U S President Quotes

In no instance have ... the churches been guardians of the liberties of the people. James Madison, U.S. President ~ George Washington

This is not the "relativism of truth" presented by journalistic takes on postmodernism. Rather, the ironist's cage is a state of irony by way of powerlessness and inactivity: In a world where terrorism makes cultural relativism harder and harder to defend against its critics, marauding international corporations follow fair-trade practices, increasing right-wing demagoguery and violence can't be answered in kind, and the first black U.S. president turns out to lean right of center, the intelligentsia can see no clear path of action. Irony dominates as a "mockery of the promise and fitness of things," to return to the OED definition of irony.

This thinking is appropriate to Wes Anderson, whose central characters are so deeply locked in ironist cages that his films become two-hour documents of them rattling their ironist bars. Without the irony dilemma Roth describes, we would find it hard to explain figures like Max Fischer, Steve Zissou, Royal Tenenbaum, Mr. Fox, and Peter Whitman. I'm not speaking here of specific political beliefs. The characters in question aren't liberals; they may in fact, along with Anderson himself, have no particular political or philosophical interests. But they are certainly involved in a frustrated and digressive kind of irony that suggests a certain political situation. Though intensely self-absorbed and central to their films, Anderson's protagonists are neither heroes nor antiheroes. These characters are not lovable eccentrics. They a ~ Arved Mark Ashby

The lesson for the next U.S. president: Raise the taxes on fuel. A lot. ~ Serge Schmemann

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

I cannot drive hundreds of miles with a total stranger," I said. "It's a fuck of a lot safer than driving alone." "Not if you're a serial killer!" "Look who's talking. You're the one who decapitated a U.S. president." I couldn't help but laugh. This situation was seriously insane. "Holy shit, Princess, is that a laugh at your own expense, I see? ~ Penelope Ward

The most intimidating world leader was Lyndon Johnson, who became U.S. President when John Kennedy was assassinated. He exulted in this power and liked to inspire fear. ~ Paul Johnson

I don't see that there is a credible threat for American action - the rhetoric of the U.S. President is too vague, very amorphous. I don't see that Obama's words will be translated into more tangible intentions and therefore this is probably why the Iranians don't take it seriously. They speak out against it and they dismiss it. ~ Tzachi Hanegbi

I'd make a better U.S. president than George W. Bush. Bush is an idiot. I'm a better public speaker than him. It makes you wonder about the voters. ~ Robbie Williams

The imperialist, genocidal, fascist attitude of the U.S. president has no limits. I think Hitler would be like a suckling baby next to George W. Bush, ~ Hugo Chavez

Oddly enough, the only person likely to be an ideal victim of complete manipulation is the President of the United States. Because of the immensity of his job, he must surround himself with advisers, the "National Security Managers", as they have been recently called by Richard Barnet, who "exercise their power chiefly by filtering the information that reaches the President and interpreting the outside world for him". ~ Hannah Arendt

Rarely has a U.S. president been so wrong about so much at the expense of so many, ~ Dick Cheney

Republican isolationists had certainly tied the hands of every U.S. president, year after year - berating Franklin Roosevelt in particular and his attempts to ready the nation for inevitable attack. ~ Nigel Hamilton

I'm stoic like a statue of Stonewall Jackson. I'd make a great U.S. President, but I'd make an even better chiseled piece of marble - and that's what makes me such an amazing lover. ~ Jarod Kintz

The Girl Guides kept up their activities as well, giving Elizabeth an unexpectedly democratic experience when refugees from London's bomb-ravaged East End were taken in by families on the Windsor estate and joined the troop. The girls earned their cooking badges, with instruction from a castle housekeeper, by baking cakes and scones (a talent Elizabeth would later display for a U.S. president) and making stew and soup. With their Cockney accents and rough ways, the refugees gave the future Queen no deference, calling her Lilibet, the nickname even daughters of aristocrats were forbidden to use, and compelling her to wash dishes in an oily tub of water ~ Sally Bedell Smith

The flag atop the Main Street flagpole is flown at half-staff only when Walt Disney passed away, a U.S. President dies in office, or the pulley gets stuck. ~ Horatio Liar

One undeniable accomplishment of Bill Clinton's presidency was that it kept Jimmy Carter from being the worst U.S. president in history. ~ Thomas Sowell

