A Quote by Barack Obama

Most people who serve in Washington have been trained either as lawyers or as political operatives--professions that tend to place a premium on winning arguments rather than solving problems.

Barack Obama

Quote Topics

Been Either Lawyers Most People Place Political Premium Problems Professions Rather Serve Solving Tend Than Trained Washington Winning

Quote Author

Barack Obama
American - President
Born: August 4, 1961

I am such a coward when it comes to political arguments. I tend to sort of recoil rather than engage.

John Lithgow

People want someone focused on getting the job done, not political talking points but rather solving problems.

Gary Peters

The purpose of the University of Washington cannot be to produce black lawyers for blacks, Polish lawyers for Poles, Jewish lawyers for Jews, Irish lawyers for Irish. It should be to produce good lawyers for Americans, and not to place First Amendment barriers against anyone.

William O. Douglas

What takes place in the Security Council more closely resembles a mugging than either a political debate or an effort at problem-solving.

Jeane Kirkpatrick

Any suggestion that I'm writing about political operatives because I'm interested in political operatives misses the entire point.

Bob Woodward

The ethical practices of lawyers are probably no worse than those of other professions. Lawyers bring some of the trouble on by claiming in a sanctimonious way that they are interested only in justice, not power or wealth. They also suffer guilt by association. Their clients are often people in trouble. Saints need no lawyers: gangsters do.

Lawrence M. Friedman

Most lawyers aren't trial lawyers. Most lawyers, even trial lawyers, don't get their problems solved in a courtroom. We like to go to court. It seems heroic to go to court. We think we're the new, great advocates, better than anything we've seen on TV, and we come home exhilarated by having gone to court.

Janet Reno

I'm an electrical engineer. Honestly, I think we have too many lawyers in Washington. Maybe we need some more engineers. They're trained to solve problems, and we can actually do math, which is a desperately needed skill back there.

Greg Gianforte

When it comes to Washington, most people tend to think first of politics. But Washington is also a geographic and physical place. It is, for instance, one of the few cities of the world where you can talk endlessly about trees.

Katharine Graham

Do I wish that things were more orderly in Washington and rational and people listened to the best arguments and compromised and operated in a more thoughtful and organized fashion? Absolutely. But when you look at history that's been the exception rather than the norm.

Barack Obama

This has been one of the more comedic aspects of this 72 hours - watching a cavalcade of extremely wealthy pundits, editorialists and political operatives from New York and Washington tell me how rural Americans won't stand for this.

Josh Marshall

Why are so many problems today perceived as problems of intolerance, rather than as problems of inequality, exploitation, or injustice? Why is the proposed remedy tolerance, rather than emancipation, political struggle, or even armed struggle?

Slavoj Žižek

But 'This Town' is official Washington. It's political Washington. It's not the Washington that clogs New York Avenue. It's not the Washington that lives in Gaithersburg. It's not the Washington that accounts for most of the population. 'This Town' refers to the people who think they run your country.

Mark Leibovich

Anarchism is surprisingly effective in solving actual problems largely because anarchists have thought a lot about solving actual problems on a micro level in ways that other political ideologies don't really feel they have to until after they seize state power.

David Graeber

Problems are a major part of life. Don’t whine about why you always have problems…get on with the solving. Take it from someone who has been there–the solving gets easier as you go along.