Presidents Quotes

“The science of government it is my duty to study, more than all other sciences; the arts of legislation and administration and negotiation ought to take the place of, indeed exclude, in a manner, all other arts. I must study politics and war, that our sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. Our sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history and naval architecture, navigation, commerce and agriculture in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry and porcelain.”
― John Adams, Letters of John Adams, Addressed to His Wife

“I never did give them hell. I just told the truth, and they thought it was hell.”
― Harry S. Truman

“Presidents are selected, not elected.”
― Franklin Delano Roosevelt

“Most of the mess that is called history comes about because kings and presidents cannot be satisfied with a nice chicken and a good loaf of bread.”
― Jennifer Donnelly, Revolution

“Next time I tell you someone from Texas should not be president of the United States, please pay attention."

[Shrub Flubs His Dub, The Nation, June 18, 2001]”
― Molly Ivins

“Trump’s America is not America: not today’s or tomorrow’s, but yesterday’s.

Trump’s America is brutal, perverse, regressive, insular and afraid. There is no hope in it; there is no light in it. It is a vast expanse of darkness and desolation.

And that is a vision of America that most of the people in this country cannot and will not abide.”
― Charles M. Blow

“George W. Bush is the worst President
in all of American history.”
― Helen Thomas

“The Nazis are not justified by saying,

Don't you know that there is more than just the issue of the Jews? The issues are more complex than that! What of the poor in this country, who cannot afford housing? What about the sick and malnourished? Don't you care about these people? Don't you claim to be a follower of Jesus?!

Supporting a murderous political agenda with such an argument is tragic!

And what do we know about Obama? He is the single most anti-life proponent that has ever run for the office of president.”
― Joseph Bayly

“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

“Any American who is prepared to run for president should automatically, by definition, be disqualified from ever doing so.”
― Gore Vidal

“Just as he did during the Slavery at Monticello tour, David did not mince words. "There’s a chapter in Notes on the State of Virginia,” he said to the five of us, standing in front of the east wing of Jefferson’s manor, “that has some of the most racist things you might ever read, written by anyone, anywhere, anytime, in it. So sometimes I stop and ask myself, 'If Gettysburg had gone the wrong way, would people be quoting the Declaration of Independence or Notes on the State of Virginia?' It’s the same guy writing.”
― Clint Smith, How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America

“My job is to find the politicians and the presidents and the pompous people who are telling other people how to live, powerful, visible creatures and ... go at them.”
― Craig Ferguson

“The president is the high priest of what sociologist Robert Bellah calls the 'American civil religion.' The president must invoke the name of God (though not Jesus), glorify America's heroes and history,quote its sacred texts (the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution), and perform the transubstantiation of pluribus unum.”
― Jonathan Haidt

“Our president looks like a Christmas ham and talks like Chucky. We're America, bitch.”
― Salman Rushdie, Quichotte

“During the 1992 election I concluded as early as my first visit to New Hampshire that Bill Clinton was hateful in his behavior to women, pathological as a liar, and deeply suspect when it came to money in politics. I have never had to take any of that back, whereas if you look up what most of my profession was then writing about the beefy, unscrupulous 'New Democrat,' you will be astonished at the quantity of sheer saccharine and drool. Anyway, I kept on about it even after most Republicans had consulted the opinion polls and decided it was a losing proposition, and if you look up the transcript of the eventual Senate trial of the president—only the second impeachment hearing in American history—you will see that the last order of business is a request (voted down) by the Senate majority leader to call Carol and me as witnesses. So I can dare to say that at least I saw it through.”
― Christopher Hitchens, Hitch 22: A Memoir

“I find as I grow older, I love those most, whom I loved first.”
― Th. Jefferson

“(The Mona Lisa), that really is the ugliest portrait I’ve seen, the only thing that supposedly makes it famous is the mystery behind it,” Katherine admitted as she remembered her trips to the Louvre and how she shook her head at the poor tourists crowding around to see a jaundiced, eyebrow-less lady that reminded her of tight-lipped Washington on the dollar bill. Surely, they could have chosen a better portrait of the First President for their currency?”
― E.A. Bucchianeri, Brushstrokes of a Gadfly

“After Katrina, I decided it's better to have a President who's competent rather than one who's beer-worthy.

