President
Definition: Presidents: plural noun. The elected head of a republic.
Number of Quotes: 186
The most important aspect of the relationship between the president and the secretary of state is that they both understand who is president.
Dean Acheson
Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job.
Douglas Adams
It is a well-known fact that those people who must want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do
it... anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job.
Douglas Adams
Power is poison. Its effect on Presidents had always been tragic.
Henry Adams
The American President resembles the commander of a ship at sea. He must have a helm to grasp, a course to steer, a port to seek.
Henry Adams
The progress of evolution from President Washington to President Grant was alone evidence to upset Darwin.
Henry Adams
A desire to be observed, considered, esteemed, praised, beloved, and admired by his fellows
is one of the earliest as well as the keenest dispositions discovered in the heart of man.
John Adams
A government of laws, and not of men.
John Adams
Abuse of words has been the great instrument of sophistry and chicanery, of party, faction, and division of society.
John Adams
All the perplexities, confusion and distress in America arise, not from defects in their Constitution or Confederation,
not from want of honor or virtue, so much as from the downright ignorance of the nature of coin, credit and circulation.
John Adams
As much as I converse with sages and heroes, they have very little of my love and admiration. I
long for rural and domestic scene, for the warbling of birds and the prattling of my children.
John Adams
Because power corrupts, society's demands for moral authority and character increase as the importance of the position increases.
John Adams
Democracy... while it lasts is more bloody than either aristocracy or monarchy. Remember, democracy never lasts
long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There is never a democracy that did not commit suicide.
John Adams
Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or
the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.
John Adams
Fear is the foundation of most governments.
John Adams
Genius is sorrow's child.
John Adams
Great is the guilt of an unnecessary war.
John Adams
Here is everything which can lay hold of the eye, ear and imagination - everything which can charm and bewitch the simple and
ignorant. I wonder how Luther ever broke the spell.
John Adams
I always consider the settlement of America with reverence and wonder, as the opening of a grand scene and design in
providence, for the illumination of the ignorant and the emancipation of the slavish part of mankind all over the earth.
John Adams
I have accepted a seat in the House of Representatives, and thereby have consented to my own ruin, to your
ruin, and to the ruin of our children. I give you this warning that you may prepare your mind for your fate.
John Adams
I must not write a word to you about politics, because you are a woman.
John Adams
I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy.
John Adams
I, poor creature, worn out with scribbling for my bread and my liberty, low in spirits and weak in health, must
leave others to wear the laurels which I have sown, others to eat the bread which I have earned. A common case.
John Adams
In politics the middle way is none at all.
John Adams
Let us tenderly and kindly cherish, therefore, the means of knowledge. Let us dare to read, think, speak, and write.
John Adams
Liberty, according to my metaphysics is a self-determining power in an intellectual agent. It implies thought and choice and power.
John Adams
Liberty cannot be preserved without general knowledge among the people.
John Adams
My country has contrived for me the most insignificant office that ever the invention of man contrived or his imagination conceived.
John Adams
Old minds are like old horses; you must exercise them if you wish to keep them in working order.
John Adams
Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.
John Adams
Posterity! You will never know how much it cost the present generation to preserve your freedom! I hope you will make a good use of it.
John Adams
Power always thinks it has a great soul and vast views beyond the comprehension of the weak.
John Adams
Power always thinks... that it is doing God's service when it is violating all his laws.
John Adams
Property is surely a right of mankind as real as liberty.
John Adams
Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.
John Adams
The Declaration of Independence I always considered as a theatrical show. Jefferson ran away with all the stage effect of that... and all the glory of it.
John Adams
The essence of a free government consists in an effectual control of rivalries.
John Adams
The fundamental law of the militia is, that it be created, directed and commanded by the laws, and ever for the support of the laws.
John Adams
The furnace of affliction produces refinement, in states as well as individuals.
John Adams
The happiness of society is the end of government.
John Adams
The Hebrews have done more to civilize men than any other nation. If I were an atheist, and believed blind eternal fate,
I should still believe that fate had ordained the Jews to be the most essential instrument for civilizing the nations.
John Adams
The right of a nation to kill a tyrant in case of necessity can no more be doubted than to hang a robber, or kill a flea.
