Eisenhower Presidency Quotes

The people of the Sudan expect a lot from the institution of the presidency, and we should live up to their expectations. ~ Salva Kiir Mayardit

Shit, man, democracy failed before it started.

Who thought it was a good idea to let the masses of fucktards decide anything?

[Guess I've got more faith in people.]

People? The election of 2044 -- Curls Bellberry, a boy band presidency on the platform that the Earth is flat and that he'd nuke New York to save Social Security. There's a good reason he was the last president.

Problem with letting people pick a leader is they gravitate towards confident sociopaths no matter how stupid they are.

It's the perception of qualification that fools people.

At least by having corporate executives rule us we get folks who are good at business.

Life hurts, the world is fucked, and that's not going to change. . . ~ Rick Remender

As we peer into society's future, we
you and I, and our government
must avoid the impulse to live only for today, plundering for our own ease and convenience the precious resources of tomorrow. We cannot mortgage the material assets of our grandchildren without risking the loss also of their political and spiritual heritage. We want democracy to survive for all generations to come, not to become the insolvent phantom of tomorrow. ~ Dwight D. Eisenhower

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

Even in the 1950s, President Eisenhower was concerned about what he called a campaign of hatred of the U.S. in the Arab world, because of the perception on the Arab street that it supported harsh and oppressive regimes to take their oil. ~ Noam Chomsky

In all those things which deal with people, be liberal, be human. In all those things which deal with the people's money or their economy or their form of government, be conservative. ~ Dwight D. Eisenhower

There is no other genre that deals with America better, in a subtextual way, than the Westerns being made in the different decades. The '50s Westerns very much put forth an Eisenhower idea of America, whereas the Westerns of the '70s were very cynical about America. ~ Quentin Tarantino

The problem is not merely man against man or nation against nation. It is man against war. ~ Dwight D. Eisenhower

Once Dwight Eisenhower makes up his mind, he's full of indecision. ~ Oscar Levant

The whole framework of the presidency is getting out of hand. It's come to the point where you almost can't run unless you can cause people to salivate and whip on each other with big sticks. You almost have to be a rock star to get the kind of fever you need to survive in American politics. ~ Hunter S. Thompson

I think my dad's post-presidency, he didn't miss a beat. He didn't get into any kind of 'Woe is me.' He dusted himself off and led an incredible life since 1993. ~ Jeb Bush

While I'm critical to the Bush presidency, it's been enormously beneficial for Salon because we're seen as kind of an aggressive watchdog on the Bush White House. Particularly since Florida, our readership hit a whole new level, and we held onto those readers. ~ David Talbot

Not only do I have a great love for the game of golf - no matter how badly I play it - but I have also the belief that through every kind of meeting, through every kind of activity to which we can bring together more often and more intimately peoples of our several countries, by that measure we will do something to solve the difficulties and the tensions that this poor old world seems nowadays to so much endure. ~ Dwight D. Eisenhower

We have never stopped sin by passing laws; and in the same way, we are not going to take a great moral ideal and achieve it merely by law. ~ Dwight D. Eisenhower

Once he makes up his mind, he's full of indecision. - On Dwight D. Eisenhower ~ Oscar Levant

I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity. a ~ Dwight D. Eisenhower

That distinctive presidential conduct is now gone forever, banished to the snows of yesteryear by Barack Obama. From the beginning of his presidency to the present, he has spoken specifically and in unprecedented fashion of Republicans as his rivals, his stumbling blocks, the primary cause of his troubles. ~ John Podhoretz

Why would anyone want to be President today? The answer is not one of glory, or fame; today the burdens of the office outweigh its privileges. Its not because the Presidency offers a chance to be somebody, but because it offers a chance to do something. ~ Richard M. Nixon

Don't join the book burners. Do not think you are going to conceal thoughts by concealing evidence that they ever existed. ~ Dwight D. Eisenhower

On page 603 it is stated that at first Blumenthal could not remember the lunch with me and my wife at which he had loudly impugned two female witnesses against Clinton. This makes it distinctly odd that he should have such have a vivid and detailed but mistaken recollection of the same lunch on page 607. ~ Christopher Hitchens

I like to believe that people in the long run are going to do more to promote peace than our governments. Indeed, I think that people want peace so much that one of these days governments had better get out of the way and let them have it. ~ Dwight D. Eisenhower

