A sampling of presidential quotes antithetical to a Donald Trump tweet:
“Associate yourself with men of good quality if you esteem your own reputation; for ’tis better to be alone than in bad company.” — George Washington
“It is by a thorough knowledge of the whole subject that (people) are enabled to judge correctly of the past and to give a proper direction to the future.” — James Monroe
“If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.” — John Quincy Adams
“May the boldest fear and the wisest tremble when incurring responsibilities on which may depend our country’s peace and prosperity, and in some degree the hopes and happiness of the whole human family.” — James Polk
“Don’t write so that you can be understood, write so that you can’t be misunderstood.” — William Taft
“One cool judgment is worth a thousand hasty counsels. The thing to be supplied is light, not heat.” — Woodrow Wilson
“America’s present need is not heroics, but healing; not nostrums, but normalcy; not revolution, but restoration; not agitation, but adjustment; not surgery, but serenity; not the dramatic, but the dispassionate; not experiment, but equipoise; not submergence in internationality, but sustainment in triumphant nationality.” — Warren G. Harding
“This great nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and will prosper. So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself — nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.” — Franklin D. Roosevelt
“If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.” — Harry S. Truman
“Leadership consists of nothing but taking responsibility for everything that goes wrong and giving your subordinates credit for everything that goes well.” — Dwight D. Eisenhower
“My fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.” — John F. Kennedy
“We must never remain silent in the face of bigotry. We must condemn those who seek to divide us. In all quarters and at all times, we must teach tolerance and denounce racism, anti-Semitism and all ethnic or religious bigotry wherever they exist as unacceptable evils. We have no place for haters in America — none, whatsoever.” — Ronald Reagan
“Life takes its own turns, makes its own demands, writes its own story, and along the way, we start to realize we are not the author.” — George W. Bush
“The people are the only censors of their governors: and even their errors will tend to keep these to the true principles of their institution. To punish these errors too severely would be to suppress the only safeguard of the public liberty. The way to prevent these irregular interpositions of the people is to give them full information of their affairs through the channel of the public papers, and to contrive that those papers should penetrate the whole mass of the people. The basis of our governments being the opinion of the people, the very first object should be to keep that right; and were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter. But I should mean that every man should receive those papers and be capable of reading them.” — Thomas Jefferson
Okay, in fairness to Trump, when it comes to Jefferson, here’s one the current president probably likes.
“Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper,” Jefferson opined years after the one about preferring newspapers over government.
But this Jefferson advice would serve the current occupant of the White House well, whether they agree or not on the veracity of the news media.
“When angry, count ten, before you speak; if very angry, a hundred.”
• Charles M. Dunagin is the retired editor and publisher of the Enterprise-Journal in McComb. He lives in Oxford.
