Today’s news is frequently a collection of sound bites. Unable to bring viewers everything that happened or was said at a given event,reporters are stuck trying to render the entire meaning of hours of words and actions into a a single 30 second clip. We have come to see these sound bites as a modern invention, something that is part of our television generation. Truth be told, even in years long gone by, when communication was by radio or before that by telegraph, reporters or those passing on information recognized the importance of condensing meaning. Some of our past presidents were experts in sharing the sense of history with brevity as can be appreciated in these great presidential quotes.
1. Thomas Jefferson. He wasn’t the first president of our nation but he might have been the best writer among all of those who have held the office. Thomas Jefferson was in fact the third President of the United States,but even before he assumed office in the early years of the 19th century, Thomas Jefferson had put down some words that would immortalize both him and the day with which they are associated.
Jefferson wrote ” We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness;.” Oh there are certainly more words to the Declaration of Independence, the document from which this great presidential quote is taken, but these form an amazing sound bite. These words summed up both the years of frustration and the innermost colonial urging to be free.
The words were formalized on July 4,1776 but they have lasted for more than two hundred years and remain for Americans the basis of their philosophy of human rights.
2.Abraham Lincoln. Serving as President during the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln was not hardly the scholar that Thomas Jefferson had been. His gift was his simplicity. This quality seemed no place more evident than in his famous Gettysburg Address.
In November of 1863, Lincoln traveled to the small Pennsylvania farming town of Gettysburg for the purpose of dedicating burial ground for the thousands of soldiers who gave the last full measure of sacrifice to the nation, laying down their lives in the battle named for that town. While others rose and spoke volumes, Lincoln, ever the simple man, rose with little more than a handful of words to deliver to mark the occasion. In fact in his address Lincoln shared his belief that none of what was being said at Gettysburg that day would be remembered for very long.
When his words were finished he sat down, pleased undoubtedly that his duty had been done. His words included this thought: “we here highly resolve that this nation , under God shall have a new birth of freedom and that government of the people, by the people, for the people , shall not perish from the earth”. Had there been television in 1863 there is little doubt that these words would have made the evening news. But even without televising the words have echoed down through generations and in their own way seem to magnificently state once more the intention of the American people to live free in a democratic society as previously stated by Thomas Jefferson. Without a doubt the words spoken by Lincoln that day are not just remembered they are repeated often as a great presidential quote.
3. Franklin Delano Roosevelt. FDR was elected to serve four terms as our American President. During his days in office he saw the nation through both the Great Depression and World War II. During that time Roosevelt was the consummate politician, a man who could turn a phrase and capture an audience with ease. Roosevelt took advantage of the technology of his age and spoke directly to people across the country gathered around their radios in his legendary fire side chats. In more than twelve years in office Roosevelt certainly shared many important ideas.
That is perhaps why it is surprising that if asked about Roosevelt the first quotation that would come to the minds of many Americans would be: “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” This short sentence, delivered on March 4, 1933, as part of Roosevelt’s first inaugural, was grabbed onto by those encompassed by the Great Depression. Both the power of his voice and the eloquence of this quote are credited with lifting the American people out of their mental depression so as to face the depressed economy around them. Some say it was the single most powerful sentence ever used in an inaugural address. It certainly hit its mark.
4.John Kennedy.Serving a much shorter term of office truncated by his assassination, John Kennedy still left behind by a legacy Americans continue to hold dear. Young, handsome and married to a cultured and beautiful wife, Kennedy seemed like a walking call to a new generation of Americans to do better things and build a better future for themselves and the world around them.
Nowhere was that theme more dramatically proclaimed then at Kennedy’s first and only inaugural address. In the midst of a chill January wind in 1961 a bare headed Kennedy poured out his plan for better days. But Americans quickly learned that the plan was not just about what government was going to do. In one of the great presidential quotes of all time Kennedy summoned the body politque to rise to the occasion. Said Kennedy: “So my fellow Americans,ask not what your country can do for you;ask what you can do for your country.” This sentence summed up a call to volunteerism in America that resounds still today.
Presidents have the benefit of a huge audience and the “bully pulpit”. Their words are heard around the nation and even around the world. But only some of the volumes they speak are words that are memorable, and of these only a sca
