Warren G. Harding quotes

Warren G. Harding was the 29th President of the United States, serving from 1921 to 1923. His presidency was marked by efforts to return the country to normalcy after World War I and by several major scandals involving his administration. He died in office, leaving a complicated legacy in American political history. Here are 36 of his quotes:

I don't know what to do or where to turn in this taxation matter. Somewhere there must be a book that tells all about it, where I could go to straighten it out in my mind. But I don't know where the book is, and maybe I couldn't read it if I found it. (Warren G. Harding)
America's present need is not heroics, but healing; not nostrums but normalcy; not revolution, but restoration. View quote
Warren G. Harding
Our most dangerous tendency is to expect too much of government, and at the same time do for it too little. View quote
Warren G. Harding
I don't know much about Americanism, but it's a damn good word with which to carry an election. View quote
Warren G. Harding
Practically all we know is that thousands of native Haitians have been killed by American Marines, and that many of our own gallant men have sacrificed their lives at the behest of an Executive department in order to establish laws drafted by the Assistant Secretary of the Navy. ... I will not empower an Assistant Secretary of the Navy to draft a constitution for helpless neighbors in the West Indies and jam it down their throats at the point of bayonets borne by U. S. Marines. View quote
Warren G. Harding
I am not fit for this office and should never have been here. View quote
Warren G. Harding
It is my conviction that the fundamental trouble with the people of the United States is that they have gotten too far away from Almighty God. View quote
Warren G. Harding
There is something inherently wrong, something out of accord with the ideals of representative democracy, when one portion of our citizenship turns its activities to private gain amid defensive war while another is fighting, sacrificing, or dying for national preservation. View quote
Warren G. Harding
The black man should seek to be, and he should be encouraged to be, the best possible black man and not the best possible imitation of a white man. View quote
Warren G. Harding
Let the black man vote when he is fit to vote; prohibit the white man voting when he is unfit to vote. View quote
Warren G. Harding
The success of our popular government rests wholly upon the correct interpretation of the deliberate, intelligent, dependable popular will of America. (Warren G. Harding)
I have no trouble with my enemies. I can take care of my enemies all right. But my damn friends, my god-damned friends, White, they're the ones who keep me walking the floor nights! View quote
Warren G. Harding
In the great fulfillment we must have a citizenship less concerned about what the government can do for it and more anxious about what it can do for the nation. View quote
Warren G. Harding
If the Russian failure should become the tragic impotency of nations, if Italy should yield to the pressure of military might, if heroic France should be martyred on her flaming altars of liberty and justice and only the soul of heroism remain, if England should starve and her sacrifices and resolute warfare should prove in vain, if all these improbable disasters should attend, even then we should fight on and on, making the world's cause our cause. View quote
Warren G. Harding
America's present need is not heroics, but healing; not nostrums, but normalcy; not revolution, but restoration; not agitation, but adjustment; not surgery, but serenity; not the dramatic, but the dispassionate; not experiment, but equipoise; not submergence in internationality, but sustainment in triumphant nationality. View quote
Warren G. Harding
Worthy sons and daughters these. Fit successors to those who christened our banners in the immortal beginning. Worthy sons of those who saved the Union and nationality when civil war wiped out the ambiguity from the Constitution. Ready sons of those who drew the sword for humanity's sake the first time in the world in 1898. The four million defenders on land and sea were worthy of the best traditions of a people never warlike in peace and never pacifist in war. They commanded our pride. They have our gratitude, which must have genuine expression. It's not only a duty -- it's a privilege to see that the sacrifices made shall be requited, and that those still suffering from casualties and visibilities shall be abundantly aided and restored to the highest capabilities of citizenship and its enjoyments. View quote
Warren G. Harding
Much has been said of late about world ideals. But I prefer to think of the ideal for America. I like to think there's something more than the patriotism and practical wisdom of the founding fathers. It's good to believe that maybe destiny held this New World republic to be the supreme example of representative democracy and orderly liberty by which humanity is inspired to higher achievement. It is idle to think we have attained perfection, but there is the satisfying knowledge that we hold orderly processes for making our government reflect the heart and mind of the Republic. View quote
Warren G. Harding
Surely no one stops to think where the great world experiment was leading. Frankly, no one could know. We're only learning now. It would be a sorry day for this republic if we allowed our activities in seeking for peace in the Old World to blind us to the essentials of peace at home. We want a free America again. We want America free at home, and free in the world. We want to silence the outcry of nation against nation, in the fullness of understanding, and we wish to silence the cry of class against class, and stifle the party appeal to class, so that we may ensure tranquility in our own freedom. If I could choose but one, I had rather have industrial and social peace at home, than command the international peace of all the world. View quote
Warren G. Harding
Only solitary men know the full joys of friendship. Others have their family; but to a solitary and an exile his friends are everything. View quote
Warren G. Harding
Congress ought to wipe the stain of barbaric lynching from the banners of a free and orderly representative democracy. View quote
Warren G. Harding
Primarily the American Republic has entered the war in defense of its national rights. If we did not defend we could not hope to endure. Other big issues are involved but the maintained rights and defended honor of a righteous nation includes them all. Cherishing the national rights the fathers fought to establish, and loving freedom and civilization, we should have violated every tradition and sacrificed every inheritance if we had longer held aloof from the armed conflict which is to make the world safe for civilization. More, we are committed to sacrifice in battle in order to make America safe for Americans and establish their security on every lawful mission on the high seas or under the shining sun. (Warren G. Harding)
It is good to meet and drink at the fountains of wisdom inherited from the founding fathers of the Republic. View quote
Warren G. Harding
My countrymen, the surpassing war of all times has involved us, and found us utterly unprepared in either a mental or military sense. The Republic must awaken. The people must understand. Our safety lies in full realization the fate of the nation and the safety of the world will be decided on the western battlefront of Europe. View quote
Warren G. Harding
A republic worth living in is worth fighting for, and sacrificing for, and dying for. In the fires of this conflict we shall wipe out the disloyalty of those who wear American garb without the faith, and establish a new concord of citizenship and a new devotion, so that we should have made a safe America the home and hope of a people who are truly American in heart and soul. View quote
Warren G. Harding
I want to see the time come when black men will regard themselves as full participants in the benefits and duties of American citizens. We cannot go on, as we have gone on for more than half a century, with one great section of our population... set off from real contribution to solving national issues, because of a division on race lines. View quote
Warren G. Harding