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Home  »  Respectfully Quoted  »  Herbert Clark Hoover (1874–1964)

Respectfully Quoted: A Dictionary of Quotations. 1989.

 
NUMBER: 349
AUTHOR: Herbert Clark Hoover (1874–1964)
QUOTATION: You convey too great a compliment when you say that I have earned the right to the presidential nomination. No man can establish such an obligation upon any part of the American people. My country owes me no debt. It gave me, as it gives every boy and girl, a chance. It gave me schooling, independence of action, opportunity for service and honor. In no other land could a boy from a country village, without inheritance or influential friends, look forward with unbounded hope. My whole life has taught me what America means. I am indebted to my country beyond any human power to repay.
ATTRIBUTION: HERBERT HOOVER, letter to Senator George H. Moses, chairman of the Republican national convention, upon learning of his nomination for president, June 14, 1928.—The Memoirs of Herbert Hoover, vol. 2, p. 195 (1952).
SUBJECTS: Country