Top 100 Great President Sayings
#1. I would never say John Kerry would be a great president. I will say that George Bush has divided us; he has filled this country with hatred.
John Mellencamp
#2. Lyndon Johnson, I know for a fact, was a great president. And I don't mean by that he was a great man.
Eileen Myles
#3. George Bush didn't campaign on, 'If you elect me, I'm going to be a great president to confront terrorism and launch a war in the Middle East' because nobody was thinking about it in the year 2000. But it became the defining issue of his presidency.
Mike Huckabee
#4. Jeb Bush is my friend. I think he'd make a great president. I've nudged him for some time.
John Boehner
#5. As prime minister, I worked closely with Ronald Reagan for eight of the most important years of all our lives. We talked regularly both before and after his presidency. And I have had time and cause to reflect on what made him a great president.
Margaret Thatcher
#6. People always try to separate the good from the bad in Clinton and say that, if he had not done certain things, he would have been a great president. But you can't do that. Those were his major characteristics.
David Maraniss
#7. From Jefferson to Jackson to Lincoln to FDR to Reagan, every great president inspires enormous affection and enormous hostility. We'll all be much saner, I think, if we remember that history is full of surprises and things that seemed absolutely certain one day are often unimaginable the next.
Jon Meacham
#8. History chalks up Mr. McKinley's War as a U.S. win, and he also polls favorably as a 'near great' president.
Douglas Brinkley
#9. George W. Bush is not only a great president; he was a great candidate.
Ed Gillespie
#10. George Herbert Walker Bush. He was a pretty-pretty great President and anything but.
Mitt Romney
#11. You can be a great president and be ridden with flaws. Of course we know that.
Morley Safer
#12. Mr. Lincoln was not only a great President, but a great man - too great to be small in anything. In his company I was never in any way reminded of my humble origin, or of my unpopular color.
Frederick Douglass
#13. We imagine much more appropriately an artisan on his toilet seat or on his wife than a great president, venerable by his demeanorand his ability. It seems to us that they do not stoop from their lofty thrones even to live.
Michel De Montaigne
#14. That was my choice at that time, and I still say Nixon was a great president. A very beautiful and wise man.
Solomon Burke
#15. He was a great president in his first term; in his second term, he wasn't the same Grover Cleveland he was to begin with ... Cleveland reestablished the presidency by being not only a chief executive but a leader.
Harry S. Truman
#16. I think I will be a great president having to do with the military and also having to do with taking care of our vets.
Donald Trump
#17. Truman is now seen as a near-great president because he put in place the containment doctrine boosted by the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan and NATO, which historians now see as having been at the center of American success in the cold war.
Robert Dallek
#18. The presidency is a serious job that requires sound judgment and good ideas, and there's no doubt in my mind that Jeb Bush has the experience and the character to be a great president.
George W. Bush
#20. I admire and respect Bill Clinton. I think he was a great president.
Jim Clyburn
#21. Gary Busey said on the Today Show yesterday that Donald Trump would make a great President. Now Trump just needs endorsements from Randy Quaid and Charlie Sheen.
Conan O'Brien
#23. One right decision doth not a great president make.
Herman Cain
#24. Mr. Chairman, delegates. I accept your nomination for President of the United States of America. I do so with humility, deeply moved by the trust you have placed in me. It is a great honor. It is an even greater responsibility.
Mitt Romney
#25. I made one great mistake in my life-when I signed the letter to President Roosevelt recommending that atom bombs be made but there was some justification-the danger that the Germans would make them.
Albert Einstein
#26. Right now the best way that I can impact the world is through entertainment. One day, and that day will come, I can impact the world through politics. The great news is that I am American, therefore I can become President. But don't forget: I am G.I. Joe.
Dwayne Johnson
#27. Our superhero foreign policy draws rivers of taxpayer dollars toward the center, empowering Washington at the expense of local governments. It also empowers the president at the expense of Congress in ways that upset the balance that the authors of the Constitution took great pains to design.
