Quotes About Our Presidents

#1. I don't think we'll solve the problem of the deficit until three things happen: We need more discipline on spending in Congress. We need a constitutional amendment requiring Congress to balance the budget. And we need to give our presidents a line-item veto.

Ronald Reagan

#2. In our brief national history we have shot four of our presidents, worried five of them to death, impeached one and hounded another out of office. And when all else fails, we hold an election and assassinate their character.

P. J. O'Rourke

#3. While they came from a variety of religious backgrounds and held a wide variety of religious beliefs, each of our presidents in his own way has placed a special trust in God.

John F. Kennedy

#4. In a rational society we would want our presidents to be teachers. In our actual society we insist they be cheerleaders.

Steve Allen

#5. We were asked to do very little, and we responded. That's the bargain we tacitly make with our presidents: we won't ask too much of you, if you don't ask too much of us.

Bill Maher

#6. I do have to say that I think that President Obama is the greatest President in the history of all of our Presidents, and that he can do no wrong in my book. So how's that for prejudice on the Democratic side?

Denis Leary

#7. We see more and more of our Presidents and know less and less about what they do.

Bill Moyers

#8. A few public hangings will really change behavior. One of our Presidents said if he could execute three people each year for no cause, it would make it a lot easier to govern. When someone said that's not enough, he said, "Oh yes it is, because I'd publish the list of people under consideration."

Charlie Munger

#9. We don't think well of our presidents when they are serving. Even Kennedy, with such a short presidency, was beginning to lose his remarkable appeal to the American people when he was suddenly sainted by death.

Charlton Heston

#10. I think 60 is when many people hit their prime. We elect many of our presidents in their 60s. At that age, people are full of ideas and their best self. I wanted to dig into my potential and bring out my best self.

Diana Nyad

#11. There's one reason why [Presidents' Day] is a holiday. It had nothing to do with our country deciding that we wanted to show reverence for our presidents, Lincoln, Washington, or all of them. Nothing to do with that. The ski industry wanted a three-day weekend.

Rush Limbaugh

#12. The people who influence our presidents matter.

Paul Kengor

#13. All of our presidents come into office looking so vigorous ... They grow grayer and grayer, and by the time they leave, they're as white as the building they live in ... I have one big advantage: I've been coloring my hair for years. So you're not going to see me turn white in the White House.

Hillary Clinton

#14. We elect our Presidents, be they Republican or Democrat, then start daring 'em to make good.

Will Rogers

#15. We draw our Presidents from the people. It is a wholesome thing for them to return to the people. I came from them. I wish to be one of them again.

Calvin Coolidge

#16. I believe our Presidents work hard and it's the loneliest job in the world.

Condoleezza Rice

#17. I believe that Bill Clinton will be remembered as one of our nation's great Presidents, and Senator Clinton as one of our nation's great public servants.

Joe Andrew

#18. I think we [Americans] are going to look back and realize that the civil liberties that we've given up in the name of security, the authority that we've given Democratic and Republican presidents, all have contributed to a fraying of the fabric of our democratic republic.

Jeremy Scahill

#19. I - obviously, I'm not a big fan of President Obama. I think he's been one of our weakest presidents. I just fundamentally disagree with him philosophically.

Dick Cheney

#20. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory will swell when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.

Abraham Lincoln

#21. Would you exalt your profession, exalt those who labor with you ... increase the salaries of the women engaged in the noble work of educating our future presidents, senators and congressmen.

Susan B. Anthony

#22. Senators and presidents have climbed so high with pain enough, not because they think the place specially agreeable, but as an apology for real worth, and to vindicate their manhood in our eyes. This conspicuous chair is their compensation to themselves for being of a poor, cold, hard nature.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

#23. I don't want our country to be taken away from us, and that's what's happening. The policies that we've suffered under other presidents have been a disaster for our country. We want to make America great again.

Donald Trump

#24. The small town is passing. It was the incubator that hatched all our big men, and that's why we haven't got as many big men today as we used to have. Take every small-town-raised leader out of business and you would have nobody left running it but vice-presidents.

Will Rogers

#25. My fellow Americans, our long national nightmare is over. Our constitution works.

Gerald R. Ford

#26. 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

#27. Presidents in both parties - from John F. Kennedy to Ronald Reagan - have known that our free-enterprise economy is the source of our middle-class prosperity.

Marco Rubio

#28. There is also the issue of personal privacy when it comes the executive power. Throughout our nation's history, whether it was habeas corpus during the Civil War, Alien and Sedition Acts in World War I, or Japanese internment camps in World War II, presidents have gone too far.

Dick Durbin

#29. 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

#30. In the sweep of history, George W. Bush will be seen as one of our greatest presidents because of the decisions he made to keep us safe after 9/11.

Ronald Kessler

#31. The real story of our times is seldom told in the horse-puckey-filled memoirs of dopey, self-serving presidents or generals, but in the outrageous, demented lives of guys like Lenny Bruce, Giordano Bruno, Scott Fitzgerald - and Paul Krassner. The burrs under society's saddle. The pains in the ass.

Harlan Ellison

#32. Sensible and responsible women do not want to vote. The relative positions to be assumed by man and woman in the working out of our civilization were assigned long ago by a higher intelligence than ours.

Grover Cleveland

#33. Our best presidents have really combined domestic leadership with heroic achievements in foreign affairs or war.

Allan Lichtman

#34. The American people are proud to welcome your majesty back to the United States, a nation you've come to know very well. After all you've dined with 10 U.S. presidents. You've helped our nation celebrate its bicentennial in 17 -in 1976

George W. Bush

#35. Gerald Ford, one of the most admirable presidents of our time, once observed that if Lincoln were alive today, he'd be turning over in his grave. With

David McCullough

#36. As our boys and men are all expecting to be Presidents, so our girls and women must all hold themselves in readiness to preside inthe White House; and in no city in the world can honest industry be more at a discount than in this capital of the government of the people.

Jane Swisshelm

#37. In fact, it was the women in our house who were in the saddle. If men are the gods, women are not only the presidents but all the ministers of the government.

Pedro Almodovar

#38. Our priests and presidents, our surgeons and lawyers, our educators and newscasters need worry less about satisfying the demands of their discipline than the demands of good showmanship.

Neil Postman

#39. The War Powers Act requires presidents to seek the consent of the American people, through their representatives, before sending our troops into war. It is the responsibility of Congress to deliberate and consult with the executive branch before involving ourselves in a military conflict.

Charles B. Rangel

#40. Presidents are not only the country's principal policy chief, shaping the nation's domestic and foreign agendas, but also the most visible example of our values.

Robert Dallek

#41. I have seen that our best presidents were the do-nothing presidents: Millard Fillmore, Warren G. Harding. When you have a president who does things, we are all in serious trouble. If he does anything at all, if he gets up at night to go the bathroom, somehow, mystically, trouble will ensue.

Utah Phillips

#42. President Obama came to office proclaiming that he aims to solve problems, not hand them on to our children. Most presidents say that sort of thing.

Christopher Buckley