John Adams
There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty.
John Adams
Thomas Jefferson still survives.
Last words of President John Adams.
John Adams
When people talk of the freedom of writing, speaking or thinking I cannot choose but laugh. No such thing ever existed. No such
thing now exists; but I hope it will exist. But it must be hundreds of years after you and I shall write and speak no more.
John Adams
While all other sciences have advanced, that of government is at a standstill - little
better understood, little better practiced now than three or four thousand years ago.
John Adams
According to the Stoics, all vice was resolvable into folly: according to the Christian principle, it is all the effect of weakness.
John Quincy Adams
All men profess honesty as long as they can. To believe all men honest would be folly. To believe none so is something worse.
John Quincy Adams
Always vote for principle, though you may vote alone, and you may cherish the sweetest reflection that your vote is never lost.
John Quincy Adams
America does not go abroad in search of monsters to destroy.
John Quincy Adams
Democracy, pure democracy, has at least its foundation in a generous theory of human rights. It is founded on the natural
equality of mankind. It is the cornerstone of the Christian religion. It is the first element of all lawful government upon earth.
John Quincy Adams
Gratitude, warm, sincere, intense, when it takes possession of the bosom, fills the
soul to overflowing and scarce leaves room for any other sentiment or thought.
John Quincy Adams
Heaven has given to every human being the power of controlling his passions, and if
he neglects or loses it, the fault is his own, and he must be answerable for it.
John Quincy Adams
I have no predilection for unpopularity as such, but I hold it much preferable to the
popularity of a day, which perishes with the transient topic upon which it is grounded.
John Quincy Adams
In order to preserve the dominion of our own passions, it behooves us to be constantly
and strictly on our guard against the influence and infection of the passions of others.
John Quincy Adams
Is not the brand of double-dealer
stamped on the forehead of every democratic slaveholder? Are not
fraud and hypocrisy the religion of the man who calls himself a democrat, and hold his fellow-man in bondage?
John Quincy Adams
It is among the evils of slavery that it taints the very sources of moral principle. It establishes false estimates of virtue and vice: for what
can be more false and heartless than this doctrine which makes the first and holiest rights of humanity to depend upon the color of the skin?
John Quincy Adams
It is of no use to discover our own faults and infirmities unless the discovery prompts up to amendment.
John Quincy Adams
It was the special purpose of Christ's appearance upon earth to bring immortality to light.
John Quincy Adams
Nip the shoots of arbitrary power in the bud, is the only maxim which can ever preserve the liberties of any people.
John Quincy Adams
Patience and perseverance have a magical effect before which difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish.
John Quincy Adams
The Declaration of Independence pronounced the irrevocable decree of political separation, between the
United States and their people on the one part, and the British king, government, and nation on the other.
John Quincy Adams
The great object of the institution of civil government is the improvement of those who are parties to the social compact.
John Quincy Adams
The highest glory of the American Revolution was this: it connected in one
indissoluble bond the principles of civil government with the principles of Christianity.
John Quincy Adams
This idea of the transcendent power of the Supreme Being is essentially connected
with that by which the whole duty of man is summed up: obedience to His will.
John Quincy Adams
The more you meditate on the laws of Moses, the more striking and brighter does their wisdom appear.
John Quincy Adams
This is the last of earth! I am content.
John Quincy Adams
To read the Bible is of itself a laudable occupation and can scarcely fail of being a useful employment of time; but the habit of
reflecting upon what you have read is equally essential as than of reading itself, to give it all the efficacy of which it is susceptible.
John Quincy Adams
Where annual elections end, there slavery begins.
John Quincy Adams
The universe is change; our life is what our thoughts make it.
Marcus Aurelius
Failure at some point in your life is inevitable, but giving up is unforgivable.
Joe Biden
If you have a problem figuring out whether you're for me or Trump, then you ain't Black.
In an interview with The Breakfast Club
radio program, May 22, 2020.
Joe Biden
Isn't it a bitch? I mean, ... this vice president thing?
Response to a student body vice president at Harvard College, Oct. 2, 2014.
Joe Biden
Let's build back better.
Joe Biden
Poor kids are just as bright, just as talented, as white kids.
