President Ford Quotes

There needs to be a planned series of speeches, interviews, etc., over the next two or three months by administration officials and other public figures talking about President Ford, what he is trying to do and what he has accomplished. ~ Robert Teeter

President [Ronald] Reagan never has tried to become an expert on military matters. He never has endeavored to learn the most important details in that field, which lead to a situation in which his aides played a much greater roles than aides would have played under President Ford or let us say in the whole Nixon-Ford-Kissinger era. ~ Helmut Schmidt

The phone rang. It was a familiar voice.

It was Alan Greenspan. Paul O'Neill had tried to stay in touch with people who had served under Gerald Ford, and he'd been reasonably conscientious about it. Alan Greenspan was the exception. In his case, the effort was constant and purposeful. When Greenspan was the chairman of Ford's Council of Economic Advisers, and O'Neill was number two at OMB, they had become a kind of team. Never social so much. They never talked about families or outside interests. It was all about ideas: Medicare financing or block grants - a concept that O'Neill basically invented to balance federal power and local autonomy - or what was really happening in the economy. It became clear that they thought well together. President Ford used to have them talk about various issues while he listened. After a while, each knew how the other's mind worked, the way married couples do.

In the past fifteen years, they'd made a point of meeting every few months. It could be in New York, or Washington, or Pittsburgh. They talked about everything, just as always. Greenspan, O'Neill told a friend, "doesn't have many people who don't want something from him, who will talk straight to him. So that's what we do together - straight talk."

O'Neill felt some straight talk coming in.

"Paul, I'll be blunt. We really need you down here," Greenspan said. "There is a real chance to make lasting changes. We could be a team at the key moment, t ~ Ron Suskind

In the current [Carter] administration, who can use the White House swimming pool and tennis courts is decided at the very highest level. President Ford did not bother himself with such minor details. He let me swim in the pool. He only got upset when I tried to walk across the water. ~ Henry A. Kissinger

Vice-President Ford, possibly preparing for higher duties, assessed Kissinger's part in the Syrian-Israeli troop disengagement as the great diplomatic triumph of this century or perhaps any other. ~ Edwin Newman

When President Ford pardoned Richard Nixon for Watergate, he actually pardoned Alexander Haig for the JFK assassination. ~ Tegan Mathis

This person should not be directly connected with the President Ford Committee nor should he be seen as a member of the liberal wing of the Republican Party. He should be someone like Laird or Rogers Morton. ~ Robert Teeter

Nixon was a good president on the environment. Gerald Ford was good. ~ Stewart Udall

President Ford was a devoted, decent man of impeccable integrity who put service to his country before his own self interest. He helped heal our nation during a time of crisis, provided steady leadership and restored people's faith in the presidency and in government. ~ Mark Udall

On the tenth anniversary of her founding of the Betty Ford Center, President Ford said, "When the final tally is taken, her contributions to our country will be bigger than mine." And that was just fine with him. ~ Kate Andersen Brower

President Ford was taken for a ride by his predecessor, whom he unpardonably pardoned; Jimmy Carter was also taken for a ride, but by his successor, Ronald Reagan, over the return of the Iran hostages. ~ Nigel Hamilton

The last time I played golf with President Ford he hit a birdie. And an eagle, a moose, an elk, an aardvark ... ~ Bob Hope

Mr. President, passage of this bill will visit the heel of oppression on all the people, vitiate their constitutional shield against tyranny, and materially hasten the destruction of the best design for self-government yet devised by the minds of men. Its passage will mark one of the darkest days in history ~ Strom Thurmond

Donald Trump's not backing down. Yesterday he said he doesn't need to be lectured by the other Republican candidates, who he says have no business running for president. Not to be confused with Donald Trump, who ran for president and now has no business. ~ Jimmy Fallon

A sad fact, of course, about adult life is that you see the very things you'll never adapt to coming toward you on the horizon. You see them as the problems they are, you worry like hell about them, you make provisions, take precautions, fashion adjustments; you tell yourself you'll have to change your way of doing things. Only you don't. You can't. Somehow it's already too late. And maybe it's even worse than that: maybe the thing you see coming from far away is not the real thing, the thing that scares you, but its aftermath. And what you've feared will happen has already taken place. This is similar in spirit to the realization that all the great new advances of medical science will have no benefit for us at all, thought we cheer them on, hope a vaccine might be ready in time, think things could still get better. Only it's too late there too. And in that very way our life gets over before we know it. We miss it. And like the poet said: The ways we miss our lives are life. ~ Richard Ford

