Maxine Waters Quotes

Who can sit back as our towns and cities are torn apart by violence and be content with the status quo?

It's hard to compare. Different times, different players. The administration four years ago did not have 9/11. I could tell you this; this particular administration was better suited to handle that than the former.

A mayor is a political leader for a city. He doesn't know anything necessarily about city administration, and furthermore he shouldn't have to.

The mobs of great cities add just so much to the support of pure government as sores do to the strength of the human body.

Mr. President, If you don’t do something and do it right away, I don’t know what is going to happen to this country.

The actions I took at a time of national crisis in 2003 were necessary to protect lives and property and restore law and order. Regrettably, lives were lost among both the government forces and armed protesters.

The tumultuous populace of large cities are ever to be dreaded.

I don't want to have thousands of people shot in a city where, essentially, I'm the president.

Tear gas, rubber bullets, and I would have arrested all the leaders. Oh, only a disgusting drunkard like ex-President Yahya Khan could have sullied himself with an operation carried out so badly and bloodily.

The fact of the matter is, we need to have a very clear message. We haven't had that from the current president. And you've seen the violence in his home city of Chicago. This is just another example.

We put a President up there, and then we set fire to him because he's not solving all our problems.

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.

We are sitting on many powder kegs. Whether it's Ferguson, or St Louis, or like the other night, or Baltimore. Or different parts of Chicago.

The spirit of rebellion is present in every great city, and the great task of wise government is to keep it dormant, for if it wakes it is a torrent which no dam can hold back.

If a President must constantly remind the people that we're at war, then we're not.

Leaders of political parties need to keep in contact with the people; that's what it's all about. If violence were to erupt, I am fairly confident that we could control our people. Whether or not the authorities can control theirs is another matter altogether.

It's clear that the true problems of our Nation are much deeper - deeper than gasoline lines of energy shortages, deeper even than inflation or recession. And I realize more than ever that as President I need your help. So, I decided to reach out and listen to the voices of America.

Here's the positive scenario: that something has been going wrong in American society. You see it in wage growth, opioid abuse, many other social indicators, as you know. Sometimes it's better to get the bad reaction to that over with quickly while your civil society still is strong and you can react and respond and protest, and you know, four or eight years from now, make another decision, and maybe it's better to have that happen in 2017 than 20 years later when some of our problems are worse and our national mood is worse.

We can't have a Twitter president. This is serious stuff, this governing.

Ronald Reagan was an excellent leader of our nation during challenging times at home and abroad.

The art of governing is a great metier, requiring the whole man, and it is therefore not well for a ruler to have too strong tendencies for other affairs.

Let's give the president some due here. They had a mess, and he fixed it, and they mobilized a lot of authority, and they did it.

Presidents and Lyndon Johnson was really no exception, very rapidly learned the difference between a contingency plan and an authorized act.

Serious times require strong leadership.

I would prefer to let the president make the decisions that the president needs to make.