Top 1200 President Truman Quotes & Sayings - Page 20

President Ronald Reagan on his 1980 opponent: "I had a dream the other night. I dreamed that Jimmy Carter came to me and asked why I wanted his job. I told him I didn't want his job. I want to be President."

"President Monson, I may never see the Prophet. I may never hear the Prophet. But President, far better, now that I am a member of this Church, I can obey the Prophet."

With nearly two years remaining in his presidency, George W. Bush is alone. In half a century, I have not seen a president so isolated from his own party in Congress - not Jimmy Carter, not even Richard Nixon as he faced impeachment. Republicans in Congress do not trust their president to protect them.

It will be an unusual dynamic [in Congress]. It won't be like the rallying behind President [Barack] Obama in 2009 or behind President [George W.] Bush, even at the beginning of his presidency, or even [Bill] Clinton in '93, when he got his budget through on a partisan vote.

The very first day that President [Barack] Obama was inaugurated, his first act as a president was to rescind that ban on third-trimester abortions. And he's even carried it further. Now, even if the baby is born alive, they have the right to kill that baby. It is an abomination.

Control your time. If you're working off your in-box, you're working off the priorities of others. Be sure the staff is working on what you move to them from the President, or the President will be reacting, not leading.

You know, YOUR President, the one with the big ears-he ain't my President - had that woman singing for him at his Inauguration. She's going to get her [expletive] whooped. How dare Beyonce sing MY song that I been singing forever. Now I'm going to sing it for y'all.

People are being really picky about the upcoming election. I read that Americans do not want the next president to be a first-term senator, be over 65, or have a former president in the family. Then the Secret Service said, 'Hey, whoever slips through slips through. No promises.'

When I asked the president [Barack Obama], can you kill an American on American soil, it should have been an easy answer. It's an easy question. It should have been a resounding and unequivocal no. The president's response, he hasn't killed anyone yet.

If President Bush does a lousy job, then he'll lose power. If the guy at McDonalds who's selling burgers does a great job, then he'll be much more powerful than President Bush.

I know this president. And I can tell you that he cares deeply about the next generation of young women in this country - his daughters, and everyone's daughters. President Obama had the courage to stand with Sandra Fluke. Without hesitation, he defended her right to tell her story.

Appeasing the Castro brothers will only cause other tyrants from Caracas to Tehran to Pyongyang to see that they can take advantage of President Obama's naiveté during his final two years in office. As a result, America will be less safe as a result of the President's change in policy.

My faith has helped me to adjust to life whether I was a small farm boy, a submarine officer, governor, president or an ex-president. I've tried to remember the teaching that we have to accommodate change we can't control in our lives, whether it's disappointment, sorrow, loss or failure, while simultaneously clinging to principles that never change.

I will begin my presidency with a jobs tour. President Obama began with an apology tour. America, he said, had dictated to other nations. No Mr. President, America has freed other nations from dictators.

I went from being a senator, a young senator, to being considered for vice president, running for president, being a vice presidential candidate, and becoming a national public figure. All of which fed a self-focus, an egotism, a narcissism that leads you to believe that you can do whatever you want.

Trump bragged about hiring only the 'best people' when he was running for president. We're seeing, time and again, the opposite. It's unclear whether the president's definition of 'best people' is different than ours, or if the 'best people' simply aren't interested in working for him.

Because President Obama had an overall strategy, military and civilian leaders under his command could make reactive decisions that advanced the president's goals. In the military, we call that commander's intent: When there's a decision to be made and you don't have exact guidance at that moment, you at least know overall what your boss wants.

Nothing works on the campaign trail like attacks on candidates for bad attendance. It alienates people on both sides of every issue and reflects a callous disregard of the work of the people. The feeble argument that "I'm running for president" isn't much of a rebuttal: George W. Bush finds time to be president, and he's running too.

I have my disagreements with President Obama, but President Obama has run an amazingly scandal-free administration, not only he himself, but the people around him. He's chosen people who have been pretty scandal-free.

President Obama believes in a country where we invest in education, in roads and bridges, in science, and in the future so we can create new opportunities so the next kid can make it big and the kid afer that and the kid after that, that's what President Obama believes.

I think in many ways president Trump views himself as someone who has the ability to overcome every obstacle and to do something that no other president has been able to do. And I think that's the way he views himself, as it relates to his legacy and how history will view him.

