Barack Obama

A good compromise, a good piece of legislation, is like a good sentence; or a good piece of music. Everybody can recognize it. They say, 'Huh. It works. It makes sense.'
Barack Obama

After a century of striving, after a year of debate, after a historic vote, health care reform is no longer an unmet promise. It is the law of the land.
Barack Obama

Al Qaeda is still a threat. We cannot pretend somehow that because Barack Hussein Obama got elected as president, suddenly everything is going to be OK.
Barack Obama

America and Islam are not exclusive and need not be in competition. Instead, they overlap, and share common principles of justice and progress, tolerance and the dignity of all human beings.
Barack Obama

Americans... still believe in an America where anything's possible - they just don't think their leaders do.
Barack Obama

And I will do everything that I can as long as I am President of the United States to remind the American people that we are one nation under God, and we may call that God different names but we remain one nation.
Barack Obama

And so our goal on health care is, if we can get, instead of health care costs going up 6 percent a year, it's going up at the level of inflation, maybe just slightly above inflation, we've made huge progress. And by the way, that is the single most important thing we could do in terms of reducing our deficit. That's why we did it.
Barack Obama

As a nuclear power - as the only nuclear power to have used a nuclear weapon - the United States has a moral responsibility to act.
Barack Obama

As I've said, there were patriots who supported this war, and patriots who opposed it. And all of us are united in appreciation for our servicemen and women, and our hopes for Iraqis' future.
Barack Obama

But if you - if what - the reports are true, what they're saying is, is that as a consequence of us getting 30 million additional people health care, at the margins that's going to increase our costs, we knew that.
Barack Obama

But what we can do, as flawed as we are, is still see God in other people, and do our best to help them find their own grace. That's what I strive to do, that's what I pray to do every day.
Barack Obama

Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.
Barack Obama

Community colleges play an important role in helping people transition between careers by providing the retooling they need to take on a new career.
Barack Obama

Contrary to the claims of some of my critics and some of the editorial pages, I am an ardent believer in the free market.
Barack Obama

Cutting the deficit by gutting our investments in innovation and education is like lightening an overloaded airplane by removing its engine. It may make you feel like you're flying high at first, but it won't take long before you feel the impact.
Barack Obama

Focusing your life solely on making a buck shows a certain poverty of ambition. It asks too little of yourself. Because it's only when you hitch your wagon to something larger than yourself that you realize your true potential.
Barack Obama

I can make a firm pledge, under my plan, no family making less than $250,000 a year will see any form of tax increase. Not your income tax, not your payroll tax, not your capital gains taxes, not any of your taxes.
Barack Obama

I cannot swallow whole the view of Lincoln as the Great Emancipator.
Barack Obama

I consider it part of my responsibility as President of the United States to fight against negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appear.
Barack Obama

I don't care whether you're driving a hybrid or an SUV. If you're headed for a cliff, you have to change direction. That's what the American people called for in November, and that's what we intend to deliver.
Barack Obama

I don't oppose all wars. What I am opposed to is a dumb war. What I am opposed to is a rash war.
Barack Obama

I don't take a dime of their [lobbyist] money, and when I am president, they won't find a job in my White House.
Barack Obama

I found this national debt, doubled, wrapped in a big bow waiting for me as I stepped into the Oval Office.
Barack Obama

I know my country has not perfected itself. At times, we've struggled to keep the promise of liberty and equality for all of our people. We've made our share of mistakes, and there are times when our actions around the world have not lived up to our best intentions.
Barack Obama

I opposed the Defense of Marriage Act in 1996. It should be repealed and I will vote for its repeal on the Senate floor. I will also oppose any proposal to amend the U.S. Constitution to ban gays and lesbians from marrying.
Barack Obama

I think it is important for Europe to understand that even though I am president and George Bush is not president, Al Qaeda is still a threat.
Barack Obama

I think when you spread the wealth around it's good for everybody.
Barack Obama

I will cut taxes - cut taxes - for 95 percent of all working families, because, in an economy like this, the last thing we should do is raise taxes on the middle class.
Barack Obama

I'm a Christian by choice.
Barack Obama

I've been fighting with Acorn, alongside Acorn, on issues you care about, my entire career.
Barack Obama

I've got two daughters. 9 years old and 6 years old. I am going to teach them first of all about values and morals. But if they make a mistake, I don't want them punished with a baby.
Barack Obama

I've said very clearly, including in a State of the Union address, that I'm against 'don't ask, don't tell' and that we're going to end this policy.
Barack Obama

If everybody that voted in 2008 shows up in 2010, we will win this election. We will win this election.
Barack Obama

If the people cannot trust their government to do the job for which it exists - to protect them and to promote their common welfare - all else is lost.
Barack Obama

If you're walking down the right path and you're willing to keep walking, eventually you'll make progress.
Barack Obama

In America, there's a failure to appreciate Europe's leading role in the world.
Barack Obama

In fact, the best thing we could do on taxes for all Americans is to simplify the individual tax code. This will be a tough job, but members of both parties have expressed an interest in doing this, and I am prepared to join them.
Barack Obama

In the absence of sound oversight,responsible businesses are forced to compete against unscrupulous and underhanded businesses, who are unencumbered by any restrictions on activities that might harm the environment, or take advantage of middle-class families, or threaten to bring down the entire financial system.
Barack Obama

In the end, that's what this election is about. Do we participate in a politics of cynicism or a politics of hope?
Barack Obama

Issues are never simple. One thing I'm proud of is that very rarely will you hear me simplify the issues.
Barack Obama

It took a lot of blood, sweat and tears to get to where we are today, but we have just begun. Today we begin in earnest the work of making sure that the world we leave our children is just a little bit better than the one we inhabit today.
Barack Obama

It was not a religion that attacked us that September day. It was al-Qaeda. We will not sacrifice the liberties we cherish or hunker down behind walls of suspicion and mistrust.
Barack Obama

It was the labor movement that helped secure so much of what we take for granted today. The 40-hour work week, the minimum wage, family leave, health insurance, Social Security, Medicare, retirement plans. The cornerstones of the middle-class security all bear the union label.
Barack Obama

It's not surprising, then, they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.
Barack Obama

It's time to fundamentally change the way that we do business in Washington. To help build a new foundation for the 21st century, we need to reform our government so that it is more efficient, more transparent, and more creative. That will demand new thinking and a new sense of responsibility for every dollar that is spent.
Barack Obama

John Kerry believes in an America where hard work is rewarded.
Barack Obama

Let me even say before I even get inaugurated, during the transition we are going to be having meetings all across the country with community organizations so that you have input into the agenda for the next presidency of the United States of America.
Barack Obama

Money is not the only answer, but it makes a difference.
Barack Obama

My administration is the only thing between you [CEO's] and the pitchforks.
Barack Obama

My family, frankly, they weren't folks who went to church every week. My mother was one of the most spiritual people I knew but she didn't raise me in the church, so I came to my Christian faith later in life and it was because the precepts of Jesus Christ spoke to me in terms of the kind of life that I would want to lead.
Barack Obama

My job is not to represent Washington to you, but to represent you to Washington.
Barack Obama

My parents shared not only an improbable love, they shared an abiding faith in the possibilities of this nation. They would give me an African name, Barack, or blessed, believing that in a tolerant America your name is no barrier to success.
Barack Obama

My task over the last two years hasn't just been to stop the bleeding. My task has also been to try to figure out how do we address some of the structural problems in the economy that have prevented more Googles from being created.
Barack Obama

No one is pro-abortion.
Barack Obama

Now we're in the midst of not just advocating for change, not just calling for change - we're doing the grinding, sometimes frustrating work of delivering change - inch by inch, day by day.
Barack Obama

Now, anybody who thinks that we can move this economy forward with just a few folks at the top doing well, hoping that it's going to trickle down to working people who are running faster and faster just to keep up, you'll never see it.
Barack Obama

Of course, violence will not end with our combat mission. Extremists will continue to set off bombs, attack Iraqi civilians and try to spark sectarian strife. But ultimately, these terrorists will fail to achieve their goals.
Barack Obama

On every front there are clear answers out there that can make this country stronger, but we're going to break through the fear and the frustration people are feeling. Our job is to make sure that even as we make progress, that we are also giving people a sense of hope and vision for the future.
Barack Obama

One of the great strengths of the United States is... we have a very large Christian population - we do not consider ourselves a Christian nation or a Jewish nation or a Muslim nation. We consider ourselves a nation of citizens who are bound by ideals and a set of values.
Barack Obama

Operations in Iraq and Afghanistan and the war on terrorism have reduced the pace of military transformation and have revealed our lack of preparation for defensive and stability operations. This Administration has overextended our military.
Barack Obama

Our combat mission is ending, but our commitment to Iraq's future is not.
Barack Obama

Over the last 15 months, we've traveled to every corner of the United States. I've now been in 57 states? I think one left to go.
Barack Obama

Part of the reason that our politics seems so tough right now and facts and science and argument does not seem to be winning the day all the time is because we're hardwired not to always think clearly when we're scared.
Barack Obama

