Quotes About Presidents

By heralding President Xi Jinping's accession to permanent leadership, soliciting Vladimir Putin's reentry into the Group of Seven, and declaring that Kim Jong Un is 'beloved by his people,' Trump legitimizes the very behavior that U.S. presidents opposed for decades.

The location of Trump Tower in the heart of America's largest city requires more complex security arrangements than have been needed for past presidents.

While our goals in Syria were never clearly enumerated by then-President Obama or President Trump, throughout the war one of our most committed and effective allies in the fight has been the Kurds.

If Obama was a sonnet, Trump is a limerick. And really, which ones do you enjoy more?

I voted for President Bush. I voted for President Clinton and although I do want my vote back, I voted for President Obama.

The last five-six presidents of Haiti have failed miserably. And I don't think it would be an honor for me to say I want to be the next 'president.' I want to be the man by with whom change arrives.

People tend to judge presidents on how the economy performs, and yet we don't expect them to have the power to do much about it. Or we don't want them to exercise that power, if they were to have it.

France has had socialist presidents on and off since the 1920s, and it remains a free country. Socialists have ruled in many South American countries without ushering in disaster.

But America, like every nation, has its ages of psychosis. It has fits of indecision and periods of self-delusion. Consider how presidents spoke movingly of freedom from tyranny while personally holding hundreds of men, women, and children in slavery.

22 million new jobs under President Clinton. 3 million lost under Bush.

American presidents send a million Russians back to Stalin

No wonder historians loathe Harding and Coolidge; these presidents' success goes to show how much better off the country might be if ambitious politicians with their grandiose plans would just shut up and leave us alone.

the Mount Rushmore KOA complex near

Talk about presidents "taking" the country hither and yon is part of the foam of presidential elections.

The great presidents never forget the principle of the republic and seek to preserve and enhance them – in the long run– without undermining the needs of the moment. Bad presidents simply do what is expedient, heedless of principles. But the worst presidents are those who adhere to the principles regardless of what the fortunes of the moment demand.

We have to remember that presidents are simply the street signs. The cycle is working itself out in the murky depths.

Recent presidents have gone off on ad hoc adventures. They have set unattainable goal because they have framed the issue incorrectly, as they believed their own rhetoric.

I do not believe that the children of presidents or vice-presidents should be assigned to combat zones. They have no place there.

Taxpayers should not be on the hook for subsidizing former presidents' lives to the tune of millions of dollars.

If you look at the very best presidents, the most effective presidents, they were always decent salespeople. Ronald Reagan was an extremely effective salesman, very tuned to the people he was selling to, very clear in what he was selling, very resilient and buoyant.

All presidents rail against the press. It goes with the turf.

In daring to re-tell the stories of the last twelve American presidents, both public and private, I knew I would incur some outrage with 'American Caesars.'

Success in war underpins the claims to greatness of many presidents.

Obama, of course, is an outstanding orator—but even outstanding orators (unlike nineteenth-century presidents) feel obliged to dumb their words down a bit for the American public. President Donald Trump, however, is proud of his limited tweetish vocabulary. "I know words," he declared at a campaign appearance in Hilton Head, South Carolina. "I have the best words. But there is no better word than stupid. Right?