"When there is a lack of honor in government, the morals of the whole people are poisoned."

~ Herbert Hoover, 31st US President, Recalled on eve of his 90th birthday, NY Times 9 Aug 64

"Many years ago, I concluded that a few hair shirts were part of the mental wardrobe of every man. The president differs from other men in that he has a more extensive wardrobe."

~ Herbert Hoover, 31st US President, Quoted by Brooks Atkinson NY Times 17 Oct 64

"I outlived the bastards."

~ Herbert Hoover, 31st US President, When asked about those who blamed him for the Depression, quoted by William O Douglas The Court Years 1939-75 Random House 80

"I'm the only person of distinction who's ever had a depression named for him."

~ Herbert Hoover, 31st US President, Quoted by Richard Norton Smith An Uncommon Man Simon & Schuster 84

"The presidency has made every man who occupied it, no matter how small, bigger than he was; and no matter how big, not big enough for its demands."

~ Lyndon B Johnson, 36th US President, NY Times 26 Mar 72

"Being president is like being a jackass in a hailstorm. There's nothing to do but stand there and take it."

~ Lyndon B Johnson, 36th US President, Recalled on his death 22 Jan 73

"What if Adams should die and Eisenhower becomes president of the United States?"

~ Anonymous, On President Dwight D Eisenhower's chief of staff Sherman Adams, recalled on Adams's death, NY Times 28 Oct 86

"Just when you think there's nothing to write about, Nixon says, "I am not a crook." Jimmy Carter says, "I have lusted after women in my heart." President Reagan says, "I have just taken a urinalysis test, and I am not on dope.""

~ Art Buchwald, At Humor and the Presidency Symposium, Ford Museum, Grand Rapids MI, Time 29 Sep 86

"I haven't chosen her yet."

~ George Bush, US Vice President, When asked what criteria he would use in selecting a 1988 vice-presidential candidate, to Republican meeting in NYC 27 Mar 87

"I now understand more clearly than I ever had before why you won in November 1980 and I lost."

~ Jimmy Carter, 39th US President, Thanking his successor Ronald Reagan for address during dedication of Carter Presidential Center in Atlanta, NY Times 2 Oct 86

"He is running not for election but for the history books."

~ George J Church, On President Ronald Reagan halfway through his second term, Time 29 Sep 86

"History buffs probably noted the reunion at a Washington party a few weeks ago of three ex-presidents: Carter, Ford and Nixon - See No Evil, Hear No Evil and Evil."

~ Robert J Dole, US Senator, To Washington Gridiron Club dinner 26 Mar 83

"He has a chance to make somebody move over on Mount Rushmore. He's working for his place on the coins and the postage stamps."

~ Henry Graff, Professor of History, Columbia University, On President Ronald Reagan at start of his second term, Newsweek 28 Jan 85

"The presidency is a huge echo chamber magnifying every little thing he does."

~ Stephen Hess, On President Ronald Reagan, Time 6 Feb 84

"To the world, you are America."

~ Charlton Heston, To Ronald Reagan at a Hollywood charity ball given in the president's honor, NY Times 2 Dec 85

"Honor is not the exclusive property of any political party."

~ Herbert Hoover, 31st US President, Quoted in Christian Science Monitor 21 May 64

"In the heat of a political lifetime, Ronald Reagan innocently squirrels away tidbits of misinformation and then, sometimes years later, casually drops them into his public discourse, like gum balls in a quiche."

~ Lucy Howard, Newsweek 11 Nov 85

"This is a moment that I deeply wish my parents could have lived to share. My father would have enjoyed what you have so generously said of me - and my mother would have believed it."

~ Lyndon B Johnson, 36th US President, Commencement address at Baylor University 28 May 65

"President Johnson and I have a lot in common. We were both born in small towns ... and we're both fortunate in the fact that we think we married above ourselves."

~ Richard M Nixon, 37th US President, 5 Sep 69

"You get a little stir crazy during the week."

~ Ronald Reagan, 40th US President, On living in the White House, NY Times 27 Sep 83

"Seventy-five years ago I was born in Tampico, Illinois, in a little flat above the bank building. We didn't have any other contact with the bank than that."

~ Ronald Reagan, 40th US President, On his birthplace, NY Times 7 Feb 86

"Now, here I am, sort of living above the store again."

~ Ronald Reagan, 40th US President, On his birthplace, NY Times 7 Feb 86

"We were poor when I was young, but the difference then was the government didn't come around telling you you were poor."

~ Ronald Reagan, 40th US President, Time 7 Jul 86

"It is terrible - and I mean terrible - nuisance to be kin to the president of the United States."

~ Harry S Truman, 33rd US President, Letter to his mother and sister two weeks after assuming the presidency in 1945, Year of Decision Doubleday 55

"I have found the best way to give advice to your children is to find out what they want and then advise them to do it."

~ Harry S Truman, 33rd US President, CBS TV 27 May 55

"My father was not a failure. After all, he was the father of a president of the United States."

~ Harry S Truman, 33rd US President, Mr Citizen Geis 60

"It seems like there was always somebody for supper."

