Us Presidents Quotes

Since the beginning, the US presidents (all of European stock, of course), had been promoting slavery, extermination campaigns against the native population of North America, barbaric wars of aggression against Mexico, and other Latin American countries, the Philippines, etc. Has anything changed now? I highly doubt it. ~ Andre Vltchek

Allow the President to invade a neighboring nation, whenever he shall deem it necessary to repel an invasion and you allow him to do so whenever he may choose to say he deems it necessary for such purpose
and you allow him to make war at pleasure ... If, today, he should choose to say he thinks it necessary to invade Canada to prevent the British from invading us, how could you stop him? You may say to him, 'I see no probability of the British invading us'; but he will say to you, 'Be silent; I see it, if you don't. ~ Abraham Lincoln

At a time when the current and two former US presidents have admittedly indulged, as have politicians of all stripes from Al Gore to Newt Gingrich and Sarah Palin and over 50% of the adult US population, the credibility tipping point of the War on Drugs propaganda has long been passed. All that appears to be missing is the political courage to admit failure and move on to more realistic and efficient policies. What will it take for decision makers to display the wisdom and garner the courage to end the disastrous War on Drugs and responsibly take charge of drug production and trade instead of leaving it in the hands of extremely dangerous and powerful international criminal organizations? ~ Jeffrey Dhywood

Negro poverty is not white poverty. Many of its causes and many of its cures are the same. But there are differences - deep, corrosive, obstinate differences - radiating painful roots into the community and into the family, and the nature of the individual. These differences are not racial differences. They are solely and simply the consequence of ancient brutality, past injustice, and present prejudice. ~ Lyndon B. Johnson

At this second appearing to take the oath of the Presidential office there is less occasion for an extended address than there was at the first. Then a statement somewhat in detail of a course to be pursued seemed fitting and proper. Now, at the expiration of four years, during which public declarations have been constantly called forth on every point and phase of the great contest which still absorbs the attention and engrosses the energies of the nation, little that is new could be presented. The progress of our arms, upon which all else chiefly depends, is as well known to the public as to myself, and it is, I trust, reasonably satisfactory and encouraging to all. With high hope for the future, no prediction in regard to it is ventured.

On the occasion corresponding to this four years ago all thoughts were anxiously directed to an impending civil war. All dreaded it, all sought to avert it. While the inaugural address was being delivered from this place, devoted altogether to saving the Union without war, insurgent agents were in the city seeking to destroy it without war--seeking to dissolve the Union and divide effects by negotiation. Both parties deprecated war, but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive, and the other would accept war rather than let it perish, and the war came.

One-eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the southern part of it. These sl ~ Abraham Lincoln

There is a spate of prime-time documentaries about "psychological weapons." One is The Call of the Void. It features secret service men who inform the audience about the psychic weapons they have developed. The Russian military has "sleepers," psychics who can go into a trance and enter the world's collective uncounscious, its deeper soul, and from thence penetrate the minds of foreign statesmen to uncover their nefarious designs. One has entered the mind of the US president and then reconfigured the intentions of one of his advisers so that whatever hideous plan the US had hatched has failed to come off. The message is clear: if the secret services can see into the US president's mind, they could definitely see into yours; the state is everywhere, watching your every thought. ~ Peter Pomerantsev

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

In the history of American democracy, we have had undisciplined presidents. We have had inexperienced presidents. We have had amoral presidents. Rarely if ever before have we had them all at once. ~ Anonymous

Most US presidents since World War II have led military actions without a declaration of war by Congress, though most, if not all, have properly consulted and sought support from Congress. That is the wise thing to do. ~ Donald Rumsfeld

And I have no control over which yesterdays I keep and which ones get deleted. This disease will not be bargained with. I can't offer it the names of the US presidents in exchange for the names of my children. I can't give it the names of state capitals and keep the memories of my husband.
... My yesterdays are disappearing, and my tomorrows are uncertain, so what do I live for? I live for each day. I live in the moment. Some tomorrow soon, I'll forget that I stood before you and gave this speech. But just because I'll forget it some tomorrow doesn't mean that I didn't live every second of it today. I will forget today, but that doesn't mean that today doesn't matter. ~ Lisa Genova

