Historic Quotes from the State of the Union

These ten quotes are from various Presidents and we find them all very interesting.

Knowledge is in every Country the surest basis of public happiness.
— George Washington (1790), urging the pursuit of science in his first address

The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present… fellow citizens, we cannot escape history.
— Abraham Lincoln (1862), on the imperative on winning the Civil War

We may either fall greatly or succeed greatly; but we can not avoid the endeavor from which either great failure or great success must come.
— Theodore Roosevelt (1902)

Social justice comes first. Law is the machinery for its realization and is vital only as it expresses and embodies it.
— Woodrow Wilson (1913)

We look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms. The first is freedom of speech… The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way… The third is freedom from want… The fourth is freedom from fear.
— Franklin D. Roosevelt (1941)

The mere absence of war is not peace. The mere absence of recession is not growth. We have made a beginning — but we have only begun.
— John F. Kennedy (1963), on the importance of vigilance during the Cold War

Very often a lack of jobs and money is not the cause of poverty, but the symptom. The cause may lie deeper in our failure to give our fellow citizens a fair chance to develop their own capacities.
— Lyndon B. Johnson (1964), in reference to his “war on poverty”

There are no constraints on the human mind, no walls around the human spirit, no barriers to our progress except those we ourselves erect.
— Ronald Reagan (1985)

And to the children and young people… Fix your vision on a new century — your century, on dreams we cannot see, on the destiny that is yours and yours alone.
— George H.W. Bush (1990)

Unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word.
— Barack Obama (2016), at the conclusion of his final State of the Union

Quite inspiring, we would say!