I think the Supreme Court has, as an equal branch of government, the ability to overrule Congress and the president. But I also feel it's the role of the Congress and the president to push back. I mean I think it's important that they are understood as equal branches of government.

I'm focused on leaks that hurt the institution of the president and the president himself. I understand we have to leak things to reporters to help shape policy or try to balloon things or do tests on ideas or people for different jobs. I'm talking about nefarious, unnecessary, backstabbing, palace intrigue-like leaks.

The Russians wanted Donald Trump, not Hillary Clinton. Their entire intervention in the American president election - from the news bots, to allies like Carter Page, Paul Manafort and Michael Flynn to the meeting with Don Jr. - was about hoping to elect a president who would ease the sanctions that pinch the oligarchy that enables Vladimir Putin.

I thought it was a joke at first, but the president did, in fact, authorize an autopen to sign the Patriot Act extension into law. Consider the dangerous precedent this sets. Any number of circumstances could arise in the future where the public could question whether or not the president authorized the use of an autopen.

When a president makes life and death decisions, he should draw strength and wisdom from broad and deep experience with the reasons for and the risks of committing our children to our defense. For no matter how many others are involved in the decision, the president is a lonely man in a dark room when the casualty reports come in.

It was that chemistry. And was the fact that he was president part of that chemistry? I don't know. Maybe. Probably. But it was - I was there because there was chemistry. I wasn't there because, oh, this is the president.

He [John F. Kennedy] might have envisioned himself being "alone, at the top" but, like Woodrow Wilson, he would find out that not even a President moves free of human entanglement, human needs, human illusions; not even a President can be independent of those around him.

I am delighted that Jason Gardener will be taking over from me as President of U.K. Athletics. With his competitive background in the sport as an Olympic champion coupled with his engaging personality and his experience as a board member of U.K. Athletics, he possesses all the qualities required to be a successful president.

You have a great leader now, you have a great president, you have a tough president. He's not gonna be easy on people that are breaking the laws and people that show this tremendous violence. So I really have a feeling that you're gonna have a very, very peaceful and beautiful Paris.

We keep hearing how qualified Hillary Clinton is. She's well prepared to be president, more exposure to the president than anybody else. Hillary Clinton is the most prepared to be impeached in advance of any presidential candidate America has ever had!

Both President Kennedy and President Reagan were roundly criticized by parts of the foreign policy establishment that felt they were being weak by engaging our adversaries. So some of it is built into a political lexicon that makes you sound tougher if you don't talk to somebody, and rather, very loudly, wield a big stick.

The reality of split government puts a premium on creativity within the administration. President Obama needs to put the right people in charge of the agencies and then have them push the bounds of administrative power to change policy through those agencies. President Obama has a pretty good track record of this.

WASHINGTON - Ever since President Obama ordered American warplanes to begin bombing terrorist targets in Iraq and Syria last year, members of Congress have insisted on having a say in the matter. The president, they declared, could not, or at least should not, take the country back to war without the input of the nation's elected representatives.

Women are being considered as candidates for vice-president of the United States because it is the worst job in America. It's amazing that men will take it. A job with real power is first lady. I'd be willing to run for that. As far as the men who are running for president are concerned, they aren't even people I would date.

Your president, the one you voted for, is not involved in corruption. Your president was never in corruption.

As I ran for president, I hoped that one child would come out of the ghetto like I did, could look at me walk across the stage with governors and senators and know they didn't have to be a drug dealer, they didn't have to be a hoodlum, they didn't have to be a gangster. They could stand up from a broken home, on welfare, and they could run for president of the United States.

Barack Obama's been president for about eight hours; President Obama was here for eight years. So if you want to talk about numbers that matter, it's quantifying all the losses - the women who were slid into poverty, those who can't find meaningful work, and their children who deserve a better life.

I think that issues of gender have been discussed widely at Harvard. But I think I was chosen clearly on the merits, and I wish to operate as president on the merits. I think, on one level, we might say that I can affirm that women have the aptitude to do science or to do anything, including being president of Harvard.

If you look at the Constitution, the two clauses of the Constitution make it very clear the president shall nominate, and the Senate shall provide advice and consent. It's been since 1888 that a Senate of a different party than the president in the White House confirmed a Supreme Court nominee.

The President has only 190 million bosses. The Vice President has 190 million and one.