~ Harry S Truman, 33rd US President, On life in the White House, quoted by Merriman Smith The Good New Days Bobbs-Merrill 62

"I was the only calm one in the house. You see I've been shot at by experts."

~ Harry S Truman, 33rd US President, Recalling service in World War I after assassination attempt on November 1, 1950, quoted by Margaret Truman Bess W Truman Macmillan 86

"We're going to be buried out here. I like the idea because I may just want to get up some day and stroll into my office. And I can hear you saying, "Harry - you oughtn't!""

~ Harry S Truman, 33rd US President, To his wife, on plans to be buried together at Truman Library, Independence MO, quoted by Margaret Truman Bess W Truman Macmillan 86

"It's only when you grow up, and step back from him, or leave him for your own career and your own home - it's only then that you can measure his greatness and fully appreciate it. Pride reinforces love."

~ Margaret Truman, Address to joint session of Congress on centennial of birth of her father President Harry S Truman, 8 May 84

"[Lyndon] was the most outspoken, straightforward, determined person I'd ever encountered. I knew I'd met something remarkable - but I didn't know quite what."

~ Claudia ("Lady Bird") Johnson, On meeting her future husband, Saturday Evening Post 8 Feb 64

"For Bird, still a girl of principles, ideals and refinement - from her admirer, Lyndon."

~ Lyndon B Johnson, 36th US President, Inscription on a photograph presented to his wife on her 51st birthday, NY Herald Tribune 23 Dec 63

"Everywhere we go, Nancy makes the world a little better."

~ Ronald Reagan, 40th US President, On his wife, in film shown at Republican National Convention 22 Aug 84

"Thank you, partner. ... By the way, are you doing anything this evening?"

~ Ronald Reagan, 40th US President, To Nancy, while convalescing from cancer surgery, radio address 20 Jul 85

"In my Sunday School class there was a beautiful little girl with golden curls. I was smitten at once and still am."

~ Harry S Truman, 33rd US President, On his wife Bess, news summaries 31 Dec 52

"The ugliest thing I ever saw."

~ Lyndon B Johnson, 36th US President, On portrait of him by Peter Hurd, recalled on Hurd's death 9 Jul 84

"The life of the artist is, in relation to his work, stern and lonely. He has labored hard, often amid deprivation, to perfect his skill. He has turned aside from quick success in order to strip his vision of everything secondary or cheapening. His working life is marked by intensive application and intense discipline."

~ John F Kennedy, 35th US President, From 1963 introduction to book about the National Cultural Center in Washington DC, quoted in NY Post 7 Jan 64

"In an atmosphere of liberty, artists and patrons are free to think the unthinkable and create the audacious; they are free to make both horrendous mistakes and glorious celebrations."

~ Ronald Reagan, 40th US President, To recipients of the National Medal of Arts, Newsweek 13 May 85

"Where there's liberty, art succeeds."

~ Ronald Reagan, 40th US President, To recipients of the National Medal of Arts, Newsweek 13 May 85

"Every man has a right to a Saturday night bath."

~ Lyndon B Johnson, 36th US President, London Observer 13 Mar 60

"There are plenty of recommendations on how to get out of trouble cheaply and fast. Most of them come down to this: Deny your responsibility."

~ Lyndon B Johnson, 36th US President, At Democratic fund-raising affair, news summaries 30 Sep 67

"All that Hubert needs over there is a gal to answer the phone and a pencil with an eraser on it."

~ Lyndon B Johnson, 36th US President, On Vice President Hubert H Humphrey, recalled on Johnson's death 22 Jan 73

"Jack was out kissing babies while I was out passing bills. Someone had to tend the store."

~ Lyndon B Johnson, 36th US President, On John F Kennedy's selection as Democratic presidential nominee, quoted by Ralph G Martin A Hero for Our Time Macmillan 83

"I seldom think of politics more than 18 hours a day."

~ Lyndon B Johnson, 36th US President, Quoted in A Guide to the 99th Congress LTV Corp 85

"A man can take a little bourbon without getting drunk, but if you hold his mouth open and pour in a quart, he's going to get sick on it."

~ Lyndon B Johnson, 36th US President, On political persuasion, "Love It or Loathe It, Here's the Wit and Wisdom of LBJ" People 2 Feb 87

"The CIA is made up of boys whose families sent them to Princeton but wouldn't let them into the family brokerage business."

~ Lyndon B Johnson, 36th US President, On political persuasion, "Love It or Loathe It, Here's the Wit and Wisdom of LBJ" People 2 Feb 87

"When things haven't gone well for you, call in a secretary or a staff man and chew him out. You will sleep better and they will appreciate the attention."

~ Lyndon B Johnson, 36th US President, On political persuasion, "Love It or Loathe It, Here's the Wit and Wisdom of LBJ" People 2 Feb 87

"Come out of the rose garden."

~ Edward M Kennedy, US Senator, Challenging President Jimmy Carter to a public debate, news summaries 10 Feb 80

"To exclude from positions of trust and command all those below the age of 44 would have kept Jefferson from writing the Declaration of Independence, Washington from commanding the Continental Army, Madison from fathering the Constitution, Hamilton from serving as secretary of the treasury, Clay from being elected speaker of the House and Christopher Columbus from discovering America."