Ian Bremmer
#28. A President has a great chance; his position is almost that of a king and a prime minister rolled into one. Once he has left office he cannot do very much; and he is a fool if he fails to realize it all and to be profoundly thankful for having had the great chance.
Theodore Roosevelt
#29. I spend a great deal of time with the President. We have a very close, personal, loyal relationship. I'm not, as they say, a potted plant in these meetings.
Dan Quayle
#30. What's funny about that office is it's entirely dependent on how close you are to the president, because the president decides what your role will be. If you get on with the president, that's great; if you fall out with the president, power can go away.
Armando Iannucci
#31. Obama's the most thoughtful-sounding president I can remember. He seems to be saying what he wants to say, and that is a great relief. He always sounds like he's thinking about what he's saying while he's saying it, and that's a rare thing in politicians.
Roy Blount Jr.
#32. You know, I think that President Obama is a person who has a great relationship with a number of people. Colin Powell does, too. I think Colin Powell is a fine American, a great leader and sees things in President Obama that he agrees with. He's entitled to have his opinion.
Pete Sessions
#33. The office of President is a great one; to every true American it seems the greatest on earth. And to me, as I was engaged in weaving a background of music for the pageantry of it, there came a deeper realization of the effect of that office on the man.
John Philip Sousa
#34. Those jeans are comfortable, and for those of you who want your president to look great in his tight jeans, I'm sorry I'm not the guy. It just doesn't fit me. I'm not 20.
Barack Obama
#35. You could argue that Barack Obama faced in '08 a situation as bad as any president since the Great Depression. What Obama inherited from the Bush administration, we all remember, was just an absolute global catastrophe.
Tony Kushner
#36. I do not conceive that power is given to the President and Senate to dismember the empire, or to alienate any great, essential right. I do not think the whole legislative authority have this power. The exercise of the power must be consistent with the object of the delegation.
James Madison
#37. But despite historic levels of obstruction, President Obama was able to bring the economy back from the verge of a second Great Depression.
Steny Hoyer
#38. A president aiming for 'Great' or 'Near Great' status must do more. He must give lots of interviews, make records accessible, and heap the flattery on academia - each of which Mr. Bush has signally failed to do.
Thomas Frank
#39. A lot of people have said to me, 'That's a great idea, running for president. You'll get booked for more speeches. You can write a book.'
John Bolton
#40. 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
#41. They didn't do this because they have facts, because they have solid proof against me. They did it because the president spoke and now they must prove that he was right and that is my great worry.
Augustin Misago
#42. When President Chirac gave [President] Bush a souvenir statue of the Eiffel Tower ... Bush said 'This is great! A little oil rig!'
Jay Leno
#43. Today is the anniversary of the Gettysburg Address. President Lincoln wrote it on his way to the site of the speech on the back of an envelope. One guy on the back of an envelope wrote the great Gettysburg Address - while every night it takes six guys to write this crap!
David Letterman
#44. President Bush threw out the first pitch Monday at Cincinnati's great American ball park. 18 Iraqis were killed.
Amy Poehler
#45. When this president was sworn into office, he was handed a deficit of over a trillion dollars. Republicans were in control of Congress for much of the time that President George W. Bush was in office, and they didn't do a great job of controlling spending.
Jay Carney
#46. As president, I will stand up to the great human rights tests of our time - in China, Russia, and the Middle East. We must send a signal to our allies and adversaries that America is back in the leadership business.
Carly Fiorina
#47. I think I'd make a pretty good president, and they have a great pension plan.
Pat Paulsen
#48. If you're running to be president of the United States, you can't just tell people you're going to make America great again. I think you need to begin to explain exactly how you're going to do it policy-wise. We're not going to win a general election with a candidate that refuses to detail policy.
Marco Rubio
#50. My great great grandparents were slaves. And now I'm running for president of the United States. Is this a great country or what?!
Herman Cain
#51. Mitterrand had a sense for symbols, and he was the first Socialist president since 1958. He wanted to show that there is historical continuity, a connection with the great figures of French history.
