Approval Rating Quotes

With gridlock the norm, Congress's approval rating is below 10 percent and the public has lost faith in its national leadership. ~ Ron Fournier

The president is not doing well with African Americans. His popularity rating - his approval rating - with blacks: two percent. Two percent. That is somewhere between Mark Fuhrman and sickle cell anemia. ~ Bill Maher

Ironically, the possibility that the president dodged his military service has increased his approval ratings with Democrats by 80 percent. ~ Craig Kilborn

It's not going to do anything. And it really is disappointing because the president has an opportunity here to work with organizations like the NRA, who have actually done a lot of significant work when it comes to actually keeping guns out of the hands of criminals.Hillary Clinton can attack the NRA all she wants, the fact is that the NRA has a higher approval rating than Hillary Clinton does when it comes to trustworthiness, that's for sure. ~ Katie Pavlich

Reality has a well-known liberal bias. ~ S. Colbert

Bill Clinton left office with a more than 60% approval rating. ~ Nancy Gibbs

Take George W. Bush: He was an unpopular two-term president. Three times, his approval rating dropped to 25 percent. [To be fair, he also had the highest approval rating of all time, very briefly. But that was immediately after 9/11  -  and in the wake of domestic terrorism, a well-dressed mannequin's approval rating might have hovered around 50.] During his last two years in office, he was hammered nonstop, periodically classified as the worst U.S. president since Ulysses Grant or James Buchanan. Yet was Bush a villain? No. He was not. He was never, ever calculating. He didn't know the most (which is not to say he was dumb), and he didn't care the least (which is not to say he was a paragon of empathy). He was just the guy who ended up with the job. The villain of his administration ended up being Vice President Dick Cheney, a frosty puppet master who radically expanded the powers of the presidency even though he was not the president. ~ Chuck Klosterman

Politicians in their hubris who believe they can ignore debt or wish it away are sorely disappointed - as we see now with the plummeting approval ratings of both the administration and Congress. ~ Victor Davis Hanson

Kai stared at the top of her head.
Linh Cinder.
The renown. The reputation. The approval rating.
New Beijing's best mechanic was ... a teenager?
Kai was intrigued. He was amused, but more than that, he was impressed. After all, he still needed help installing the software every time he upgraded to a new port. Meanwhile, this girl ran her own mechanic business. ~ Marissa Meyer

When I ran the first time in 2001, they called me 'The Latino Mayor.' By the time I left in 2013, with a 58 percent approval rating, half the people liked me, half the people didn't. I was everybody's mayor. There was never any criticism that I was just for one group. ~ Antonio Villaraigosa

Is it any wonder, why the approval ratings of the Congress go up every time we go into recess? ~ Robert Byrd

Truman has become the patron saint of failed presidents because he left office with a 27 percent approval rating, and people were saying, 'To err is Truman,' yet look at what he did: the Marshall Plan, the creation of NATO, the Truman Doctrine. ~ Douglas Brinkley

The L.A. Times reports that al Qaeda terrorists have been traced to Iran, and President Bush is talking tough. In fact he said he will attack the minute he has evidence his approval rating is under 45 percent. ~ Jay Leno

Linh Cinder. The renown. The reputation. The approval rating. New Beijing's best mechanic was ... a teenager? Kai was intrigued. He was amused, but more than that, he was impressed. ~ Marissa Meyer

To serve as prime minister while being too mindful of the approval rating is like serving as a prime minister on a roller coaster. What is important, I believe, is that I really act on promises that I make and leave results. Leave a track record and show that to the Japanese public, who will, at the end of the day, I hope, appreciate it. ~ Shinzo Abe

The fact is that the two years or so after 9/11 were a terrible time in America - a time of political exploitation and intimidation, culminating in the deliberate misleading of the nation into the invasion of Iraq. It's probably worth pointing out that I'm not saying anything now that I wasn't saying in real time back then, when Bush had a sky-high approval rating and any criticism was denounced as treason. And there's nothing I've done in my life of which I'm more proud. ~ Paul Krugman

