"Crises there will continue to be. In meeting them, whether foreign or domestic, great or small, there is a recurring temptation to feel that some spectacular and costly action could become the miraculous solution to all current difficulties. A huge increase in newer elements of our defenses; development of unrealistic programs to cure every ill in agriculture; a dramatic expansion in basic and applied research -- these and many other possibilities, each possibly promising in itself, may be suggested as the only way to the road we wish to travel. But each proposal must be weighed in the light of a broader consideration: the need to maintain balance in and among national programs, balance between the private and the public economy, balance between the cost and hoped for advantages, balance between the clearly necessary and the comfortably desirable, balance between our essential requirements as a nation and the duties imposed by the nation upon the individual, balance between actions of the moment and the national welfare of the future. Good judgment seeks balance and progress. Lack of it eventually finds imbalance and frustration."
React to this quote
More by Dwight D. Eisenhower
See allResonant Thoughts
"I don't have a trace of moral scruple, when it comes to the state I feel completely free. It's committed such terrible crimes against us all, against our generation, that we have a right to anything. …"
Explore Further
Related Quotes
"A bedridden patient only thinks about getting well again. He or she has no wish to remain sick forever. Lik…"
— Dilgo Khyentse"Time, so to say, runs at right angles to the page at each point on the curve."
— Joan Robinson"The average 20-year-old serving us in Iraq knows more about their country's national security than the aver…"
— Fred Thompson"What makes it possible for cooperation to emerge is the fact that the players might meet again. This possib…"
— Robert Axelrod"It will take a hundred years to tell whether he helped us or hurt us, but he certainly didn't leave us wher…"
— Henry Ford"..a painted or drawn portrait should look more alike than a photo. A photo only presents the moment itself,…"
— Charley Toorop