Nothing could be more personal than a tape. ~ Julie Nixon Eisenhower

His presidency ended more than a decade ago, but politicians, Democrat and Republican, still talk about Ronald Reagan. Al Gore has an ad noting that in Congress he opposed the Reagan budget cuts. He says that because Bill Bradley was one of 36 Democratic Senators who voted for the cuts. Gore doesn't point out that Bradley also voted against the popular Reagan tax cuts and that it was the tax cuts that piled up those enormous deficits, a snowballing national debt. ~ Bruce Morton

Mitt Romney is predicting that as president, he will create 12 million jobs in his first term. Well, President Obama says a Romney presidency would result in lost jobs. Yeah, his and Biden's. ~ Jay Leno

He never really voice pure, raw outrage to me about Watergate or what it represented. The crimes and abuses were background music. Nixon was trying to subvert not only the law but the Bureau. So Watergate became Felt's instrument to reassert the Bureau's independence and thus its supremacy. In the end, the Bureau was damaged, seriously but not permanently, while Nixon lost much more, maybe everything - the presidency, power, and whatever moral authority he might have had. He was disgraced. But surviving and enduring his hidden life, in contrast and in his own way, Mark Felt won. ~ Bob Woodward

It is far more important to be able to hit the target than it is to haggle over who makes a weapon or who pulls a trigger. ~ Dwight D. Eisenhower

The eyes of the world are upon you. The hopes and prayers of liberty-loving people everywhere march with you. ~ Dwight D. Eisenhower

I never wanted to get out of a place as much as I did to get out of the presidency. ~ Ulysses S. Grant

I still believe the Lewinsky investigation was way off from the focus of what Whitewater was, which turned out to be nothing at the end of the process. And I think that there were people who were determined as political opponents to not allow his presidency to succeed. ~ Rahm Emanuel

Some people wanted champagne and caviar when they should have had beer and hot dogs. ~ Dwight D. Eisenhower

The advantage of a permanent emergency for the executive is that even trivial things can routinely be accomplished by the crisis presidency. If everything is an emergency, all power is emergency power. ~ Garry Wills

Soldiers, Sailors and Airmen of the Allied Expeditionary Force! You are about to embark upon the Great Crusade, toward which we have striven these many months. The eyes of the world are upon you. ~ Dwight D. Eisenhower

You, of Canada, are building a magnificent record of achievement. My country rejoices in it. ~ Dwight D. Eisenhower

Plans are useless, but planning is essential. ~ Dwight D. Eisenhower

I created my own party. It's called the Sloth and Indolence Party, and I'm running as an anarchist candidate in the best sense of that word. I've studied the presidency carefully. ~ Utah Phillips

Having been in the presidency from the time of Mandela to that of Zuma, I am one of the privileged few who has seen it all, rather than hearing it via the grapevine. The challenge is say 'the things I could not say' in a responsible way that helps the country to move forward rather than backwards. ~ Frank Chikane

We have entered the era of the 'imperial' former presidency with lavish libraries, special staffs and benefits, around-the-clock Secret Service protection for life and other badges of privilege. ~ Lawton Chiles

I know only one method of operation: to be as honest with others as I am with myself. ~ Dwight D. Eisenhower

The middle of the road is all of the usable surface. The extremes, right and left, are in the gutters. ~ Dwight D. Eisenhower

Avoiding combat duty was and is an unforgivable sin for a professional soldier. ~ John Eisenhower

Ronald Reagan would never go into the Oval Office without his jacket on - that's how much he revered the presidency. ~ Kenneth Langone

The Supreme Court must serve as an independent check on abuses by the executive branch and the protector of our liberties, not a cheerleader for an imperial presidency. ~ Edward Kennedy

President Roosevelt and President Truman and President Eisenhower had the same experience, they all made the effort to get along with the Russians. But every time, finally it failed. And the reason it failed was because the Communists are determined to destroy us, and regardless of what hand of friendship we may hold out or what arguments we may put up, the only thing that will make that decisive difference is the strength of the United States. ~ John F. Kennedy

And now, as in no other age, we seek it [peace] because we have been warned, by the power of modern weapons, that peace may be the only climate possible for human life itself. ~ Dwight D. Eisenhower

I want my candidacy for the presidency of the United States to stand for a moment when we the people, stand once again for the independence from a government that has gotten too big and spends too much and has taken away too much of our liberties. ~ Michele Bachmann

Freedom has been defined as the opportunity for self-discipline. ~ Dwight D. Eisenhower

I played with [Dwight Eisenhower] on the day after I won the Masters at his request. We became everlasting friends. I was with him the day before he died at Walter Reed. ~ Arnold Palmer

When I was a kid in the '50s, during the Eisenhower years, everything seemed to be working fine. I don't recall as a teenager ever worrying about the state of the future world. ~ Lois Lowry