Henry A. Kissinger Quotes

Whose leadership, whose judgment, whose values do you want in the White House when that crisis lands like a thud on the Oval Office desk?

Every president learns on the job because nobody's really prepared for the kind of decisions that cross your desk every day. No one's prepared for that. No vice president who has scended to the presidency has ever truly been ready for that. Certainly, no vice president who's assumed the presidency in extremis, like Harry Truman, has been ready for that. But this Trump guy doesn't seem to be ready for a career in government.

You can never predict what problems a President will face.

You don't go to war with the President you want, you go to war with the President you have.

The most used phrase in my administration if I were to be President would be 'What the hell you mean we're out of missiles?'

Given Mr. Obama's lack of experience as an executive, and his past performance in crises such as the oil spill, it is reasonable for those of us who support the effort in Afghanistan to worry that he will not be up to the job.

Presidents do not like to preside over such disagreements and scenes. That’s what presidential aides are for.

No one is ready to be President. If you end up with the title, you adjust to the position.

This is the sort of decision that presidents must make: Hard choices with insufficient information.

American government has usually been pretty good in a crisis and pretty lousy at all other times.

There is no human-resources training for how to respond when you work for an unpredictable president. It's perhaps fitting that when you visit the website of the White House Office of Administration it says, 'Check back soon for more information.'

Every president learns in the course of your time in office, but the American people have the right to expect that you walk in the door prepared for the job.

I think different presidents have different ways of governing. We just have to respect that.

There was the Missile Crisis, but one can't attribute to the [J.F.] Kennedy years anything like the problems that [Franklin] Roosevelt stood over and surmounted.

When you're president, you can't vote present. You have to make a decision. Sometimes it's a split second decision. You don't have time to think about it. You've got to actually decide.

I may not agree with everything, but our President, just like President [George W.] Bush did, is trying to do his best under difficult circumstances.

When facing a national crisis, we cannot allow a political vacuum to exist.

You know, Theresa May, she's doing the best she can with not a great hand, a little bit like Chase Carey really.

Having seen first-hand how complex and difficult the job is, I believe it vital that the president be able to focus on his never-ending tasks with as few distractions as possible.

I think President Obama is weak, bored with the office, and an incompetent leader.

During the years of my presidency, I lived a tough and difficult life.

Just as crises can provide a test of anyone's character, they do so especially with presidents.

If President Obama were to enroll in an American government class, the professor would mark him absent on most days. In the first 100 days of his second term, the president has failed to show up to class, take notes and complete the daunting task of rising to the challenges facing him.

Barack Obama took office in the middle of a massive financial crisis. He was handed a bunch of messes all around the world and at home.

A company needs to have good business reflexes, to be able to marshal its forces in a crisis or in response to any unplanned event.