Part of the reason that our politics seems so tough right now and facts and science and argument does not seem to be winning the day all the time is because we're hardwired not to always think clearly when we're scared. And the country's scared.
Barack Obama

People of Berlin - people of the world - this is our moment. This is our time.
Barack Obama

Since I'm the president and Democrats have controlled the House and the Senate, it's understandable that people are saying, you know, 'What have you done?'
Barack Obama

So while an incredible amount of progress has been made, on this fifth anniversary, I wanted to come here and tell the people of this city directly: My administration is going to stand with you - and fight alongside you - until the job is done. Until New Orleans is all the way back, all the way.
Barack Obama

The Bush Administration's failure to be consistently involved in helping Israel achieve peace with the Palestinians has been both wrong for our friendship with Israel, as well as badly damaging to our standing in the Arab world.
Barack Obama

The fact that my 15 minutes of fame has extended a little longer than 15 minutes is somewhat surprising to me and completely baffling to my wife.
Barack Obama

The thing about hip-hop today is it's smart, it's insightful. The way they can communicate a complex message in a very short space is remarkable.
Barack Obama

The United States has been enriched by Muslim Americans. Many other Americans have Muslims in their families or have lived in a Muslim-majority country - I know, because I am one of them.
Barack Obama

The United States is not, and never will be, at war with Islam.
Barack Obama

There are patriots who opposed the war in Iraq and there are patriots who supported the war in Iraq. We are one people, all of us pledging allegiance to the stars and stripes, all of us defending the United States of America.
Barack Obama

There is not a liberal America and a conservative America - there is the United States of America. There is not a black America and a white America and latino America and asian America - there's the United States of America.
Barack Obama

There is probably a perverse pride in my administration... that we were going to do the right thing, even if short-term it was unpopular. And I think anybody who's occupied this office has to remember that success is determined by an intersection in policy and politics and that you can't be neglecting of marketing and P.R. and public opinion.
Barack Obama

There's not a liberal America and a conservative America - there's the United States of America.
Barack Obama

This is the moment when we must build on the wealth that open markets have created, and share its benefits more equitably. Trade has been a cornerstone of our growth and global development. But we will not be able to sustain this growth if it favors the few, and not the many.
Barack Obama

This is the moment when we must come together to save this planet. Let us resolve that we will not leave our children a world where the oceans rise and famine spreads and terrible storms devastate our lands.
Barack Obama

Today we are engaged in a deadly global struggle for those who would intimidate, torture, and murder people for exercising the most basic freedoms. If we are to win this struggle and spread those freedoms, we must keep our own moral compass pointed in a true direction.
Barack Obama

Tonight, we gather to affirm the greatness of our nation - not because of the height of our skyscrapers, or the power of our military, or the size of our economy. Our pride is based on a very simple premise, summed up in a declaration made over two hundred years ago.
Barack Obama

We all knew this. We all knew that it would take more time than any of us want to dig ourselves out of this hole created by this economic crisis.
Barack Obama

We are not at war against Islam.
Barack Obama

We can't drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times... and then just expect that other countries are going to say OK. That's not leadership. That's not going to happen.
Barack Obama

We can't have special interests sitting shotgun. We gotta have middle class families up in front. We don't mind the Republicans joining us. They can come for the ride, but they gotta sit in back.
Barack Obama

We cannot continue to rely only on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives that we've set. We've got to have a civilian national security force that's just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded.
Barack Obama

We didn't become the most prosperous country in the world just by rewarding greed and recklessness. We didn't come this far by letting the special interests run wild. We didn't do it just by gambling and chasing paper profits on Wall Street. We built this country by making things, by producing goods we could sell.
Barack Obama

We have an obligation and a responsibility to be investing in our students and our schools. We must make sure that people who have the grades, the desire and the will, but not the money, can still get the best education possible.
Barack Obama

We have now just enshrined, as soon as I sign this bill, the core principle that everybody should have some basic security when it comes to their healthcare.
Barack Obama

We have real enemies in the world. These enemies must be found. They must be pursued and they must be defeated.
Barack Obama

We need earmark reform, and when I'm President, I will go line by line to make sure that we are not spending money unwisely.
Barack Obama

We need somebody who's got the heart, the empathy, to recognize what it's like to be a young teenage mom, the empathy to understand what it's like to be poor or African-American or gay or disabled or old - and that's the criterion by which I'll be selecting my judges.
Barack Obama

We need to internalize this idea of excellence. Not many folks spend a lot of time trying to be excellent.
Barack Obama

We need to steer clear of this poverty of ambition, where people want to drive fancy cars and wear nice clothes and live in nice apartments but don't want to work hard to accomplish these things. Everyone should try to realize their full potential.
Barack Obama

We proved that we are still a people capable of doing big things and tackling our biggest challenges.
Barack Obama

We worship an awesome God in the Blue States, and we don't like federal agents poking around our libraries in the Red States. We coach Little League in the Blue States and have gay friends in the Red States.
Barack Obama

We're not going to baby sit a civil war.
Barack Obama

We've persevered because of a belief we share with the Iraqi people - a belief that out of the ashes of war, a new beginning could be born in this cradle of civilization. Through this remarkable chapter in the history of the United States and Iraq, we have met our responsibility. Now, it's time to turn the page.
Barack Obama

What do you think a stimulus is? It's spending - that's the whole point! Seriously.
Barack Obama

What I worry about would be that you essentially have two chambers, the House and the Senate, but you have simply, majoritarian, absolute power on either side. And that's just not what the founders intended.
Barack Obama

What Washington needs is adult supervision.
Barack Obama

When BP was not moving fast enough on claims, we told BP to set aside $20 billion in a fund - managed by an independent third party - to help all those whose lives have been turned upside down by the spill.
Barack Obama

When we think of the major threats to our national security, the first to come to mind are nuclear proliferation, rogue states and global terrorism. But another kind of threat lurks beyond our shores, one from nature, not humans - an avian flu pandemic.
Barack Obama

Where the stakes are the highest, in the war on terror, we cannot possibly succeed without extraordinary international cooperation. Effective international police actions require the highest degree of intelligence sharing, planning and collaborative enforcement.
Barack Obama

Why can't I just eat my waffle?
Barack Obama

With the changing economy, no one has lifetime employment. But community colleges provide lifetime employability.
Barack Obama

You know, my faith is one that admits some doubt.
Barack Obama

You will not see any of your taxes increase one single dime.
Barack Obama

Richard M. Nixon

A man is not finished when he is defeated. He is finished when he quits.
Richard M. Nixon

A public man must never forget that he loses his usefulness when he as an individual, rather than his policy, becomes the issue.
Richard M. Nixon

Always remember that others may hate you but those who hate you don't win unless you hate them. And then you destroy yourself.
Richard M. Nixon

Americans admire a people who can scratch a desert and produce a garden. The Israelis have shown qualities that Americans identify with: guts, patriotism, idealism, a passion for freedom. I have seen it. I know. I believe that.
Richard M. Nixon

Any change is resisted because bureaucrats have a vested interest in the chaos in which they exist.
Richard M. Nixon

Any lady who is first lady likes being first lady. I don't care what they say, they like it.
Richard M. Nixon

As this long and difficult war ends, I would like to address a few special words to the American people: Your steadfastness in supporting our insistence on peace with honor has made peace with honor possible.
Richard M. Nixon

By the time you get dressed, drive out there, play 18 holes and come home, you've blown seven hours. There are better things you can do with your time.
Richard M. Nixon

Castro couldn't even go to the bathroom unless the Soviet Union put the nickel in the toilet.
Richard M. Nixon

Certainly in the next 50 years we shall see a woman president, perhaps sooner than you think. A woman can and should be able to do any political job that a man can do.
Richard M. Nixon

Defeat doesn't finish a man, quit does. A man is not finished when he's defeated. He's finished when he quits.
Richard M. Nixon

Don't get the impression that you arouse my anger. You see, one can only be angry with those he respects.
Richard M. Nixon

Finishing second in the Olympics gets you silver. Finishing second in politics gets you oblivion.
Richard M. Nixon

I am not a crook.
Richard M. Nixon

I believe in the battle-whether it's the battle of a campaign or the battle of this office, which is a continuing battle.
Richard M. Nixon

I brought myself down. I impeached myself by resigning.
Richard M. Nixon

I can see clearly now... that I was wrong in not acting more decisively and more forthrightly in dealing with Watergate.
Richard M. Nixon

I can take it. The tougher it gets, the cooler I get.
Richard M. Nixon

I don't know anything that builds the will to win better than competitive sports.
Richard M. Nixon

I don't think that a leader can control, to any great extent, his destiny. Very seldom can he step in and change the situation if the forces of history are running in another direction.
Richard M. Nixon

I gave 'em a sword. And they stuck it in, and they twisted it with relish. And I guess if I had been in their position, I'd have done the same thing.
Richard M. Nixon

I have impeached myself by resigning.
Richard M. Nixon

I have never been a quitter. To leave office before my term is completed is opposed to every instinct in my body. But as president I must put the interests of America first Therefore, I shall resign the presidency effective at noon tomorrow.
Richard M. Nixon