I would just want to wish President Obama the best of luck, and that he should bear in mind that just as he is a good person, there are many of us presidents in Latin America who are also good people. ~ Rafael Correa

Is it only in the army in the Philippines that Americans sometimes commit deeds that cause all other Americans to regret?
[Theodore Roosevelt 1901 relating reports of water torture in the Philippines to lynching in the south] ~ Theodore Roosevelt

I think we're raising whole generations who regard facts as more or less optional.
We have kids in elementary school who are being urged to take stands on political issues, to write letters to congressmen and presidents about nuclear energy.
They're not a decade old, and they're being thrown these kinds of questions that can absorb the lifetime of a very brilliant and learned man. And they're being taught that it's important to have views, and they're not being taught that it's important to know what you're talking about.
It's important to hear the opposite viewpoint, and more important to learn how to distinguish why viewpoint A and viewpoint B are different, and which one has the most evidence or logic behind it. They disregard that. They hear something, they hear some rhetoric, and they run with it. ~ Thomas Sowell

She remembers her name. She remembers the name of the president. She remembers the name of the president's dog. She remembers what city she lives in. And on which street. And in which house. The one with the big olive tree where the road takes a turn. She remembers what year it is. She remembers the season. She remembers the day on which you were born. She remembers the daughter who was born before you – She had your father's nose, that was the first thing I noticed about her – but she does not remember that daughter's name. She remembers the name of the man she did not marry – Frank – and she keeps his letters in a drawer by her bed. She remembers that you once had a husband, but she refuses to remember your ex-husband's name. That man, she calls him.

She does not remember how she got the bruises on her arms or going for a walk with you earlier this morning. She does not remember bending over, during that walk, and plucking a flower from a neighbour's front yard and slipping it into her hair. Maybe your father will kiss me now. She does not remember what she ate for dinner last night, or when she last took her medicine. She does not remember to drink enough water. She does not remember to comb her hair.

She remembers the rows of dried persimmons that once hung from the eaves of her mother's house in Berkeley. They were the most beautiful shade of orange. She remembers that your father loves peaches. She remembers that every Sunday morning, at ten, he ta ~ Julie Otsuka

I refused to conform to an image that a lot of people thought a president's brother should adopt. ~ Billy Carter

We didn't want to be presidents, or astronouts, or Bill Gates. We had pathetically simple dreams: to do meaningful work that we could be proud of, to be together, and to be happy. That certainly wasn't too much to ask. Or was it? ~ Tiffanie DeBartolo

Presidents cannot always kick evil-minded persons out of the front door. Such persons are often selected by the electors to represent them. ~ Herbert Hoover

Please be assured that as we move along through the implementation of health insurance reform, making sure that we find efficiencies within the existing system, is foremost on the President's mind. ~ Valerie Jarrett

Thank God it wasn't beef jerky, or I might've ended up dead."

"The President's Neighbor" a comedy script by Brett Bacon. ~ Brett Bacon

Whenever I came up against presidents of other companies, I was always smarter, because I was from the streets. ~ Berry Gordy

I once told you that I am not a saint, and I hope never to see the day that I cannot admit having made a mistake. So I will close with another confession. Frequently, along the tortuous road of recent months from this chamber to the Presidents House, I protested that I was my own man. Now I realize that I was wrong. I am your man, for it was your carefully weighed confirmation that changed my occupation. The truth is I am the peoples man, for you acted in their name, and I accepted and began my new and solemn trust with a promise to serve all the people and do the best that I can for America. ~ Gerald R. Ford

Dr. Rice's record on Iraq gives me great concern. In her public statements she clearly overstated and exaggerated the intelligence concerning Iraq before the war in order to support the President's decision to initiate military action against Iraq. ~ Carl Levin

