Wendell Willkie quotes

Wendell Willkie was an American lawyer and corporate executive, prominent for running as the Republican candidate in the 1940 U.S. presidential election. His advocacy for internationalism and opposition to isolationism shaped debates during World War II. He became known for his efforts to promote unity and global cooperation. Here are 30 of his quotes:

The test of good manners is to be able to put up pleasantly with bad ones.

Wendell Willkie

History shows that our way of life is the stronger way. From it has come more wealth, more industry, more happiness, more human enlightenment than from any other way.

Wendell Willkie

Freedom is an indivisible word. If we want to enjoy it, and fight for it, we must be prepared to extend it to everyone, whether they are rich or poor, whether they agree with us or not, no matter what their race or the color of their skin.

Wendell Willkie

Education is the mother of leadership.

Wendell Willkie

But we cannot just take this historical fact for granted. We must make it live.

Wendell Willkie

The constitution does not provide for first and second class citizens.

Wendell Willkie

It is from weakness that people reach for dictators and concentrated government power. Only the strong can be free. And only the productive can be strong.

Wendell Willkie

And political parties, overanxious for vote catching, become tolerant to intolerant groups.

Wendell Willkie

If the British Fleet were lost or captured, the Atlantic might be dominated by Germany, a power hostile to our way of life, controlling in that event most of the ships and shipbuilding facilities of Europe.

Wendell Willkie

Emancipation came to the colored race in America as a war measure. It was an act of military necessity. Manifestly it would have come without war, in the slower process of humanitarian reform and social enlightenment.

Wendell Willkie

If we want to talk about freedom, we must mean freedom for others as well as ourselves, and we must mean freedom for everyone inside our frontiers as well as outside.

Wendell Willkie

It is, therefore, essential that we guard our own thinking and not be among those who cry out against prejudices applicable to themselves, while busy spawning intolerances for others.

Wendell Willkie

A true world outlook is incompatible with a foreign imperialism, no matter how high-minded the governing country.

Wendell Willkie

In no direction that we turn do we find ease or comfort. If we are honest and if we have the will to win we find only danger, hard work and iron resolution.

Wendell Willkie

Whenever we take away the liberties of those whom we hate we are opening the way to loss of liberty for those we love.

Wendell Willkie

But if we had to trade with a Europe dominated by the present German trade policies, we might have to change our methods to some totalitarian form. This is a prospect that any lover of democracy must view with consternation.

Wendell Willkie

No man has the right to use the great powers of the Presidency to lead the people, indirectly, into war.

Wendell Willkie

Today it is becoming increasingly apparent to thoughtful Americans that we cannot fight the forces and ideas of imperialism abroad and maintain any form of imperialism at home. The war has done this to our thinking.

Wendell Willkie

When we talk of freedom and opportunity for all nations, the mocking paradoxes in our own society become so clear they can no longer be ignored.

Wendell Willkie

For now more than ever, we must keep in the forefront of our minds the fact that whenever we take away the liberties of those we hate, we are opening the way to loss of liberty for those we love.

Wendell Willkie

In addition, as citizens, we must fight in their incipient stages all movements by government or party or pressure groups that seek to limit the legitimate liberties of any of our fellow citizens.

Wendell Willkie

I would rather lose in a cause that I know some day will triumph than to triumph in a cause that I know some day will fail.

Wendell Willkie