Top 160 Herbert Hoover Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “Fishing is more than fish; it is the vitalizing lure to outdoor life.”

— Herbert Hoover

Featured in: Quotes About the Sea

2. “The gods do not deduct from man’s allotted span the hours spent in fishing.”

— Herbert Hoover

3. “Engineering is a great profession.”

— Herbert Hoover

4. “Be patient and calm; no one can catch fish in anger.”

— Herbert Hoover

5. “Older men declare war. But it is the youth that must fight and die.”

— Herbert Hoover

6. “Competition is not only the basis of protection to the consumer, but is the incentive to progress.”

— Herbert Hoover

7. “When the outcome of a meeting is to have another meeting, it has been a lousy meeting.”

— Herbert Hoover

8. “Prosperity is just around the corner.”

— Herbert Hoover

9. “Freedom is the open window through which pours the sunlight of the human spirit and human dignity.”

— Herbert Hoover

10. “The supreme purpose of history is a better world.”

— Herbert Hoover

11. “Being a politician is a poor profession. Being a public servant is a noble one.”

— Herbert Hoover

12. “Engineering without imagination sinks to a trade.”

— Herbert Hoover

13. “Children are our most valuable natural resource.”

— Herbert Hoover

14. “All men are equal before fish.”

— Herbert Hoover

15. “A boy has two jobs. One is just being a boy. The other is growing up to be a man.”

— Herbert Hoover

16. “When there is a lack of honor in government, the morals of the whole people are poisoned.”

— Herbert Hoover

17. “Words without actions are the assassins of idealism.”

— Herbert Hoover

18. “If we could have but one generation of properly born, trained, educated, and healthy children, a thousand other problems of government would vanish.”

— Herbert Hoover

19. “We have gold because we cannot trust governments.”

— Herbert Hoover

20. “Sportsmanship, next to the Church, is the greatest teacher of morals.”

— Herbert Hoover

21. “Engineering training deals with the exact sciences. That sort of exactness makes for truth and conscience. It might be good for the world if more men had that sort of mental start in life even if they did not pursue the profession.”

— Herbert Hoover

22. “We do not need to burn down the house to kill the rats.”

— Herbert Hoover

23. “About the time we can make the ends meet, somebody moves the ends.”

— Herbert Hoover

24. “Love what is ahead by loving what has come before.”

— Herbert Hoover

25. “Peace is not made at the council table or by treaties, but in the hearts of men.”

— Herbert Hoover

26. “It is a paradox that every dictator has climbed to power on the ladder of free speech. Immediately on attaining power each dictator has suppressed all free speech except his own.”

— Herbert Hoover

27. “Never worry about anything that is past. Charge it up to experience and forget the trouble. There are always plenty of troubles ahead, so don’t turn and look back on any behind you.”

— Herbert Hoover

28. “To the engineer falls the job of clothing the bare bones of science with life, comfort, and hope.”

— Herbert Hoover

29. “We are in danger of developing a cult of the Common Man, which means a cult of mediocrity.”

— Herbert Hoover

30. “Next to prayer, Fishing is the most personal relationship of man.”

— Herbert Hoover

31. “It is obvious that while science is struggling to bring Heaven to earth some men are using its materials in the construction of Hell.”

— Herbert Hoover

32. “Bureaucracy is ever desirous of spreading its influence and its power. You cannot extend the mastery of the government over the daily working life of a people without at the same time making it the master of the people’s souls and thoughts.”

— Herbert Hoover

33. “The sixth grade made my life successful by preparing me for the seventh and the seventh by preparing me for the eighth and so on. May it do the same for you.”

— Herbert Hoover

34. “America – a great social and economic experiment, noble in motive and far-reaching in purpose.”

— Herbert Hoover

Featured in: Country Quotes

35. “Children are the most wholesome part of the race, the sweetest, for they are the freshest from the hand of god.”

— Herbert Hoover

36. “We have learned that social injustice is the destruction of justice itself.”

— Herbert Hoover

37. “Honest difference of views and honest debate are not disunity. They are the vital process of policy among free men.”

— Herbert Hoover

38. “The fundamental business of the country, that is production and distribution of commodities, is on a sound and prosperous basis.”

— Herbert Hoover

Featured in: Country Quotes

39. “The whole inspiration of our civilization springs from the teachings of Christ and the lessons of the prophets. To read the Bible for these fundamentals is a necessity of American life.”

— Herbert Hoover

40. “Truth alone can stand the guns of criticism.”

— Herbert Hoover

41. “Our individualism is rooted in our very nature. It is based on conviction born of experience. Equal opportunity, the demand for a fair chance, became the formula of American Individualism because it is the method of American achievement.”

— Herbert Hoover

42. “I outlived the bastards.”

— Herbert Hoover

43. “Fishing is much more than fish. It is the great occasion when we may return to the fine simplicity of our forefathers.”

— Herbert Hoover

44. “The spark of liberty in the mind and spirit of man cannot be long extinguished; it will break into flames that will destroy every coercion which seems to limit it.”

— Herbert Hoover

45. “Wisdom consists not so much in knowing what to do in the ultimate as in knowing what to do next.”

— Herbert Hoover

46. “The basis of successful relief in national distress is to mobilize and organize the infinite number of agencies of self help in the community. That has been the American way.”

— Herbert Hoover

47. “The only trouble with capitalism is capitalists; they’re too damned greedy.”

— Herbert Hoover

48. “My country owes me nothing. It gave me, as it gives every boy and girl, a chance. It gave me schooling, independence of action, opportunity for service and honor.”

— Herbert Hoover

Featured in: Country Quotes

49. “A splendid storehouse of integrity and freedom has been bequeathed to us by our forefathers. In this day of confusion, of peril to liberty, our high duty is to see that this storehouse is not robbed of its contents.”

— Herbert Hoover

50. “When we are sick, we want an uncommon doctor; when we have a construction job to do, we want an uncommon engineer, and when we are at war, we want an uncommon general. It is only when we get into politics that we are satisfied with the common man.”

— Herbert Hoover