Francois Hollande
#52. We all obviously need others to look up to, and be inspirational to us. Ford did a great job as far as putting the presidency back where it belonged, getting the trust back after Nixon. And President Reagan has been one of the most influential presidents.
Steve Garvey
#53. It's not dissimilar to what we see with the president of Russia, who uses a minority there, the lesbian, gay, bisexual community ... and he goes after them with great relish because he knows that it's going to resonate with a part of the population.
Thomas Mulcair
#54. Look at the very people who are involved in this. They have popped up in other settings. The great story here for anybody willing to find it, write about it and explain it is this vast right-wing conspiracy that has been conspiring against my husband since the day he announced for president,
Hillary Clinton
#55. What conservatives and Republicans must recognize is that the White House has broken with them. What President Bush is doing, and has been doing for some time, is sundering a great political coalition.
Peggy Noonan
#56. If you make me your president, I'm going to put the country ahead of the party. I'm going to do what it takes to defend this nation. This nation has been great to me, and that's the only way I know to pay you back.
Lindsey Graham
#57. Mr. President, the cause of this great discontent in the country, the cause of the evils which we now suffer and which we now fear, originates chiefly from questions growing out of the respective rights of the different States and the unfortunate subject of slavery ...
John J. Crittenden
#58. Richard Nixon had a kind of Walter Mitty fantasy life. He was a man with a grandiose thoughts: dreams of not simply being president but maybe becoming one of the truly great presidents of American history.
Robert Dallek
#59. I'd pick a young white guy over an old white guy for president anytime because the younger guy is more likely to have been influenced by the great social changes of the '60s and '70s.
D. L. Hughley
#60. There are limits on what a president can achieve or do, but the expectations are so great.
Robert Dallek
#61. A very considerable body of the German people live in America and propose to fight that Government. Bourke in his great speech last week welcoming the Belgian mission to Boston worked out the President's meaning with care.
Shane Leslie
#62. When you're president, you learn to act like you know what you're talking about. And it's a great skill.
William J. Clinton
#63. Few of the university's sons had been distinguished in the nation's life--there had been an obscure President of the United States, and a few Cabinet members, but few had sought such distinction: it was glory enough to be a great man in one's State. Nothing beyond mattered very much.
Thomas Wolfe
#64. What's great about America is anybody can run for president. That is literally true.
Hillary Clinton
#65. The President's decisions make the weather, and if he is great enough, change the climate, too.
Theodore White
#66. As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.
H.L. Mencken
#67. Donald Trump is horrendous, but he is also honest. Both Presidents [Bill] Clinton and [Barak] Obama were great speakers, but unrepentant mass murderers.
Andre Vltchek
#68. Most enlightened men now recognize that General Jackson is not fitted to fill the office of President; his limited experience of anything to do with civil government and his great age make him incompetent.
Jared Sparks
#69. I could run for Congress. Why not? Good heavens, if Ronald Reagan can be president, I ought to make a great secretary of the treasury.
Sandra Dee
#70. We should try to ensure that everyone has a fair opportunity to find a great life. It's a quest that will require political will and ingenious policies. President Obama's proposed expansion of the earned-income tax credit goes in this direction, but we need more.
Sendhil Mullainathan
#71. You know, I think Marco Rubio would be a spectacular candidate for vice president. I think he would energize the country. I think he has a great story. He's bright. He's articulate.
Mario Diaz-Balart
#72. There is no doubt that the second President Bush inherited a very serious terrorist threat, though not such a threat as had been represented by the totalitarian Great Powers, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union.
Conrad Black
#73. I'm stoic like a statue of Stonewall Jackson. I'd make a great U.S. President, but I'd make an even better chiseled piece of marble - and that's what makes me such an amazing lover.
Jarod Kintz
#74. Donald [Trump] is great at the one-liners, but he's a chaos candidate, and he'd be a chaos president. He would not be the commander in chief we need to keep our country safe.
Renee Montagne
#75. I'm a huge Obama fan. I think it's such an unbelievably great thing to have a President who's competent and not insane.
