Top 100 Quotes About Being President
#1. Running for president is hard. But it's good preparation. Because being president is a lot harder.
Mark McKinnon
#2. Being president of the United States is the most stressful, thankless job in the world and Margaret can't fathom why anyone would voluntarily pursue it.
Elin Hilderbrand
#3. Being President is like the man who was tarred and feathered and ridden out of town on a rail ... A man in the crowd asked how he liked it, and his reply was that if it wasn't for the honor of the thing, he would much rather walk.
Abraham Lincoln
#4. The best thing about being President is that it gets you out of American life. I don't know what the theory is behind this, but it is a fact. The first thing we do with a President is shunt him off to a siding where nothing American can ever happen to him.
Russell Baker
#5. There is one thing about being President
nobody can tell you when to sit down.
Dwight D. Eisenhower
#6. Being president is like running a cemetery: you've got a lot of people under you and nobody's listening.
William J. Clinton
#7. Accomplished a bit more for Bush than for Gore only because there were more question marks for Bush. I think he established that he possesses at least the minimum qualifications for being president.
Stuart Rothenberg
#8. Being president of too many well-meaning organizations put my father into an early grave. The lesson in this was not lost on me.
Roy Blount Jr.
#9. 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
#10. The job of being president, understanding the particular policies that America has gotten itself into over the past 400 years.
Kwame Kilpatrick
#11. I don't understand why, to rise to the level of being president of my country, one has to be a monster. I used to say that George Bush was defiling the Oval Office, but it's been held by a long line of monsters. We don't have to support our administrations to love our country.
Cindy Sheehan
#12. Once you're done being president, you tend to want to defend your record more than plumb your inner feelings. I find it hard to imagine Obama going home at night and writing sensitive, introspective journal entries about his meeting with John Boehner.
Gail Collins
#13. Barack Obama being President of the United States doesn't mean racism has disappeared. It's all a process, and we have to be aware that the work never ends.
Misty Copeland
#14. Before I was born [my father] wanted me to go specifically to Yale, which he thought would help. It was easy for him to think I could be president: he didn't have to worry about being president himself, being ineligible because he wasn't born in the United States.
Calvin Trillin
#15. President Bush earned $400,000 for his job as president last year. That's not really that much for being president when you think about it. But President Bush, he doesn't do it for the money, he does it for the eight months of vacation every year.
Jay Leno
#16. There was always this sense, even early on in the campaign, that if the senator Obama could score this upset victory in Iowa, that there was a pretty good chance that he would end up being president of the United States.
Josh Earnest
#17. 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
#18. There are a lot of ways to serve, and being president is not the only one, and I would hope that someone else would run.
Barbara Bush
#19. Frankly, I don't mind not being President. I just mind that someone else is.
Edward Kennedy
#20. Being president means leaving one's name in the history book of which few men are authors. It is my fortune to be blessed with a proud name, one that parents will employ for generations to instill the values of honesty, independence, and above all, courage in their sons.
Grover Cleveland
#21. I never thought that the long haired, bearded guy I married in law school would end up being President.
Hillary Clinton
#22. I think a lot of presidents learn to be president by being president.
Dee Dee Myers
#23. President Obama recently sat down with ESPN and said the NCAA should reduce the shot clock for basketball games. Then he said, 'And while we're at it, is there any way they can reduce the 'being president clock?'
Jimmy Fallon
#24. I like being president because i get a cool house
Barack Obama
#25. Being president of a major public university is the most political nonpolitical office around.
Gordon Gee
#26. I applaud anyone who wants to take on the load that comes with being President of the United States. You really have to love your country to place yourself in that position.
BeBe Winans
#27. I'm the commander
see, I don't need to explain
I do not need to explain why I say things. That's the interesting thing about being president.
George W. Bush
#28. Being president is as difficult as writing the perfect poem. And being president is as effortless as writing the perfect poem. Always a Reckoning, my first collection of poetry, was described by Booklist as 'keenly evocative.'
