Former President Quotes

#1. I am relatively sure, from conversations that I had with former president Bill Clinton, that George Bush seldom called upon him for advice.

Tony Campolo

#2. On a friendship with former president George W. Bush: He's a personal friend, but we've all got the right not to agree with our friends.

Lance Armstrong

#3. Former President Bill Clinton is on the program tonight. He says that while his wife runs for president, he would like to stay out of the limelight. Well, he's certainly come to the right place. He'll be fine here.

David Letterman

#4. I do not begrudge Bill Clinton's working for his wife, but the one thing I would say is really important to President Clinton to think about right now, because of the larger megaphone he has as a former president, he really needs to be careful with the truth.

Claire McCaskill

#5. People are being really picky about the upcoming election. I read that Americans do not want the next president to be a first-term senator, be over 65, or have a former president in the family. Then the Secret Service said, 'Hey, whoever slips through slips through. No promises.'

Jimmy Fallon

#6. I had the assassins of the former president of Egypt, the leader of the Muslim Brotherhood was with me in prison, the leaders of my own former group Hizb ut-Tahrir were with me in prison and so by the time I was released at the age of 28, I wasn't the man who went in at 24.

Maajid Nawaz

#7. Last night we had Bill Clinton, the former president. Security was as tight as Governor Christie's yoga pants.

David Letterman

#8. Former President Bill Clinton, who is widely regarded as a political mastermind, may have sounded like a traditional liberal at the beginning of his term in office. But what ultimately defined his presidency was his amazing pliability on matters of principle.

Thomas Frank

#9. The Pacific had great hope that when the former President Mitered decided to halt nuclear testing, we had put behind us the issue of nuclear states testing their weapons in our Pacific region.

Jenny Shipley

#10. As you may have heard, former President Bill Clinton says he's coming here to California to help Governor Gray Davis in his recall election campaign. Which is ironic, isn't it? When Clinton was president, he couldn't recall anything.

Jay Leno

#11. Barney spotted our neighbor's lawn, where he promptly took care of his business. There I was, the former president of the United States, with a plastic bag on my hand, picking up that which I had been dodging for the past eight years.

George W. Bush

#12. Former President Bush, to celebrate his 80th birthday, jumped out of an airplane. And if you've seen the polls, you know he's not the only Bush in freefall.

David Letterman

#13. It's better to read first rate science fiction than second rate science
it's a lot more fun, and no more likely to be wrong, joked Lord Rees, Astronomer Royal and the former president of the Royal Society, at Wired 2013.

Martin J. Rees

#14. Thanks to former President George W. Bush - remember the compassionate conservative? - I have a good name for the fundamental principle that should guide the Democratic alternative: compassionate deficit reduction.

Christina Romer

#15. It was OK for the media to pursue Former President Clinton year after year for lying about a private, consensual sexual affair, but we have five justices who committed one of the biggest crimes in American History, and it ceased to be a big story.

Vincent Bugliosi

#16. [Hillary Clinton] has talked about not being a natural campaigner. And she has this big shadow because her husband, the former president [Bill Clinton], and President [Barack] Obama both are natural campaigners. And so this is a challenge for her.

Tamara Keith

#17. I would like to see more control and more criticism coming from Europe. The constant expressions of friendship for former President Eduard Shevardnadze, who made some contribution to German unity, were counterproductive for our country.

Irakli Okruashvili

#18. I think it's less risky for the Kerry campaign to embrace former President Clinton than it is to reject him.

Stuart Rothenberg

#19. But as Lindbergh's friend former president Herbert Hoover instructed, "When you had been in politics long enough, you learned not to say things just because they are true."21

Winston Groom

#20. Both President Obama and former President George W. Bush were interviewed on 'Face the Nation' over the weekend. President Bush said there's a 50 percent chance his brother Jeb will run for president in 2016. Then he said, 'But there's an 80 percent chance he won't.'

Jimmy Fallon

#21. While visiting Kenya, former President Clinton was offered 40 goats and 20 cows for his daughter, Chelsea, by a love struck government official. Bill said, "No way!" How does that make Hillary feel? Bill almost gave her up for one cow.

