
Letter in Harijan (1938) http://web.archive.org/20021008131454/die_meistersinger.tripod.com/gandhi9.html
1930s
Letter to a Quaker (1798)
Context: As to war, I am and always was a great enemy, at the same time a warrior the greater part of my life, and were I young again, should still be a warrior while ever this country should be invaded and I lived — a Defensive war I think a righteous war to Defend my life & property & that of my family, in my own opinion, is right & justifiable in the sight of God.
An offensive war, I believe to be wrong and would therefore have nothing to do with it, having no right to meddle with another man's property, his ox or his ass, his man servant or his maid servant or anything that is his. Neither does he have a right to meddle with anything that is mine, if he does I have a right to defend it by force.
Letter in Harijan (1938) http://web.archive.org/20021008131454/die_meistersinger.tripod.com/gandhi9.html
1930s
Reported by Representative Martin Dies as having been said in a conversation at the White House, in the Congressional Record (September 22, 1950), vol. 96, Appendix, p. A6832. Reported as "exceedingly dubious" in Paul F. Boller, Jr., Quotemanship: The Use and Abuse of Quotations for Polemical and Other Purposes, chapter 8, p. 361 (1967); Boller goes on to say that "it is most unlikely that FDR would have said anything like it, even flippantly, to the zealous HUAC chairman, though he may have told Dies that he was exaggerating the size of the American communist movement".
Misattributed
“It is Mr. Mellon's credo that $200,000,000 can do no wrong. Our offense consists in doubting it.”
New York Times Obituary (October 10, 1954)
Letter From Thomas Jefferson to the Rev. James Madison, 19 July 1788
1780s
1970s, Remarks on pardoning Nixon (1974)
Context: My conscience tells me it is my duty, not merely to proclaim domestic tranquillity but to use every means that I have to insure it.
I do believe that the buck stops here, that I cannot rely upon public opinion polls to tell me what is right.
I do believe that right makes might and that if I am wrong, 10 angels swearing I was right would make no difference.
I do believe, with all my heart and mind and spirit, that I, not as President but as a humble servant of God, will receive justice without mercy if I fail to show mercy.
Finally, I feel that Richard Nixon and his loved ones have suffered enough and will continue to suffer, no matter what I do, no matter what we, as a great and good nation, can do together to make his goal of peace come true.
Statement at the beginning of the 1813 campaign, as quoted in The Mind of Napoleon (1955) by J. Christopher Herold, p. 45
Prime Minister's Questions (15 June 1982) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/104968
First term as Prime Minister
“When I believe in nothing, I do not want to meet you when you believe in nothing.”
Cuando no creo en nada, no quisiera encontrarme contigo, cuando no crees en nada.
Voces (1943)