Henry Clay Quotes

Disappointment! You speak to me of disappointment. To me, who was justly entitled to the Republican nomination for the presidency, and who had to stand aside and see it given to a little Illinois lawyer!

…the nomination of Mr. Lincoln took everybody by surprise: it was brought about by accident or trick, by which my pledged friends had to vote against me… The thing was well planned and boldly executed.

Elections are about fucking your enemies. Winning is about fucking your friends.

In politics you can't be true to all of your friends all the time.

It's unbelievable, there's a book out attacking Gore, when he's the most unfortunate loser in political history.

I have no trouble with y enemies. But my god damn friends... they are the ones that keep me walking the floors at night.

Lovers have a right to betray you... friends don't.

There are no friends at cards or world politics.

How useless oaths are has been shown by experience.

Be on guard against your friends.

For if good fortune makes your friends for you, Ill fortune makes them enemies for sure.

My friends are not worth the powder and shot it would take to kill them. If there were two Henry Clays, one of them would make the other President of the United States.

Party faithlessness is party dishonor.

How can we account for our present situation unless we believe that men high in this government are concerting to deliver us to disaster? This must be the product of a great conspiracy on a scale so immense as to dwarf any previous such venture in the history of man.

Conventions don't nominate people anymore. Primaries do.

Regardless of how principled and ideological a political party may be, an essential point of party politics is to find jobs for the faithful of the winning party. If jobs cannot be found, the party system withers and dies, leaving only a self-perpetuating bureaucratic oligarchy behind. A system of minimal government can provide jobs for the winning party by throwing out the jobholders of the losing faction. But if civil service law freezes jobholders in place, the function of providing jobs for the winners can only occur by expanding the number of jobs: that is, at the expense of the taxpayers and of the productive, private sector. The "spoils system" allows all the costs to be imposed upon the losing party, and not at all on the body of the taxpayers. Surely a just and admirable system: who better to bear the costs of political defeat than the losing party?

A close friend can become a close enemy.

I have been defeated for election often enough to know that the majority can be wrong.

I have no trouble with my enemies. But my goddamn friends, White, they are the ones who keep me walking the floor nights.

I took an oath of office to the Constitution, I didn't take an oath of office to my party or my president.

Rockefeller brought a lot of balance to my administration…. I wanted him on the ticket but if Rockefeller had stayed on the ticket I would probably have not gotten the nomination. Ronald Reagan would have gotten the nomination. Rockefeller made the unselfish decision to withdraw so I could win the nomination.

They said if I'd fight a ranked contender, I'd get a title shot. I did that, and the next day they changed the rules.

My generation feels it has been lied to a great deal.

I think it's unfair to commit to a girl and not be able to give her the time she deserves.

The Republicans know very well how to lose, and they know how to be very civil in defeat.