Quotes About Presidents

We need leaders of principle, courage, character, wisdom, and discipline, and yet we seem trapped by a system of choosing our presidents that pushes those who possess those traits aside in favor of others who look good on television, are skilled at slandering and demonizing their opponents in a campaign, and are able to raise the hundreds of millions of dollars required to ensure election at any cost.

When we get presidents with brains it's purely by accident. Who was ever selected for his brains? We choose them for other qualities, or because they can be elected.

Power is poison. Its effect on Presidents had always been tragic.

There's a preponderance of scientists and engineers among China's rulers. New President Xi Jinping was trained as a chemical engineer. His predecessor, Hu Jintao, earned a degree in hydraulic engineering. His predecessor, Jiang Zemin, held a degree in electrical engineering.

Our nation has granted its presidents exquisite transport because we need our leaders to be efficient and safe. However, we don't need for them to luxuriate on our tax dollars.

George Washington was the president who could never tell a lie, and Richard Nixon was the president who could never tell the truth. Donald Trump is truly the president who can't tell the difference.

Since the emergence of the Republican Party, only two Democratic presidents, Franklin Roosevelt and John Kennedy, have been followed by Democrats, and both FDR and JFK died in office, so their successors ran as incumbents.

Presidents Lincoln and Kennedy shared more than just being leaders during critical times and the misfortune of lives cut short. They shared a power of will to drive the nation, sometimes single-handedly, toward a destination that few but they realized was attainable.

In general, presidents do sit for interviews or respond to requests from prosecutors because they take their constitutional responsibility to faithfully execute the laws seriously, and running away from a prosecutor isn't consistent with faithfully executing the laws.

No one reaches the Oval Office without a great deal of admiration for the institution - and himself - so it's unsurprising that sitting presidents favor the biographies of former presidents.

One of the embarrassing problems for the early nineteenth-century champions of the Christian faith was that not one of the first six Presidents of the United States was an orthodox Christian.

I think that presidents deserve to be questioned. Maybe irreverently, most of the time. Bring 'em down a size. You see a president, ask a question. You have one chance in the barrel. Don't blow it.

I would have to say that Richard Nixon is probably the most gifted and skilled political practitioner, in his pre-presidential years, of all of the American presidents in the 20th century.

We were asked to do very little, and we responded. That's the bargain we tacitly make with our presidents: we won't ask too much of you, if you don't ask too much of us.

A heartfelt thanks to Evelyn M. Duffy, my assistant on five books that have covered four presidents. President Trump presents a particular hurdle because of the deep emotions and passions he brings out in supporters and critics. Evelyn immediately grasped that the challenge was to get new information, authenticate it and put it in context while reporting as deeply as possible inside the White House.

Not every President is a great speaker. Not every President is a great thinker. But in the modern era, every single President is a master of one thing: eye contact.

Seven presidents before him - Democrats and Republicans - tried to expand health care to all Americans. President Obama got it done.

Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence; Madison wrote not only the United States Constitution, or at least most of it, but also the most searching commentary on it that has ever appeared. Each of them served as president of the United States for eight years. What they had to say to each other has to command attention.

The best thing going for us is Al Gore. I cannot conceive how the American people could elect him. On the other hand, I couldn't conceive how they could elect a Jimmy Carter or Bill Clinton - especially Clinton in '96.

QUESTION: What did Lee Harvey Oswald say to Michael Jordan? ANSWER: Through the book depository window, over the grassy knoll, off the wrist, nothing but neck. Scarecrow was not a big JFK fan. I noted that he never joked about Ronald Reagan being shot.

Successful American presidents project a populist image. They do not place themselves above their compatriots but strive whenever possible to show qualities typical of "average" Americans. If they have an intellectual bent, they do their best to hide it. To be likable, smiling, and unpretentious is all-important, to express the values of middle America an essential prerequisite for greatness.

Power is poison. Its effect on Presidents had been always tragic, chiefly as an almost insane excitement at first, and a worse reaction afterwards; but also because no mind is so well-balanced as to bear the strain of seizing unlimited force with a limited mind.

Before the Kennedys were elected, there had been older Presidents. Then here was this devastatingly attractive young couple with two beautiful children. They were so intelligent, graceful, gracious and funny. They enjoyed life so much. That's what caught America's eye.

My personal history, along with the history of many black people in this country, is rife with trauma born out of anti-black policies aided and facilitated by presidents and their administrations.