Remarks made to Asian and Latino Coalition, Des Moines, Iowa, August 8, 2019.
Joe Biden
We have to be remembered for what's been done.
Joe Biden
You're a lying dog-faced pony soldier.
Remark made to a student at a campaign event, Hampton, New Hampshire, February 9, 2020.
Joe Biden
He who fears being conquered is certain of defeat.
Napoléon Bonaparte
All skills begin with the basics of reading and math, which are supposed to be learned in the early
grades of our schools. Yet for too long, for too many children, those skills were never mastered.
George W. Bush
Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job.
To FEMA director Michael Brown, who resigned 10 days later amid criticism over his handling of the Hurricane Katrina debacle.
George W. Bush
I really am not the kind of guy that sits here and says, Oh gosh, I'm worried about my legacy.
Quote from an interview with CBS' 60 Minutes on January 14, 2007.
George W. Bush
Terrorist attacks can shake the foundations of our biggest buildings, but they cannot touch the foundations of America.
George W. Bush
There's an old saying in Tennessee - I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee -
that says, fool me once, shame on - shame on you. Fool me - you can't get fooled again.
In Nashville, Tennessee.
George W. Bush
These acts shatter steel, but they cannot dent the steel of America's resolve.
George W. Bush
You're working hard to put food on your family.
In Greater Nashua, New Hampshire.
George W. Bush
Veni, vidi, vici.
I came, I saw, I conquered.
Julius Caesar
America did not invent human rights. In a very real sense ... human rights invented America.
Jimmy Carter
Globalization, as defined by rich people like us, is a very nice thing... you are talking about the Internet, you
are talking about cell phones, you are talking about computers. This doesn't affect two-thirds of the people of the world.
Jimmy Carter
I think as far as the adverse impact on the nation around the world, this administration has been the worst in history.
In an interview with the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
Jimmy Carter
It is good to realize that if love and peace can prevail on earth, and if we can teach our
children to honor nature's gifts, the joys and beauties of the outdoors will be here forever.
Jimmy Carter
Tax laws also benefit those who have the best lobbying efforts ... and the larger the corporations are, the smaller proportion they pay in taxes.
Jimmy Carter
I have tried so hard to do the right.
Grover Cleveland
If you don't say anything you won't be called on to repeat it.
Calvin Coolidge
Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent.
Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and
determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan, Press on,
has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.
Calvin Coolidge
Never be haughty to the humble; never be humble to the haughty.
Jefferson Davis
A true leader always keeps an element of surprise up his sleeve, which others cannot grasp but which keeps his public excited and breathless.
Charles de Gaulle
Old age is a shipwreck.
Charles de Gaulle
The thing that impresses me most about America is the way parents obey their children.
Edward VIII
A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both.
Dwight D. Eisenhower
An intellectual is a man who takes more words than necessary to tell more than he knows.
Dwight D. Eisenhower
Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final
sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.
Dwight D. Eisenhower
In the councils of government we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought,
by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.
Dwight D. Eisenhower
Leadership consists of nothing but taking responsibility for everything that
goes wrong and giving your subordinates credit for everything that goes well.
Dwight D. Eisenhower
Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it.
Dwight D. Eisenhower
We are going to have peace even if we have to fight for it.
Dwight D. Eisenhower
All diplomacy is a continuation of war by other means.
Zhou Enlai
Whosoever controls the volume of money in any country is absolute master of all industry and commerce.... And when you realize the entire system is very
easily controlled, one way or another, by a few powerful men at the top, you will not have to be told how periods of inflation and depression originate.
James Garfield
You can know a person by the kind of desk he keeps ... If the president of a company has a
clean desk ... then it must be the executive vice president who is doing all the work.
Harold Geneen
My father was frightened of his mother; I was frightened of my father, and I am damned well going to see to it that my children are frightened of me.
George V
My most fervent wish is that I will not be replaced until a new president is installed.
Statement dictated to granddaughter Clara Spera, September, 2020.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg
One man with courage makes a majority.
Andrew Jackson
The wisdom of man never yet contrived a system of taxation that operates with perfect equality.
