Woodrow Wilson

The Constitution of the United States explicitly lays upon the President the duty of reporting at the beginning of each annual session of Congress to the representatives of the people concerning the state of the Union.

I admire the hopeful confidence of those of our fellow citizens who believe that American opinion can stop it, but, being somewhat older than some of them, and having run through a rather wide gamut of experience, I am prevented from…

The flame has touched even our own continent by drawing in our Canadian neighbors to the north of us, and, except for the South American Continent, there is not one continent upon the whole surface of the world to which this flame has not…

I would be willing to go before any constituency in the United States in the confidence that they were willing to pay for the defense of the Nation.

The United States has never been negligent of its Navy, despite what some gentlemen may say; least of all has it been negligent in recent years.

America stands, first of all, for the right of men to determine whom they will obey and whom they will serve; for the right of political freedom and a people's sovereignty.

No nation should waste its youth like that.

The old cry for the defense of your hearth and home does not seem to me a very handsome appeal.

I want you to go home determined that within the whole circle of your influence the President, not as a partisan but as the representative of the national honour, shall be backed up by the whole force that is in the Nation.

The flag stands for something for which we are all trustees, the great part that America is to play in the world.

I get a great deal more inspiration outside of Washington than inside of it.

I am sure we have never encouraged in America the spirit of militarism, and we shall never have militarism in the United States.

The facts of the world are such that it is my duty to counsel my fellow citizens that preparation for national defense can not any longer be postponed.

The only thing I am afraid of is not being ready to perform my duty.

My own feeling, ladies and gentlemen, is that it is a pity that this is a campaign year.

I believe in peace, I love peace.

I am conscious of a sort of truancy in being absent from my duties in Washington.

You know that you have not, and the very fact that the force is not ready may make the task you have set for me all the more delicate and all the more difficult.

If these gentlemen could have sat with me reading the dispatches and handling the questions which arise every hour of the twenty-four, they would have known how infinitely difficult it had been to maintain the peace and they would have…

I am sorry that upon the eve of a campaign we should be obliged to discuss these things, for fear they might run over into the campaign and seem to constitute a part of it.

We want American character to display itself in what I may perhaps be allowed to call spiritual efficiency.

We want to defend the life of this Nation against any sort of interference.

We are relying upon you, Mr. President, to keep us out of this war, but we are relying upon you, Mr. President, to keep the honor of the Nation unstained.

We are not going to be stalked and daunted by ghosts and fancies.

It has always been a feeling of mine that the best place for public servants was in the presence of those they serve.