American Leadership: Historic Quotes From Then And Now

Then:

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

Now:

It is not "freedom of the press" when newspapers and others are allowed to say and write whatever they want even if it is completely false! -Donald Trump

There's one more thing we have to do to make America wealthy again. And you have to be wealthy to be great, I'm sorry to say it. -Donald Trump

Then:

The only thing we have to fear is fear itself. -Franklin Delano Roosevelt

Now:

When Mexico sends its people, they're not sending the best. They're not sending you, they're sending people that have lots of problems and they're bringing those problems with us. They're bringing drugs. They're bring crime. They're rapists... And some, I assume, are good people. -Donald Trump

Our convention occurs at a moment of crisis for our nation. The attacks on our police and the terrorism in our cities threaten our very way of life. Any politician who does not grasp this danger is not fit to lead our country. Americans watching this address tonight have seen the recent images of violence in our streets and the chaos in our communities. Many have witnessed this violence personally. Some have even been its victims. -Donald Trump

Then:

Speak softly and carry a big stick. -Franklin Roosevelt

Mankind must put an end to war -- or war will put an end to mankind.- John F. Kennedy

Peace is the best time for improvement and preparation of every kind; it is in peace that our commerce flourishes most, that taxes are most easily paid, and that the revenue is most productive. - James Monroe

Now:

Then:

Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country. -John F. Kennedy

Now:

Then:

Think about every problem, every challenge, we face. The solution to each starts with education. - George H.W. Bush

Now:

I love the under-educated. -Donald Trump

No, I'm not cutting services, but I'm cutting spending. But I may cut Department of Education. -Donald Trump

Then:

It is now our generation's task to carry on what those pioneers began. For our journey is not complete until our wives, our mothers and daughters can earn a living equal to their efforts. - Barack Obama

Now:

I'm automatically attracted to beautiful [women]. I just start kissing them. It's like a magnet. I just kiss, I don't even wait. And when you're a star, they let you do it. You can do anything -- grab them by the pussy. You can do anything. -Donald Trump

She does have a very nice figure. I've that if Ivanka weren't my daughter perhaps I'd be dating her. -Donald Trump

Then:

In a nation that was proud of hard work, strong families, close-knit communities, and our faith in God, too many of us now tend to worship self-indulgence and consumption. Human identity is no longer defined by what one does, but by what one owns. But we've discovered that owning things and consuming things does not satisfy our longing for meaning. We've learned that piling up material goods cannot fill the emptiness of lives which have no confidence or purpose. - Jimmy Carter

A president's hardest task is not to do what is right, but to know what is right. - Lyndon Johnson

Now:

Darkness is good. Dick Cheney. Darth Vader. Satan. That's power. It only helps us when they get it wrong. When they're blind to who we are and what we're doing. -Stephen Bannon (Donald Trump administration chief strategist)

The beauty of me is that I'm very rich. -Donald Trump

Then:

Of course, there are dangers in religious freedom and freedom of opinion. But to deny these rights is worse than dangerous, it is absolutely fatal to liberty. The external threat to liberty should not drive us into suppressing liberty at home. Those who want the government to regulate matters of the mind and spirit are like men who are so afraid of being murdered that they commit suicide to avoid assassination. - Harry S. Truman

Now:

Then:

To waste, to destroy, our natural resources, to skin and exhaust the land instead of using it so as to increase its usefulness, will result in undermining in the days of our children the very prosperity which we ought by right to hand down to them amplified and developed. - Theodore Roosevelt

Peace is the best time for improvement and preparation of every kind; it is in peace that our commerce flourishes most, that taxes are most easily paid, and that the revenue is most productive. - James Monroe

Now:

The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive. -Donald Trump

I would just bomb those suckers, and that's right, I'd blow up the pipes, I'd blow up the refineries, I'd blow up ever single inch, there would be nothing left. And you know what, you'll get Exxon to come in there, and in two months, you ever see these guys? How good they are, the great oil companies, they'll rebuild it brand new... And I'll take the oil. -Donald Trump

Then:

In the history of mankind many republics have risen, have flourished for a less or greater time, and then have fallen because their citizens lost the power of governing themselves and thereby of governing their state; and in no way has this loss of power been so often and so clearly shown as in the tendency to turn the government into a government primarily for the benefit of one class instead of a government for the benefit of the people as a whole. - Theodore Roosevelt

Officeholders are the agents of the people, not their masters. Not only is their time and labor due to the government, but they should scrupulously avoid in their political action, as well as in the discharge of their official duty, offending by a display of obtrusive partisanship their neighbors who have relations with them as public officials. - Grover Cleveland

Now:

Just as the three wise men did on that night, this Christmas heralds a time to celebrate the good news of a new King. -Reince Prebus (Donald Trump's chief of staff)