Andrew Jackson
There are no necessary evils in government. Its evils exist only in its abuses. If it would confine itself to equal protection, and, as
Heaven does its rains, shower its favors alike on the high and the low, the rich and the poor, it would be an unqualified blessing.
Andrew Jackson
I am captivated more by dreams of the future than by history of the past.
Thomas Jefferson
I find that pain of a little censure, even when it is unfounded, is more acute than the pleasure of much praise.
Thomas Jefferson
In matters of style, swim with the current;
In matters of principle, stand like a rock.
Thomas Jefferson
Only aim to do your duty, and mankind will give you credit where you fail.
Thomas Jefferson
The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers.
Thomas Jefferson
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their
Creator with inherent and inalienable rights; that among these, are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Thomas Jefferson
I just find it absolutely bizarre that we are being lectured by the Americans about giving up our sovereignty and giving up control when
the Americans won't even sign up to the international convention on the law of the seas, let alone the International Criminal Court.
Boris Johnson
I would rather be dead in a ditch than ask the European Union for a delay in Brexit.
Remarks made at a police training center in Wakefield, England, September 5, 2019.
Boris Johnson
We have a great new Brexit deal that takes back control.
Announcing a revised agreement with the European Union on October 17, 2022.
Boris Johnson
And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country.
John F. Kennedy
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and the enemy of growth.
John F. Kennedy
Forgive your enemies, but never forget their names.
John F. Kennedy
Let every Nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet
any hardship, support any friend or oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and success of liberty.
Spoken at inaugural address and inscribed on his memorial.
John F. Kennedy
Let us never negotiate out of fear. But let us never fear to negotiate.
John F. Kennedy
Mankind must put an end to war before war puts an end to mankind.
United Nations on September 25, 1961.
John F. Kennedy
When power leads men towards arrogance, poetry reminds him of his limitations. When power narrows the areas of man's
concern, poetry reminds him of the richness and diversity of his existence. When power corrupts, poetry cleanses.
John F. Kennedy
Determine that the thing can and shall be done, and then we shall find the way.
Abraham Lincoln
If you once forfeit the confidence of your fellow citizens, you can never regain their respect and esteem. It is true that you may fool all
of the people some of the time; you can even fool some of the people all of the time; but you can't fool all of the people all of the time.
Abraham Lincoln
Most folks are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.
Abraham Lincoln
Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power.
Abraham Lincoln
I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The
brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.
Nelson Mandela
The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.
Nelson Mandela
If we had had confidence that the president clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said so.
Remarks made at the Department of Justice, May 29, 2019.
Robert Mueller
Defeat doesn't finish a man - quit does. A man is not finished when he's defeated. He's finished when he quits.
Richard Nixon
The most dangerous man in America.
Referring to Timothy Leary.
Richard Nixon
The press is the enemy.
Richard Nixon
When the president does it, that means that it is not illegal.
In a 1977 interview with David Frost.
Richard Nixon
You've got to learn to survive a defeat. That's when you develop character.
Richard Nixon
A friend of mine was asked to a costume ball a short time ago. He slapped some egg on his face and went as a liberal economist.
Ronald Reagan
Inflation is as violent as a mugger, as frightening as an armed robber, and as deadly as a hit man.
Ronald Reagan
It's true hard work never killed anyone but I figure why take the chance?
Ronald Reagan
Surround yourself with the best people you can find, delegate authority, and
don't interfere as long as the policy you've decided upon is being carried out.
Ronald Reagan
You can tell a lot about a fellow's character by the way he eats jelly beans.
Ronald Reagan
Happiness ... lies in the joy of achievement, in the thrill of creative effort. The joy and
moral stimulation of work no longer must be forgotten in the mad chase of evanescent profits.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
The nation that destroys its soil destroys itself.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
The only thing we have to fear is fear itself - nameless, unreasoning,
unjustified, terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those
who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
There is no indispensable man.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Throughout the world, change is the order of the day.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
We cannot always build the future for our youth, but we can build our youth for the future.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Character, in the long run, is the decisive factor in the life of an individual and of nations alike.
Theodore Roosevelt
In any moment of decision the best thing you can do is the right thing, the
next best thing is the wrong thing, and the worst thing you can do is nothing.
Theodore Roosevelt
It is hard to fail; but it is worse never to have tried to succeed.