Jay Leno

#22. An attempt is already underway to revise history - to leave the impression that the former president had nothing to do with Watergate. But there is no doubt about his obstruction of justice after the Watergate break-in.

John J. Sirica

#23. We will revive the emergency employment program established by former President Corazon Aquino. This will provide jobs for local communities and will help in the development of their and our economy.

Benigno Aquino III

#24. Yesterday, the country of Kosovo unveiled an 11-foot tall statue of former President Clinton. Yeah. That's right. The Clinton statue is so life-like, it's already been slapped 12 times.

Conan O'Brien

#25. So, I'm lying on the couch and Laura walks in and I say, 'Free at last,' and she says 'You're free all right, you're free to do the dishes.' So I say, 'You're talking to the former president, baby,' and she said, 'consider this your new domestic policy agenda.'

George W. Bush

#26. Bush met with former President Jimmy Carter. Jimmy Carter is 76 years old, or as Democrats call him 'their bright new star of the future.'

David Letterman

#27. I have zero desire, just so you know, to be in the limelight. I don't think it's good for the country to have a former president criticize his successor. You're not going to see me giving my opinions in the public arena, until I start selling my book. I'm going to emerge then submerge.

George W. Bush

#28. He hacked the FBI mainframe as a teenager and once sent an email from a former president's account, just because he could.

Cat Patrick

#29. Former president Wulff said Islam belongs to Germany. That is true. I also hold this opinion.

Angela Merkel

#30. Ronald Reagan's biographer wrote of the former president's final days: "for all the intimate familiarity of that face and body, I did not feel his presence beside me-only his absence."

Edwin Morris

#31. Former President George W. Bush has hired a man to lead his presidential think tank in Dallas. The man was hired because he was the only candidate who could say the words, 'George W. Bush think tank' with a straight face.

Conan O'Brien

#32. Vanity Fair magazine reports that former President Clinton and Al Gore haven't spoken to each other since George W. Bush's inauguration. Not only that, Bill and his wife, Hillary, haven't spoken since Richard Nixon's inauguration.

Conan O'Brien

#33. President Obama gave a speech about healthcare tonight, and yesterday he gave a pep talk to students. He told them that in order to succeed they need to work hard and study hard. Then today, former President George W. Bush presented the rebuttal.

Conan O'Brien

#34. Few dramas in American political history remain more riveting than that of Nixon's exit and Mr. Ford's reaction, at first halting and then decisive, to the looming possibility of a former president on criminal trial for months on end.

Scott Shane

#35. I have always had great respect for former president Mandela. The personal sacrifices he made in order to achieve what was right for the people of South Africa is something I carry with me every day.

Aaron Schock

#36. Folks, tomorrow America will get to hear those four words we've been waiting for: "Former president George Bush".

Jay Leno

#37. I didn't say 'former president,' I said 'president,' and I have the constitutional rights according to the constitution, including immunity from prosecution.

Saddam Hussein

#38. At bottom, the decision to pardon Nixon was a political judgment properly within the bounds of Ford's constitutional authority. The specter of a former president in the criminal dock as our country moved into its bicentennial year was profoundly disturbing.

Richard Ben-Veniste

#39. In the event of the death of a current or former President, like the recent death of President Ronald Reagan, the flag should be flown at half-staff for thirty days from the day of the death.

Michael K. Simpson

#40. I think former President Clinton and even Newt Gingrich have said it was a mistake to repeal Glass Steagall.

Martin O'Malley

#41. Former president Bill Clinton was elected on this very day in 1992. Clinton went on to leave quite a mark in the oval office ... You mean the one on the sofa?

Craig Ferguson

#42. No one should be put on trial without a valid reason. Former President Morsi must be treated with dignity. These are the conditions of national reconciliation.

Mohamed ElBaradei

#43. To work for better understanding among people, one does not have to be a former president sitting at a fancy conference room table. Peace can be made in the neighborhoods, the living rooms, the playing fields, and the classrooms of our country.

Jimmy Carter

#44. I was in prison with the assassins of the former president of Egypt, Anwar Sadat, who was killed in 1981. Those who weren't executed in that case were given life sentences, and two of those were with me in prison.

