Quotes & anectdotes from
the wise,
the foolish,
the courageous &
the drunk

Woodrow Wilson US President

  • Gender: Male
  • Citizenship: United States
  • Born: Dec 28, 1856
  • Died: Feb 3, 1924

Thomas Woodrow Wilson was the 28th President of the United States from 1913 to 1921 and leader of the Progressive Movement. He served as President of Princeton University from 1902 to 1910 and was Governor of New Jersey from 1911 to 1913. He led his Democratic Party to win control of both the White House and Congress in 1912.

Wilson induced a conservative Democratic Congress to pass a progressive legislative agenda, unparalleled until the New Deal in 1933. This included the Federal Reserve Act, Federal Trade Commission Act, the Clayton Antitrust Act, the Federal Farm Loan Act and an income tax. Child labor was temporarily curtailed by the Keating–Owen Act of 1916. Wilson also averted a railroad strike and an ensuing economic crisis through passage of the Adamson Act, imposing an 8-hour workday for railroads. At the outbreak of World War I in 1914, Wilson maintained a policy of neutrality.

Narrowly re-elected in 1916 around the slogan "He kept us out of war", Wilson's second term was dominated by American entry into World War I. That year he proclaimed June 14 as Flag Day in a patriotic speech that bore out the nation's anti-German sentiment.

If you want to make enemies, try to change something.

The man who is swimming against the stream knows the strength of it.

Golf is a game in which one endeavors to control a ball with implements ill adapted for the purpose.

Absolute identity with one's cause is the first and great condition of successful leadership.

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.

There is no higher religion than human service. To work for the common good is the greatest creed.

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.

It is like writing history with lightning and my only regret is that it is all so terribly true.

Interest does not tie nations together it sometimes separates them. But sympathy and understanding does unite them.

The world must be made safe for democracy. Its peace must be planted upon the tested foundations of political liberty.

Democracy is not so much a form of government as a set of principles.

If a dog will not come to you after having looked you in the face, you should go home and examine your conscience.

The history of liberty is a history of resistance.

One cool judgment is worth a thousand hasty counsels. The thing to do is to supply light and not heat.

A conservative is a man who just sits and thinks, mostly sits.

I will not speak with disrespect of the Republican Party. I always speak with respect of the past.

I not only use all the brains that I have, but all that I can borrow.

A conservative is someone who makes no changes and consults his grandmother when in doubt.

If there are men in this country big enough to own the government of the United States, they are going to own it.