I let the American people down.
Richard M. Nixon

I played by the rules of politics as I found them.
Richard M. Nixon

I reject the cynical view that politics is a dirty business.
Richard M. Nixon

I wish I could give you a lot of advice, based on my experience of winning political debates. But I don't have that experience. My only experience is at losing them.
Richard M. Nixon

I'm glad I'm not Brezhnev. Being the Russian leader in the Kremlin. You never know if someone's tape recording what you say.
Richard M. Nixon

I've analyzed the best I can... and I have not found an impeachable offense, and therefore resignation is not an acceptable course.
Richard M. Nixon

I've never canceled a subscription to a newspaper because of bad cartoons or editorials. If that were the case, I wouldn't have any newspapers or magazines to read.
Richard M. Nixon

If an individual wants to be a leader and isn't controversial, that means he never stood for anything.
Richard M. Nixon

If I were to make public these tapes, containing blunt and candid remarks on many different subjects, the confidentiality of the office of the president would always be suspect.
Richard M. Nixon

If we take the route of the permanent handout, the American character will itself be impoverished.
Richard M. Nixon

If you take no risks, you will suffer no defeats. But if you take no risks, you win no victories.
Richard M. Nixon

If you think the United States has stood still, who built the largest shopping center in the world?
Richard M. Nixon

If you want to make beautiful music, you must play the black and the white notes together.
Richard M. Nixon

In the long term we can hope that religion will change the nature of man and reduce conflict. But history is not encouraging in this respect. The bloodiest wars in history have been religious wars.
Richard M. Nixon

In the television age, the key distinction is between the candidate who can speak poetry and the one who can only speak prose.
Richard M. Nixon

It I talked about Watergate, I was described as struggling to free myself from the morass. If I did not talk about Watergate, I was accused of being out of touch with reality.
Richard M. Nixon

It is necessary for me to establish a winner image. Therefore, I have to beat somebody.
Richard M. Nixon

It's a piece of cake until you get to the top. You find you can't stop playing the game the way you've always played it.
Richard M. Nixon

Let us begin by committing ourselves to the truth to see it like it is, and tell it like it is, to find the truth, to speak the truth, and to live the truth.
Richard M. Nixon

Let us move from the era of confrontation to the era of negotiation.
Richard M. Nixon

Life isn't meant to be easy. It's hard to take being on the top - or on the bottom. I guess I'm something of a fatalist. You have to have a sense of history, I think, to survive some of these things... Life is one crisis after another.
Richard M. Nixon

My concern today is not with the length of a person's hair but with his conduct.
Richard M. Nixon

My own view is that taping of conversations for historical purposes was a bad decision on the part of all the presidents. I don't think Kennedy should have done it. I don't think Johnson should have done it, and I don't think we should have done it.
Richard M. Nixon

My strong point, if I have a strong point, is performance. I always do more than I say. I always produce more than I promise.
Richard M. Nixon

Never let your head hang down. Never give up and sit down and grieve. Find another way. And don't pray when it rains if you don't pray when the sun shines.
Richard M. Nixon

Never say no when a client asks for something, even if it is the moon. You can always try, and anyhow there is plenty of time afterwards to explain that it was not possible.
Richard M. Nixon

No event in American history is more misunderstood than the Vietnam War. It was misreported then, and it is misremembered now.
Richard M. Nixon

Once you get into this great stream of history, you can't get out.
Richard M. Nixon

Only if you have been in the deepest valley, can you ever know how magnificent it is to be on the highest mountain.
Richard M. Nixon

Our chief justices have probably had more profound and lasting influence on their times and on the direction of the nation than most presidents.
Richard M. Nixon

People have got to know whether or not their president is a crook. Well, I'm not a crook. I earned everything I've got.
Richard M. Nixon

People react to fear, not love; they don't teach that in Sunday School, but it's true.
Richard M. Nixon

Politics would be a helluva good business if it weren't for the goddamned people.
Richard M. Nixon

President Johnson and I have a lot in common. We were both born in small towns and we're both fortunate in the fact that we think we married above ourselves.
Richard M. Nixon

Remember, always give your best. Never get discouraged. Never be petty. Always remember, others may hate you. But those who hate you don't win unless you hate them. And then you destroy yourself.
Richard M. Nixon

Scrubbing floors and emptying bedpans has as much dignity as the Presidency.
Richard M. Nixon

Solutions are not the answer.
Richard M. Nixon

Sure there are dishonest men in local government. But there are dishonest men in national government too.
Richard M. Nixon

Tell them to send everything that can fly.
Richard M. Nixon

The American people are entitled to see the president and to hear his views directly, and not to see him only through the press.
Richard M. Nixon

The Cold War isn't thawing; it is burning with a deadly heat. Communism isn't sleeping; it is, as always, plotting, scheming, working, fighting.
Richard M. Nixon

The greatest honor history can bestow is that of peacemaker.
Richard M. Nixon

The man who is aware of himself is henceforward independent; and he is never bored, and life is only too short, and he is steeped through and through with a profound yet temperate happiness.
Richard M. Nixon

The mark of a true politician is that he is never at a loss for words because he is always half-expecting to be asked to make a speech.
Richard M. Nixon

The memory of that scene for me is like a frame of film forever frozen at that moment: the red carpet, the green lawn, the white house, the leaden sky. The new president and his first lady.
Richard M. Nixon

The more you stay in this kind of job, the more you realize that a public figure, a major public figure, is a lonely man.
Richard M. Nixon

The presidency has many problems, but boredom is the least of them.
Richard M. Nixon

The press is the enemy.
Richard M. Nixon

There are some people, you know, they think the way to be a big man is to shout and stomp and raise hell-and then nothing ever really happens. I'm not like that I never shoot blanks.
Richard M. Nixon

There will be no whitewash in the White House.
Richard M. Nixon

Those who hate you don't win unless you hate them, and then you destroy yourself.
Richard M. Nixon

Tonight - to you, the great silent majority of my fellow Americans - I ask for your support.
Richard M. Nixon

Under the doctrine of separation of powers, the manner in which the president personally exercises his assigned executive powers is not subject to questioning by another branch of government.
Richard M. Nixon

Unless a president can protect the privacy of the advice he gets, he cannot get the advice he needs.
Richard M. Nixon

Voters quickly forget what a man says.
Richard M. Nixon

Watergate had become the center of the media's universe, and during the remaining year of my presidency the media tried to force everything else to revolve around it.
Richard M. Nixon

We cannot learn from one another until we stop shouting at one another - until we speak quietly enough so that our words can be heard as well as our voices.
Richard M. Nixon

We do not learn by inference and deduction and the application of mathematics to philosophy, but by direct intercourse and sympathy.
Richard M. Nixon

We must always remember that America is a great nation today not because of what government did for people but because of what people did for themselves and for one another.
Richard M. Nixon

Well, I screwed it up real good, didn't I?
Richard M. Nixon

What starts the process, really, are laughs and slights and snubs when you are a kid. If your anger is deep enough and strong enough, you learn that you can change those attitudes by excellence, personal gut performance.
Richard M. Nixon

When I retire I'm going to spend my evenings by the fireplace going through those boxes. There are things in there that ought to be burned.
Richard M. Nixon

When the President does it, that means that it's not illegal.
Richard M. Nixon

You must never be satisfied with losing. You must get angry, terribly angry, about losing. But the mark of the good loser is that he takes his anger out on himself and not his victorious opponents or on his teammates.
Richard M. Nixon

You must pursue this investigation of Watergate even if it leads to the president. I'm innocent. You've got to believe I'm innocent. If you don't, take my job.
Richard M. Nixon

You won't have Nixon to kick around anymore, because, gentlemen, this is my last press conference.
Richard M. Nixon

You've got to learn to survive a defeat. That's when you develop character.
Richard M. Nixon

James Monroe

A little flattery will support a man through great fatigue.
James Monroe

At no period of our political existence had we so much cause to felicitate ourselves at the prosperous and happy condition of our country.
James Monroe

By the last returns to the Department of War the militia force of the several States may be estimated at 800,000 men - infantry, artillery, and cavalry.
James Monroe

By these purchases the Indian title, with moderate reservations, has been extinguished to the whole of the land within the limits of the State of Ohio, and to a part of that in the Michigan Territory and of the State of Indiana.
James Monroe

From several of the Indian tribes inhabiting the country bordering on Lake Erie purchases have been made of lands on conditions very favorable to the United States, and, as it is presumed, not less so to the tribes themselves.
James Monroe

I have great satisfaction in stating that our relations with France, Russia, and other powers continue on the most friendly basis.
James Monroe

If we look to the history of other nations, ancient or modern, we find no example of a growth so rapid, so gigantic, of a people so prosperous and happy.
James Monroe

In the wars of the European powers in matters relating to themselves we have never taken any part, not does it comport with our policy so to do. It is only when our rights are invaded or seriously menaced that we resent injuries or make preparation for our defence.
James Monroe

It is only when the people become ignorant and corrupt, when they degenerate into a populace, that they are incapable of exercising their sovereignty.
James Monroe

National honor is the national property of the highest value.
James Monroe

Never did a government commence under auspices so favorable, nor ever was success so complete.
James Monroe