Steve Jobs had something like a 90% approval rating from his employees. You hear stories about him being this short-tempered, aggressive person, which he was. But he was in the pursuit of making people around him better, so the product they created would be better. ~ Ashton Kutcher

Who knows if John McCain could have won that presidential campaign [2008] in any circumstances when George W. Bush the outgoing Republican president had a 22 percent approval rating. ~ Rachel Maddow

This is partly a function of approval ratings. People pay attention [to polls] and start saying, 'Lets take a more independent tack.' It is frankly self-interest, self-preservation. ~ John Thune

A critical component of White House Scandal Defense 101 is rallying the partisan base. This keeps approval ratings in territory where the wheels don't start falling off. The way to achieve this goal is you go negative and you don't let up. If you're always attacking your accusers, the debate becomes one of Democrat vs. Republican, rather than right vs. wrong. Anyone who questions the legality of the decision to wiretap thousands of Americans unlawfully is attacked, as either an enabler of terrorists or a bitter partisan trying to distract a president at war. ~ Bob Barr

When I left the secretary of state office, I had a 69% approval rating. Once I start running for office and all the incoming you know is battering away, people are going to say, "Hey, wait a minute - what's that mean, what's that mean?" I get all of that, but I don't think we do any service to our country or the voters if we descend into the kind of insult fest that he seems to relish. ~ Hillary Clinton

She's leaving when the president has one of the highest approval ratings on record. From here, it can only go down. And when it does, you know who they're going to blame. They're gonna blame Andy Card! ~ Andrew Card

Don't wait on approval, validation and likes from others - always give yourself the highest of approval ratings and work from there. Hold your head up and be fabulous no matter what! ~ Jody Watley

Speaking of 'things,' Mary tells me that Nick is like a keg of dynamite ready to explode at the first spark. She says you're bearing up under the strain marvelously. You've won her wholehearted approval," he added quietly.
"I like her too," Lauren said, her eyes clouding at the mention of Nick.
Jim waited until she had left to go upstairs,then he picked up his telephone and punched four numbers. "Mary, what's the atmosphere like up there this morning?"
"Positively explosive," she chuckled.
"Is Nick going to be in the office this afternoon?"
"Yes,why?"
"Because I've decided to light a match under him and see what happens."
"Jimmy,don't!" she said in a low, sharp voice.
"See you a little before five, beautiful," he laughed, ignoring her wanring. ~ Judith McNaught

Ask your subordinates about matters you do not understand or do not know, and do not lightly express your approval or disapproval. . . . We should never pretend to know what we do not know, we should "not feel ashamed to ask and learn from people below" and we should listen carefully to the views of the cadres at the lower levels. Be a pupil before you become a teacher; learn from the cadres at the lower levels before you issue orders. . . . What the cadres at the lower levels say may or may not be correct, after hearing it, we must analyse it. We must heed the correct views and act upon them. . . . Listen also to the mistaken views from below, it is wrong not to listen to them at all. Such views, however, are not to be acted upon but to be criticized. ~ Mao Zedong

The thing is, I don't really have any coming-out narratives of my own. I never felt as though anyone was entitles to a red-carpet presentation of who I am and how I identify. When I initially found myself attracted to women in college, for example, I simply showed up at the next family function with my first girlfriend in tow and introduced her as such. I didn't call each family member ahead of time and instruct them to brace themselves, nor did I write lengthy letters detailing the intricacies of my new desires. Likewise, when I'm meeting people for the first time at parties or other social engagements and they post the inevitable, "So what do you do?" I respond as routinely as possible: "Oh, I work in the sex industry. You?"
I'm not trying to be provocative; rather, I've always believed that being "out" is the most powerful tool of activism available to disadvantaged minority communities, sex workers included, I find that when you approach a supposedly radical issue (queerness, nonmonogamy, atheism, gender nonconformity) with the same nonchalance as you would a less controversial topic (accounting, marriage, the weather), you give the other party permission to treat it with the same accepting ambivalence. We're pack animals, and we're constantly comparing ourselves to one another. We look for approval from our peers, and in many cases we use their reactions and opinions to help guide our own. I often observe people, who I've just disclosed to, pause to shift their eyes ~ Andre Shakti