Randy Cohen
#76. To have united the purposes of an entire Nation, is the great historical achievement of the man in whose strong hands our President has placed the fate of our people.
Gustav Krupp
#77. The great thing about working with NPR - and, really, there's like a million of 'em - is all the cool stuff I get to do for the public. Meet the president. Hang out at the National Finals Rodeo in Vegas. Drink a $10,000 martini.
John Ridley
#78. You never say to a president for certain you wouldn't do anything, but I have no - look at me now - I have no desire to sit on the Supreme Court, none. It would be a great honor , but I have no desire, any more than George Mitchell did.
Joe Biden
#79. Slowly but without question - and Presidents' Day is only one example - Americans are forgetting and ignoring the men and events that have made this nation great.
Lyn Nofziger
#80. I have great respect for President Bush, Secretary Powell and Secretary Ridge.
Elton Gallegly
#81. I love President Bush. I think it's great we have a president who always looks like he's looking directly into the sun.
Frank Caliendo
#82. 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
#83. Obama's got a great sense of humor, but mainly he has a great thinking presence, which is uncommon. It's hard to imagine being able to do, think over answers and deliver them on television. If I were president I would constantly be spluttering.
Roy Blount Jr.
#84. Facts are facts: No president since Franklin Delano Roosevelt in the Great Depression inherited a worse economy, bigger job losses or deeper problems from his predecessor. But President Obama is moving America forward, not back.
Martin O'Malley
#85. This country is just that great that the opportunities are there for a Hispanic president, a black president or any other race for a president, yes.
Chris Tucker
#86. [Congress] is not the British Parliament, and I hope it never will become the British Parliament ... Are we going to bring the president in here and have a question period like the prime minister has in Great Britain?
Trent Lott
#87. The people shall not be deprived or abridged of their right to speak, or to publish their sentiments; and the freedom of the press, as one of the great bulwarks of liberty, shall be inviolable.
James Madison
#88. Rick Perry I have a great fondness for. And what Rick Perry has, like Jeb Bush has, it will be interesting to compare their two records as governor, very close, great economic development, low taxes, all the things we want domestically out of a president.
Rudy Giuliani
#89. President Bush's emergency declaration for the State of Texas is great news for the people and communities that have experienced the devastating wildfires firsthand. Already, communities have rallied to help neighbors in need.
Randy Neugebauer
#90. President Bush's approval ratings have taken somewhat of a dive. A senior slump, if you will. Leading President Bush to one conclusion: He is the only one who realizes what a great job he's being doing.
Jon Stewart
#91. Loyalty to the President is great, but loyalty to truth, integrity, and country is even better.
Charles Krauthammer
#92. The fundamental reality for every worker, from sweeper to executive vice-president, is the eight hours or so that he spends on the job . In our society of organizations, it is the job through which the great majority has access to achievement, to fulfillment, and to community.
Peter Drucker
#93. President Obama has decided that he wants his presidential library to be in Chicago, not Hawaii. Today Hawaii's governor said, 'Great, who's going to want to come to Hawaii now?'
Conan O'Brien
#94. The president's need for complete candor and objectivity from advisers calls for great deference from the courts.
Warren E. Burger
#95. Not every President is a great speaker. Not every President is a great thinker. But in the modern era, every single President is a master of one thing: eye contact.
Brad Meltzer
#96. You know, Sarah Palin is the Governor of Alaska, you know that. And she's a lifelong member of the National Rifle Association. So great, is what I'm thinking, another vice president that shoots a drinking buddy; just get ready.
David Letterman
#97. When you talk about presidents, loyalty is a great thing until it becomes a bad thing. Witness once again Watergate.
Monica Crowley
#98. My view of Sarah Palin is she is the most dynamic figure maybe in politics, even more in some ways than President Obama, who is a little more scripted than she is. He is great with the teleprompter.
Rudy Giuliani
#99. I would a great deal rather be anything, say professor of history, than vice president.
Theodore Roosevelt
#100. I have great respect for both President Obama and the office that he holds
Barack Obama
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