Jimmy Carter
#29. Look, being president of the United States is the toughest job in the world and I can tell you, as someone who has worked with Secretary Clinton and competed against her that she is a tough person who is ready to do this job.
Martin O'Malley
#30. I never dreamed about being President, I wanted to be Willie Mays.
George W. Bush
#31. One of the things I've learned about being president is that we'll work on issues for long periods of time, sometimes in obscurity.
Barack Obama
#32. Being president, you may have more power than anyone else in the country, but you quickly discover that you have much, much less than you thought you'd have going in. You're hamstrung in ways you never dreamed of.
Tina Brown
#33. The main problem with being president is the constant sense that you are inside a glass bowl for everyone to see, or in a kind of barometric chamber with an artificial atmosphere where you must stay all the time.
Boris Yeltsin
#34. The thought of being President frightens me and I do not think I want the job.
Ronald Reagan
#35. The elder Bush explained later that "watching your son taking a pounding from his critics was much, much harder" than being president. "Barbara quit reading the papers and watching the new, but I couldn't do that
Nancy Gibbs; Michael Duffy
#36. At the age of 12 my ambition was to become a gangster. To be a wiseguy. Being a wiseguy was better than being President of the United States. To be a wiseguy was to own the world.
Henry Hill
#37. Being president of the University of California is like being manager of a cemetery: there are many people under you, but no one is listening
Mark Yudof
#38. The president [Barack Obama] himself has said he thought part of his job was to remind the American people that being president and commander in chief is a serious responsibility.
Hillary Clinton
#39. I cannot imagine a worse job than being president of these Untied States in these most trying of times. President Barack Obama has been under siege from every side for the entirety of his time in office.
Beth Broderick
#40. I've seen firsthand that being president doesn't change who you are. It reveals who you are.
Michelle Obama
#41. Being President is a little like being the grounds-keeper at a cemetery: there's plenty of people below you but no one's listening.
William J. Clinton
#42. I think there's one more thing Perry can forget, too: Being president.
Jay Leno
#43. After forty years in the lab, I was asked in 1991 to become president of The Rockefeller University. Unlike a working scientist, being president for seven years provided an opportunity to interact with scientists in many different fields and broadened my scope of the natural sciences.
Torsten Wiesel
#44. Being President is a little bit like riding a tiger. You have to keep riding, or else you will be swallowed up by it!
Harry S. Truman
#45. Within the first few months I discovered that being President is like riding a tiger. A man has to keep on riding or be swallowed.
Harry Truman
#46. The idea of being a novelist is really romantic, but it's kind of the same as being president of the United States - it's not gonna happen.
Richard Paul Evans
#47. That's the good thing about being president, I can do whatever I want.
Barack Obama
#48. I enjoyed being president, but the campaign against Guinea worm [horrible disease] has opened up a completely new career that is challenging and unpredictable and adventurous - and very gratifying.
Jimmy Carter
#49. Being President is like being the groundskeeper in a cemetery: there are a lot of people under you, but none of them are listening.
Bill Clinton
#50. During the sole argument we had when [Chelsea] was in high school, the subject of which I don't even remember, I looked at her and said, 'As long as you're in this house, being president is my second most important job'.
William J. Clinton
#51. Being president looks like the worst job in the world.
John Mulaney
#52. The great thing about not being president anymore is I can say whatever I want, about anything. Of course [now], nobody really cares what I say. And now I have the worst of all worlds
my wife has become the secretary of state, so no one really cares what I say
unless I mess up.
William J. Clinton
#53. I think if you had to choose between running a tabloid and being president of the United States, of course you'd run the tabloid, especially in New York.
Pete Hamill
#54. I believe being president of a private institution is a remarkable experience, but at Ohio State, it's a calling.
Gordon Gee
#55. One of the penalties of being president of the United States is that you must subsist for four years without drinking anything except Californian wine.