You hear stories about people who've committed bad crimes. Suddenly they decide to confess it all, turn themselves in to the authorities, get everything off their conscience-the burden, the harm, the shame, the self-hatred. They make a clean breast of things before going off to jail. As if guilt was the worst thing in the world to them. I'm willing to say now that guilt has less to do with it than you might think. Rather, the intolerable problem is of everything suddenly being so confused: the clear path back to the past being cluttered and unfollowable; how the person once felt being now completely changed from how he feels today. And time itself: how the hours of the day and night advance so oddly-first fast, then hardly passing at all. Then the future becoming as confused and impenetrable as the past itself. What a person becomes in such a situation is paralyzed-caught in one long, sustained, intolerable present. Who wouldn't want to stop that-if he could? Make the present give way to almost any future at all. Who wouldn't admit everything just to gain release from the terrible present? I would. Only a saint wouldn't. ~ Richard Ford

I said, "Mr. President, if there are policies of yours with which I disagree, they will be addressed. From time to time you may not like what I say, or how or where I say it. I hope we can work through our differences when those occasions arise." Nixon ~ Vernon Jordan

If people are engaged, eventually the political system responds, despite the money, despite the lobbyists, it still responds.
~ President Obama ~ Chris Smith

President Obama invited John McCain to the White House to give his opinion on Egypt, specifically what it's like to be a mummy. ~ Bill Maher

We must be," the President said, "the great arsenal of democracy. ~ A.J. Baime

The president led us into the Iraq war on the basis of unproven assertions without evidence; he embraced a radical doctrine of pre-emptive war unprecedented in our history; and he failed to build a true international coalition. ~ Nancy Pelosi

The Gucci woman - you know what she's after. The Saint Laurent woman - she's going to torture you a little bit. You might have sex, but she will drip a little hot wax on you first. ~ Tom Ford

Thank God genuine video phones hadn't been invented. I hadn't even grabbed a towel. Ford Prefect would despair of me. ~ C.E. Murphy

When you once get an idea in which you believe with all your heart, work it out. ~ Henry Ford

Somehow, and for no apparent reason, your decisions got tipped over and you lost your hold. And one day you woke up and you found yourself in the very situation you said you would never ever be in, and you did not know what was most important to you anymore. And after that, it was all over. And I did not want that to happen to me did not, in fact, think it ever would. ~ Richard Ford

What's funny about that office is it's entirely dependent on how close you are to the president, because the president decides what your role will be. If you get on with the president, that's great; if you fall out with the president, power can go away. ~ Armando Iannucci

We must introduce a new balance in the relationship between the individual and the government
a balance that favors greater individual freedom and self-reliance. ~ Gerald R. Ford

US presidents can make all the commitments and declarations they want until they are blue in the face, in the Muslim world they will always be perceived as partisan. ~ Daniel Barenboim

You are the mother, the father, the sister, the brother, the teacher and the guide for the soul that has been placed in your trust. ~ Debbie Ford

Education is not something to prepare you for life; it is a continuous part of life. ~ Henry Ford

Governor Chris Christie says if he's president, he will crack down on the sale of marijuana. However, that was before he was told it also comes in a brownie. ~ Conan O'Brien

Hillary Clinton could say she was a woman and running for president. And Sarah Palin could say she was a woman and running for vice-president. But Obama couldn't say, 'I'm black and I'm running for president.' It couldn't come out of his mouth. He couldn't say that because, if he did, he'd lose votes. ~ Paul Mooney

Obsolescence is the very hallmark of progress. ~ Henry Ford II

It's a privilege to be able to be involved with people as talented as the people I've had the luck to work with, and it's just been a great experience for me, and I'm glad that so many of the films I've had the luck to do were films that could be enjoyed by families together. ~ Harrison Ford

People all over the world now are following our election. And according to a new international poll that just came out, I think this came out a few hours ago, this is true, people in Canada want Barack Obama to be the next U.S. president. That's what they're saying. In Canada, yeah. That makes sense, because Obama has the support of Canada's anti-war voters, as well as Canada's black guy. He is very excited. ~ Conan O'Brien

A deep, wise, and wonderful exploration of the Vedanta path for relationships both with yourself and with others. In this book, Shubhraji provides everything you need to create healthy, fulfilling relationships, using ancient wisdom, beautiful stories, tools, and exercises. This book is a must read for those on a serious spiritual journey. ~ Arielle Ford