Democracy is about criticism. I didn't elect Obama because he's a black; I voted for Obama because he was the right person at the time. Period. The exceptionalism of a black U.S. President is not important to me. It's what he does. And who he has at the table. And what he does to change the world - that's what's important. ~ Danny Glover

U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt has been described as founder of the Bull Moose Party, the man who led his troops up San Juan Hill in the Spanish-American War, a big game hunter, family man, civic servant and a host of other things. ~ Zig Ziglar

Though the euphoria surrounding Barack Obama's election last week as President-elect has not yet begun to subside, it is already time to recognise that the most important challenge facing the next U.S. president is to restore America's standing in the eyes of the world. ~ Shashi Tharoor

On the dogmas of religion, as distinguished from moral principles, all mankind, from the beginning of the world to this day, have been quarreling, fighting, burning and torturing one another for abstractions unintelligible to themselves and to all others, and absolutely beyond the comprehension of the human mind. Thomas Jefferson, U.S. President, author, scientist, architect, educator, and diplomat ~ George Washington

You who came of age in the past decade have had eight years of a Black U.S. president, and that gloss looked good, and there were even a few inches gained on some issues such as health care, and maybe that can cause a person to relax a bit. But think of how exponentially drone attacks increased under Obama, how many Black people were shot by police under Obama, because the violence is systemic. How many of the people now hearteningly pledging to sign up for a Muslim registry signed up for a Black Lives Matter or protested the discriminatory immigration program NSEERS? The National Security Entry-Exit Registration System subjected my students from the Middle East to hours of interrogation and intimidation every time they reentered after going home to visit their families, arbitrarily barred tons of innocent people from entry, and was ineffective against terrorism anyway. It's systemic injustice we are after changing, and we should not ever be lulled. ~ Mohja Kahf

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

Putin doesn't need Donbass (east Ukraine). He wants to determine the fate of the world at talks with a U.S. President, putin is dreaming of getting a deal with the United States about a new-old order for the world, when the world is split on zone of influence. When you cannot interfere in someone else's zone. Not even to mention internal politics. ~ Mikhail Khodorkovsky

This would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it. John Adams, U.S. President ~ George Washington

How many McDonald's gift certificates would it take to sway a lot of Americans to pledge to never publicly criticize the U.S, President? ~ James Bovard

Rick Wilson, a national GOP strategist, has called Trump "a virus that has infected the Republican party." He often recites a litany of vengeful acts Trump has engaged in which disqualify him from the position of Commander in Chief. ~ Gizmo, The Puzzled Puppy

Obama has compiled a record of hostility to religion that is unmatched by any other president in American history. Author David Barton calls Obama "America's most Biblically-hostile U.S. president." As commander in chief of the United States military, the office in which he enjoys unquestioned authority, he has been particularly aggressive in curbing religious expression. The military employs a high concentration of people who believe in God and Country - a formulation that Obama wants to replace with an allegiance to the State and its Progressive Social Engineering. ~ Phyllis Schlafly

At the time thousands of Africans were dying over control of diamonds sold in shopping malls around the world, U.S president Bill Clinton was impeached for perjury, NATO began bombing Yugoslavia, and everyone else was preparing for digital disaster from Y2K ~ Greg Campbell

You were just trying to figure out if I'm one of you?"
Of course, stupid. When has anyone like Galen ever paid you any attention? When has there ever been anyone like Galen? Still, I'm surprised how much it hurts when he nods. I'm his little science project. All the time I thought he was flirting with me, he was really just trying to lure me out here to test his theory.
If stupid were a disease, I'd have died from it by now. But at least I know where he really stands-about his feelings for me anyway. But what his intentions for me in general are, I have no idea.
What happens if I can turn into a fish? Does he think I'll just kiss my mom good-bye, flush all my good grades-all those scholarships-down the toilet so I can go swim with the dolphins? he called himself a Royal. Of course, I don't know exactly what that means, but I can sure guess-that I'm another subject to him, someone to order around. He did say I had to obey him, after all. But if he's a Royal, why come out here himself? Why not send someone less important? I'm betting the U.S. President doesn't personally go to foreign countries looking for missing Americans who might not even be American.
But can I trust him enough to answer my questions? He already deceived me once, faking interest in me to get me out here. He lied to my face about having a mother. He even lied to my mom. What else would he lie about to get what he wants? No, I can't trust him.
Still, I want to know the truth, if only ~ Anna Banks