The president is out there today trying to talk about health care, and the reality is nobody cares about what he's saying on health care because this news is consuming everything. No president could tolerate that or should tolerate it.

If I'm President of the United States, when I'm President of the United States, we will stand with Israel.

A couple of Donald Trump people, including his vice presidential running mate, Mike Pence, the governor of Indiana, and of course, Dr. Ben Carson, have both come out in the last days, hours, practically, and said they believe President [Barack] Obama is a legitimately elected president of the United States.

America needs a president who knows how we live and work, who delivers on promises to those who need help, who won't use fear and hate as a political cudgel, and who works to solve our biggest problems instead of nibbling around the edges - a president who will go big, be bold, and do good, and stirs all Americans to do likewise.

My kids did not know that Obama was the first black president. I felt like I needed to tell them because I felt like, 'How could you not know that?' But for the ones who didn't know, he was basically the only president they knew.

I served 40 years in government, and I'm not looking forward to a position or an assignment. Of course, I have always said if a president asks you to do something, you have to consider it. But I am in no way interested in returning to government. But I, of course, would sit and talk to any president who wishes to talk to me.

How you staff, particularly the chief of staff, the national security adviser, your White House counsel, how you set up a process in the system to surface information and generate options for a president, understanding that ultimately the president is going to be the final decision-maker. That's something that has to be attended to right away.

Donald Trump is a president in crisis. His governing agenda is going nowhere, his credibility shattered with many, his public approval is mired in the thirties and low forties, and an escalating Russia crisis is threatening to undermine the president's ability to persuade even Republicans that he can bounce back.

President George H.W. Bush was a patriot who served our country in World War II, lead the CIA, an Ambassador to the United Nations, was the Vice President and the Commander and Chief who oversaw the end of the Cold War and successfully led our troops through the Gulf War.

As a Republican, I voted with President Clinton consistently in our efforts to bail out our European friends in Kosovo to stop genocide. I am proud of those votes. I am proud of President Clinton for that.

China is ruthlessly pragmatic. It supports North Korea for its own selfish interests. And I believe that China no longer considers us an ally. The current president, Xi Jinping, cultivates close relations with South Korea. He has never met with me, the leader of North Korea, something that the leader of China has always done. At the grand celebrations in Beijing two years ago commemorating the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II, he placed the president of Russia and the president of South Korea at his side. In North Korea, we pay a lot of attention to ceremonies and what they signal.

I just didn't want to get out there anymore; I didn't want to get back into what I call 'the swamp.' And the other reason why is I don't think it's good for the presidency for a former president to be opining about his successor. President Obama's got plenty of critics - and I'm just not gonna be one.

I remember meeting President Obama and looking at him, thinking, 'Damn, this dude is really our president. He really went out and did it!' If you look at stories like that, and other stories that I'm sure you could compare to, it's just about freeing your mind and taking those guards down.

One of the most solemn responsibilities of the president and it's set out expressly in the Constitution is that the president is to take care that the laws are faithfully executed, and that means the Constitution. It means statutes. It means treaties. It means all of the laws of the United States.

As John Kerry sails toward the Democratic nomination, new questions are emerging about President Bush's service in the National Guard, like where he was for six months in 1972 and why he refused to take a routine physical. President Bush has vowed to get to the bottom of this right after Election Day.

She [Justice sandra Day O'Connor] wrote - and this is one we should all remember - she wrote that even war is not a blank check for the president when it comes to the rights of the nation's citizens. She held that even this president is not above the law.

With all the power that a president has, the most important thing to bear in mind is this: You must not give power to a man unless, above everything else, he has character. Character is the most important qualification the president of the United States can have.

Donald Trump is doing well. Trump is shocking everybody. He's shocking the Democrats. He's shocking the Republicans. He's shocking world. Contrast what's happened here in just the last three days with eight years of Barack Obama. We have had no apologizing. We've had no bowing. We've had a president of the United States actually tell the heads of state of countries where terrorism is rampant to get rid of it, to drive it out. We've had a president of the United States directly confront Iran where his our previous president threw everybody else overboard for Iran.

But I will say, I think there are some Democrats that don't want to address pension reform. I have taken on the issue of seniority and tenure. I think we have to address entitlements and the president has done that in his budget. I think we have to extend Medicare and the president has done that. But also reinvest in that program.