In theater and dance, I was trying to win someone's approval, trying to get in, trying to be good. It felt out of my control, whereas music suddenly felt like this free expression. It was fun. ~ Susanna Hoffs

It is our nature to conform; it is a force which not many can successfully resist. What is its seat? The inborn requirement of self-approval. ~ Mark Twain

As a physician, David had private recognition, but he craved public approval. Mrs. Roosevelt had public recognition, but she craved intimacy. Each satisfied the other's hunger for acceptance. It was a fair exchange. ~ Edna P. Gurewitsch

When you are your own best friend, you don't endlessly seek out relationships, friendships, and validation from the wrong sources because you realize that the only approval and validation you need is your own. ~ Mandy Hale

A creative life cannot be sustained by approval any more than it can be destroyed by criticism. ~ Will Self

Well, this. That we're ashamed to say we've refused a posting. That the social conscience completely dominates the individual conscience, instead of striking a balance with it. We don't cooperate - we obey. We fear being outcast, being called lazy, dysfunctional, egoizing. We fear our neighbor's opinion more than we respect our own freedom of choice. You don't believe me, Tak, but try, just try stepping over the line, just in imagination, and see how you feel. You realize then what Tirin is, and why he's a wreck, a lost soul. He is a criminal! We have created crime, just as the propertarians did. We force a man outside the sphere of our approval, and then condemn him for it. We've made laws, laws of conventional behavior, built walls all around ourselves, and we can't see them, because they're part of our thinking. Tir never did that I knew him since we were ten years old. He never did it, he never could build walls. He was a natural rebel. He was a natural Odonian - a real one! He was a free man, and the rest of us, his brothers, drove him insane in punishment for his first free act. ~ Ursula K. Le Guin

Getting people to like you is merely the other side of liking them. ~ Norman Vincent Peale

Don't forget one weapon just because of another," he says. A flicker of approval flashes in his eyes. "Or you'll find yourself skewered in no time."
"Then maybe you should know which weapons are real. ~ Marie Lu

She had told me that the approval of other people should never be my goal ~ Jessie Burton

[T]he important thing was that each Saturday they must win games and put The Academy on the sporting pages. For that, after all, was the final index to the rating of an American school. ~ John Horne Burns

The pursuit of approval usually ends in disaster. ~ Chris Morris

I wanted this to have as wide an audience as possible. I didn't want to get an X rating, because in my opinion once that happens you X-out everyone else. ~ Dana Plato

Most fears of rejection rest on the desire for approval from other people. Don't base your self-esteem on their opinions. ~ Harvey MacKay

It is an absolute impossibility in this society to reversely sexually objectify heterosexual men, just as it is impossible for a poor person of color to be a racist. Such extreme prejudice must be accompanied by the power of society's approval and legislation. While women and poor people of color may become intolerant, personally abusive, even hateful, they do not have enough power to be racist or sexist. ~ Ana Castillo

The primary joy of life is acceptance, approval, the sense of appreciation and companionship of our human comrades. Many men do not understand that the need for fellowship is really as deep as the need for food, and so they go through life accepting many substitutes for genuine, warm, simple. ~ Joshua L. Liebman

Depression was a successful adaptation to ceaseless pain and hardship [ ... ] feeling bad all the time and expecting the worst had been natural ways of equilibrating themselves with the lousiness of their circumstances. Few things gratified depressives, after all, more than really bad news [ ... ] Grim situations were Katz's niche the way murky water was a carp's [ ... ] he might well have started making music again, had it not been for the accident of success. He flopped around on the ground, heavily carplike, his psychic gills straining futilely to extract dark sustenance from an atmosphere of approval and plenitude. ~ Jonathan Franzen

