Neal A. Maxwell Quotes

No one remembers how the American people responded day-to-day, week-to-week, or month-to-month about the decisions that Presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower made during the most dangerous decades in American and world history. But we know now that they did what was right, and we honor them for it.

The American Revolution was the grand operation, which seemed to be assigned by the Deity to the men of this age in our country, over and above the common duties of life

There isn't any question about Washington's greatness. If his administration had been a failure, there would have been no United States. A lesser man couldn't have done it.... Washington was both a great administrator and a great leader, a truly great man in every way.

The statesman's task is to hear God's footsteps marching through history, and to try and catch on to His coattails as He marches past.

Every age fraught with discord and danger seems to spawn a leader meant only for that age, a political giant whose absence, in retrospect, seems inconceivable when the history of that age is written.

American history is longer, larger, more various, more beautiful, and more terrible than anything anyone has ever said about it.

There is no disputing that Lincoln was a great man.

Few characters in history are indispensable.

Any understanding of this nation has to be based, and I mean really based, on an understanding of the Civil War. I believe that firmly. It defined us.

… without his [Abraham Lincoln’s] determined leadership the United States would have ceased to be.

I can say with some confidence that President Zardari's legacy will be written in golden words. I don't say this as his son, or patron-and-chief of the Pakistan People's Party - but as a student of history.

About once a decade, it becomes necessary to remind Americans again that Ulysses S. Grant was a great man, indeed a giant figure. The usual way to try to do this is by publishing a thumping big biography, and let me say that there is nothing wrong with this, although it still hasn't worked.

In America, we may acknowledge Washington and Lincoln as great men, and probably Franklin and Jefferson and maybe Franklin Delano Roosevelt and possibly even several more, but we would probably disagree about precisely what it was that made them great, what it was that enabled them to give a lasting direction to the course of events.

All of the American presidents, certainly all of the notable ones, have been pretty original.

Do I believe God raises up authority? Do I believe he sets one up and puts one down?... I don't believe that just for Trump, I believe that had Hillary been in. I believe that for Obama.

I tremendously admire, and I think we all should, the great work done by our commander in chief, our president George Bush...

I think Donald Trump knows the kind of leadership that we [Americans] need at home and abroad.

For me, Lincoln is like just a handful of people - a Gandhi, or a Picasso, or a Martin Luther King Jr. - who is an original and captures something essential.

It is quite rare for God to provide a great man at the necessary moment to carry out some great deep, which is why when this unusual combination of circumstance does occur, history at once records the name of the chosen one and recommends him to the admiration of posterity.

There have been many amazing Presidents in American history, including George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Dwight Eisenhower and Ronald Reagan, all of whom I greatly admire.

Here lay the political genius of Franklin Roosevelt: that in his own time he knew what were the questions that had to be answered, even though he himself did not always find the full answer.

Washington was a typical American. Napoleon was a typical Frenchman, but Lincoln was a humanitarian as broad as the world. He was bigger than his country - bigger than all the Presidents together. We are still too near to his greatness,' (Leo) Tolstoy (in 1908) concluded, 'but after a few centuries more our posterity will find him considerably bigger than we do. His genius is still too strong and powerful for the common understanding, just as the sun is too hot when its light beams directly on us.' (748)

Franklin Delano Roosevelt and J.F Kennedy were Presidents in very different times.

I'm proud of our country that we elected Barack Obama. I mean, it says something about us nationally. You know, it's kind of like crowning your checker when you get to the end of your checker board. Here's another thing that says America's special: Barack Obama, president of the United States.

(God) wants America to succeed. And he wants America to lead.