Our country may be likened to a new house. We lack many things, but we possess the most precious of all - liberty!
James Monroe

Our relations with the other powers of Europe have experienced no essential change since the last session.
James Monroe

Preparation for war is a constant stimulus to suspicion and ill will.
James Monroe

The best form of government is that which is most likely to prevent the greatest sum of evil.
James Monroe

The civil war which has so long prevailed between Spain and the Provinces in South America still continues, without any prospect of its speedy termination.
James Monroe

The great increase of our population throughout the Union will alone produce an important effect, and in no quarter will it be so sensibly felt as in those in contemplation.
James Monroe

The payments which have been made into the Treasury show the very productive state of the public revenue.
James Monroe

The public lands are a public stock, which ought to be disposed of to the best advantage for the nation.
James Monroe

The right of self defense never ceases. It is among the most sacred, and alike necessary to nations and to individuals, and whether the attack be made by Spain herself or by those who abuse her power, its obligation is not the less strong.
James Monroe

To impose taxes when the public exigencies require them is an obligation of the most sacred character, especially with a free people.
James Monroe

William McKinley

Cuba ought to be free and independent, and the government should be turned over to the Cuban people.
William McKinley

Expositions are the timekeepers of progress.
William McKinley

I am a tariff man, standing on a tariff platform.
William McKinley

I have never been in doubt since I was old enough to think intelligently that I would someday be made president.
William McKinley

In the time of darkest defeat, victory may be nearest.
William McKinley

Let us ever remember that our interest is in concord, not in conflict; and that our real eminence rests in the victories of peace, not those of war.
William McKinley

Our differences are policies; our agreements, principles.
William McKinley

That's all a man can hope for during his lifetime - to set an example - and when he is dead, to be an inspiration for history.
William McKinley

The free man cannot be long an ignorant man.
William McKinley

The mission of the United States is one of benevolent assimilation.
William McKinley

War should never be entered upon until every agency of peace has failed.
William McKinley

We need Hawaii just as much and a good deal more than we did California. It is Manifest Destiny.
William McKinley

Franklin Pierce

A Republic without parties is a complete anomaly. The histories of all popular governments show absurd is the idea of their attempting to exist without parties.
Franklin Pierce

Frequently the more trifling the subject, the more animated and protracted the discussion.
Franklin Pierce

The dangers of a concentration of all power in the general government of a confederacy so vast as ours are too obvious to be disregarded.
Franklin Pierce

With the Union my best and dearest earthly hopes are entwined.
Franklin Pierce

James K. Polk

Although... the Chief Magistrate must almost of necessity be chosen by a party and stand pledged to its principles and measures, yet in his official action he should not be the President of a party only, but of the whole people of the United States.
James K. Polk

Foreign powers do not seem to appreciate the true character of our government.
James K. Polk

I am heartily rejoiced that my term is so near its close. I will soon cease to be a servant and will become a sovereign.
James K. Polk

It becomes us in humility to make our devout acknowledgments to the Supreme Ruler of the Universe for the inestimable civil and religious blessings with which we are favored.
James K. Polk

Minorities have a right to appeal to the Constitution as a shield against such oppression.
James K. Polk

No president who performs his duties faithfully and conscientiously can have any leisure.
James K. Polk

One great object of the Constitution was to restrain majorities from oppressing minorities or encroaching upon their just rights.
James K. Polk

Peace, plenty, and contentment reign throughout our borders, and our beloved country presents a sublime moral spectacle to the world.
James K. Polk

The passion for office among members of Congress is very great, if not absolutely disreputable, and greatly embarrasses the operations of the Government. They create offices by their own votes and then seek to fill them themselves.
James K. Polk

The world has nothing to fear from military ambition in our Government.
James K. Polk

There is more selfishness and less principle among members of Congress than I had any conception of, before I became President of the U.S.
James K. Polk

Under the benignant providence of Almighty God the representatives of the States and of the people are again brought together to deliberate for the public good.
James K. Polk

Well may the boldest fear and the wisest tremble when incurring responsibilities on which may depend our country's peace and prosperity, and in some degree the hopes and happiness of the whole human family.
James K. Polk

With me it is exceptionally true that the Presidency is no bed of roses.
James K. Polk

James Madison

A man has a property in his opinions and the free communication of them.
James Madison

A popular government without popular information or the means of acquiring it, is but a prologue to a farce, or a tragedy, or perhaps both.
James Madison

A pure democracy is a society consisting of a small number of citizens, who assemble and administer the government in person.
James Madison

A sincere and steadfast co-operation in promoting such a reconstruction of our political system as would provide for the permanent liberty and happiness of the United States.
James Madison

A well regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained in arms, is the best most natural defense of a free country.
James Madison

A well-instructed people alone can be permanently a free people.
James Madison

All men having power ought to be distrusted to a certain degree.
James Madison

All that seems indispensible in stating the account between the dead and the living, is to see that the debts against the latter do not exceed the advances made by the former.
James Madison

Ambition must be made to counteract ambition.
James Madison

America was indebted to immigration for her settlement and prosperity. That part of America which had encouraged them most had advanced most rapidly in population, agriculture and the arts.
James Madison

Americans have the right and advantage of being armed - unlike the citizens of other countries whose governments are afraid to trust the people with arms.
James Madison

And I have no doubt that every new example will succeed, as every past one has done, in showing that religion and Government will both exist in greater purity, the less they are mixed together.
James Madison

Any reading not of a vicious species must be a good substitute for the amusements too apt to fill up the leisure of the labouring classes.
James Madison

As a man is said to have a right to his property, he may be equally said to have a property in his rights.
James Madison

As long as the reason of man continues fallible, and he is at liberty to exercise it, different opinions will be formed.
James Madison

By rendering the labor of one, the property of the other, they cherish pride, luxury, and vanity on one side; on the other, vice and servility, or hatred and revolt.
James Madison

Commercial shackles are generally unjust, oppressive, and impolitic.
James Madison

Despotism can only exist in darkness, and there are too many lights now in the political firmament to permit it to remain anywhere, as it has heretofore done, almost everywhere.
James Madison

Do not separate text from historical background. If you do, you will have perverted and subverted the Constitution, which can only end in a distorted, bastardized form of illegitimate government.
James Madison

Each generation should be made to bear the burden of its own wars, instead of carrying them on, at the expense of other generations.
James Madison

Every nation whose affairs betray a want of wisdom and stability may calculate on every loss which can be sustained from the more systematic policy of its wiser neighbors.
James Madison

I believe there are more instances of the abridgement of freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments by those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations.
James Madison

I have no doubt but that the misery of the lower classes will be found to abate whenever the Government assumes a freer aspect and the laws favor a subdivision of Property.
James Madison

I should not regret a fair and full trial of the entire abolition of capital punishment.
James Madison

If men were angels, no government would be necessary.
James Madison

If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy.
James Madison

If we are to take for the criterion of truth the majority of suffrages, they ought to be gotten from those philosophic and patriotic citizens who cultivate their reason.
James Madison

In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.
James Madison

In no instance have... the churches been guardians of the liberties of the people.
James Madison

In Republics, the great danger is, that the majority may not sufficiently respect the rights of the minority.
James Madison

It is a universal truth that the loss of liberty at home is to be charged to the provisions against danger, real or pretended, from abroad.
James Madison

It will be of little avail to the people that the laws are made by men of their own choice if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood.
James Madison

Knowledge will forever govern ignorance; and a people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.
James Madison

Learned Institutions ought to be favorite objects with every free people. They throw that light over the public mind which is the best security against crafty and dangerous encroachments on the public liberty.
James Madison

Let me recommend the best medicine in the world: a long journey, at a mild season, through a pleasant country, in easy stages.
James Madison

Liberty may be endangered by the abuse of liberty, but also by the abuse of power.
James Madison

No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.
James Madison

Of all the enemies of public liberty, war is perhaps the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other.
James Madison

Perhaps it is a universal truth that the loss of liberty at home is to be charged to provisions against danger, real or pretended, from abroad.
James Madison

Philosophy is common sense with big words.
James Madison

Religion flourishes in greater purity, without than with the aid of Government.
James Madison

Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise, every expanded prospect.
James Madison

The advancement and diffusion of knowledge is the only guardian of true liberty.
James Madison

The capacity of the female mind for studies of the highest order cannot be doubted, having been sufficiently illustrated by its works of genius, of erudition, and of science.
James Madison

The circulation of confidence is better than the circulation of money.
James Madison

The class of citizens who provide at once their own food and their own raiment, may be viewed as the most truly independent and happy.
James Madison

The Constitution preserves the advantage of being armed which Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation where the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms.
James Madison

The diversity in the faculties of men, from which the rights of property originate, is not less an insuperable obstacle to an uniformity of interests. The protection of these faculties is the first object of government.
James Madison

The essence of Government is power; and power, lodged as it must be in human hands, will ever be liable to abuse.
James Madison

The executive has no right, in any case, to decide the question, whether there is or is not cause for declaring war.
James Madison

The happy Union of these States is a wonder; their Constitution a miracle; their example the hope of Liberty throughout the world.
James Madison

