Charles Edward Merriam Quotes

When people ask me why I'm amazed at what Barack Obama has accomplished, I tell them it's not because of what most of America and the world sees and knows of his history. It's because I witnessed what I can only describe as a bizarre turn of events that thrust him into position to even become a U.S. senator.

I'm not one of the people who have to be in public office.

School boards can be a steppingstone to higher forms of political leadership.

It's a lot of fun to just say to people, proudly, 'I get to play the First Lady.' It's just fun to say.

Like Indiana Jones, I don't like snakes - though that might lead some to ask why I'm in politics.

I still think my whole career was accidental. I didn't pursue it. I feel like I'm cheating sometimes.

This girl at 17 really led an army, this girl at 19 really burned at the stake by her own choice. And you sit there and you want to figure out why did she make these choices? How did she live such a life?

I can die a happy man never having been president of the United States of America. But it doesn't mean I won't run.

Few men in our history have ever obtained the Presidency by planning to obtain it.

My life/career is more filled with left-field thrills than I could ever have hoped for.

If I want to run for president, you'll be able to tell.

I have got instincts that, I think, are very much in tune with people's very keen sense to see something different. I did not dream of being in politics since I was knee-high to a grasshopper. I was not involved in student politics, or not in that partisan way.

To have the kind of year you want to have, something has to happen that you can't explain why it happened. Something has to happen that you can't coach.

George W. Bush is not a twit, but he does have twit tendencies.

All the anxious politicians of his party have been looking upon him as certainty, at no distant day, to be the President of the United States. They have seen in his round, jolly, fruitful face, post offices land offices, marshalships, and cabinet appointments, chargeships and foreign missions, bursting and sprouting out in wonderful exuberance ready to be laid hold of by their greedy hands.

Vice presidents are candidates for political castration.

[Warren] Harding didn't like being a Senator; he liked being in the Senate.

We offer more than a program; we offer a man [Richard M. Nixon] to carry it out.

I feel like some of the best roles that I've gotten to play I could've never preconceived. These things happen to you in an unexpected fashion, so it's hard to pre-imagine what that would be because some of the best opportunities I've had I could've never anticipated or expected.

There was nothing in my childhood that said, 'She's going to be first minister of the country one day.'

I never wanted to be an actor but ended up being one.

I never imagined my career would take off this fast.

My career has been so different than most guys. I've kind of bounced around and always, one way or another, ended up in the starting lineup. So I would say my career has been very unique.

I don't see myself as a political figure.

Everybody's saying I should run for president.