Thomas Woodrow Wilson was an American politician, lawyer, and academic who served as the 28th president of the United States from 1913 to 1921. Wilson was best remembered for his legislative accomplishments and his high-minded idealism. Inspirational Woodrow Wilson quotes will get you through anything when the going gets tough and help you succeed in every aspect of life.
Famous Woodrow Wilson Quotes
The man who is swimming against the stream knows the strength of it. Woodrow Wilson
I not only use all the brains that I have, but all I can borrow. Woodrow Wilson
The ear of the leader must ring with the voices of the people. Woodrow Wilson
If a dog will not come to you after having looked you in the face, you should go home and examine your conscience. Woodrow Wilson
In the Lord’s Prayer, the first petition is for daily bread. No one can worship God or love his neighbor on an empty stomach. Woodrow Wilson
You are not here merely to make a living. You are here in order to enable the world to live more amply, with greater vision, with a finer spirit of hope and achievement. You are here to enrich the world, and you impoverish yourself if you forget the errand. Woodrow Wilson
Neutrality is a negative word. It does not express what America ought to feel. We are not trying to keep out of trouble; we are trying to preserve the foundations on which peace may be rebuilt. Woodrow Wilson
The man who is swimming against the stream knows the strength of it. Woodrow Wilson
The method of political science is the interpretation of life; its instrument is insight, a nice understanding of subtle, unformulated conditions. Woodrow Wilson
You are here in order to enable the world to live more amply, with greater vision, with a finer spirit of hope and achievement. You are here to enrich the world. Woodrow Wilson
If a dog will not come to you after having looked you in the face, you should go home and examine your conscience. Woodrow Wilson
You have the greatest soul, the noblest nature, the sweetest, most loving heart I have ever known, and my love, my reverence, my admiration for you, you have increased in one evening as I should have thought only a lifetime of intimate, loving association could have increased them. You are more wonderful and lovely in my eyes than you ever were before; and my pride and joy and gratitude that you should love me with such a perfect love are beyond all expression, except in some great poem which I cannot write. Woodrow Wilson
Caution is the confidential agent of selfishness. Woodrow Wilson
If you want to make enemies, try to change something. Woodrow Wilson
A conservative is a man who just sits and thinks, mostly sits. Woodrow Wilson
Liberty has never come from the government. Liberty has always come from the subjects of the government. The history of government is a history of resistance. The history of liberty is the history of the limitation of government, not the increase of it. Woodrow Wilson
The only use of an obstacle is to be overcome. All that an obstacle does with brave men is, not to frighten them, but to challenge them. Woodrow Wilson
We want one class of persons to have a liberal education, and we want another class of persons, a very much larger class of necessity in every society, to forgo the privilege of a liberal education and fit themselves to perform specific difficult manual tasks. Woodrow Wilson
You cannot, in human experience, rush into the light. You have to go through the twilight into the broadening day before the noon comes and the full sun is upon the landscape. Woodrow Wilson
I would rather lose in a cause that will some day win, than win in a cause that will some day lose! Woodrow Wilson
I have long enjoyed the friendship and companionship of Republicans because I am by instinct a teacher, and I would like to teach them something. Woodrow Wilson
Since I entered politics, I have chiefly had men’s views confided to me privately. Some of the biggest men in the United States, in the field of commerce and manufacture, are afraid of something. They know that there is a power somewhere so organized, so subtle, so watchful, so interlocked, so complete, so pervasive, that they better not speak above their breath when they speak in condemnation of it. Woodrow Wilson
I will not speak with disrespect of the Republican Party. I always speak with respect of the past. Woodrow Wilson
A conservative is a man who sits and thinks, mostly sits. Woodrow Wilson
That a peasant may become king does not render the kingdom democratic. Woodrow Wilson
The government, which was designed for the people, has got into the hands of the bosses and their employers, the special interests. An invisible empire has been set up above the forms of democracy. Woodrow Wilson
If you think too much about being re elected, it is very difficult to be worth re electing. Woodrow Wilson
The seed of revolution is repression. Woodrow Wilson
Democracy is not so much a form of government as a set of principles. Woodrow Wilson
Some of the biggest men in the United States, in the field of commerce and manufacture, are afraid of somebody, are afraid of something. They know that there is a power somewhere so organized, so subtle, so watchful, so interlocked, so complete, so pervasive that they had better not speak above their breath when they speak in condemnation of it. Woodrow Wilson
There is little for the great part of the history of the world except the bitter tears of pity and the hot tears of wrath. Woodrow Wilson
A nation which does not remember what it was yesterday, does not know what it is today, nor what it is trying to do. We are trying to do a futile thing if we do not know where we came from or what we have been about. Woodrow Wilson
