Quotes by Wendell Willkie

About Wendell Willkie:

Wendell Lewis Willkie was a corporate lawyer in the United States and a dark horse candidate who became the Republican Party nominee for president in 1940. A member of the liberal wing of the party, he crusaded against those domestic policies of the New Deal that he thought were inefficient and anti-business. Willkie, an internationalist, needed the votes of the large isolationist element, so he waffled on the bitterly debated issue of America's role in World War II, losing support from both sides. His opponent, incumbent President Franklin D. Roosevelt, won the 1940 election with 55% of the popular vote and 85% of the electoral vote.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

But it required a disastrous, internecine war to bring this question of human freedom to a crisis, and the process of striking the shackles from the slave was accomplished in a single hour.

Wendell Willkie

Free men are the strongest men.

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

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

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

A good catchword can obscure analysis for fifty years.

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

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

The defense of our democracy against the forces that threaten it from without has made some of its failures to function at home glaringly apparent.

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

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

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

Education is the mother of leadership.

Wendell Willkie

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

Wendell Willkie

We must honestly face our relationship with Great Britain.

Wendell Willkie

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

Wendell Willkie

We cannot, with good conscience, expect the British to set up an orderly schedule for the liberation of India before we have decided for ourselves to make all who live in America free.

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

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

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

Wendell Willkie

Author Bio

  • NameWendell Willkie
  • DescriptionAmerican businessman
  • BornFebruary 18, 1892
  • DiedOctober 8, 1944
  • CountryUnited States Of America
  • ProfessionPolitician; Lawyer