~ John F Kennedy, 35th US President, NY Times 5 Jul 60

"We stand today on the edge of a new frontier - the frontier of the 1960s - a frontier of unknown opportunities and perils - a frontier of unfulfilled hopes and threats."

~ John F Kennedy, 35th US President, Accepting the Democratic presidential nomination 15 Jul 60

"The new frontier of which I speak is not a set of promises - it is a set of challenges. It sums up not what I intend to offer the American people, but what I intend to ask of them. It appeals to their pride, not their pocketbook - it holds out the promise of more sacrifice instead of more security."

~ John F Kennedy, 35th US President, Accepting the Democratic presidential nomination 15 Jul 60

"I hope that no American ... will waste his franchise and throw away his vote by voting either for me or against me solely on account of my religious affiliation. It is not relevant."

~ John F Kennedy, 35th US President, On being a Roman Catholic, Time 25 Jul 60

"Nixon had three goals: to win by the biggest electoral landslide in history; to be remembered as a peacemaker; and to be accepted by the "Establishment" as an equal. He achieved all these objectives at the end of 1972 and the beginning of 1973. And he lost them all two months later - partly because he turned a dream into an obsession."

~ Henry A Kissinger, On president Richard M Nixon and the Watergate break-in, Years of Upheaval Little, Brown 82

"It was a Greek tragedy. Nixon was fulfilling his own nature. Once it started it could not end otherwise."

~ Henry A Kissinger, To James St Clair on August 8, 1974, after President Nixon's televised announcement of his resignation, Years of Upheaval Little, Brown 82

"The Vietnam War required us to emphasize the national interest rather than abstract principles. ... What President Nixon and I tried to do was unnatural. And that is why we didn't make it."

~ Henry A Kissinger, On 10th anniversary of end of the Vietnam War, Wall Street Journal 11 Mar 85

"When you meet the president, you ask yourself, "How did it ever occur to anybody that he should be governor much less president?""

~ Henry A Kissinger, On President Ronald Reagan, US 2 Jun 86

"The politics of surprise leads through the Gates of Astonishment into the Kingdom of Hope."

~ Max Lerner, On announcement of presidential visit to China, quoted by Richard M Nixon RN: Memoirs of Richard Nixon Grosset & Dunlap 78

"Certainly he is not of the generation that regards honesty as the best policy. However, he does regard it as a policy."

~ Walter Lippmann, On President Richard M Nixon, quoted in Newsweek 12 May 80

"You have given me a great responsibility: to stay close to you, to be worthy of you and to exemplify what you are."

~ Jimmy Carter, 39th US President, Inaugural address 20 Jan 77

"I personally think that he did violate the law, that he committed impeachable offenses. But I don't think that he thinks he did."

~ Jimmy Carter, 39th US President, On former President Richard M Nixon, to reporters after press conference 12 May 77

"The experience of democracy is like the experience of life itself - always changing, infinite in its variety, sometimes turbulent and all the more valuable for having been tested by adversity."

~ Jimmy Carter, 39th US President, To Indian Parliament 2 Jan 78

"If you fear making anyone mad, then you ultimately probe for the lowest common denominator of human achievement."

~ Jimmy Carter, 39th US President, To Future Farmers of America, Kansas City, 9 Nov 78

"Human rights is the soul of our foreign policy, because human rights is the very soul of our sense of nationhood."

~ Jimmy Carter, 39th US President, At White House ceremony commemorating 30th anniversary of UN Declaration of Human Rights 6 Dec 78

"For the first time in the history of our country the majority of our people believe that the next five years will be worse than the past five years."

~ Jimmy Carter, 39th US President, Address to the nation 15 Jul 79

"An act of terrorism totally outside the bounds of international law and diplomatic tradition. ... a crisis [that] calls for firmness and restraint."

~ Jimmy Carter, 39th US President, On embassy personnel taken hostage in Iran, 15 Nov 79

"Aggression unopposed becomes a contagious disease."

~ Jimmy Carter, 39th US President, On Soviet intervention in Afghanistan, address to the nation 4 Jan 80

"America did not invent human rights. In a very real sense ... human rights invented America."

~ Jimmy Carter, 39th US President, Farewell address 14 Jan 81

"For this generation, ours, life is nuclear survival, liberty is human rights, the pursuit of happiness is a planet whose resources are devoted to the physical and spiritual nourishment of its inhabitants."

~ Jimmy Carter, 39th US President, Farewell address 14 Jan 81

"I always seem to get inspiration and renewed vitality by contact with this great novel land of yours which sticks up out of the Atlantic."

~ Winston Churchill, Prime Minister of Great Britain, To Vice President Richard M Nixon during 1954 dinner in Washington DC, quoted in RN: Memoirs of Richard Nixon Grosset & Dunlap 78

"I predict you will sink step by step into a bottomless quagmire, however much you spend in men and money."

~ Charles de Gaulle, President of France, On Vietnam War, 1961 statement to President John F Kennedy, quoted in Memories of Hope Press Ltd 76