The internal effects of a mutable policy poisons the blessings of liberty itself.
James Madison

The loss of liberty at home is to be charged to the provisions against danger, real or imagined, from abroad.
James Madison

The means of defense against foreign danger historically have become the instruments of tyranny at home.
James Madison

The number, the industry, and the morality of the priesthood, and the devotion of the people have been manifestly increased by the total separation of the church from the state.
James Madison

The people are the only legitimate fountain of power, and it is from them that the constitutional charter, under which the several branches of government hold their power, is derived.
James Madison

The personal right to acquire property, which is a natural right, gives to property, when acquired, a right to protection, as a social right.
James Madison

The purpose of separation of church and state is to keep forever from these shores the ceaseless strife that has soaked the soil of Europe with blood for centuries.
James Madison

The rights of persons, and the rights of property, are the objects, for the protection of which Government was instituted.
James Madison

The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted.
James Madison

There is no maxim, in my opinion, which is more liable to be misapplied, and which, therefore, more needs elucidation, than the current one, that the interest of the majority is the political standard of right and wrong.
James Madison

To suppose that any form of government will secure liberty or happiness without any virtue in the people, is a chimerical idea.
James Madison

To the press alone, chequered as it is with abuses, the world is indebted for all the triumphs which have been gained by reason and humanity over error and oppression.
James Madison

Union of religious sentiments begets a surprising confidence.
James Madison

War contains so much folly, as well as wickedness, that much is to be hoped from the progress of reason.
James Madison

War should only be declared by the authority of the people, whose toils and treasures are to support its burdens, instead of the government which is to reap its fruits.
James Madison

We are right to take alarm at the first experiment upon our liberties.
James Madison

What is government itself but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary.
James Madison

What prudent merchant will hazard his fortunes in any new branch of commerce when he knows not that his plans may be rendered unlawful before they can be executed?
James Madison

What spectacle can be more edifying or more seasonable, than that of Liberty and Learning, each leaning on the other for their mutual and surest support?
James Madison

Whenever a youth is ascertained to possess talents meriting an education which his parents cannot afford, he should be carried forward at the public expense.
James Madison

Where an excess of power prevails, property of no sort is duly respected. No man is safe in his opinions, his person, his faculties, or his possessions.
James Madison

Wherever there is interest and power to do wrong, wrong will generally be done.
James Madison

William Howard Taft

A government is for the benefit of all the people.
William Howard Taft

A system in which we may have an enforced rest from legislation for two years is not bad.
William Howard Taft

Action for which I become responsible, or for which my administration becomes responsible, shall be within the law.
William Howard Taft

Anti-Semitism is a noxious weed that should be cut out. It has no place in America.
William Howard Taft

As the Republican platforms says, the welfare of the farmer is vital to that of the whole country.
William Howard Taft

Don't worry over what the newspapers say. I don't. Why should anyone else? I told the truth to the newspaper correspondents - but when you tell the truth to them they are at sea.
William Howard Taft

Don't write so that you can be understood, write so that you can't be misunderstood.
William Howard Taft

Enthusiasm for a cause sometimes warps judgment.
William Howard Taft

Failure to accord credit to anyone for what he may have done is a great weakness in any man.
William Howard Taft

I am afraid I am a constant disappointment to my party. The fact of the matter is, the longer I am president the less of a party man I seem to become.
William Howard Taft

I am in favor of helping the prosperity of all countries because, when we are all prosperous, the trade with each becomes more valuable to the other.
William Howard Taft

I am president now, and tired of being kicked around.
William Howard Taft

I do not believe in the divinity of Christ, and there are many other of the postulates of the orthodox creed to which I cannot subscribe.
William Howard Taft

I do not know much about politics, but I am trying to do the best I can with this administration until the time shall come for me to turn it over to somebody else.
William Howard Taft

I have come to the conclusion that the major part of the work of a President is to increase the gate receipts of expositions and fairs and bring tourists to town.
William Howard Taft

I love judges, and I love courts. They are my ideals, that typify on earth what we shall meet hereafter in heaven under a just God.
William Howard Taft

I think I might as well give up being a candidate. There are so many people in the country who don't like me.
William Howard Taft

I'll be damned if I am not getting tired of this. It seems to be the profession of a President simply to hear other people talk.
William Howard Taft

If this humor be the safety of our race, then it is due largely to the infusion into the American people of the Irish brain.
William Howard Taft

No tendency is quite so strong in human nature as the desire to lay down rules of conduct for other people.
William Howard Taft

No, the only things which do not bother me are the elements. I can overcome them without a fight. All one has to do to get the best of the elements is to stand pat and one will win.
William Howard Taft

Politics makes me sick.
William Howard Taft

Presidents come and go, but the Supreme Court goes on forever.
William Howard Taft

Socialism proposes no adequate substitute for the motive of enlightened selfishness that today is at the basis of all human labor and effort, enterprise and new activity.
William Howard Taft

Substantial progress toward better things can rarely be taken without developing new evils requiring new remedies.
William Howard Taft

The trouble with me is that I like to talk too much.
William Howard Taft

The world is not going to be saved by legislation.
William Howard Taft

We are all imperfect. We can not expect perfect government.
William Howard Taft

We live in a stage of politics, where legislators seem to regard the passage of laws as much more important than the results of their enforcement.
William Howard Taft

Zachary Taylor

I have always done my duty. I am ready to die. My only regret is for the friends I leave behind me.
Zachary Taylor

It would be judicious to act with magnanimity towards a prostrate foe.
Zachary Taylor

Harry S. Truman

A bureaucrat is a Democrat who holds some office that a Republican wants.
Harry S. Truman

A leader in the Democratic Party is a boss, in the Republican Party he is a leader.
Harry S. Truman

A pessimist is one who makes difficulties of his opportunities and an optimist is one who makes opportunities of his difficulties.
Harry S. Truman

A politician is a man who understands government. A statesman is a politician who's been dead for 15 years.
Harry S. Truman

A President cannot always be popular.
Harry S. Truman

A president either is constantly on top of events or, if he hesitates, events will soon be on top of him. I never felt that I could let up for a moment.
Harry S. Truman

A President needs political understanding to run the government, but he may be elected without it.
Harry S. Truman

Actions are the seed of fate deeds grow into destiny.
Harry S. Truman

All my life, whenever it comes time to make a decision, I make it and forget about it.
Harry S. Truman

All the president is, is a glorified public relations man who spends his time flattering, kissing, and kicking people to get them to do what they are supposed to do anyway.
Harry S. Truman

Always be sincere, even if you don't mean it.
Harry S. Truman

America was not built on fear. America was built on courage, on imagination and an unbeatable determination to do the job at hand.
Harry S. Truman

Any man who has had the job I've had and didn't have a sense of humor wouldn't still be here.
Harry S. Truman

Art is parasitic on life, just as criticism is parasitic on art.
Harry S. Truman

Being too good is apt to be uninteresting.
Harry S. Truman

Carry the battle to them. Don't let them bring it to you. Put them on the defensive and don't ever apologize for anything.
Harry S. Truman

Experience has shown how deeply the seeds of war are planted by economic rivalry and social injustice.
Harry S. Truman

I do not believe there is a problem in this country or the world today which could not be settled if approached through the teaching of the Sermon on the Mount.
Harry S. Truman

I had faith in Israel before it was established, I have in it now. I believe it has a glorious future before it - not just another sovereign nation, but as an embodiment of the great ideals of our civilization.
Harry S. Truman

I have found the best way to give advice to your children is to find out what they want and then advise them to do it.
Harry S. Truman

I have no desire to crow over anybody or to see anybody eating crow, figuratively or otherwise. We should all get together and make a country in which everybody can eat turkey whenever he pleases.
Harry S. Truman

I never did give anybody hell. I just told the truth and they thought it was hell.
Harry S. Truman

I never gave anybody hell! I just told the truth and they thought it was hell.
Harry S. Truman

I remember when I first came to Washington. For the first six months you wonder how the hell you ever got here. For the next six months you wonder how the hell the rest of them ever got here.
Harry S. Truman

I would rather have peace in the world than be President.
Harry S. Truman

I've said many a time that I think the Un-American Activities Committee in the House of Representatives was the most un-American thing in America!
Harry S. Truman

If I hadn't been President of the United States, I probably would have ended up a piano player in a bawdy house.
Harry S. Truman

If I'd known how much packing I'd have to do, I'd have run again.
Harry S. Truman

If you can't convince them, confuse them.
Harry S. Truman

If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.
Harry S. Truman

In my opinion eight years as president is enough and sometimes too much for any man to serve in that capacity.
Harry S. Truman

In reading the lives of great men, I found that the first victory they won was over themselves... self-discipline with all of them came first.
Harry S. Truman

Intense feeling too often obscures the truth.
Harry S. Truman

It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit.
Harry S. Truman

It is understanding that gives us an ability to have peace. When we understand the other fellow's viewpoint, and he understands ours, then we can sit down and work out our differences.
Harry S. Truman

It sure is hell to be president.
Harry S. Truman

It's a recession when your neighbor loses his job; it's a depression when you lose yours.
Harry S. Truman