We want freedom by any means necessary. We want justice by any means necessary. We want equality by any means necessary. We don't feel that in 1964, living in a country that is supposedly based upon freedom, and supposedly the leader of the free world, we don't think that we should have to sit around and wait for some segregationist congressmen and senators and a President from Texas in Washington, D.C., to make up their minds that our people are due now some degree of civil rights. No, we want it now or we don't think anybody should have it. ~ Malcolm X

Now I am not unpatriotic, and I want to do my bit, so I hereby offer my services to my President, my country and my friends to do anything, outside of serving on a commission, that I can in this great movement. But you will have to give me some idea of where "confidence" is. And just who you want it restored to. ~ Will Rogers

President Obama and the so call "Department of Justice" has ripped the fabric of America's People and suborning hate among African Americans against Law Enforcement and Whites. These actions have made President Obama, Attorney General Loretta Lynch and former Attorney General Eric Holder the biggest racists of all times. ~ David Dweck

Time and silence are the most luxurious things today. ~ Tom Ford

If you constantly beat yourself up with negative thoughts, you will either beat up on the people around you- verbally, emotionally, or physically- or you will beat up on yourself by destroying some area of your own life. ~ Debbie Ford

Zaphod left the controls for Ford to figure out, and lurched over to Arthur.

"Look, Earthman," he said angrily, "you've got a job to do, right? The Question to the Ultimate Answer, right?"

"What, that thing?" said Arthur, "I thought we'd forgotten about that."

"Not me, baby. Like the mice said, it's worth a lot of money in the right quarters. And it's all locked up in that head thing of yours."

"Yes but ..."

"But nothing! Think about it. The Meaning of Life! We get our fingers on that we can hold every shrink in the Galaxy up to ransom, and that's worth a bundle. I owe mine a mint."

Arthur took a deep breath without much enthusiasm.

"Alright," he said, "but where do we start? How should I know? They say the Ultimate Answer or whatever is Forty-two, how am I supposed to know what the question is? It could be anything. I mean, what's six times seven?"

Zaphod looked at him hard for a moment. Then his eyes blazed with excitement.

"Forty-two!" he cried.

Arthur wiped his palm across his forehead.

"Yes," he said patiently, "I know that."

Zaphod's faces fell.

"I'm just saying that the question could be anything at all," said Arthur, "and I don't see how I am meant to know. ~ Douglas Adams

Turing exclaiming once, "No, I'm not interested in developing a powerful brain. All I'm after is just a mundane brain, something like the president of the American Telephone & Telegraph Company. ~ James Gleick

The American surge of combat forces into Baghdad that was ordered by President Bush worked. And there was a calm, a relative calm that descended on the country kind of late 2008. That pretty much held until the last American combat soldiers left at the end of 2011. ~ Dexter Filkins

There are a lot of different paths through the jungle, but ... the simplest thing you can do is make yourself useful. Be easy to work with, be a hard worker and help people get the job done. And do it with as much passion and quality as you can. ~ Harrison Ford

There's nothing entertaining about watching goons hurl venomous slurs at congressmen like the civil rights hero John Lewis and the openly gay Barney Frank How curious that a mob fond of likening President Obama to Hitler knows so little about history that it doesn't recognize its own small-scale mimicry of Kristallnacht. ~ Frank Rich

Preserve the President's options. He may need them. ~ Donald Rumsfeld

He carried that obsession with him always. And in the end, by its very wrongness, it saved his life. ~ Ford Madox Ford

I'm overall a big fan of President Obama. ~ Amy Bloom

Well, the coolest thing I have seen so far, in terms of, like, me being an astronaut and seeing something unusual, was the rendezvous, the docking of a Progress spaceship. ~ Kevin A. Ford

Barack Obama being President of the United States doesn't mean racism has disappeared. It's all a process, and we have to be aware that the work never ends. ~ Misty Copeland

Everybody has their own idea of what's a poet. Robert Frost, President Johnson, T.S.Eliot, Rudolf Valentino - they're all poets. I like to think of myself as the one who carries the light bulb. ~ Bob Dylan

Donald Trump said he still wants to look more closely at Obama's birth certificate to make sure that it's real. Incidentally, President Obama said the same exact thing about Donald Trump's hair. ~ Jimmy Fallon

I was class president, on the cheerleading squad, in a competitive show choir, and in, like, six different clubs. ~ Blake Lively

I'm like President Bush. You may not like me, you may not respect me, but you voted me in. ~ Shaquille O'Neal

The beginning of my political career was not promising. I ran for junior class president at Shortridge High school and was runner up. I ran again in the senior year with the same result. But opportunity came ironically, or fortunately, when I returned to Indianapolis after serving in the Navy. ~ Richard Lugar