Thomas Woodrow Wilson was an American politician and academic who served as the 28th president of the United States from 1913 to 1921. A member of the Democratic Party, Wilson served as the president of Princeton University and as the governor of New Jersey before winning the 1912 presidential election.
Woodrow Wilson Quotes
1. “If you lose your wealth, you have lost nothing; if you lose your health, you have lost something; but if you lose your character, you have lost everything.”
— Woodrow Wilson
2. “Justice, and only justice, shall always be our motto.”
— Woodrow Wilson
3. “This is a war to end all wars.”
— Woodrow Wilson
4. “We grow great by dreams. All big men are dreamers.”
— Woodrow Wilson
5. “I not only use all the brains that I have, but all I can borrow.”
— Woodrow Wilson
6. “We cannot be separated in interest or divided in purpose. We stand together until the end.”
— Woodrow Wilson
7. “There is no higher religion than human service. To work for the common good is the greatest creed.”
— Woodrow Wilson
8. “If you want to make enemies, try to change something.”
— Woodrow Wilson
9. “Wilson was once asked how long it took him to write a speech. He answered, ‘That depends. If I am to speak 10 minutes, I need a week for preparation. If 15 minutes, 3 days. If half hour, two days. If an hour, I am ready now.’”
— Woodrow Wilson
10. “Loyalty means nothing unless it has at its heart the absolute principle of self-sacrifice.”
— Woodrow Wilson
11. “It is easier to move a cemetery than to change a curriculum.”
— Woodrow Wilson
12. “Friendship is the only cement that will ever hold the world together.”
— Woodrow Wilson
13. “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
14. “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
15. “We are citizens of the world. The tragedy of our times is that we do not know this.”
— Woodrow Wilson
16. “The difference between a strong man and a weak one is that the former does not give up after a defeat.”
— Woodrow Wilson
17. “We are not here merely to make a living. We are here to enrich the world.”
— Woodrow Wilson
18. “The object of love is to serve, not to win.”
— Woodrow Wilson
19. “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
20. “There is no indispensable man.”
— Woodrow Wilson
21. “The world can be at peace only if the world is stable, and there can be no stability where the will is in rebellion, where there is not tranquility of spirit and a sense of justice, of freedom, and of right.”
— Woodrow Wilson
22. “The man who is swimming against the stream knows the strength of it.”
— Woodrow Wilson
23. “The Constitution was not made to fit us like a straitjacket. In its elasticity lies its chief greatness.”
— Woodrow Wilson
24. “The way to stop financial joyriding is to arrest the chauffeur, not the automobile.”
— Woodrow Wilson
25. “There is a power so organized, so subtle, so complete, and so pervasive, that they had better not speak above their breath when they speak in condemnation of it.”
— Woodrow Wilson
26. “Self-determination is not a mere phrase. It is an imperative principle of action, which statesmen will henceforth ignore at their peril.”
— Woodrow Wilson
27. “We came to America, either ourselves or in the persons of our ancestors, to better the ideals of men, to make them see finer things than they had seen before, to get rid of the things that divide and to make sure of the things that unite.”
— Woodrow Wilson
28. “Only a peace between equals can last. Only a peace the very principle of which is equality and a common participation in a common benefit.”
— Woodrow Wilson
29. “America cannot be an ostrich with its head in the sand.”
— Woodrow Wilson
30. “There must be, not a balance of power, but a community of power; not organized rivalries, but an organized peace.”
— Woodrow Wilson
31. “If I am to speak ten minutes, I need a week for preparation; if an hour, I am ready now.”
— Woodrow Wilson
32. “Never attempt to murder a man who is committing suicide.”
— Woodrow Wilson
33. “Life does not consist in thinking, it consists in acting.”
— Woodrow Wilson
34. “I would rather lose in a cause that will some day win, than win in a cause that will some day lose.”
— Woodrow Wilson
35. “Tell me what is right and I will fight for it.”
— Woodrow Wilson
36. “We live in an age disturbed, confused, bewildered, afraid of its own forces, in search not merely of its road but even of its direction.”
— Woodrow Wilson
37. “To think that I, the son of the manse, should be able to help restore the Holy Land to its people.”
— Woodrow Wilson
38. “America is not a mere body of traders; it is a body of free men. Our greatness is built upon our freedom – is moral, not material. We have a great ardor for gain; but we have a deep passion for the rights of man.”
— Woodrow Wilson
39. “All things come to him who waits – provided he knows what he is waiting for.”
— Woodrow Wilson
40. “You are here to enrich the world, and you impoverish yourself if you forget the errand.”
— Woodrow Wilson
41. “Let it be your pride to show all men everywhere not only what good soldiers you are, but also what good men you are.”
— Woodrow Wilson
42. “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
43. “Benevolence does not consist in those who are prosperous pitying and helping those who are not. It consists in fellow feeling that puts you upon actually the same level with the fellow who suffers.”
— Woodrow Wilson
44. “I would never read a book if it were possible for me to talk half an hour with the man who wrote it.”
— Woodrow Wilson
45. “No man has ever risen to the stature of spiritual manhood until he has found that it is finer to serve somebody else than it is to serve himself.”
— Woodrow Wilson
46. “I would rather fail in a cause that would ultimately succeed, than succeed in a cause that would ultimately fail.”
— Woodrow Wilson
47. “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
48. “The history of liberty is a history of resistance.”
— Woodrow Wilson
49. “The truth is we are all caught in a great economic system which is heartless.”