Politics I conceive to be nothing more than the science of the ordered progress of society along the lines of greatest usefulness and convenience to itself. Woodrow Wilson
Some people have a large circle of friends while others have only friends that they like. Woodrow Wilson
You are not here merely to make a living. You are here in order to enable the world to live more amply, with greater vision, with a finer spirit of hope and achievement. You are here to enrich the world, and you impoverish yourself if you forget the errand. Woodrow Wilson
We forget that there is much more patriotism in having the audacity to differ from the majority than in running before the crowd; we forget that in the resistance of the minority some of the biggest things in our own history have been accomplished, and the man who looks on the Stars and Stripes and doesn’t hold a right to say nay to his neighbor, even if the neighbor is of the larger party, has forgotten the history of his country. Woodrow Wilson
I not only use all the brains that I have, but all that I can borrow. Woodrow Wilson
War isn’t declared in the name of God; it is a human affair entirely. Woodrow Wilson
The government, which was designed for the people, has got into the hands of the bosses and their employers, the special interests. An invisible empire has been set up above the forms of democracy. Woodrow Wilson
But the right is more precious than peace, and we shall fight for the things which we have always carried nearest our hearts. Woodrow Wilson
One cool judgment is worth a thousand hasty counsels. The thing to do is to supply light and not heat. Woodrow Wilson
If I am to speak ten minutes, I need a week for preparation; if fifteen minutes, three days; if half an hour, two days; if an hour, I am ready now. Woodrow Wilson
I would rather lose in a cause that will some day win, than win in a cause that will some day lose. Woodrow Wilson
You devour a book meant to be read, not because you would fill yourself or have an anxious care to be nourished, but because it contains such stuff as it makes the mind hungry to look upon. Woodrow Wilson
There can be no equality or opportunity if men and women and children be not shielded in their lives from the consequences of great industrial and social processes which they cannot alter, control, or singly cope with. Woodrow Wilson
If a man is a fool, the best thing is to encourage him to advertise the fact by speaking. Woodrow Wilson
Tell me what is right and I will fight for it. Woodrow Wilson
There is a price which is too great to pay for peace, and that price can be put in one word. One cannot pay the price of self respect. Woodrow Wilson
A conservative is someone who makes no changes and consults his grandmother when in doubt. Woodrow Wilson
You know how impossible it is, in short, to have a free nation if it is a military nation and under military orders. Woodrow Wilson
Sometimes people call me an idealist. Well, that is the way I know I am an American. America is the only idealistic nation in the world. Woodrow Wilson
There is nothing that succeeds in life like boldness, provided you believe you are on the right side. Woodrow Wilson
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 growing or swelling. Woodrow Wilson
Just what is it that America stands for? If she stands for one thing more than another it is for the sovereignty of self-governing people. Woodrow Wilson
As compared with the college politician, the real article seems like an amateur. Woodrow Wilson
When men take up arms to set other men free, there is something sacred and holy in the warfare. Woodrow Wilson
The seed of revolution is repression. Woodrow Wilson
It is particularly true of constitutional government that its atmosphere is opinion It does not remain fixed in any unchanging form, but grows with the growth and is altered with the change of the nation’s needs and purposes. Woodrow Wilson
At every crisis in one’s life, it is absolute salvation to have some sympathetic friend to whom you can think aloud without restraint or misgiving. Woodrow Wilson
We can have no sympathy with those who seek the power of government to advance their own personal interests or ambitions. Woodrow Wilson
Generally young men are regarded as radicals. This is a popular misconception. The most conservative persons I ever met are college undergraduates. The radicals are the men past middle life. Woodrow Wilson
A politician, a man engaged in party contests, must be an opportunist. Let us give up saying that word as if it contained a slur. If you want to win in party action, I take it for granted that you want to lure the majority to your side. I never heard of any man in his senses who was fishing for a minority. Woodrow Wilson
If there are men in this country big enough to own the government of the United States, they are going to own it. Woodrow Wilson
I have found one can never get anything in life that is worth while without fighting for it. Woodrow Wilson
America is not anything if it consists of each of us. It is something only if it consists of all of us. Woodrow Wilson
We know that there is a standard set for us in the heavens, a standard revealed to us in this book [the Bible] whih is the fixed and eternal standard by which we judge ourselves… Nothing makes America great except her acceptance of those standards of judgement which are written large upon the pages of revelation. Let no man suppose that progress can be divorced from religion, or that there is any other platform for the ministers of reform than the platform written in the utterances of our Lord and Savior. America was born a Christian nation. America was born to exemplify devotion to the elements of righteousness which are derived from the revelations of Holy Scripture. Woodrow Wilson
The American Revolution was a beginning, not a consummation. Woodrow Wilson
