Top 100 Gerald R. Ford Quotes (2024 Update)
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51. “Compromise is the oil that makes governments go.”

— Gerald R. Ford

52. “A great nation cannot abandon its responsibilities. Responsibilities abandoned today return as more acute crises tomorrow.”

— Gerald R. Ford

53. “I had a lot of experience with people smarter than I am.”

— Gerald R. Ford

54. “I do believe, with all my heart and mind and spirit, that I, not as President but as a humble servant of God, will receive justice without mercy if I fail to show mercy.”

— Gerald R. Ford

55. “This is an hour of history that troubles our minds and hurts our hearts.”

— Gerald R. Ford

56. “Real assistance is to help people to help themselves. We can’t do everything for everybody, but there is room for all who try to make it.”

— Gerald R. Ford

57. “The three-martini lunch is the epitome of American efficiency. Where else can you get an earful, a bellyful and a snootful at the same time?”

— Gerald R. Ford

58. “I think that sports, particularly football, gave me an opportunity to be out front, to be a leader, which helped me later on, when I got into politics.”

— Gerald R. Ford

59. “I strongly support the feeding of children.”

— Gerald R. Ford

60. “I couldn’t wait to start the day.”

— Gerald R. Ford

61. “It feels like getting a back massage from the Grim Reaper: one must get comfortable with the most horrifying things in the world.”

— Gerald R. Ford

62. “One of the enduring truths of the nation’s capital is that bureaucrats survive.”

— Gerald R. Ford

63. “America needed recovery, not revenge. The hate had to be drained and the healing begun.”

— Gerald R. Ford

64. “We have come tardily to the tremendous task of cleaning up our environment. We should have moved with similar zeal at least a decade ago. But no purpose is served by post-mortems. With visionary zeal but the greatest realism, we must now address ourselves to the vast problems that confront us.”

— Gerald R. Ford

65. “We must introduce a new balance in the relationship between the individual and the government – a balance that favors greater individual freedom and self-reliance.”

— Gerald R. Ford

66. “All of us who served in one war or another know very well that all wars are the glory and the agony of the young.”

— Gerald R. Ford

67. “We came from many roots, and we have many branches.”

— Gerald R. Ford

68. “I think they ought to be treated equally. Period.”

— Gerald R. Ford

69. “I am determined to seek self-sufficiency in energy as an urgent national priority. My goal is to make America independent of foreign energy sources by 1985.”

— Gerald R. Ford

70. “All my children have spoken for themselves since they first learned to speak, and not always with my advance approval, and I expect that to continue in the future.”

— Gerald R. Ford

71. “I was dumbfounded by the stupidity of the Watergate break-in.”

— Gerald R. Ford

72. “I am the first to admit that I am no great orator or no person that got where I have gotten by any William Jennings Bryan technique.”

— Gerald R. Ford

73. “A coalition of groups is waging a massive propaganda campaign against the president of the United States. an all-out attack. Their aim is total victory for themselves and total defeat for him.”

— Gerald R. Ford

74. “America’s leadership is essential. America’s resources are vast. America’s opportunities are unprecedented.”

— Gerald R. Ford

75. “We must proceed with our own energy development. Exploitation of domestic petroleum and natural gas potentialities, along with nuclear, solar, geothermal, and non-fossil fuels is vital. We will never again permit any foreign nation to have Uncle Sam over a barrel of oil.”

— Gerald R. Ford

76. “It’s discouraging how hard it is for a President to slice away large chunks of a $305 billion budget.”

— Gerald R. Ford

77. “I remain convinced that pardoning Nixon was the right thing to do.”

— Gerald R. Ford

78. “I had pro offers from the Detroit Lions and Green Bay Packers, who were pretty hard up for linemen in those days. If I had gone into professional football the name Jerry Ford might have been a household word today.”

— Gerald R. Ford

79. “As I rejected amnesty, so I reject revenge. I ask all Americans who ever asked for goodness and mercy in their lives, who ever sought forgiveness for their trespasses, to join in rehabilitating all the casualties of the tragic conflict of the past.”

— Gerald R. Ford

80. “Obviously, it’s a great privilege and pleasure to be here at the Yale Law School Sesquicentennial Convocation. And I defy anyone to say that and chew gum at the same time.”

— Gerald R. Ford

81. “Let us put an end to self-inflicted wounds. Let us remember that our national unity is a most priceless asset. Let us deny our adversaries the satisfaction of using Vietnam to pit Americans against Americans.”

— Gerald R. Ford

82. “During the day on Monday, Washington time, the airport at Saigon came under persistent rocket as well as artillery fire and was effectively closed. The military situation in the area deteriorated rapidly. I therefore ordered the evacuation of all American personnel remaining in South Vietnam.”

— Gerald R. Ford

83. “For millions of men and women, the church has been the hospital for the soul, the school for the mind and the safe depository for moral ideas.”

— Gerald R. Ford

84. “In a democracy, the public has a right to know not only what the government decides, but why and by what process.”

— Gerald R. Ford

85. “The Communist leaders in Moscow, Peking and Hanoi must fully understand that the United States considers the freedom of South Viet Nam vital to our interests. And they must know that we are not bluffing in our determination to defend those interests.”

— Gerald R. Ford

86. “The old question still remains: Can a free people restrain crime without sacrificing fundamental liberties and a heritage of compassion?”

— Gerald R. Ford

87. “There are no adequate substitutes for father, mother, and children bound together in a loving commitment to nurture and protect. No government, no matter how well-intentioned, can take the place of the family in the scheme of things.”

— Gerald R. Ford

88. “It’s the quality of the ordinary, the straight, the square, that accounts for the great stability and success of our nation. It’s a quality to be proud of. But it’s a quality that many people seem to have neglected.”

— Gerald R. Ford

89. “Our great Republic is a government of laws and not of men. Here, the people rule.”

— Gerald R. Ford

90. “When a man is asked to make a speech, the first thing he has to decide is what to say.”

— Gerald R. Ford

91. “So much of what passes for public life consists of little more than candidates without ideas, hiring consultants without conviction, to stage campaigns without content. The result, increasingly, is elections without voters.”

— Gerald R. Ford

92. “I had a life-long ambition to be a professional baseball player, but nobody would sign me.”

— Gerald R. Ford

93. “The Federal role in overcoming barriers to needed health care should emphasize health care financing programs-such as Medicare and Medicaid.”

— Gerald R. Ford

94. “I cannot imagine any other country in the world where the opposition would seek, and the chief executive would allow, the dissemination of his most private and personal conversations with his staff, which, to be honest, do not exactly confer sainthood on anyone concerned.”

— Gerald R. Ford

95. “In baseball when they say you’re out, you’re out. It’s the same way in politics.”

— Gerald R. Ford

96. “The pat on the back, the arm around the shoulder, the praise for what was done right and the sympathetic nod for what wasn’t are as much a part of golf as life itself.”

— Gerald R. Ford

97. “I hope never to see the day that I cannot admit having made a mistake.”

— Gerald R. Ford

98. “It is good to be back in the Peoples House. But this cannot be a real homecoming. Under the Constitution, I now belong to the executive branch. The Supreme Court has even ruled that I am the executive branchhead, heart, and hand.”

— Gerald R. Ford

99. “It’s more like it is now than it ever has been.”

— Gerald R. Ford

100. “Today, America can regain the sense of pride that existed before Vietnam. These events, tragic as they are, portend neither the end of the world nor of America’s leadership in the world.”

— Gerald R. Ford