This is so whether the said body of citizens or its prevailing part does this directly of itself, or commits the task to another or others who are not and cannot be the legislator in an unqualified sense but only in a certain respect and at a certain time and in accordance with the authority of the primary legislator. And in consequence of this I say that laws and anything else instituted by election must receive their necessary approval from the same primary authority and no other: whatever may be the situation concerning various ceremonies or solemnities, which are not required for the results of an election to stand but for their good standing, and even without which the election would be no less valid. I say further that it is by the same authority that laws and anything else instituted by election must receive any addition or subtraction or even total overhaul, any interpretation and any suspension: depending on the demands of time and place and other circumstances that might make one of these measures opportune for the sake of the common advantage in such matters. ~ Marsilius Of Padua

It is an honor to be awarded with such a high rating from an organization as well respected as the NAACP. I am pleased that the oldest and largest civil rights organization in the nation, has recognized my voting record. ~ Joe Baca

The whole 'R' rating depends on a strange sort of fantasy land where all adults are responsible people, and children only ever go to the cinema with their parents. ~ Helen Mirren

The lengths we went to as a society to crush someone of such modest ambitions-Garner's big dream was to someday sit down at work-were awesome to contemplate. What happened to Garner spoke to the increasing desperation of white America to avoid having to even see, much less speak to or live alongside, people like him.
Half a century after the civil rights movement, white Americans do not want to know this man. They don't want him walking in their neighborhoods. they want him moved off the corner. Even white liberals seem to, deep down inside, if the policies they advocate and the individual choices they make are any indication.
The police are blamed for these deaths, and often rightly so, but the highly confrontational, physically threatening strategies cops such as Daniel Pantaleo employ draw their power from the tacit approval of upscale white voters. Whether they admit it or not, many voters would rather that Eric Garner be dead and removed from view somewhere than living and eating Cheetos on the stoop next door. ~ Matt Taibbi

I can assure you that everything I say and do has the complete approval of the Fuehrer and that I would not say or do anything that does not have his approval. ~ Hjalmar Schacht

The months of being disingenuously friendly and the resulting self-hatred taught me that self-confidence cannot be based on the approval of others. ~ Mark Twight

The inner lawyer, the rose-colored mirror, naive realism, and the myth of pure evil - these mechanisms all conspire to weave for us a web of significance upon which angels and demons fight it out. Our ever-judging minds then give us constant flashes of approval and disapproval, along with the certainty that we are on the side of the angels. From this vantage point it all seems so silly, all this moralism, righteousness, and hypocrisy. It's beyond silly; it is tragic, for it suggests that human beings will never achieve a state of lasting peace and harmony. ~ Jonathan Haidt

A brick could be used to bestow gratitude upon your favorite (or least favorite) politician. Let them know your approval level by giving them the gift that says both Thank You - and Fuck You. ~ Jarod Kintz

We either own our stories (even the messy ones), or we stand outside of them - denying our vulnerabilities and imperfections, orphaning the parts of us that don't fit in with who/what we think we're supposed to be, and hustling for other people's approval of our worthiness. Perfectionism is exhausting because hustling is exhausting. It's a never-ending performance. ~ Brene Brown

What do we call love, hate, charity, revenge, humanity, forgiveness? Different results of the master impulse, the necessity of securing one's self-approval. ~ Mark Twain

I worked with someone who told me they'd never like me. But for some reason, I just felt like I needed her approval. So I started changing myself to please her. It made me stop being social and friendly. I was so unhappy. ~ Ariana Grande

The reason I gained so much weight in the first place and the reason I had such a sorry history of abusive relationships with men was I just needed approval so much. I needed everyone to like me, because I didn't like myself much. ~ Oprah Winfrey

The bullfight is a Spanish institution; it has not existed because of the foreigners and tourists, but always in spite of them and any step to modify it to secure their approval, which it will never have, is a step towards its complete suppression. ~ Ernest Hemingway,

Yield your heart and life to Jesus Christ. Be faithful to Him, no matter what men may do. The important thing is not the praise of men; it is the approval of God. ~ Warren W. Wiersbe

It embarrasses me to think of all those years I was buying silk suits and alligator shoes that were hurting my feet; cars that I just parked, and the dust would just build up on them. ~ George Foreman