Wendell Willkie (1892–1944,) fully Wendell Lewis Willkie, was an American politician and lawyer. The Republican presidential candidate in 1940, he contested unsuccessfully to unseat President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Born in Elwood, Indiana, Willkie became first a lawyer and later an industrialist. He was the head of the public utility Commonwealth and Southern Corporation (CSC.) Having shifted his support from the Democrat to the Republican cause in 1940, he was nominated as a presidential candidate. Incumbent Franklin D. Roosevelt, who was running for his third presidential term, narrowly defeated Willkie.
In 1941–42, Willkie traveled the world, supporting Roosevelt’s war effort programs and policies. An opponent of Isolationism, he became identified with his famous “One World” concept of international cooperation famously described in his bestseller, One World (1943.)
Willkie unsuccessfully sought the Republican nomination again in 1944.
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by 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
Topics: Strength
I would rather lose in a cause that I know some day will triumph than to triumph in a cause that I know some day will fail.
—Wendell Willkie
Topics: Failure
Education is the mother of leadership.
—Wendell Willkie
Topics: Leaders, Leadership
In no direction that we turn do we find ease or comfort. If we are honest and if we have the will to win we find only danger, hard work and iron resolution.
—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
Topics: Freedom
The test of good manners is to be able to put up pleasantly with bad ones.
—Wendell Willkie
Topics: Manners
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