A Quote by Barbara Olson

Of all presidential perks, the pardon power has a special significance. It is just the kind of authority that would attract the special attention of someone obsessed with himself and his own ability to influence events.

Barbara Olson

Quote Author

Barbara Olson
American - Journalist
December 27, 1955 - September 11, 2001

From campaign contributions to expensive perks paid for by special interests, wealthy donors and corporate special interests have increasingly been able to purchase influence and promote their agendas in Congress.

Sara Gideon

Memory has its own special kind. It selects, eliminates, alters, exaggerates, minimizes, glorifies, and vilifies also; but in the end it creates its own reality, its heterogeneous but usually coherent version of events; and no sane human being ever trusts someone else's version more than his own.

Salman Rushdie

If I had the ability to influence people all over the world just by speaking or writing, one of my objectives would be find out how America became special and then tell everybody.

Rush Limbaugh

And to the degree that the individual maintains a show before others that he himself does not believe, he can come to experience a special kind of alienation from self and a special kind of wariness of others.

Erving Goffman

Historic accounts of the lives of great masters have told of rainbows and other special signs, like the rain of flowers, and of special clouds that appeared, witnessed by people on very special occasions and at auspicious events.

Jamgon Kongtrul

Man is a special being, and if left to himself, in an isolated condition, would be one of the weakest creatures; but associated with his kind, he works wonders.

Daniel Webster

Our government, National and State, must be freed from the sinister influence or control of special interests. Exactly as the special interests of cotton and slavery threatened our political integrity before the Civil War, so now the great special business interests too often control and corrupt the men and methods of government for their own profit. We must drive the special interests out of politics.

Theodore Roosevelt

I would say that I have been consistent in my broad view of how American power should be deployed, and the view that we underestimate our power when we restrict it to just our military power. We shortchange our influence and our ability to shape events when that's the only tool we think we have in the toolbox.

Barack Obama

Trump's pardon of Arpaio may not get as much attention as Russian influence or Trump's apparent obstruction of justice in the Mueller investigation. But to me, as a woman of color, it is a clear abuse of power for the U.S. president to pardon a sheriff who targeted people for arrest because of their ethnicity.

Rashida Tlaib

Sarah Palin has managed to use her failed vice presidential run to put herself in a position of power and influence. Joe Biden won the race and he hasn't been able to put himself in a position of power and influence.

Craig Ferguson

Barack Obama was always special, you know? And not special, like, He's gonna be important, he's gonna be president. He was special in terms of his honesty, his sincerity, his compassion for other people.

Michelle Obama

I feel like you may be a special and kind person. And I would like to make it my business to know special and kind people. Especially if they are boys my age.

Rachel Cohn

Long ago when a child lay in a manger, a special star appeared. It didn't just show up that evening. It had to have been placed in its orbit centuries before in a trajectory that would make it appear at that special moment of time to announce the birth of a special child. Just as there is divine design in the universe, so each of us has been placed in our own orbits in this life to love, to serve, to help light the world.

Neal A. Maxwell

There is a great difference, then, between "power" and "authority." Power refers to one's ability to coerce others (through physical, economic, or other means) to do one's bidding. One can possess the means of power: physical strength, armaments, and money. But authority must be performed. Authority refers to one's ability to gain the trust and willing obedience of others. While power rests on intimidation, authority survives through inspiration.

Joshua Meyrowitz

. . . man is just what he thinks himself to be . . . He will attract to himself what the thinks most about. He can learn to govern his own destiny when he learns to control his thoughts.