If there are men in this country big enough to own the government of the United States, they are going to own it; what we have to determine now is whether we are big enough, whether we are men enough, whether we are free enough, to take possession again of the government which is our own. Woodrow Wilson
There are blessed intervals when I forget by one means or another that I am President of the United States. Woodrow Wilson
I would rather fail in a cause that would ultimately succeed, than succeed in a cause that would ultimately fail. Woodrow Wilson
My dream of politics all my life has been that it is the common business, that it is something we owe to each other to understand and discuss with absolute frankness. Woodrow Wilson
You are not here merely to making a living. You are here in order to enable the world to live more amply, with greater vision, with a finer spirit of hope and achievement. Woodrow Wilson
It is like writing history with lightning and my only regret is that it is all so terribly true. Woodrow Wilson
No man can rationally live, worship, or love his neighbour on an empty stomach. Woodrow Wilson
Property as compared with humanity, as compared with the red blood in the American people, must take second place, not first place. Woodrow Wilson
We have not given science too big a place in our education, but we have made a perilous mistake in giving it too great a preponderance in method in every other branch of study. Woodrow Wilson
If you want to make enemies, try to change something. Woodrow Wilson
I would rather belong to a poor nation that was free than to a rich nation that had ceased to be in love with liberty. But we shall not be poor if we love liberty, because the nation that loves liberty truly sets every man free to do his best and be his best. Woodrow Wilson
There is no higher religion than human service. To work for the common good is the greatest creed. Woodrow Wilson
It would be the irony of fate if my administration had to deal chiefly with foreign affairs. Woodrow Wilson
I would rather belong to a poor nation that was free than to a rich nation that had ceased to be in love with liberty. Woodrow Wilson
No one set of interests can safely be suffered to dominate the country. Woodrow Wilson
The history of liberty is a history of resistance. Woodrow Wilson
We can afford to exercise the self restraint of a really great nation which realizes its own strength and scorns to misuse it. Woodrow Wilson
Liberty has never come from Government. Liberty has always come from the subjects of it. The history of liberty is a history of limitations of governmental power, not the increase of it. Woodrow Wilson
You are here to enrich the world and you impoverish yourself if you forget the errand. Woodrow Wilson
Never attempt to murder a man who is committing suicide. Woodrow Wilson
We will presently find that we are not so far apart after all, that the points on which we differ are few and the points on which we agree are many, and that if we only have the patience and the candor and the desire to get together, we will get together. Woodrow Wilson
Golf is a game in which one endeavors to control a ball with implements ill adapted for the purpose. Woodrow Wilson
The immortality of Thomas Jefferson does not lie in any one of his achievements, or in the series of his achievements, but in his attitude towards mankind and the conception which he sought to realize in action of the service owed by America to the rest of the world. Thomas Jefferson was a great leader of men because he understood and interpreted the spirits of men. Woodrow Wilson
The world must be made safe for democracy. Its peace must be planted upon the tested foundations of political liberty. Woodrow Wilson
If the colored people made a mistake in voting for me, they ought to correct it. Woodrow Wilson
Business underlies everything in our national life, including our spiritual life. Witness the fact that in the Lord’s Prayer, the first petition is for daily bread. No one can worship God or love his neighbor on an empty stomach. Woodrow Wilson
America lives in the heart of every man everywhere who wishes to find a region where he will be free to work out his destiny as he chooses. Woodrow Wilson
Prosperity is necessarily the first theme of a political campaign. Woodrow Wilson
We wish companionship and renewal of spirit, enrichment of thought and the full adventure of the mind; and we desire fair company, and a larger world in which to find them. Woodrow Wilson
So far as the colleges go, the sideshows are swallowing up the circus. Woodrow Wilson
You devour a book meant to be read, not because you would fill yourself or have an anxious care to be nourished, but because it contains such stuff. Woodrow Wilson
I am not sure that it is of the first importance that you should be happy. Many an unhappy man has been of deep service to himself and to the world. Woodrow Wilson
Caucasian laborers could not compete with the Chinese, could not live upon a handful of rice and work for a pittance, and found themselves being steadily crowded out from occupation after occupation by the thrifty, skillful Orientals, who, with their yellow skin and strange, debasing habits of life, seemed to them hardly fellow men at all, but evil spirit, rather. Woodrow Wilson
We have not given science too big a place in our education, but we have made a perilous mistake in giving it too great a preponderance in method in every other branch of study. Woodrow Wilson
There must be, not a balance of power but a community power; not organized rivalries but a organized, common peace. Woodrow Wilson
The world is not looking for servants, there are plenty of these, but for masters, men who form their purposes and then carry them out, let the consequences be what they may. Woodrow Wilson