— Woodrow Wilson
50. “The world must be made safe for democracy. Its peace must be planted upon the tested foundations of political liberty.”
— Woodrow Wilson
51. “The ear of the leader must ring with the voices of the people.”
— Woodrow Wilson
52. “Progressiveness means not standing still when everything else is moving.”
— Woodrow Wilson
53. “Fear God and you need not fear anyone else.”
— Woodrow Wilson
54. “If you’ve made up your mind you can do something, you’re absolutely RIGHT.”
— Woodrow Wilson
55. “If you will think about what you ought to do for other people, your character will take care of itself. Character is a by-product, and any man who devotes himself to its cultivation in his own case will become a selfish prig.”
— Woodrow Wilson
56. “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
57. “The man who reads everything is like the man who eats everything: he can digest nothing, and the penalty of crowding one’s mind with other men’s thoughts is to have no thoughts of one’s own.”
— Woodrow Wilson
58. “Congress in session is Congress on public exhibition, whilst Congress in its committee-rooms is Congress at work.”
— Woodrow Wilson
59. “Conformity will be the only virtue and any man who refuses to conform will have to pay the penalty.”
— Woodrow Wilson
60. “When you have read the Bible, you will know it is the word of God, because you will have found it the key to your own heart, your own happiness and your own duty.”
— Woodrow Wilson
61. “Not all change is progress.”
— Woodrow Wilson
62. “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
63. “The great monopoly in this country is the money monopoly. So long as it exists, our old variety of freedom and individual energy of development are out of the question.”
— Woodrow Wilson
64. “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
65. “No man can worship God or love his neighbor on an empty stomach.”
— Woodrow Wilson
66. “Power consists in one’s capacity to link his will with the purpose of others, to lead by reason and a gift of cooperation.”
— Woodrow Wilson
67. “The use of a university is to make young gentlemen as unlike their fathers as possible.”
— Woodrow Wilson
68. “I am sorry for men who do not read the Bible every day. I wonder why they deprive themselves of the strength and pleasure.”
— Woodrow Wilson
69. “An invisible empire has been set up above the forms of Democracy.”
— Woodrow Wilson
70. “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
71. “Music says nothing to the reason: it is a kind of closely structured nonsense.”
— Woodrow Wilson
72. “We must believe the things We teach our children.”
— Woodrow Wilson
73. “The Civil War created in this country what had never existed before – a national consciousness. It was not the salvation of the Union; it was the rebirth of the Union.”
— Woodrow Wilson
74. “Big business is not dangerous because it is big, but because its bigness is an unwholesome inflation created by privileges and exemptions which it ought not to enjoy.”
— Woodrow Wilson
75. “Hunger does not breed reform; it breeds madness and all the distemper’s that make an ordered life impossible.”
— Woodrow Wilson
76. “Democracy is not so much a form of government as a set of principles.”
— Woodrow Wilson
77. “It would be the irony of fate if my administration had to deal chiefly with foreign affairs.”
— Woodrow Wilson
78. “I firmly believe in Divine Providence. Without belief in Providence I think I should go crazy. Without God the world would be a maze without a clue.”
— Woodrow Wilson
79. “I believe in Democracy because it releases the energies of every human being.”
— Woodrow Wilson
80. “The sum of the whole matter is this – our civilization cannot survive materially unless it be redeemed spiritually.”
— Woodrow Wilson
81. “To fight, you must be brutal and ruthless, and the spirit of ruthless brutality will enter into the very fibre of national life…”
— Woodrow Wilson
82. “Settlements may be temporary, but the action of the nations in the interest of peace and justice must be permanent. We can set up permanent processes. We may not be able to set up permanent decisions.”
— Woodrow Wilson
83. “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
84. “We grow by our dreams.”
— Woodrow Wilson
85. “You cannot be friends upon any other terms than upon the terms of equality.”
— Woodrow Wilson
86. “Provision for others is a fundamental responsibility of human life.”
— Woodrow Wilson
87. “America was established not to create wealth but to realize a vision, to realize an ideal – to discover and maintain liberty among men.”
— Woodrow Wilson
88. “No man ever saw a government. I live in the midst of the Government of the United States, but I never saw the Government of the United States.”
— Woodrow Wilson
89. “Energy in a nation is like sap in a tree; it rises from bottom up.”
— Woodrow Wilson
90. “It recognizes no morality but a sham morality meant for deceit, no honor even among thieves and of a thievish sort, no force but physical force, no intellectual power but cunning, no disgrace but failure, no crime but stupidity.”
— Woodrow Wilson
91. “A sure sign of an amateur is too much detail to compensate for too little life.”
— Woodrow Wilson
92. “The only thing that saves the world is the little handful of disinterested men that are in it.”
— Woodrow Wilson
93. “The right is more precious than peace.”
— Woodrow Wilson
94. “The fewer the desires, the more peace.”
— Woodrow Wilson
95. “The man who disparages music as a luxury and non-essential is doing the nation an injury. Music now, more than ever before, is a national need.”
— Woodrow Wilson
96. “A conservative is someone who makes no changes and consults his grandmother when in doubt.”
— Woodrow Wilson
97. “We are not put into this world to sit still and know; we are put into it to act.”
— Woodrow Wilson
98. “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
99. “The whole purpose of democracy is that we may hold counsel with one another, so as not to depend upon the understanding of one man.”
— Woodrow Wilson
100. “When correcting a child, the goal is to apply light, not heat.”
— Woodrow Wilson