It's plain hokum. If you can't convince 'em, confuse 'em. It's an old political trick. But this time it won't work.
Harry S. Truman

Men make history and not the other way around. In periods where there is no leadership, society stands still. Progress occurs when courageous, skillful leaders seize the opportunity to change things for the better.
Harry S. Truman

Most of the problems a President has to face have their roots in the past.
Harry S. Truman

My choice early in life was either to be a piano-player in a whorehouse or a politician. And to tell the truth, there's hardly any difference.
Harry S. Truman

My father was not a failure. After all, he was the father of a president of the United States.
Harry S. Truman

Nixon is one of the few in the history of this country to run for high office talking out of both sides of his mouth at the same time and lying out of both sides.
Harry S. Truman

Richard Nixon is a no good, lying bastard. He can lie out of both sides of his mouth at the same time, and if he ever caught himself telling the truth, he'd lie just to keep his hand in.
Harry S. Truman

Study men, not historians.
Harry S. Truman

The atom bomb was no "great decision." It was merely another powerful weapon in the arsenal of righteousness.
Harry S. Truman

The best way to give advice to your children is to find out what they want and then advise them to do it.
Harry S. Truman

The buck stops here!
Harry S. Truman

The human animal cannot be trusted for anything good except en masse. The combined thought and action of the whole people of any race, creed or nationality, will always point in the right direction.
Harry S. Truman

The Marine Corps is the Navy's police force and as long as I am President that is what it will remain. They have a propaganda machine that is almost equal to Stalin's.
Harry S. Truman

The only things worth learning are the things you learn after you know it all.
Harry S. Truman

The President is always abused. If he isn't, he isn't doing anything.
Harry S. Truman

The reward of suffering is experience.
Harry S. Truman

The United Nations is designed to make possible lasting freedom and independence for all its members.
Harry S. Truman

The White House is the finest prison in the world.
Harry S. Truman

There is nothing new in the world except the history you do not know.
Harry S. Truman

This administration is going to be cussed and discussed for years to come.
Harry S. Truman

Those who want the Government to regulate matters of the mind and spirit are like men who are so afraid of being murdered that they commit suicide to avoid assassination.
Harry S. Truman

To hell with them. When history is written they will be the sons of bitches - not I.
Harry S. Truman

Upon books the collective education of the race depends; they are the sole instruments of registering, perpetuating and transmitting thought.
Harry S. Truman

Washington is a very easy city for you to forget where you came from and why you got there in the first place.
Harry S. Truman

We shall never be able to remove suspicion and fear as potential causes of war until communication is permitted to flow, free and open, across international boundaries.
Harry S. Truman

Well, I wouldn't say that I was in the great class, but I had a great time while I was trying to be great.
Harry S. Truman

When even one American - who has done nothing wrong - is forced by fear to shut his mind and close his mouth - then all Americans are in peril.
Harry S. Truman

When you get to be President, there are all those things, the honors, the twenty-one gun salutes, all those things. You have to remember it isn't for you. It's for the Presidency.
Harry S. Truman

When you have an efficient government, you have a dictatorship.
Harry S. Truman

Whenever a fellow tells me he's bipartisan, I know he's going to vote against me.
Harry S. Truman

Whenever you put a man on the Supreme Court he ceases to be your friend.
Harry S. Truman

You and I are stuck with the necessity of taking the worst of two evils or none at all. So-I'm taking the immature Democrat as the best of the two. Nixon is impossible.
Harry S. Truman

You can always amend a big plan, but you can never expand a little one. I don't believe in little plans. I believe in plans big enough to meet a situation which we can't possibly foresee now.
Harry S. Truman

You can never get all the facts from just one newspaper, and unless you have all the facts, you cannot make proper judgements about what is going on.
Harry S. Truman

You know that being an American is more than a matter of where your parents came from. It is a belief that all men are created free and equal and that everyone deserves an even break.
Harry S. Truman

You want a friend in Washington? Get a dog.
Harry S. Truman

John Tyler

I can never consent to being dictated to.
John Tyler

Let it be henceforth proclaimed to the world that man's conscience was created free; that he is no longer accountable to his fellow man for his religious opinions, being responsible therefore only to his God.
John Tyler

Popularity, I have always thought, may aptly be compared to a coquette - the more you woo her, the more apt is she to elude your embrace.
John Tyler

So far as it depends on the course of this government, our relations of good will and friendship will be sedulously cultivated with all nations.
John Tyler

Wealth can only be accumulated by the earnings of industry and the savings of frugality.
John Tyler

Lyndon B. Johnson

A man can take a little bourbon without getting drunk, but if you hold his mouth open and pour in a quart, he's going to get sick on it.
Lyndon B. Johnson

A man without a vote is man without protection.
Lyndon B. Johnson

A President's hardest task is not to do what is right, but to know what is right.
Lyndon B. Johnson

Any jackass can kick down a barn but it takes a good carpenter to build one.
Lyndon B. Johnson

Being president is like being a jackass in a hailstorm. There's nothing to do but to stand there and take it.
Lyndon B. Johnson

Did you ever think that making a speech on economics is a lot like pissing down your leg? It seems hot to you, but it never does to anyone else.
Lyndon B. Johnson

Doing what's right isn't the problem. It is knowing what's right.
Lyndon B. Johnson

Education is not a problem. Education is an opportunity.
Lyndon B. Johnson

Every man has a right to a Saturday night bath.
Lyndon B. Johnson

Every President wants to do right.
Lyndon B. Johnson

Freedom is not enough.
Lyndon B. Johnson

Greater love hath no man than to attend the Episcopal Church with his wife.
Lyndon B. Johnson

I am a freeman, an American, a United States Senator, and a Democrat, in that order.
Lyndon B. Johnson

I am concerned about the whole man. I am concerned about what the people, using their government as an instrument and a tool, can do toward building the whole man, which will mean a better society and a better world.
Lyndon B. Johnson

I am making a collection of the things my opponents have found me to be and, when this election is over, I am going to open a museum and put them on display.
Lyndon B. Johnson

I believe the destiny of your generation - and your nation - is a rendezvous with excellence.
Lyndon B. Johnson

I believe we can continue the Great Society while we fight in Vietnam.
Lyndon B. Johnson

I don't believe I'll ever get credit for anything I do in foreign affairs, no matter how successful it is, because I didn't go to Harvard.
Lyndon B. Johnson

I feel like I just grabbed a big juicy worm with a right sharp hook in the middle of it.
Lyndon B. Johnson

I have learned that only two things are necessary to keep one's wife happy. First, let her think she's having her own way. And second, let her have it.
Lyndon B. Johnson

I once told Nixon that the Presidency is like being a jackass caught in a hail storm. You've got to just stand there and take it.
Lyndon B. Johnson

I report to you that our country is challenged at home and abroad: that it is our will that is being tried and not our strength; our sense of purpose and not our ability to achieve a better America.
Lyndon B. Johnson

I seldom think of politics more than eighteen hours a day.
Lyndon B. Johnson

I want to make a policy statement. I am unabashedly in favor of women.
Lyndon B. Johnson

I will do my best. That is all I can do. I ask for your help - and God's.
Lyndon B. Johnson

I'd rather give my life than be afraid to give it.
Lyndon B. Johnson

I'm the only president you've got.
Lyndon B. Johnson

I'm tired. I'm tired of feeling rejected by the American people. I'm tired of waking up in the middle of the night worrying about the war.
Lyndon B. Johnson

If future generations are to remember us more with gratitude than sorrow, we must achieve more than just the miracles of technology. We must also leave them a glimpse of the world as it was created, not just as it looked when we got through with it.
Lyndon B. Johnson

If one morning I walked on top of the water across the Potomac River, the headline that afternoon would read: "President Can't Swim."
Lyndon B. Johnson

If the American people don't love me, their descendants will.
Lyndon B. Johnson

If two men agree on everything, you may be sure that one of them is doing the thinking.
Lyndon B. Johnson

If you let a bully come in your front yard, he'll be on your porch the next day and the day after that he'll rape your wife in your own bed.
Lyndon B. Johnson

In our home there was always prayer - aloud, proud and unapologetic.
Lyndon B. Johnson

It is always a strain when people are being killed. I don't think anybody has held this job who hasn't felt personally responsible for those being killed.
Lyndon B. Johnson

It is important that the United States remain a two-party system. I'm a fellow who likes small parties and the Republican Party can't be too small to suit me.
Lyndon B. Johnson

It is the genius of our Constitution that under its shelter of enduring institutions and rooted principles there is ample room for the rich fertility of American political invention.
Lyndon B. Johnson

It may be, it just may be, that life as we know it with its humanity is more unique than many have thought.
Lyndon B. Johnson

Jack was out kissing babies while I was out passing bills. Someone had to tend the store.
Lyndon B. Johnson

Jerry Ford is so dumb he can't fart and chew gum at the same time.
Lyndon B. Johnson

John F. Kennedy was the victim of the hate that was a part of our country. It is a disease that occupies the minds of the few but brings danger to the many.
Lyndon B. Johnson

