Constant Vigilance Quotes

You say you're a comedian, you always have to be on guard.

Against the insidious wiles of foreign influence . . . the jealousy of a free people ought to be constantly awake.

I think just having everybody know who you are is more of a challenge. More than anything about it is just knowing people are watching. I know who I am, so it's watching things I say, what I do. Even if I'm in line at one of the rest stops or something, it's just being on my Ps and Qs at all times more than anything.

Within the first few months I discovered that being president is like riding a tiger. A man has to keep riding or be swallowed. The fantastically crowded nine months of 1945 taught me that a President either is constantly on top of events or, if he hesitates, events will soon be on top of him. I never felt I could let up for a single moment.

I'm a preacher's kid, and we were always told, Act right all the time, because someone's always watching.

Eternal vigilence is the price of liberty.

Speculation is a hard and trying business, and a speculator must be on the job all the time or he'll soon have no job to be on.

You gotta watch everything. You gotta watch how you move, 'cause you a celebrity. You're a target now, so you always gotta do that. Just stay on your tippy toes.

Constantly be aware and observing. Always seek to improve yourself and the team.

When someone is always looking over their shoulder, they're more likely to trip.

I've never gotten over what they call stagefright. I go through it every show. I'm pretty concerned, I'm pretty much thinking about the show. I never get completely comfortable with it, and I don't let the people around me get comfortable with it, in that I remind them that it's a new crowd out there, it's a new audience, and they haven't seen us before. So it's got to be like the first time we go on.

Democracy is not a good that people can enjoy without trouble. It is, on the contrary, a treasure that must be daily defended and conquered anew by strenuous effort.

I never know if the person I'm shaking hands with is coming to kill me. That's something you have to live with when you cross the lines.

FDR once said he was like a cat, that he would pounce and then relax. That's much harder to do in the 24-hour cable world, because it's almost like the press demands of you to be saying something or doing something every day.

One can't live with one's finger everlastingly on one's pulse.

Freedom is like taking a bath: You got to keep doing it every day.

Freedom is a fragile thing and is never more than one generation away from extinction. It is not ours by inheritance; it must be fought for and defended constantly by each generation, for it comes only once to a people. Those who have known freedom, and then lost it, have never known it again.

People watch me, waiting for me to slip up, so my privacy has gone - but that's a price you pay.

When you have a child, you have to have a hawk eye. You have to be with the child all the time.

I am always on duty, even when I am at party events or on vacation. I don't complain about it, on the contrary. Time management for candidates without government functions is different than it is for me. No matter where I am, I always have to have my duties as chancellor in mind.

Just where death is expecting you is something we cannot know; so, for your part, expect him everywhere.

You always have to be on edge. You always have to take every practice, every game, like it is your last.

The coward does not know what it means to be alone: an enemy is always standing behind his chair.