Presidency Quotes

I think 'Hail to the Chief' has a nice ring to it.

There are times where I'd say the Oval Office, you use to gather the facts. The decisions you probably make late at night, or at least I do. But there are some times where you think you've made a decision, but during that walk, where you're announcing the decision, you've just got to make sure that, you're prepared to live with it, because as you know George, a lot of these decisions are not - the outcomes are uncertain.

Toughest decision was early in my presidency when I ordered 30,000 more troops into Afghanistan. As somebody who had run to end a large troop presence overseas.

The White House is a bully pulpit.

Donald Trump is like Hillary Clinton said, a man you can bait with a tweet is not a man you can trust with nuclear weapons. You can`t do it.

I have great respect for both President Obama and the office that he holds

One of the things that I've urged the president-elect to do is to develop a strong working relationship with the intelligence community and I think it's important that Congress, on a bipartisan basis.

We're up against the conventional thinking that says your ability to lead as president comes from longevity in Washington or proximity to the White House. But we know that real leadership is about candor and judgment and the ability to rally Americans from all walks of life around a common purpose, a higher purpose.

America is much less violent than it was 20, 30 years ago, and immigration is much less a problem than it was not just 20, 30 years ago, but when I came in as president.

My hope is that's something [Donald Trump] is thinking about, because not only is the president of the United States somebody that the entire country looks to for direction but sets the agenda internationally in a lot of ways.

I think that where I've gotten frustrated during the course of my presidency has never been because I was getting pushed too hard by activists to see the justness of a cause or the essence of an issue.

By hook or by crook, we're going to make sure that when I leave this office, that the country is more prosperous, more people have opportunity, kids have a better education, we're more competitive, climate change is being taken more seriously than it was.Those are going to be the measures by which I look back and say whether I've been successful as president.

If all of you had voted the other way - there's about 5500 of you here tonight - I would not be the President of the United States.

Who you are, what you are, does not change after you occupy the oval office. All it does is magnify who you are. All it does is shine a spotlight on who you are.

The presidency is not merely an administrative office...It is pre-eminently a place of moral leadership.

I have had a great time as president.

I believe in term limits for presidents because I think that there is no doubt I'm a better president now than I was when I start. I would argue that I am the best president I've ever been over the last year or two. My team is more effective than it's ever been.But what is also true is that number one, this is grueling.

Who is Barack Obama? Contrary to the rumors you have heard, I was not born in a manger. I was actually born on Krypton and sent here by my father Jor-El to save the Planet Earth. Many of you know that I got my name, Barack, from my father. What you may not know is Barack is actually Swahili for 'That One.' And I got my middle name from somebody who obviously didn't think I'd ever run for president. If I had to name my greatest strength, I guess it would be my humility. Greatest weakness, it's possible that I'm a little too awesome.

I think that Donald Trump is coming to this office with fewer set hard-and-fast policy prescriptions than a lot of other presidents might be arriving with.

I must be wanting to be President. Every young man does. But I won't let myself think of it; I must not, because if I do, I will begin to work for it; I'll be careful, calculating, cautious in word and act, and so - I'll beat myself.

No other President ever enjoyed the Presidency as I did.

When you're a candidate and you say something that is inaccurate or controversial, it has less impact than it does when you're president of the United States. Everybody around the world's paying attention. Markets move. National security issues require a level of precision in order to make sure that you don't make mistakes.

I was pretty realistic to people about what we could get done, and the situation we were in, and trying to tamp down expectations. If you listen to my stump speeches, if you listen to what I said at Grant Park, I kept on saying, "Look, this is not just about me, this is not going to happen in one year, or one term, or even one presidency." And we tried to layer into everything we were saying a sense of hope, but also realism.

But there are advantages to being elected President. The day after I was elected, I had my high school grades classified Top Secret.

How could an actor become president?

Since I came to the White House, I got two hearing aids, a colon operation, skin cancer, a prostate operation, and I was shot. The damn thing is, I've never felt better in my life.

A political candidacy built around hope and change and compromise would eventually become a presidency of crisis and confrontation.

One of the gratifying things, I think, about the end of my presidency even though admittedly my successor ran against a lot of what we stood for, is when you look at the individual issues and the progress that we've made on a lot of those issues, we got the support of a pretty decent majority.

I found this national debt doubled, wrapped in a big bow waiting for me as I stepped into the Oval Office.

I can't deny that it will be a historic event for an African-American to become president. And should that happen, all Americans should be proud - not just African-Americans, but all Americans - that we have reached this point in our national history where such a thing could happen. It will also not only electrify our country, I think it'll electrify the world.