Just like the Alamo, somebody damn well needed to go to their aid. Well, by God, I'm going to Viet Nam's aid!
Lyndon B. Johnson

No member of our generation who wasn't a Communist or a dropout in the thirties is worth a damn.
Lyndon B. Johnson

One lesson you better learn if you want to be in politics is that you never go out on a golf course and beat the President.
Lyndon B. Johnson

Only two things are necessary to keep one's wife happy. One is to let her think she is having her own way, and the other is to let her have it.
Lyndon B. Johnson

Our most tragic error may have been our inability to establish a rapport and a confidence with the press and television with the communication media. I don't think the press has understood me.
Lyndon B. Johnson

Our numbers have increased in Vietnam because the aggression of others has increased in Vietnam. There is not, and there will not be, a mindless escalation.
Lyndon B. Johnson

Our purpose in Vietnam is to prevent the success of aggression. It is not conquest, it is not empire, it is not foreign bases, it is not domination. It is, simply put, just to prevent the forceful conquest of South Vietnam by North Vietnam.
Lyndon B. Johnson

Our society is illuminated by the spiritual insights of the Hebrew prophets. America and Israel have a common love of human freedom, and they have a common faith in a democratic way of life.
Lyndon B. Johnson

Peace is a journey of a thousand miles and it must be taken one step at a time.
Lyndon B. Johnson

Poverty must not be a bar to learning and learning must offer an escape from poverty.
Lyndon B. Johnson

Presidents quickly realize that while a single act might destroy the world they live in, no one single decision can make life suddenly better or can turn history around for the good.
Lyndon B. Johnson

The atomic bomb certainly is the most powerful of all weapons, but it is conclusively powerful and effective only in the hands of the nation which controls the sky.
Lyndon B. Johnson

The CIA is made up of boys whose families sent them to Princeton but wouldn't let them into the family brokerage business.
Lyndon B. Johnson

The fact that a man is a newspaper reporter is evidence of some flaw of character.
Lyndon B. Johnson

The fifth freedom is freedom from ignorance.
Lyndon B. Johnson

The guns and the bombs, the rockets and the warships, are all symbols of human failure.
Lyndon B. Johnson

The last thing I wanted to do was to be a wartime President.
Lyndon B. Johnson

The men who have guided the destiny of the United States have found the strength for their tasks by going to their knees. This private unity of public men and their God is an enduring source of reassurance for the people of America.
Lyndon B. Johnson

The moon and other celestial bodies should be free for exploration and use by all countries. No country should be permitted to advance a claim of sovereignty.
Lyndon B. Johnson

The noblest search is the search for excellence.
Lyndon B. Johnson

The presidency has made every man who occupied it, no matter how small, bigger than he was; and no matter how big, not big enough for its demands.
Lyndon B. Johnson

The Russians feared Ike. They didn't fear me.
Lyndon B. Johnson

The separation of church and state is a source of strength, but the conscience of our nation does not call for separation between men of state and faith in the Supreme Being.
Lyndon B. Johnson

The vote is the most powerful instrument ever devised by man for breaking down injustice and destroying the terrible walls which imprison men because they are different from other men.
Lyndon B. Johnson

There are no favorites in my office. I treat them all with the same general inconsideration.
Lyndon B. Johnson

There are no problems we cannot solve together, and very few that we can solve by ourselves.
Lyndon B. Johnson

There are plenty of recommendations on how to get out of trouble cheaply and fast. Most of them come down to this: Deny your responsibility.
Lyndon B. Johnson

There is but one way for a president to deal with Congress, and that is continuously, incessantly, and without interruption. If it is really going to work, the relationship has got to be almost incestuous.
Lyndon B. Johnson

They call upon us to supply American boys to do the job that Asian boys should do.
Lyndon B. Johnson

This administration here and now declares unconditional war on poverty.
Lyndon B. Johnson

This is a moment that I deeply wish my parents could have lived to share. My father would have enjoyed what you have so generously said of me-and my mother would have believed it.
Lyndon B. Johnson

This is not Johnson's war. This is America's war. If I drop dead tomorrow, this war will still be with you.
Lyndon B. Johnson

To conclude that women are unfitted to the task of our historic society seems to me the equivalent of closing male eyes to female facts.
Lyndon B. Johnson

Until justice is blind to color, until education is unaware of race, until opportunity is unconcerned with the color of men's skins, emancipation will be a proclamation but not a fact.
Lyndon B. Johnson

We are not about to send American boys 9 or 10 thousand miles away from home to do what Asian boys ought to be doing for themselves.
Lyndon B. Johnson

We did not choose to be the guardians of the gate, but there is no one else.
Lyndon B. Johnson

We have entered an age in which education is not just a luxury permitting some men an advantage over others. It has become a necessity without which a person is defenseless in this complex, industrialized society. We have truly entered the century of the educated man.
Lyndon B. Johnson

We have talked long enough in this country about equal rights. It is time now to write the next chapter - and to write it in the books of law.
Lyndon B. Johnson

We have the opportunity to move not only toward the rich society and the powerful society, but upward to the Great Society.
Lyndon B. Johnson

We live in a world that has narrowed into a neighborhood before it has broadened into a brotherhood.
Lyndon B. Johnson

We must open the doors of opportunity. But we must also equip our people to walk through those doors.
Lyndon B. Johnson

What convinces is conviction. Believe in the argument you're advancing. If you don't you're as good as dead. The other person will sense that something isn't there, and no chain of reasoning, no matter how logical or elegant or brilliant, will win your case for you.
Lyndon B. Johnson

What we won when all of our people united must not be lost in suspicion and distrust and selfishness and politics. Accordingly, I shall not seek, and I will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term as president.
Lyndon B. Johnson

When I was a boy we didn't wake up with Vietnam and have Cyprus for lunch and the Congo for dinner.
Lyndon B. Johnson

When I was young, poverty was so common that we didn't know it had a name.
Lyndon B. Johnson

When the burdens of the presidency seem unusually heavy, I always remind myself it could be worse. I could be a mayor.
Lyndon B. Johnson

When things haven't gone well for you, call in a secretary or a staff man and chew him out. You will sleep better and they will appreciate the attention.
Lyndon B. Johnson

Whether we are New Dealer, Old Dealer, Liberty Leaguer or Red, whether we agree or not, we still have the right to think and speak how we feel.
Lyndon B. Johnson

While you're saving your face, you're losing your ass.
Lyndon B. Johnson

Whoever won't fight when the President calls him, deserves to be kicked back in his hole and kept there.
Lyndon B. Johnson

Yesterday is not ours to recover, but tomorrow is ours to win or lose.
Lyndon B. Johnson

You aren't learning anything when you're talking.
Lyndon B. Johnson

You do not examine legislation in the light of the benefits it will convey if properly administered, but in the light of the wrongs it would do and the harms it would cause if improperly administered.
Lyndon B. Johnson

You might say that Lyndon Johnson is a cross between a Baptist preacher and a cowboy.
Lyndon B. Johnson

You've got to work things out in the cloakroom, and when you've got them worked out, you can debate a little before you vote.
Lyndon B. Johnson

Andrew Johnson

Honest conviction is my courage; the Constitution is my guide.
Andrew Johnson

I am sworn to uphold the Constitution as Andy Johnson understands it and interprets it.
Andrew Johnson

I feel incompetent to perform duties... which have been so unexpectedly thrown upon me.
Andrew Johnson

I hold it the duty of the executive to insist upon frugality in the expenditure, and a sparing economy is itself a great national source.
Andrew Johnson

If I am shot at, I want no man to be in the way of the bullet.
Andrew Johnson

If the rabble were lopped off at one end and the aristocrats at the other, all would be well with the country.
Andrew Johnson

It's a damn poor mind that can only think of one way to spell a word.
Andrew Johnson

Legislation can neither be wise nor just which seeks the welfare of a single interest at the expense and to the injury of many and varied interests.
Andrew Johnson

Outside of the Constitution we have no legal authority more than private citizens, and within it we have only so much as that instrument gives us. This broad principle limits all our functions and applies to all subjects.
Andrew Johnson

Slavery exists. It is black in the South, and white in the North.
Andrew Johnson

The goal to strive for is a poor government but a rich people.
Andrew Johnson

There are no good laws but such as repeal other laws.
Andrew Johnson

Who, then, will govern? The answer must be, Man - for we have no angels in the shape of men, as yet, who are willing to take charge of our political affairs.
Andrew Johnson

Andrew Jackson

All the rights secured to the citizens under the Constitution are worth nothing, and a mere bubble, except guaranteed to them by an independent and virtuous Judiciary.
Andrew Jackson

Americans are not a perfect people, but we are called to a perfect mission.
Andrew Jackson

Any man worth his salt will stick up for what he believes right, but it takes a slightly better man to acknowledge instantly and without reservation that he is in error.
Andrew Jackson

As long as our government is administered for the good of the people, and is regulated by their will; as long as it secures to us the rights of persons and of property, liberty of conscience and of the press, it will be worth defending.
Andrew Jackson

Democracy shows not only its power in reforming governments, but in regenerating a race of men and this is the greatest blessing of free governments.
Andrew Jackson

