Thomas Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924) was a Democratic Party political leader who served the 28th president of the United States from 1913 until 1921. He led the country into World War I, played a principal role in the ensuing peace negotiations, and led the creation of the League of Nations. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1919.
Wilson was a renowned professor of law and political science and an inventive president of Princeton University before he launched his exceptional political career, first as governor of the state of New Jersey and then as president of the United States.
As President, Wilson carried out a series of successful administrative and fiscal reforms. His “New Freedom” policy cut trade tariffs, imposed the first federal income tax, recognized the banking system, formed the Federal Reserve Board and the Federal Trade Commission, increased protection for trade unions, boosted workmen’s compensation, and set restrictions on child labor.
Following the outbreak of World War I in Europe in 1914, America preserved its neutral status. However, when the Germans reintroduced unrestricted submarine warfare, Wilson entered the war on the Allied side in April 1917. Wilson’s well-known “Fourteen Points” speech of January 1918 stressed the principles of democracy and self-determination and guided an eventual peace treaty that ended the war.
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Woodrow Wilson
All the extraordinary men I have known were extraordinary in their own estimation.
—Woodrow Wilson
Topics: Self-Esteem, Self Respect
There is no such thing as a man being too proud to fight; there is such a thing as a nation being so right that it does not need to convince others by force that it is right.
—Woodrow Wilson
Topics: War, Atheism, Fighting, Nation
I believe in democracy, because it releases the energies of every human being.
—Woodrow Wilson
Topics: Democracy
Golf is an ineffectual attempt to put an elusive ball into an obscure hole with implements ill-adapted to the purpose.
—Woodrow Wilson
Topics: Golf
You are not here merely to make a living. You are here in order to enable the world to live more amply, with greater vision, with a finer spirit of hope and achievement. You are here to enrich the world, and you impoverish yourself if you forget the errand.
—Woodrow Wilson
We should not only master questions, but also act upon them, and act definitely.
—Woodrow Wilson
Topics: Questions
One cool judgment is worth a thousand hasty counsels. The thing to do is to supply light and not heat.
—Woodrow Wilson
Topics: Judgement, Judging, Wisdom, Judgment
Generally young men are regarded as radicals. This is a popular misconception. The most conservative persons I ever met are college undergraduates. The radicals are the men past middle life.
—Woodrow Wilson
Topics: Youth
The man who is swimming against the stream knows the strength of it.
—Woodrow Wilson
All things come to him who waits—provided he knows what he is waiting for.
—Woodrow Wilson
Topics: Patience, Life, Difficulty
Every country is renewed out of the unknown ranks
and not out of the ranks of those
already famous and powerful and in control.
—Woodrow Wilson
Topics: Power
The things that the flag stands for were created by the experiences of a great people. Everything that it stands for was written by their lives. The flag is the embodiment not of sentiment, but of history.
—Woodrow Wilson
Topics: Patriotism
There is no question what the roll of honor in America is. The roll of honor consists of the names of men who have squared their conduct by ideals of duty.
—Woodrow Wilson
Topics: Honor
I fancy that it is just as hard to do your duty when men are sneering at you as when they are shooting at you.
—Woodrow Wilson
Topics: Critics, Criticism
Friendship is the only cement that will ever hold the world together.
—Woodrow Wilson
Topics: Friendship, Friends, Feelings, Togetherness
Today’s greatest labor-saving device is tomorrow.
—Woodrow Wilson
Topics: Procrastination, Labor
Only free people can hold their purpose and their honor steady to a common end, and prefer the interest of mankind to any narrow interest of their own.
—Woodrow Wilson
Topics: Government, Curiosity
My father did enough of it in his lifetime to answer for both of us.
—Woodrow Wilson
America is the place where you cannot kill your government by killing the men who conduct it.
—Woodrow Wilson
Topics: Democracy
I feel the responsibility of the occasion? Responsibility is proportionate? to opportunity.
—Woodrow Wilson
Topics: Responsibility
Surely a man has come to himself only when he has found the best that is in him, and has satisfied his heart with the highest achievement he is fit for.
—Woodrow Wilson
Topics: Excellence
Nothing was ever done so systematically as nothing is being done now.
—Woodrow Wilson
Topics: Procrastination
My own ideals for the university are those of a genuine democracy and serious scholarship. These two, indeed, seem to go together.
—Woodrow Wilson
It is a fearful thing to lead this great peaceful people into war, into the most terrible and disastrous of all wars, civilization itself seeming to be in the balance. But the right is more precious than peace, and we shall fight for the things which we have always carried nearest our hearts—for democracy, for the right of those who submit to authority to have a voice in their own governments, for the rights and liberties of small nations, for a universal dominion of right by such a concert of free peoples as shall bring peace and safety to all nations and make the world itself at last free.
—Woodrow Wilson
Topics: War, Peace
Democracy is not so much a form of government as a set of principles.
—Woodrow Wilson
Topics: Democracy
No man has ever risen to the real stature of spiritual manhood until he has found that it is finer to serve somebody else than it is to serve himself.
—Woodrow Wilson
Topics: Leadership, Leaders
I would rather belong to a poor nation that was free than to a rich nation that had ceased to be in love with liberty.
—Woodrow Wilson
Topics: Nation, Liberty
Uncompromising thought is the luxury of the closeted recluse.
—Woodrow Wilson
Topics: Luxury
I would rather fail in a cause that will ultimately triumph than to triumph in a cause that will ultimately fail
—Woodrow Wilson
Topics: Failure, Success & Failure, Success
No nation is fit to set in judgment upon any other nation
—Woodrow Wilson
Topics: Government
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