A.J.P. Taylor
#56. Being a reader is sort of like being president, except reading involves fewer state dinners, usually. You have this agenda you want to get through, but you get distracted by life events, e.g., books arriving in the mail/World War III, and you are temporarily deflected from your chosen path.
Nick Hornby
#57. Making music is like being the president: You can't tell people you're going to make health care free to get them behind you, but when you get that role, you don't do it.
Tyga
#58. There are some days when history is made. Yesterday was one - and I was honoured to be in Washington to watch Barack Obama being sworn in. During his soaring inaugural address, the new president gazed over a teeming National Mall that was crowded with more than a million people.
Des Browne
#59. You'll never see the president carry his own luggage, and why? Because even though we know he has luggage, it would reduce his stature if he was too much like us. We need to think of our leaders as being above us, even though they must still relate to us.
Simon Sinek
#60. I presumed the president was being truthful until a series of events undercut that confidence.
Bob Graham
#61. Keeping the Union together, freeing slaves and being assassinated all added up to creating 'Lincoln the myth.' He overcame a lot of his own prejudices and became what many would consider the first black man's president.
Henry Louis Gates
#62. The United States, the President said, "must be a force for good." Americans focused on "good." Much of the world focused on "force," on being handled.
Ron Suskind
#63. President Obama's approval ratings are so low now, Kenyans are accusing him of being born in the United States.
Jay Leno
#64. What I find astounding is that we've had a president who is black in office for the past eight years, who gets most of his funding from the liberal elite in Hollywood. Yet, there are not very many roles for people of color. How can that be? And why is it just now being addressed?
Stacey Dash
#65. The president is under 50 percent approval ratings in all the battleground states. So, you could say that President Obama is defying gravity by still being in a dead heat with Mitt Romney. And one of the reasons that he is, is because the changing face of the electorate are giving him a small boost.
Mara Liasson
#66. I have learned something about the job of being the President's wife. She is not chosen by anyone except her husband and she really has no obligations except to him.
Lady Bird Johnson
#67. I am confident that I can serve my country without being involved as the president of the country now.
Jean-Bertrand Aristide
#68. When he (Richard Nixon) took the oath of office, he pledged to be the president for 100% of the people, and I challenge the president to prove that he is being the president for 100% of the people.
Jackie Robinson
#69. I see this piece of legislation as essentially being a declaration of virtual war. It is giving the President tremendous powers to pursue war efforts against a sovereign nation ... I think it is another example of a flawed foreign policy that we have followed for a good many decades.
Ron Paul
#70. You will see the President being very, very tough on spending.
Donald Evans
#71. President Coolidge said, 'I don't want the Government to go into business.' Well, if I was Mr. Coolidge I wouldn't worry over that. The Government never has been accused of being a business man.
Will Rogers
#72. The thing about Barack Obama, just from being around him, is he's cooler than the other politicians, but just nerdy enough to do the job. Like you can't be really cool and be the president.
Chris Rock
#73. Here's the bigger problem with all this, we're not interrogating anybody right now. Guantanamo's being emptied by this president. We should be putting people into Guantanamo, not emptying it out, and we shouldn't be releasing these killers who are rejoining the battlefield against the United States.
Marco Rubio
#74. [President George W.] Bush - never mind his well-crafted set speeches; listen to him as he leans on a lectern, chatting to an audience of carpenters - is completely comfortable being himself, a skill still eluding Gore in his 55th year.
George Will
#75. The interesting thing is that it seems like George W. Bush would have been happy being the president of anything. He could have been president of Major League Baseball.
Eddie Vedder
#77. Today Prince William went to Washington, D.C., and he met with President Obama. He said, 'It feels weird being in the White House because I'm not an American.' And then Prince William said, 'Yeah, me too.'
Craig Ferguson
#78. President Obama's policies have been categorical failures for our country. Unemployment is over nine percent, our deficits are growing, and small businesses are being burdened with regulations.