Maajid Nawaz

#45. On being told of the death of former President Calvin Coolidge: How could they tell?

Dorothy Parker

#46. We will not let the price of peace be greater than the price of war, we will firmly safeguard the achievements of the past 13 years under former President Karzai.

Ashraf Ghani

#47. The Ukrainian authorities said Thursday that former President Viktor F. Yanukovych and Russian security agents were involved in plans for elite police units

Anonymous

#48. Along with former President Bill Clinton, we have Sam Nunn to thank for the sorry debacle of 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell.'

David Mixner

#49. Today, former President Bill Clinton met with North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Il and convinced him to release two American journalists that have been jailed since March. Isn't that great? This is big, yeah. Or as Clinton calls it, another Asian happy ending.

Conan O'Brien

#50. During a recent press conference, former President Jimmy Carter said he could never run for president today because he doesn't have a lot of money. Well, that and the fact that he's the famously bad president Jimmy Carter.

Jimmy Fallon

#51. He (former President Gerald Ford) made it very clear that he did not agree with the reasons President Bush laid out for the war, namely the belief that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq or that there was some obligation that the United States or the president had to expand democracy.

Bob Woodward

#52. During an interview, former President George W. Bush discussed his painting hobby and said, 'Never paint your wife or your mother.' Then he added, 'Because it's almost impossible to get the paint out of their hair.'

Jimmy Fallon

#53. Former president George W. Bush released his new memoir. By the way, 'memoir' is just a fancy word for 'a bunch of stuff that happened to me.

Craig Ferguson

#54. Today, as an independent, an entrepreneur, and a former mayor, I believe we need a president who is a problem solver, not a bomb thrower. Someone who can bring members of Congress together to get things done. And I know Hillary Clinton can do that because I saw it firsthand.

Michael Bloomberg

#55. If you believe our president, a former oil businessman, is going to end our addiction to oil, shame on all of us.

Dan Seals

#56. Former US president, drug baron and pedophile, George Herbert Walker Bush, incidentally, is mentioned more than any other person in my experience in relation to shape-shifting.

David Icke

#57. The head of the CIA, it seems to me, would think long and hard before he admitted that former employees of his had been involved in the murder of the President of the United States-even if they weren't acting on behalf of the Agency when they did it.

Jim Garrison

#58. As a former U.S. attorney general under President Reagan, and a former Ohio secretary of state, we would like to say something that might strike some as obvious: Those who oppose photo voter-ID laws and other election-integrity reforms are intent on making it easier to commit vote fraud.

Edwin Meese

#59. Hey, I'm a former union president myself and also an attorney that represented a lot of unions.

Stephen F. Lynch

#60. They said that President Bush's war in Iraq has cost the former Spanish Prime Minister his job. So President Bush isn't losing American jobs anymore, he's branching out to other countries.

Jay Leno

#61. Eisenhower advocated a variety of strong actions which he had never taken when he was president. Maybe this was just the pattern of former presidents; maybe it reflected how much the circumstances had changed on the ground.

Nancy Gibbs; Michael Duffy

#62. George W. Bush, the former US president, is reputed to have complained that the problem with the French is that they do not have a word for entrepreneurship in their language.

Ha-Joon Chang

#63. The government of Sudan, employing a back channel direct from its president to the Central Intelligence Agency, offered in the early spring of 1996 to arrest Osama bin Laden and place him in Saudi custody, according to officials and former officials in all three countries.

Barton Gellman

#64. WOMEN'S PRAYVAGANZA TODAY. The banner covers the building's former name, some dead president they shot. Below

Margaret Atwood

#65. Chinese president Jiang Zemin met with former Bill Clinton in Hong Kong Wednesday. What a contrast. One is a ruthless communist who gains popularity by damaging the United States, while the other guy runs China.

Argus Hamilton

#66. President Obama became the first sitting president to visit a federal prison yesterday. Obama said it was a good chance to talk about prison reform, and to catch up with so many former congressmen.

Jimmy Fallon

#67. It was an agreement between (former Iraqi president) Saddam (Hussein) and the shah of Iran (ousted in 1979) and not between Iraq and Iran.