Theodore Roosevelt
People ask the difference between a leader and a boss. ... The leader works
in the open, and the boss in covert. The leader leads, and the boss drives.
Theodore Roosevelt
When you are asked if you can do a job, tell 'em, Certainly I can!
Then get busy and find out how to do it.
Theodore Roosevelt
All the president is is a glorified PR man who spends his life flattering,
kissing, and kicking people to get them to do what they are supposed to do anyway.
Harry S. Truman
I have found that the best way to give advise to your children is to find out what they want and then advise them to do it.
Harry S. Truman
If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.
Harry S. Truman
It's a recession when your neighbour loses his job; it's a depression when you lose yours.
Harry S. Truman
Once a decision was made, I did not worry about it afterward.
Harry S. Truman
Those who want the Government to regulate matters of the mind and spirit are like men
who are afraid of being murdered that they commit suicide to avoid assassination.
Harry S. Truman
He's not a war hero. ... He's a war hero because he was captured. I like people that weren't captured.
Criticizing John McCain, interview at Family Leadership Summit, Ames, Iowa, July 18, 2015.
Donald Trump
I alone can fix it.
Speech at Republican National Convention, Cleveland, July 21, 2016.
Donald Trump
[I am] not smart, but genius ... and a very stable genius at that!
In a tweet, January 6, 2018.
Donald Trump
I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn't lose any voters.
Speech at campaign rally, Sioux Center, Iowa, January 23, 2016.
Donald Trump
I just fired the head of the FBI. He was crazy, a real nut job. I faced great pressure because of Russia. That's taken off.
As reported by The New York Times, explaining the firing of James Comey to visiting Russian officials, May 10, 2017.
Donald Trump
I see the disinfectant that knocks it out in a minute, one minute. And is there
a way we can do something like that by injection inside or almost a cleaning?
Remarks at a White House Coronavirus Task Force news briefing, April 23, 2020.
Donald Trump
I want nothing. I want no quid pro quo. Tell Zelensky to do the right thing.
In a phone call with Gordon Sondland, U.S. ambassador to the European Union, on September 9, 2022.
Donald Trump
I wasn't satisfied just to earn a good living. I was looking to make a statement.
Donald Trump
I would like you to do us a favor, though.
Memorandum of telephone conversation with Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelenskiy, July 25, 2019.
Donald Trump
If you don't have passion ... you might as well give up ... you have no chance of
making it. Passion is the essence of life, and certainly the essence of success.
Donald Trump
If you're going to be thinking only one thing, you might as well be thinking big.
Donald Trump
In the end, you're measured not by how much you undertake but by what you finally accomplish.
Donald Trump
Look at that face! Would anyone vote for that?
On fellow Republican presidential candidate Carly Fiorina, quoted in Rolling Stone magazine, September 24, 2015.
Donald Trump
My style of dealmaking is quite simple and straightforward. I just keep pushing and pushing to get what I'm after.
Donald Trump
One day - it's like a miracle - it will disappear.
Referring to the coronavirus in remarks at an African American History Month reception at the White House, February 27, 2020.
Donald Trump
Sometimes your best investments are the ones you don't make.
Donald Trump
I hope I shall always possess firmness and virtue enough to maintain what I consider the most enviable of all titles, the character of an honest man.
George Washington
Character is a by-product; it is produced in the great manufacture of daily duty.
Woodrow Wilson
If you will think about what you ought to do for other people, your character will take care of itself. Character
is a by-product, and any man who devotes himself to its cultivation in his own case will become a selfish pig.
Woodrow Wilson
My deepest, strongest desire in marrying you, Darling, is to make you happy, and I would put into this some word of love which would
seem to your heart a sort of sweet preface to the book of love which we are about to open together, to read new secrets of sympathy and
companionship. I would have you catch a glimpse of my purpose for the future and of the joy which that future contains for me, of the
gratitude I feel for your priceless gift of love, and of the infinite love and tenderness which is the gift of my whole heart to you.
Woodrow Wilson
One cool judgment is worth a thousand hasty councils.
Woodrow Wilson
There is no such thing as a man being too proud to fight.
Woodrow Wilson
Last on Earth