Timothy Griffin
#79. I would even go to Washington, which is saying something for me, just to glimpse Jane Q. Public, being sworn in as the first female president of the United States, while her husband holds the Bible and wears a silly pill box hat and matching coat.
Anna Quindlen
#80. We're no longer arguing about riding in the back of the bus, but being the bus driver or the president of the bus company. We're not pushing for the right to buy the hot dog, but selling the hot dog and the right to own the hot dog franchise.
Benjamin Hooks
#81. If there is a nuclear tactic being used here, I submit it is the use of that obstruction where a willful minority blocks a bipartisan majority from voting on the President's judicial nominees.
John Cornyn
#82. I was friends with President Ronald Reagan and he once said to me, 'I don't know how anybody can serve in public office without being an actor.'
Warren Beatty
#83. In Chicago some anti-Mitt Romney protesters told reporters they're being paid to protest. They said they're being paid by Democrats to stand outside and chant anti-Romney slogans. Well, who says President Obama isn't creating any new jobs?
Jay Leno
#84. Being Vice President is difficult. Don't make it tougher.
Donald Rumsfeld
#85. Believe it or not, I supported Richard Nixon on the issue of presidential privilege. How could anyone conceive of being the president of the United States and think that every single thing that you say or do can become a part of the public record? It just seems so stupid to me.
Jack Nicholson
#86. Let me explain something you already know. I'm from Texas and we understand the nature of a border. From what I've seen, vigilant Texans are being ordered to stand down and allow criminals to pass. Mr. President, prepare to see Texans ignoring those orders.
Tommy Lee Jones
#87. Do I think faith will be an important part of being a good president? Yes, I do.
George W. Bush
#88. 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
#89. President Obama , I guess, is starting to confess to some of his anxieties. In a recent interview, President Obama said, 'I miss being anonymous.' He said, 'In the old days, I could blend in with all the other Hawaiian Barack Hussein Obamas.'
Conan O'Brien
#91. I made a mistake by being ejected from the presidency. Next time, I will choose a Cabinet which will allow me to be life President.
Nelson Mandela
#92. When Governor Romney was out here, I told him, I said, 'we are following the formula of streamlining regulations, being job creating friendly, balancing budgets, cutting taxes, and, you know, using common sense. And if you get to be president, we are going to do more of that.'
John Kasich
#93. The president is being denounced for not taking the kind of pre-emptive action in Afghanistan that he has been so passionately denounced for taking in Iraq. Damned if he does and damned if he doesn't.
Ferdinand Mount
#94. Being really good at 'learning how to learn,' as President Bill Brody of Johns Hopkins put it, will be an enormous asset in an era of rapid change and innovation, when new jobs will be phased in and old ones phased out faster than ever.
Thomas Friedman
#95. For some reason, President Obama is being heckled about "don't ask, don't tell," which may be revoked. The president wants gays to be allowed to serve openly in the military.
Bill O'Reilly
#96. Congratulations to President Obama on being reelected president of the United States. Turns out it is not all bad news for the Republicans. It seems that depression is covered by Obamacare.
Jay Leno
#97. I think George Bush is the most corrupt American president since Harding in the Twenties. He is not the legitimate president. This really is a completely unsupportable government and I look forward to it being overthrown as much as I looked forward to Saddam Hussein being overthrown.
Ken Livingstone
#98. Once upon a time, privacy was valued. For goodness' sake, a disabled president of the United States could ask that the press not photograph him in a wheelchair or being transferred to his car or generally in a weakened state, and the press would oblige. Those were the days.
Julianna Baggott
#99. President Obama is in no danger of being judged by history as an eco-radical.
Jeff Goodell
#100. I'm so proud to represent the people of South Florida. I was so honored when President Obama asked me to serve as chair of the Democratic Party. But there's one job I'm even more proud of, and that's being a mom to my three kids, Rebecca, Jake and Shelby.
Debbie Wasserman Schultz
