Jean Chretien Quotes

Politics is the reflex of the business and industrial world.

I could have made a fortune in cheeseburgers, but I finally chose politics.

I think JR would make a better President than the one we have now.

In choosing a president, we really don't choose a Republican or Democrat, a conservative or liberal. We choose a leader.

Experience counts in government even more than in business.

The President is the CEO of this business that we call America.

Washington is like playing the Super Bowl, only there are no timeouts, no potty breaks, and the arena is filled with the media. In government, you have to learn to put yourself second in a big way. But I am a business person at heart. I like to be in charge.

I'm a lobbyist and had a career lobbying. The guy who gets elected or the lady who gets elected president of the United States will immediately be lobbying. They would be advocating to the Congress, they'll be lobbying our allies and our adversaries overseas. They'll be asking the business community and labor unions.

I think we have to be fair in saying at this point that neither Roosevelt nor Lewis realized the peril to which they were exposing both the unions and the country.

I believe all universities should at least offer courses in politics and policy implementation.

Government is not show business.

There are certain skills that business people have that are - that are, in fact, helpful in - when it comes to being in political leadership.

I learned a lot from Jack Welch about how to run a business.

Business requires understanding financial matters, but management is different from running the financial aspects of the business - it requires understanding complex systems, how they operate, the nature of organisations, what happens when people interact in groups and how to motivate and guide people.

Political institutions are a superstructure resting on an economic foundation.

What is government itself but the great reflection of human nature.

All systems of political administration or governmental machinery are but the reflex of the economic forms which underlie them

Government ... is neither business, nor technology, nor applied science. It is the art of making men live together in peace and with reasonable happiness.

What is politics but business?

I think the defining issue of our time is: Does the economic, social, and political system work for the middle class?

My own appraisal of him as a man is somewhat mixed. The one fact we can be sure of is that he has those indefinable qualities which make him a leader of men. Whatever we may think of him he is going to be a great factor in the development of Cuba and very possibly Latin American affairs generally. He seems to be sincere, he is either incredibly naïve about Communism or under Communist discipline—my guess is the former and as I have already implied, his ideas as to how to run a government or an economy are less developed than those of almost any world figure I have met in fifty countries. But because he has the power to lead to which I have referred we have no choice but at least to try to orient him in the right direction.

So long as I'm president, communism will not thrive here.

But I was an utterly hopeless politician and I worked out that I would be much better suited to making money and running businesses than the compromise that is politics.

I was always interested in politics and I had great leadership skills from a young age.

Politics is a tough business.