He was to become the lawmaker for the poor and the downtrodden and the oppressed. He was to be the bearer of at least a measure of social justice to those whom social justice had so long been denied. The restorer of at least a measure of dignity to those who so desperately needed to be given some dignity. The redeemer of the promises made by them to America. "It is time to write it in the books of law." By the time Lyndon Johnson left office he had done a lot of writing in those books, had become, above all presidents save Lincoln, the codifier of compassion, the president who wrote mercy and justice in the statute books by which America was governed. ~ Robert A. Caro

If either one or two candidates is dominating the field at the time of the first primaries and caucuses, the voters are superfluous because the victor is already guaranteed. If, however, no candidate is dominant, then the primaries and caucuses will determine the winner. Nonetheless, in recent campaign cycles, that determination has been made earlier and earlier in the process, by fewer and fewer voters, who pick from only a few candidates - the ones who have not already eliminated themselves from serious contention by their weak performances in the pre-primary phase. ~ Roger Lawrence Butler

There was a touch of prairie about the fellow.
--hans vollman

Yes.
--roger bevins iii

Like stepping into a summer barn late at night.
--hans vollman

Or a musty plains office, where some bright candle still burns.
--roger bevins iii

Vast. Windswept. New. Sad.
--hans vollman

Spacious. Curious. Doom-minded. Ambitious.
--roger bevins iii

Back slightly out.
--hans vollman

Right boot chafing.
--roger bevins iii ~ George Saunders

The Democratic Party's problem is that voters don't believe the president's claims that the economy is thriving. Even people with jobs feel apprehensive. Paychecks are flat, growth anemic, and people are worried about their children's prospects. Mr. Obama had a 38% approval on handling the economy in the Sept. 9 Fox News poll. In the Sept. 7 NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll, 67% believe America is on the wrong track. ~ Karl Rove

No doubt, the White House thinks the American people know Obama's story. But since the Inauguration, we've seen only the president's present: his perfect family, his Ivy League elegance, his effortless mastery of complex issues. We never see him sweat. And we forget that he ever had to struggle. ~ Dee Dee Myers

Presidents are nice people. They're nice, fun-loving people who have great jobs. ~ Dan Jenkins

Richard Nixon had a kind of Walter Mitty fantasy life. He was a man with a grandiose thoughts: dreams of not simply being president but maybe becoming one of the truly great presidents of American history. ~ Robert Dallek

If you look at where presidents come from, they're former governors or senators. ~ Eleanor Clift

Hello fake Everett children. ~ Monet Polny

I think that presidents don't give up power that has accrued to them by the precedent of previous presidents. Even when they say they would like to, I think once they get there they don't give it up. ~ Rachel Maddow

Once upon a time we did not focus on a president's private life. ~ Tom Ford

I came to this office to solve problems and not pass them on to future presidents and future generations. ~ George W. Bush

I don't know anything about American history or presidents. I don't know what tailgating is! I've never been to an Olive Garden! ~ Emma Watson

Presidents don't have the benefit of hindsight. You have to make difficult decisions based on the information that's before you at that moment. ~ Marco Rubio

Presidents don't have a whole lot to say about prosperity or the economy. Government cannot create prosperity. There are a lot of other factors that determine whether there are good times or bad times. ~ Phyllis Schlafly

To set a precedent, I guess. So that if in the future she ever fell from grace, it would be understood that presidents - even the most despicable - get special treatment. ~ Suzanne Collins

One of the embarrassing problems for the early nineteenth-century champions of the Christian faith was that not one of the first six Presidents of the United States was an orthodox Christian. ~ Mortimer Adler

Securing freedom has been a singular commitment of American presidents and patriots in and out of government for generations. But its perpetual continuation is not guaranteed. ~ George Nethercutt

It didn't seem to matter that Reagan made his heartfelt endorsements of traditional family values despite being divorced and so alienated from his own children that one of them would write a book about what a rotten father he had been; by the same token, the president's failure to have made regular or even occasional visits to church hardly dimmed his appeal for the resurgent religious right ~ Douglas Brinkley

Most of the 50 or so invitations you receive each week come from people inviting the President's Chief of Staff, not you. If you doubt that, ask your predecessor how many he received last week. ~ Donald Rumsfeld