienable rights clearly asserted by Wise at the opening of the eighteenth century, just as we have the principle of the consent of the governed stated by Hooker as early as 1638.
1920s, Speech on the Anniversary of the Declaration of Independence (1926)

“The relationship between governments and the press has always been recognized as a matter of large importance. Wherever despotism abounds, the sources of public information are the first to be brought under its control. Whereever the cause of liberty is making its way, one of its highest accomplishments is the guarantee of the freedom of the press. It has always been realized, sometimes instinctively, oftentimes expressly, that truth and freedom are inseparable. An absolutism could never rest upon anything save a perverted and distorted view of human relationships and upon false standards set up and maintained by force. It has always found it necessary to attempt to dominate the entire field of education and instruction. It has thrived on ignorance. While it has sought to train the minds of a few, it has been largely with the purpose of attempting to give them a superior facility for misleading the many. Men have been educated under absolutism, not that they might bear witness to the truth, but that they might be the more ingenious advocates and defenders of false standards and hollow pretenses. This has always been the method of privilege, the method of class and caste, the method of master and slave.”

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Calvin Coolidge

1920s, The Press Under a Free Government (1925)

“In its main features the Declaration of Independence is a great spiritual document. It is a declaration not of material but of spiritual conceptions. Equality, liberty, popular sovereignty, the rights of man — these are not elements which we can see and touch. They are ideals. They have their source and their roots in the religious convictions. They belong to the unseen world. Unless the faith of the American people in these religious convictions is to endure, the principles of our Declaration will perish. We can not continue to enjoy the result if we neglect and abandon the cause.”

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Calvin Coolidge

1920s, Speech on the Anniversary of the Declaration of Independence (1926)

“We Americans are idealists. We are willing to follow the truth solely because it is the truth. We put our main emphasis on the things which are spiritual. While we possess an unsurpassed skill in marshaling and using the material resources of the world, still the nation has not sought for wealth and power as an end but as a means to a higher life.”

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Calvin Coolidge

1920s, Authority and Religious Liberty (1924)

“There is ample work for all in this country provided all will work. The problem of unemployment is aggravated, not wholly by the alien knocking at our gate, but by the laborer at home slamming the door of production behind him and walking out. Stopping industry will not right the matter. And in the last analysis it is the earnings of industry, which on the average are only fair, that provide alike for wages and the increase of investment on which is the sole dependence of the advance of civilization.”

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Calvin Coolidge

1920s, Whose Country Is This? (1921)

“An occasion such as this which has brought us here can not but direct our consideration to these things. It has been a painful and difficult experience, this by which another race has been recruited to the standard of civilization and enlightenment; for that is really what has been going on; and the episodes of Negro slavery in America, of civil war, and emancipation, and, following that, the rapid advancement of the American colored people both materially and spiritually, must be recognized as parts of a long evolution by which all mankind is gradually being led to higher levels, expanding its understanding of its mission here, approaching nearer and nearer to the realization of its full and perfected destiny.”

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Calvin Coolidge

1920s, The Progress of a People (1924)

“Foreign relations. At no period in the past 12 years have our foreign relations been in such a satisfactory condition as they are at the present time. Our actions in the recent months have greatly strengthened the American policy of permanent peace with independence. The attitude which our Government took and maintained toward an adjustment of European reparations, by pointing out that it wits not a political but a business problem, has demonstrated its wisdom by its actual results. We desire to see Europe restored that it may resume its productivity in the increase of industry and its support in the advance of civilization. We look with great gratification at the hopeful prospect of recuperation in Europe through the Dawes plan. Such assistance as can be given through the action of the public authorities and of our private citizens, through friendly counsel and cooperation, and through economic and financial support, not for any warlike effort but for reproductive enterprise, not to provide means for unsound government financing but to establish sound business administration ' should be unhesitatingly provided.”

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Calvin Coolidge

1920s, Second State of the Union Address (1924)

“Coolidge: Sins.
Mrs. Coolidge: Well, what did he say about it?
Coolidge: He was against it.”

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Calvin Coolidge

when asked by his wife what a preacher's sermon had been about
John H. McKee, Coolidge: Wit and Wisdom, 1933
Author Nigel Rees claims this is apocryphal:
The taciturn President became famous for monosyllabic replies. A story from the twenties has Mrs. Coolidge asking him the subject of a sermon he had heard. "Sin," he answered. When prompted to elaborate on the clergyman's theme, Coolidge is said to have replied: "He was against it." Coolidge remarked that this story would have been funnier if it had been true.
Nigel Rees, Sayings of the Century, page 67.
Misattributed