Doonsebury”
― Garry B. Trudeau

“When was the last time an American president found it worth his while to write a speech on the importance of art and literature? I cannot recall. And yet at Yan’an, Mao said that art and literature were crucial to revolution. Conversely, he warned, art and literature could also be tools of domination. Art could not be separated from politics, and politics needed art in order to reach the people where they lived, through entertaining them.”
― Viet Thanh Nguyen, The Sympathizer

“Donald Trump’s economic policies are geared toward enriching White male power—but at the expense of most of his White male followers, along with the rest of us.”
― Ibram X. Kendi, How to Be an Antiracist

“Many politically moderate Christians, including me, consider ourselves to be evangelicals, but the term has become increasingly equated with the religious right or the Moral Majority.”
― Jimmy Carter, A Full Life: Reflections at Ninety

“Donald Trump makes it hard on us pundits, cause he's so blatant there's nothing interesting to say.”
― David Brooks

“You're the president of the United States. You can do anything you want.”
― Donald Trump

“I think it's ageist," Emily said. "Is Joe Biden too old to be president?"

"That would be a valid question if he'd run against anyone but Trump," Kitzi said, cutting the deck for her.

"Amen," Susie said.”
― Stewart O'Nan, Evensong

“A new president, Barack Obama, claimed a seat,
the most powerful in all the land.
He demanded change and took a stand
with Michelle, Sasha, and Malia by his side.
They were their ancestors' dreams, the people's pride.”
― Ibi Zoboi, The People Remember

“Nakia had come across Conrad and Juanita's box of Obama family memorabilia--novelty plates, buttons, their tickets to the first inauguration--when she helped them to pack up to move back to New Jersey. A time capsule of wild hope, almost painful to look back on now.

"We really thought that man was gonna be the Black Messiah or something," she said. "What a time."

"Yeah, turns out he was very much not," January said. "And white people ain't been okay since. Look at them.”
― Angela Flournoy, The Wilderness

“Who is this Abraham Lincoln?" I asked Dalmacio.

"He was a poor boy who became a president of the United States," he said. "He was born in a log cabin and walked miles and miles to borrow a book so that he would know more about his country."

A poor boy became a president of the United States! Deep down in me something was touched, was springing out, demanding to be born, to be given a name. I was fascinated by the story of this boy who was born in a log cabin and became a president of the United States.”
― Carlos Bulosan, America Is in the Heart: A Personal History

“Lincoln was a poor boy who became a president of the United States."

"I know that already," I said. "Tell me what he did when he became president."

"Well, when he became president he said that all men are created equal," Miss Strandon said. "But some men, vicious men, who had Negro slaves, did not like what he said. So a terrible war was fought between the states of the United States, and the slaves were freed and the nation was preserved. But one night he was murdered by an assassin...."

"Why?" I asked.

"Why? she said. "He was a great man."

"What is a Negro?" I asked.

"A Negro is a black person," she said.

"Abraham Lincoln died for a black person?" I asked.

"Yes," she said. "He was a great man.”
― Carlos Bulosan, America Is in the Heart: A Personal History

“Whatever our original ancestors—African, Italian, Asian, Indigenous, Latinx—our last name is American. In this country’s dining room, a long table, reaching across thousands of miles, is set for millions of people, made kin by the title of “American.” At the head of this table is our president, who with one exception has always been a White man. All this is brought forth when we speak of a nation.

But what happens when, instead of that meal on that three-thousand-mile-long table—that sustenance, that food for the citizens—many plates remain empty? Or even when those plates are picked up and smashed on the floor? Even for those who carry “American” in their identity? When some of the citizens who sit down at the table—say, we Black citizens—are dragged away from that table by others, usually by White men, because Father is the head of our national family? We must bow to his will.”
― Honorée Fanonne Jeffers, Misbehaving at the Crossroads: Essays & Writings – A Personal and Historical Exploration of Black Women's Journeys Through Intersectionality

“Ever since the campaign of businessman Donald Trump began in 2015, I had tried to ignore what was happening. Mentally, as things got worse, I clung faithfully to the previous picture of Barack Obama and his family. I tried to accept the illogical logic of America, the logic telling me that despite all that I’d read in the historical archives, things had changed for the better; that the presidential administration of Donald Trump was a hiccup.

After all, I’d believed that the election of Barack Obama in 2008 would change five centuries of American history. And so had my mother. And so had so many other African Americans. I’d believed in that change in his first term.

My letting go of the fantasy was gradual. Bits and pieces of trust died off, and after January 6, 2021, my fantasy was completely dead.”
― Honorée Fanonne Jeffers, Misbehaving at the Crossroads: Essays & Writings – A Personal and Historical Exploration of Black Women's Journeys Through Intersectionality