Woodrow Wilson, the 28th President of the United States was one of the most prolific leaders the country has ever had. During his 8-year tenure in the office, President Wilson introduced several revolutionary acts and contributed towards the maintenance of peace after the First World War.
His most revered works include giving voting rights to women, introducing laws to prohibit child labour, and mandated an eight-hour workday for railroad workers. Wilson was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1919 for being the leading architect of the League of Nations and ensuring that the world was a safer place for democracy.
In this article, we will present you with 50 quotes by Woodrow Wilson that will inspire you and motivate you to contribute towards the betterment of the world.
1. “The ear of the leader must ring with the voices of the people.” -Woodrow Wilson
2. “America is not anything if it consists of each of us. It is something only if it consists of all of us.” -Woodrow Wilson
3. “The seed of revolution is repression.” -Woodrow Wilson
4. “If you want to make enemies, try to change something.” -Woodrow Wilson
5. “The history of liberty is a history of resistance.” -Woodrow Wilson
6. “A conservative is a man who sits and thinks, mostly sits.” -Woodrow Wilson
7. “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
8. “We are citizens of the world. The tragedy of our times is that we do not know this.”
9. “I not only use all the brains that I have, but all I can borrow.” -Woodrow Wilson
10. “Unless justice is done to others it will not be done to us.” -Woodrow Wilson
11. “Some people have a large circle of friends while others have only friends that they like.” -Woodrow Wilson
12. “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
13. “Only peace between equals can last.” -Woodrow Wilson
14. “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
15. “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
16. “Friendship is the only cement that will ever hold the world together.” -Woodrow Wilson
17. “ 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
18. “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
19. “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
20. “The man who is swimming against the stream knows the strength of it.” -Woodrow Wilson
21. “We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated governments in the civilized world.” -Woodrow Wilson
22. “I do not want a government that will take care of me, I want a government that will make other men take their hands off me so I can take care of myself.” -Woodrow Wilson
23. “The world must be made safe for democracy.” -Woodrow Wilson
24. “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
25. “When I give a man an office, I watch him carefully to see whether he is swelling or growing.” -Woodrow Wilson
26. “Men grow by having responsibility laid upon them.” -Woodrow Wilson
27. “You are here to enrich the world, and you impoverish yourself if you forget the errand.” -Woodrow Wilson
28. “My urgent advice to you would be, not only always to think first of America, but always, also, to think first of humanity. ” -Woodrow Wilson
29. “I would rather lose in a cause that will someday win, than win in a cause that will someday lose.” -Woodrow Wilson
30. “As a matter of fact and experience, the more power is divided the more irresponsible it becomes.” -Woodrow Wilson
31. “No people are true Christians who do not think constantly of how they can lift their brother and sister, how they can assist their friends, how they can enlighten mankind, how they can make virtue the rule of conduct in the circle in which they live.” -Woodrow Wilson
32. “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 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
33. “Leadership does not always wear the harness of compromise.” -Woodrow Wilson
34. “The man who has no vision will undertake no great enterprise.” -Woodrow Wilson
35. “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
36. “Responsibility is proportionate to opportunity.” -Woodrow Wilson
37. “Character, my friends, is a byproduct. It is produced in the great manufacture of daily duty.” -Woodrow Wilson
38. “We have no selfish ends to serve. We desire no conquest, no dominion. We seek no indemnities for ourselves, no material compensation for the sacrifices we shall freely make.” -Woodrow Wilson
39. “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
40. “No nation is fit to sit in judgment upon any other nation.” -Woodrow Wilson
41. “We should not only master questions, but also act upon them, and act definitely.” -Woodrow Wilson
42. “We are no longer a Government by free opinion, no longer a Government by conviction and the vote of the majority, but a Government by the opinion and duress of a small group of dominant men.” -Woodrow Wilson
43. “If you’ve made up your mind you can do something, you’re absolutely right.” -Woodrow Wilson
44. “One cool judgment is worth a thousand hasty counsels. The thing to do is to supply light and not heat.” -Woodrow Wilson
.45. “Absolute identity with one’s cause is the first and great condition of successful leadership.” -Woodrow Wilson
46. “Democracy is not so much a form of government as a set of principles.” -Woodrow Wilson
47. “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
48. “I would rather fail in a cause that will ultimately succeed than succeed in a cause that will ultimately fail.” -Woodrow Wilson
49. “Once lead this person into war and they will forget there ever was such a thing as tolerance.” -Woodrow Wilson
50. “Politics is a war of causes; a joust of principles.” -Woodrow Wilson
