Quotes About Presidency

There was never a promise that race relations in America would be entirely resolved during my presidency or anybody's presidency. I mean, this has been a running thread - and - and fault line in American life and American politics since its founding.

The anti-slavery parties were also called spoilers, including the Republican party that went on not just to abolish slavery but they actually take over the Presidency moving very quickly from third-party into the Presidency.

Lincoln was able to say, you know, "It will make me very unhappy if I lose the presidency, but I'm committed to larger things." If you look at candidates and say this is someone who can be happy to go back to their family or they have larger convictions. Franklin Roosevelt jeopardized his presidency by telling Americans in 1940, "We might have to fight Hitler." He loved being president, but he loved defending freedom more.

Every president learns on the job because nobody`s really prepared for the kind of decisions that cross your desk every day. No one`s prepared for that. No vice president who has scended to the presidency has ever truly been ready for that. Certainly, no vice president who`s assumed the presidency in extremis, like Harry Truman, has been ready for that. But this Trump guy doesn`t seem to be ready for a career in government.

I think the presidency is an institution over which you have temporary custody.

There has been so much power concentrated. There is no leash on that power anymore and Americans face the situation that this power is getting momentum with each passing year with each presidency.

I have come to the conclusion that the 22nd Amendment [limiting the presidency to two terms] was a mistake. Shouldn't the people have the right to vote for someone as many times as they want to vote for him?

People will be talking about the [Barack] Obama legacy for decades, and I wanted to include my voice in the analysis of this presidency.

The founding fathers gave the House of Representatives one function when it comes to cleansing the office of the presidency and that is impeachment, .. Whether or not a resolution of censure is appropriate is something beyond our constitutional authority.

Every president has to live with the result of what Lyndon Johnson did with Vietnam, when he lost the trust of the American people in the presidency.

When you look at the damage that many of the policies that Donald Trump has proposed can do to our citizens of the US - you can compare him to Major Storms Harvey, Irma, Maria. We're talking about life or death issues and about repealing the Affordable Care Act. There are lives at stake. Something that would affect millions and millions of people. I think it's totally appropriate. Obviously, it's a metaphor. It's not to be taken literally. But I mean that when I talk about the damage and the trauma that has been brought into our lives because of his presidency, that that's very real.

Donald Trump's big goal is to become the richest man in the world, abusing the powers of the presidency.

Few progressives would take issue with the argument that, significant accomplishments notwithstanding, the Obama presidency has been a big disappointment.

We're an ignorant nation right now. We're not really capable, I do not think, the majority of our people, of making the decisions that have to be made at election time and particularly in the selection of their legislatures and their Congress and the presidency, of course. I don't think we're bright enough to do the job that would preserve our democracy, our republic. I think we're in serious danger.

Coolidge liked the dignity of the presidency. He didn't get on the phone easily. It's possible that he banished the phone from his desk. He was known to use it from time to time. The person who was hilarious with the phone was Hoover. He was a real engineer. He made a closed circuit phone where he could call the important people and they could call him, a government hotline, but it was closed. He shut out the possibility of input from people he didn't expect to get input from.

Chicago has always been a very segregated city and Mt. Greenwood is an example of that. I can't say I've seen organized white-supremacist growth, but I have seen racial tensions increase. I think we've all seen that. In the Barack Obama presidency, especially, the far right has considered diversity a code word for white genocide.

NATO was a wonderful idea. It was formed in 1949. We are as far away from NATO as NATO was when it was done in time from the presidency of Grover Cleveland.

It's part of the strategy to remind people who Hillary Rodham Clinton actually is. If others aren't going to hold her account for her full record, then, yes, we will. And her record includes naming and blaming women who came in contact with her husband, whether it was consensual relationships like Monica Lewinsky, an intern at the White House with him as President, completely debasing the office of the White House - the office of The Presidency - or Jennifer Flowers, 12-year affair while he was Governor of Arkansas.

Toughest decision was early in my presidency when I ordered 30,000 more troops into Afghanistan. As somebody who had run to end a large troop presence overseas.

This is the man (Ronald Reagan) who proved that ignorance is no handicap to the presidency

The first thing that I've got to think about is: What does a Donald Trump presidency mean for the people of my state and for the people of this country? And for the people of the world? I think it would be an absolute disaster. It would be beyond a disaster.

Mahatma Gandhi was a man of peace and non-violence and lived by the Hindu principle of ahimsa, action based on refusal to do harm. As his war-strewn presidency shows, George Bush knows nothing about ahimsa and non-violence. Bush should reconsider this cynical, disrespectful display of symbolism.

If we didn't have the Electoral College there would have been no George W. Bush presidency. Algore would have been elected. The Democrats have not gotten over that, and they never will get over the recount, the aftermath of that election in 2000. They are still animated by it today. It is a significant portion of the rage and anger they carry around with them every day, so they want to get rid of it.

