Martin van Buren, US President 1837-1841

Clay County Histories

Markus Krueger | Program Director HCSCC

President Donald Trump once said “I have the best words.” The words of presidents matter, maybe even too much. Recently, reporters asked him if we need to worry about a recession, and his uncertain response caused the stock market to plumet and made people worry about a recession. I’m a guy who likes a good quote. In fact, I keep a couple little books around my house for jotting down words of wisdom when I come across them. Here are a few I collected from presidents.
Reserved and quiet Calvin Coolidge was the temperamental opposite of our current outgoing and talkative president. His nickname was “Silent Cal,” and he preached what he practiced: “I have noticed that nothing I never said ever did me any harm.” Here’s another gem from Coolidge: “If all the folks in the United States would do the few simple things they know they ought to do, most of our big problems would take care of themselves.”
Founding Father John Adams gives us this thinker: “Human nature cannot bear prosperity. It invariably intoxicates individuals and nations. Adversity is the great reformer. Affliction is the purifying furnace.” Do you think that’s true? Well, I’m pretty sure he was right on with this one: “Men find ways to persuade themselves to believe any absurdity, to submit to any prostitution, rather than forgo their wishes and desires.” Though not a president, John’s friend and fellow revolutionary Benjamin Franklin said something similar: “So convenient a thing is it to be a reasonable creature, since it enables us to find or make a reason for every thing one has a mind to do.”
In this age of angry political polarization, all of us would do well to remember the words of Martin van Buren: “Most men are not scolded out of their opinion.” It’s my favorite Martin van Buren quote. I must admit I don’t have a second favorite, or a least favorite for that matter. Just the one. You can have it, too. I pull it out a couple times a month.
Theodore Roosevelt has this quote that I take as one of my life’s mottos: “Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.”
But the award for president with the best words must go to Abraham Lincoln. I own two different books titled The Wit and Wisdom of Abraham Lincoln, and I gotta tell you, that guy was really wise and witty. Here’s a few: “A man who denies to other men equality of rights is hardly worthy of freedom; but I would give even to him all the rights which I claim for myself.” His advice to a young lawyer: “Resolve to be honest at all events; and if, in your own judgement, you cannot be an honest lawyer, resolve to be honest without being a lawyer. Choose some other occupation.” In that spirit of honesty, here is the Lincoln quote I think of most, even though he may not have really said it: “If what you gave me last was tea, I want coffee. If it was coffee, I want tea.” But these are the best words to go out on: “Let us have faith that right makes might, and in that faith, let us, to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it.”