A knowledgeable and courageous U.S. president could help enormously in leading the world's nations toward saving the climate. ~ Donella Meadows

Since the inception of the Islamic Republic, the United States has pursued a policy of containment in various forms, essentially relying on political coercion and economic pressure to press Iran in the right direction. The failure of this policy is routinely documented by the U.S. State Department, which insists on issuing reports denouncing Iran as the most active state sponsor of terrorism and warning that its nuclear program is rapidly advancing toward weapons capability. The American diplomats fail to appreciate how, after twenty-seven years of sanctions and containment, Iran's misbehavior has not changed in any measurable manner. Even more curious, the failed policy of containment enjoys a widespread bipartisan consensus, as governments as different as the Clinton and Bush administrations have largely adhered to its parameters. Although at times the Bush White House has indulged in calls for regime change, its essential policy still reflects the containment consensus. In Washington policy circles evidently nothing succeeds like failure. ~ Ray Takeyh

Europe is a strong market for the U.S. If it has problems, if there's a lack of consumer confidence, if there's a deeper recession, this will deeply affect jobs in the U.S. ~ George Papandreou

Other countries, such as Israel, successfully employ behavior detection techniques at their airports, but the bloated, ineffective bureaucracy of TSA has produced another security failure for U.S. transportation systems. ~ John Mica

I feel lucky I didn't become that newspaper cartoonist I wanted to be because in the U.S. so many newspapers have suffered circulation declines, and some have folded. What's fun about being an author is I reach a much bigger audience, and there is something special about launching a book you've penned. ~ Jeff Kinney

The rulling to kill the Americans and their allies - civilians and military - is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it in anyh country in which it is possible to do it ... to comply iwth God's order to kill the Americnns and plunder their money wherever and whenever they find it. We also call on Muslim ulema, leaders, youths, and soldiers to launch the raid on Satan's U.S. troops and the devil's supporters allying with them ... ~ Osama Bin Laden

If you look on the fungal genome as being soldier candidates protecting the U.S. as our host defense, not only for the ecosystem but for our population ... we should be saving our old-growth forests as a matter of national defense. ~ Paul Stamets

In the Gulf War, U.S. Marine Corps wheeled vehicles were killing Iraqi T-72 tanks. ~ Ralph Peters

It's not capitalism that's failing the U.S. but socialism. ~ James Cook

In any discussion of serial killers, a few notorious names - those of the most prolific killers - always get mentioned. Ted Bundy admitted to killing thirty women, but it could well have been more. Gary Ridgeway, also known as the Green River Killer, was convicted of murdering forty-eight, but later confessed to others. John Wayne Gacy was convicted of killing thirty-three people. Jeffrey Dahmer was convicted of murdering and partially ingesting fifteen people. David Berkowitz, New York City's "Son of Sam," shot and killed six people. Less well known but significant are Dennis Rader, who killed ten people in Wichita, Kansas, and Aileen Wuornos, portrayed by Charlize Theron in the film Monster, who killed six men. Wayne Williams was convicted of killing only two men, but he is believed to have killed anywhere from twenty-three to twenty-nine children in Atlanta. Robert Hansen confessed to four murders but is suspected of more than seventeen. Juan Corona was convicted of murdering twenty-five people. Their crimes are all horrific, and the number of victims is heartbreaking. But all these most notorious serial killers stand in the shadow of Dr. Kermit Gosnell. Strangely, Gosnell appears in no list we have found of known U.S. serial killers, though he is the biggest of them all. In reality, Kermit Gosnell deserves the top spot on any list of serial murderers. He's earned it. ~ Ann McElhinney

Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II ~ William Blum

What's hurting the U.S. economy is total government spending. The deficit is an indicator that the government is spending so much money that it can't even get around to stealing all of the money that it wants to spend. But the tip of the iceberg is not what hit the Titanic - it was the 90 percent of the iceberg under water. ~ Grover Norquist

I'm no one's pet, and I intend to be an independent voice in the U.S. Senate. ~ Chris Coons

It's definitely going to be harder than it sounds to acquire millions of users in the U.S. It's going to be a lot of work, and you can't make light of that. ~ Michael King

It's not clear in the U.S. at the moment, either. We're going through another election. ~ Bob Kerrey