Disunion by force is treason.
Andrew Jackson

Elevate those guns a little lower.
Andrew Jackson

Every diminution of the public burdens arising from taxation gives to individual enterprise increased power and furnishes to all the members of our happy confederacy new motives for patriotic affection and support.
Andrew Jackson

Every good citizen makes his country's honor his own, and cherishes it not only as precious but as sacred. He is willing to risk his life in its defense and its conscious that he gains protection while he gives it.
Andrew Jackson

Fear not, the people may be deluded for a moment, but cannot be corrupted.
Andrew Jackson

Heaven will be no heaven to me if I do not meet my wife there.
Andrew Jackson

I am a Senator against my wishes and feelings, which I regret more than any other of my life.
Andrew Jackson

I cannot consent that my mortal body shall be laid in a repository prepared for an Emperor or a King my republican feelings and principles forbid it the simplicity of our system of government forbids it.
Andrew Jackson

I feel in the depths of my soul that it is the highest, most sacred, and most irreversible part of my obligation to preserve the union of these states, although it may cost me my life.
Andrew Jackson

I have always been afraid of banks.
Andrew Jackson

I weep for the liberty of my country when I see at this early day of its successful experiment that corruption has been imputed to many members of the House of Representatives, and the rights of the people have been bartered for promises of office.
Andrew Jackson

I would sincerely regret, and which never shall happen whilst I am in office, a military guard around the President.
Andrew Jackson

I've got big shoes to fill. This is my chance to do something. I have to seize the moment.
Andrew Jackson

If the Union is once severed, the line of separation will grow wider and wider, and the controversies which are now debated and settled in the halls of legislation will then be tried in fields of battle and determined by the sword.
Andrew Jackson

In England the judges should have independence to protect the people against the crown. Here the judges should not be independent of the people, but be appointed for not more than seven years. The people would always re-elect the good judges.
Andrew Jackson

It is a damn poor mind indeed which can't think of at least two ways to spell any word.
Andrew Jackson

It is to be regretted that the rich and powerful too often bend the acts of government to their own selfish purposes.
Andrew Jackson

It was settled by the Constitution, the laws, and the whole practice of the government that the entire executive power is vested in the President of the United States.
Andrew Jackson

Mischief springs from the power which the moneyed interest derives from a paper currency which they are able to control, from the multitude of corporations with exclusive privileges... which are employed altogether for their benefit.
Andrew Jackson

Money is power, and in that government which pays all the public officers of the states will all political power be substantially concentrated.
Andrew Jackson

Mr. Van Buren, your friends may be leaving you but my friends never leave me.
Andrew Jackson

Never take counsel of your fears.
Andrew Jackson

No one need think that the world can be ruled without blood. The civil sword shall and must be red and bloody.
Andrew Jackson

Nullification means insurrection and war; and the other states have a right to put it down.
Andrew Jackson

One man with courage makes a majority.
Andrew Jackson

Our government is founded upon the intelligence of the people. I for one do not despair of the republic. I have great confidence in the virtue of the great majority of the people, and I cannot fear the result.
Andrew Jackson

Peace, above all things, is to be desired, but blood must sometimes be spilled to obtain it on equable and lasting terms.
Andrew Jackson

Take time to deliberate; but when the time for action arrives, stop thinking and go in.
Andrew Jackson

The Bible is the rock on which this Republic rests.
Andrew Jackson

The brave man inattentive to his duty, is worth little more to his country than the coward who deserts in the hour of danger.
Andrew Jackson

The Constitution and the laws are supreme and the Union indissoluble.
Andrew Jackson

The duty of government is to leave commerce to its own capital and credit as well as all other branches of business, protecting all in their legal pursuits, granting exclusive privileges to none.
Andrew Jackson

The great constitutional corrective in the hands of the people against usurpation of power, or corruption by their agents is the right of suffrage; and this when used with calmness and deliberation will prove strong enough.
Andrew Jackson

The people are the government, administering it by their agents; they are the government, the sovereign power.
Andrew Jackson

The planter, the farmer, the mechanic, and the laborer... form the great body of the people of the United States, they are the bone and sinew of the country men who love liberty and desire nothing but equal rights and equal laws.
Andrew Jackson

The safety of the republic being the supreme law, and Texas having offered us the key to the safety of our country from all foreign intrigues and diplomacy, I say accept the key... and bolt the door at once.
Andrew Jackson

The wisdom of man never yet contrived a system of taxation that would operate with perfect equality.
Andrew Jackson

There are no necessary evils in government. Its evils exist only in its abuses.
Andrew Jackson

There is no pleasure in having nothing to do; the fun is having lots to do and not doing it.
Andrew Jackson

There is nothing that I shudder at more than the idea of a separation of the Union. Should such an event ever happen, which I fervently pray God to avert, from that date I view our liberty gone.
Andrew Jackson

To the victors belong the spoils.
Andrew Jackson

Unless you become more watchful in your states and check the spirit of monopoly and thirst for exclusive privileges you will in the end find that... the control over your dearest interests has passed into the hands of these corporations.
Andrew Jackson

War is a blessing compared with national degradation.
Andrew Jackson

We are beginning a new era in our government. I cannot too strongly urge the necessity of a rigid economy and an inflexible determination not to enlarge the income beyond the real necessities of the government.
Andrew Jackson

You must pay the price if you wish to secure the blessing.
Andrew Jackson

Herbert Hoover

A good many things go around in the dark besides Santa Claus.
Herbert Hoover

About the time we can make the ends meet, somebody moves the ends.
Herbert Hoover

All men are equal before fish.
Herbert Hoover

America - a great social and economic experiment, noble in motive and far-reaching in purpose.
Herbert Hoover

Blessed are the young for they shall inherit the national debt.
Herbert Hoover

Children are our most valuable natural resource.
Herbert Hoover

Competition is not only the basis of protection to the consumer, but is the incentive to progress.
Herbert Hoover

Economic depression cannot be cured by legislative action or executive pronouncement. Economic wounds must be healed by the action of the cells of the economic body - the producers and consumers themselves.
Herbert Hoover

Fishing is much more than fish. It is the great occasion when we may return to the fine simplicity of our forefathers.
Herbert Hoover

Freedom is the open window through which pours the sunlight of the human spirit and human dignity.
Herbert Hoover

Honor is not the exclusive property of any political party.
Herbert Hoover

I'm the only person of distinction who has ever had a depression named for him.
Herbert Hoover

If the law is upheld only by government officials, then all law is at an end.
Herbert Hoover

In America today, we are nearer a final triumph over poverty than is any other land.
Herbert Hoover

It is a paradox that every dictator has climbed to power on the ladder of free speech. Immediately on attaining power each dictator has suppressed all free speech except his own.
Herbert Hoover

It is just as important that business keep out of government as that government keep out of business.
Herbert Hoover

It is the youth who must inherit the tribulation, the sorrow... that are the aftermath of war.
Herbert Hoover

Let me remind you that credit is the lifeblood of business, the lifeblood of prices and jobs.
Herbert Hoover

Many years ago, I concluded that a few hair shirts were part of the mental wardrobe of every man. The president differs from other men in that he has a more extensive wardrobe.
Herbert Hoover

New discoveries in science will continue to create a thousand new frontiers for those who still would adventure.
Herbert Hoover

No greater nor more affectionate honor can be conferred on an American than to have a public school named after him.
Herbert Hoover

No public man can be just a little crooked.
Herbert Hoover

Older men declare war. But it is the youth that must fight and die.
Herbert Hoover

Once upon a time my political opponents honored me as possessing the fabulous intellectual and economic power by which I created a worldwide depression all by myself.
Herbert Hoover

Peace is not made at the council table or by treaties, but in the hearts of men.
Herbert Hoover

Prosperity cannot be restored by raids upon the public Treasury.
Herbert Hoover

The pause between the errors and trials of the day and the hopes of the night.
Herbert Hoover

The slogan of progress is changing from the full dinner pail to the full garage.
Herbert Hoover

The thing I enjoyed most were visits from children. They did not want public office.
Herbert Hoover

The use of the atomic bomb, with its indiscriminate killing of women and children, revolts my soul.
Herbert Hoover

There are only two occasions when Americans respect privacy, especially in Presidents. Those are prayer and fishing.
Herbert Hoover

This is not a showman's job. I will not step out of character.
Herbert Hoover

We have not yet reached the goal but... we shall soon, with the help of God, be in sight of the day when poverty shall be banished from this nation.
Herbert Hoover

When there is a lack of honor in government, the morals of the whole people are poisoned.
Herbert Hoover

When we are sick, we want an uncommon doctor; when we have a construction job to do, we want an uncommon engineer, and when we are at war, we want an uncommon general. It is only when we get into politics that we are satisfied with the common man.
Herbert Hoover

Wisdom consists not so much in knowing what to do in the ultimate as knowing what to do next.
Herbert Hoover

Wisdom oft times consists of knowing what to do next.
Herbert Hoover

With impressive proof on all sides of magnificent progress, no one can rightly deny the fundamental correctness of our economic system.
Herbert Hoover

Words without actions are the assassins of idealism.
Herbert Hoover