Coolidge: Sins.
Mrs. Coolidge: Well, what did he say about it?
Coolidge: He was against it." - Meaning and context.">
QuotesCosmos
when asked by his wife what a preacher's sermon had been about
• John H. McKee, Coolidge: Wit and Wisdom, 1933
• Author Nigel Rees claims this is apocryphal:
 • The taciturn President became famous for monosyllabic replies. A story from the twenties has Mrs. Coolidge asking him the subject of a sermon he had heard. "Sin," he answered. When prompted to elaborate on the clergyman's theme, Coolidge is said to have replied: "He was against it." Coolidge remarked that this story would have been funnier if it had been true.
  • Nigel Rees, Sayings of the Century, page 67.
“

Coolidge: Sins.
Mrs. Coolidge: Well, what did he say about it?
Coolidge: He was against it.

— Calvin Coolidge

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "Coolidge: Sins.
Mrs. Coolidge: Well, what did he say about it?
Coolidge: He was against it." in the context of "when asked by his wife what a preacher's sermon had been about
• John H. McKee, Coolidge: Wit and Wisdom, 1933
• Author Nigel Rees claims this is apocryphal:
 • The taciturn President became famous for monosyllabic replies. A story from the twenties has Mrs. Coolidge asking him the subject of a sermon he had heard. "Sin," he answered. When prompted to elaborate on the clergyman's theme, Coolidge is said to have replied: "He was against it." Coolidge remarked that this story would have been funnier if it had been true.
  • Nigel Rees, Sayings of the Century, page 67." to mean that wisdom is timeless.

Source: Wikiquote: "Calvin Coolidge" (Misattributed) The 'What it means' explanation text was generated by Google Gemini Flash (accessed January 18, 2026). https://gemini.google.com/app

Tags

#Calvin Coolidge#coolidge#against#sins#what#mrs
Calvin Coolidge

About Calvin Coolidge

John Calvin Coolidge Jr. (4 July 1872 – 5 January 1933) was the 30th president of the United States (1923–29). A Republican lawyer from Vermont, Coolidge worked his way up the ladder of Massachusetts state politics, eventually becoming governor of that state. His response to the Boston Police Strike of 1919 thrust him into the national spotlight and gave him a reputation as a man of decisive action. Soon after, he was elected as the 29th vice president in 1920 and succeeded to the presidency upon the sudden death of Warren G. Harding in 1923. Elected in his own right in 1924, he gained a reputation as a small-government conservative.