In America access is always about architecture and never about human beings. Among Israelis and Palestinians, access was rarely about anything but people. While in the U.S. a wheelchair stands out as an explicitly separate experience from the mainstream, in the Israel and Arab worlds it is just another thing that can go wrong in a place where things go wrong all the time. ~ John Hockenberry

Today, I believe there is no such thing as the recreational use of cannabis. The concept is equally embraced by prohibitionists and self-professed stoners, but it is self-limiting and profoundly unhealthy. Defining cannabis consumption as elective recreation ignores fundamental human biology and history, and devalues the very real benefits the plant provides.
Dennis Peron, the man who opened the first cannabis dispensary in the U.S., has been derided for saying that all marijuana use is medical. I would make the same point a bit differently: the vast majority of cannabis use is for wellness purposes. The exception to the rule is misuse; any psychoactive material can and will be problematic for some percentage of the population - cannabis included. ~ Steve DeAngelo

The category of small-cap value represents approximately 3 percent of the capitalization of the broad U.S. market. ~ Richard A. Ferri

Though representatives of many ethnic groups came together in the United States, English became their common language. Apparently, this was a natural choice. One can imagine what would have happened if members of each nation moving to the U.S. had spoken only their own tongues and refused to learn English. ~ Mikhail Gorbachev

There was no hope on earth, and God seemed to have forgotten us. Some said they saw the Son of God; others did not see Him. If He had come, He would do some great things as He had done before. We doubted it because we had seen neither Him nor His works. ~ Red Cloud

And the Arabs are the biggest owners now of media in the United States, okay, and over stock exchanges. And in many major U.S. cities they're the majority owners. ~ Alex Jones

Imperialism will not last long because it always does evil things. It persists in grooming and supporting reactionaries in all countries who are against the people, it has forcibly seized many colonies and semi-colonies and many military bases, and it threatens the peace with atomic war. Thus, forced by imperialism to do so, more than 90 per cent of the people of the world are rising or will rise in struggle against it. Yet, imperialism is still alive, still running amuck in Asia, Africa and Latin America. In the West imperialism is still oppressing the people at home. This situation must change. It is the task of the people of the whole world to put an end to the aggression and oppression perpetrated by imperialism, and chiefly by U.S. imperialism. ~ Mao Zedong

With the strong bipartisan rejection of the Dorgan amendment today, the Senate cast a vote in favor of the U.S. working to knock down unfair trade barriers that hurt American business and farmers ~ Rob Portman

Well, we don't think for a moment that either the U.S. or Australia are out to damage the New Zealand economy, but if there were a sustained period in which they had a free-trade agreement and New Zealand didn't have that same arrangement with the States, that could be both trade- and investment-distorting. ~ Helen Clark

Does it make sense for the U.S. to expend hundreds of billions of dollars to mount a new Apollo-style program to return to the moon? Or have we blazed that trail? Shouldn't we help other nations achieve this goal with their own resources but with our help? ~ Buzz Aldrin

It's not fair for the U.S. to spend, on arms and weapons, so much money and then not spend on health care the money that is needed. ~ Oscar Arias

A collapse in U.S. stock prices certainly would cause a lot of white knuckles on Wall Street. ~ Ben Bernanke

The U.S. needs a strong techno brand like Awakenings, just pretty much pure techno. ~ Adam Beyer

The U.S. ranks 25th in math and 21st in science. We are woefully behind. The only way to change this situation is through public-private partnerships. ~ Klaus Kleinfeld

And there was a deeper, less visible effect of the Truman loyalty program. Seeing its consequences for certain individuals and fearing its intrusion on their own lives, many in the government sought protection by strongly asserting their anti-Communism. In the public action that ensued, policy was based not on reality but, instinctively or deliberately, on personal caution ... Those who urged a militant and sometimes military anti-Communism were considered sound, trustworthy and personally safe; those who questioned such a course were politically unsafe, possible even slightly disloyal. ~ John Kenneth Galbraith

I am delighted to be joining 'Guardian U.S.'s team as a weekly columnist, and to have the chance to address American and global current events on its distinguished platform. 'Guardian U.S.' brings the 'Guardian's hard-hitting investigative brand to a new focus on American news and opinion. ~ Naomi Wolf

It was the U.S.A., after all, and fear was in the air. ~ Thomas Pynchon