My choice early in life was either to be a piano player in a whorehouse or a politician. To tell the truth, there's hardly a difference.

Peace is precious to us. It is the way of life we strive for with all the strength and wisdom we possess. But more precious than peace are freedom and justice. We will fight, if fight we must, to keep our freedom and to prevent justice from being destroyed.

No one who has not had the responsibility can really understand what it is like to be President, not even his closest aides or members of his immediate family. There is no end to the chain of responsibility that binds him, and he is never allowed to forget that he is President.

[The American President] has to take all sorts of abuse from liars and demagogues.… The people can never understand why the President does not use his supposedly great power to make ’em behave. Well, all the President is, is a glorified public relations man who spends his time flattering, kissing and kicking people to get them to do what they are supposed to do anyway.

All will concede that in order to have good neighbors, we must also be good neighbors. That applies in every field of human endeavor.

A leader is the man who has the ability to get other people to do what they don't want to do, and like it.

Being a president is like riding a tiger. A man has to keep on riding or he is swallowed.