I reserve the right, as president of the United States to meet with anybody at a time and place of my choosing if I think it's going to keep America safe.

We're breaking protocol here. That's the good thing about being President - I can do whatever I want.

The American presidency will demand more than ringing manifestos issued from the rear of the battle. It will demand that the President place himself in the very thick of the fight; that he care passionately about the fate of the people he leads .

While President, I have been President - emphatically.

When you take on the position of president, you are committing yourself to, first and foremost, protecting the American people. You are accepting an institutional role that requires you to make hard decisions and hard choices, and as a consequence you have to take your moral sense and not put it aside.

Jimmy Carter will go down in American history as 'the president who lost Iran,'

Transparency and the rule of law will be the touchstones of this presidency.

I think where I get frustrated at times was the belief that the president can do anything if he just decides he wants to do it.

The Presidency is not merely an administrative office. Thats the least of it. It is more than an engineering job, efficient or inefficient. It is pre-eminently a place of moral leadership. All our great Presidents were leaders of thought at times when certain historic ideas in the life of the nation had to be clarified.

For the eight years I was president I never let my dream of a nuclear-free world fade from my mind.

No man will ever bring out of the Presidency the reputation which carries him into it. To myself, personally, it brings nothing but increasing drudgery and daily loss of friends.

Let him [the President] once win the admiration and confidence of the country, and no other single force can withstand him, no combination of forces will easily overpower him.... If he rightly interpret the national thought and boldly insist upon it, he is irresistible; and the country never feels the zest of action so much as when the President is of such insight and caliber.

[This upset] means that means Donald Trump now has to transition to governance.

We're starting to make some progress. But there's still gonna be some pain out there. If I don't have this done in three years, then there's gonna be a one-term proposition.

I heard one presidential candidate say that what this country needed was a president for the nineties. I was set to run again. I thought he said a president IN his nineties.

The whole framework of the presidency is getting out of hand. It's come to the point where you almost can't run unless you can cause people to salivate and whip each other with big sticks. You almost have to be a rock star to get the kind of fever you need to survive in American politics.

No President has ever enjoyed himself as much as I?

Harry Truman once said, 'There are 14 or 15 million Americans who have the resources to have representatives in Washington to protect their interests, and that the interests of the great mass of the other people - the 150 or 160 million - is the responsibility of the president of the United States, and I propose to fulfill it.'

We have a president for whom English is a second language. He's like 'We have to get rid of dictators,' but he's pretty much one himself.

Beside the two wars he inherited in Iraq and Afghanistan, and promised to end, a financial crisis at home had pushed the United States to the brink of another Great Depression. When we spoke with the new president in March of 2009, the economy was losing 800,000 jobs a month, the government was throwing hundreds of billions of dollars at failing banks, and the auto industry was on the verge of collapse. Politically pummeled from all sides, Obama did his best to keep a sense of humor.

I changed those things that were in direct - my direct control. I mean, I - look, I'm proud of the fact that, with two weeks to go, we're probably the first administration in modern history that hasn't had a major scandal in the White House.

When I turn over the keys to the president-elect, America will be much stronger than it was when I came into office.

First of all, I think everybody has to acknowledge don't underestimate the guy [Donald Trump], because he's going to be 45th president of the United States.

To announce there must be no criticism of the president or that we are to stand with the president, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.

I'm no longer just a candidate. I'm the President. I know what it means to send young Americans into battle, for I have held in my arms the mothers and fathers of those who didn't return. I've shared the pain of families who've lost their homes, and the frustration of workers who've lost their jobs.

I, more than anything, obviously the presidency is the people, and it's been interesting the emotions in the last few months. What you realize is that you may never have the team that is together in the same way, under the same pressures, and the attachments that you make to folks from your chief of staff down to.

In closing, let me thank you, the American people, for giving me the great honor of allowing me to serve as your president. When the Lord calls me home, whenever that day may be, I will leave with the greatest love for this country of ours and eternal optimism for its future. I now begin the journey that will lead me into the sunset of my life. I know that for America there will always be a bright dawn ahead.

The day before my inauguration President Eisenhower told me, You'll find that no easy problems ever come to the President of the United States. If they are easy to solve, somebody else has solved them. I found that hard to believe, but now I know it is true.

I'm not just a candidate, I'm the President

I'll remember the view out this window [from Oval Cabinet], because this is where we had our - the playground that we put in when Malia and Sasha came in. Being able every once in awhile to look out the window and see your daughters during the summer, swinging on that swing set, that made the presidency a little bit sweeter.