Remember that Abraham Lincoln was a Whig far longer than he was a Republican. As a whole, the Whigs looked upon banks and corporations as a more efficient means of development; the Jacksonian Democrats thought they were the tools of the devil, but Whigs like Lincoln disagreed. During his presidency, Lincoln favored the re-construction of a national financial system, and his most important 'internal improvement' project was the Pacific railroad.

We all obviously need others to look up to, and be inspirational to us. Ford did a great job as far as putting the presidency back where it belonged, getting the trust back after Nixon. And President Reagan has been one of the most influential presidents.

I have been to Cuba many times. I have spoken many times with Fidel Castro and got to know Commander Ernesto Guevara well enough. I know Cuba's leaders and their struggle. It has been difficult to overcome the blockade. But the reality in Cuba is very different from that in Chile. Cuba came from a dictatorship, and I arrived at the presidency after being senator for 25 years.

How exactly did [Republicans] win? I'd like to know. Because I sacrificed the last four months of my life to do it, excuse me, and we did it. And we did it by looking at the schedule and looking at, yes, the electoral map of 270 because that's how you win the presidency.

Some of the offers that have come to me would never have come if I had not been President. That means these people are trying to hire not Calvin Coolidge, but a former President of the United States. I can't make that kind of use of the office.... I can't do anything that might take away from the Presidency any of its dignity, or any of the faith people have in it.

I had the great privilege in 2011 and 2012 of learning a lot about what it takes to run for the presidency of the United States. It is one of the greatest challenges that any human being could take upon themselves.

Wouldn't it be useful to explain the factors that actually allowed this to happen [Donald's Trump Presidency]. Like, for example, their frustration of the absolute shrinking of the middle class, the heroin epidemic, things like that. I don't see any of that.

The First Month of the Buhari Presidency has been far, far from inspiring

The consequences of President Johnsons campaign of deliberate deception regarding Vietnam could hardly have been more catastrophic for the nation, the military, the president, his party, and the presidency itself.

Bill Clinton became president, and he [Bill Clinton] kept cheating - and she kept destroying the women. She was supposed to be paid off in 2008. They gave her health care; she botched that. Hillarycare, it was called in 1993, '94, whatever. That was her first payoff. Co-presidency was the next payoff.

My conscience does not permit me to run for the presidency or any other official position unless it is within a democratic framework.

I do not yet know if I will find a Romney presidency more acceptable on foreign policy. But I do know that I must oppose the most recent statements made by Mitt Romney in which he says he, as president, could take us to war unilaterally with Iran, without any approval from Congress.

Mr. Obama said that he personally told Mr. Putin to knock it off and vows to retaliate. But the Obama presidency is coming to an end and his successor still won't accept that Russia is guilty of tampering with U.S. elections. But president-elect Donald Trump is accepting the thanks of those who voted for him.

He was a great president in his first term; in his second term, he wasn't the same Grover Cleveland he was to begin with. ...Cleveland reestablished the presidency by being not only a chief executive but a leader.

As soon as I moved to Princeton in 1978, I became fascinated by local history, much of it Revolutionary War-era; and I became fascinated by the presidency of Woodrow Wilson at Princeton University.

Have you noticed that every one of these candidates for Presidency say: "Barack Obama's weak, Vladimir Putin's kicking sand in his face. When I talk to Putin, he's gonna straighten out. Just looking at him I'm gonna - he's gonna be - " and then it turns out they can't handle a bunch of CNBC moderators at a debate. I don't think the Chinese and the Russians are gonna be too worried about you.

It's an appeal as old as America and its presidency: This is an extraordinary country populated by hard-working, big-dreaming, freedom-loving people graced by God when they're not pulling themselves up by the bootstraps.

[George W.] Bush's presidency was one of the great nightmares of my life to date.

No real-world human being brings to the U.S. presidency the range of attributes necessary for full success in the job.

I worry that a Trump presidency doesn't show the true face of America to the world, but I think that peaceful protest all around this country, it showed to the world who we really are.

The presidency is an independent office and the Irish people whom I appreciate so much and I take with such responsibility have given a very clear mandate on a very clear set of ideas to me, as the ninth president.

So, for example, a country was into recession right after I was sworn in, a dot-com bust had taken place. Then the attacks of September the 11th, and then of course the great financial meltdown in the - the fundamental question facing any presidency is how do you deal with the hand you’re dealt?

I think we're in store for a presidency [of Donald Trump] even more unlike any that people have been imagining. I think it's gonna be tough to predict this and to analyze it, certainly in contemporary, traditional terms.

I respect the office of the presidency, but I never worship at the shrines of our public servants...The Washington press corps has the privilege of asking the president of the United States what he is doing and why.

We were very effective, and I was very effective, in shaping public opinion around my campaigns. But there were big stretches, while governing, where even though we were doing the right thing, we weren't able to mobilize public opinion firmly enough behind us to weaken the resolve of the Republicans to stop opposing us or to cooperate with us. And there were times during my presidency where I lost the PR battle.