Jalal Talabani

#68. President Obama admitted this week that a former girlfriend that he wrote about in his autobiography was made up and not a real person ... So Obama had an imaginary girlfriend. Big deal! He had an imaginary economic plan. It's all the same.

Jay Leno

#69. I think if the White House or the President want to say anything about our conversations or anything I tried to do to help our country with their support or at their request, then I think they should be the ones to do that. But I think that former presidents should do that.

William J. Clinton

#70. As I write, the President of the United States is a former Hollywood movie actor.

Neil Postman

#71. Marco Rubio announced he's running for president. Fun fact: Marco Rubio's wife is a former Miami Dolphins cheerleader. In other words, she knows how to generate fake enthusiasm for someone who's not going to win.

Conan O'Brien

#72. Each one of us is an individual, just like talk show hosts are different from one another, and newspaper columnists are different from each other. So, former presidents are different from each other, too. Some have gone into relative seclusion. Some have decided to teach.

Jimmy Carter

#73. As the criminal, sinful war in Iraq enters its third year, the president goes to Europe to heal the wounds between the United States and its former allies, on his own terms of course.

Andrew Greeley

#74. Because of the increase in life longevity, America can now assume that at any given time three, and perhaps four, former presidents will still be alive, even when the current president is occupying the White House.

Tony Campolo

#75. In recent weeks, I have heard former Associated Press reporter Ron Fournier on Fox News twice asserting, quite offhandedly, that President George W. Bush 'lied us into war in Iraq.'

Laurence Silberman

#76. I heard somebody say, 'Where's (Nelson) Mandela?' Well, Mandela's dead. Because Saddam killed all the Mandelas.
George W. Bush, on the former South African president, who is still very much alive, Washington, D.C., Sept. 20, 2007

George W. Bush

#77. The CIA could not face up to the American people and admit that its former employees had conspired to assassinate the President; so from the moment Kennedy's heart stopped beating, the Agency attempted to sweep the whole conspiracy under the rug.

Jim Garrison

#78. Former South Africa President Nelson Mandela announced Tuesday he will begin writing his autobiography. He spent 25 years in prison before being elected to public office. In America, we do it the other way around.

Argus Hamilton

#79. As a former member of President Obama's economic team, I have a soft spot for the fiscal stimulus legislation he signed just a month after his inauguration.

Christina Romer

#80. Al Gore, the former vice-president of the United States, lives in a mansion that uses more electricity than the average family's bungalow! David Suzuki rides on a bus that uses more fuel than a Smart car to get across Canada! Oh my God! And this is just the tip of the vanishing iceberg!

Linwood Barclay

#81. The pathological degree to which former Vice President Dick Cheney operated in secrecy led to government abuses that we'll probably spend years learning about.

Timothy Noah

#82. Critics might contend that putting former private-sector CEOs in the president's Cabinet places the fox in the henhouse. But it's unlikely such executives would expose themselves to the headaches if they weren't genuinely motivated by the call to service.

John Sununu

#83. A tell-all book by David Axelrod, one of President Obama's former strategists, reveals that Obama chose Joe Biden as his VP because of his energy and enthusiasm. You know, the qualities you look for in someone whose main job is traveling to state funerals.

Jimmy Fallon

#84. Nixon became the first (and to date, only) former Vice President to be elected President (every other Vice President who moved into the Presidency either succeeded upon his predecessor's death, or won election directly from the Vice Presidency).

George Washington

#85. Gay marriage has jumped out of the closet on to the front page. Everyone from the president of the U.S. to retired four-star general Colin Powell is embracing the issue, now supported by most Americans. Still, a few people, like former First Lady Laura Bush appear to be conflicted.

Kitty Kelley

#86. Howard Dean was endorsed by former Vice President Al Gore and now he is getting advice from Al Gore. And I'm thinking, who better to give advice than the guy who couldn't even get elected with the most votes?

David Letterman

#87. If you want to know how Hillary Clinton could try to distance herself from President Obama's much-criticized foreign policy, listen closely to the words of her former top strategist, Anne-Marie Slaughter.

Nina Easton