Herbert Hoover Quotes

The office of the president is the most powerful in the world. It is also, at times, the most powerless.

As Chairman of the [House] Ways and Means Committee, I can contact the President whoever he may be, quite readily on the telephone. As a Vice President, I don't know whether he'd listen to me or not.

The roots of power in the White House are often bourbon and branch water taken with the President at the end of the day.

I met senators, diplomats and the President of the United States, Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

If Mr. Obama wants to get things done, he must recognize that in Washington only the president has the power to make the first big move.

I grew up in that world of power and politics in Washington, but when you grow up around it, you are completely unfazed by it.

I go back to Washington every year to see the President and I get my orders directly from him—not from those pipsqueaks [at the State Department.]

If Mr. Roosevelt can do what he likes without consulting Congress, and we give him our boys, God alone knows what he will do with them.

Executive Privilege

Never underestimate the power of an American President in his early days.

The Presidents who have gone to Washington without first having held some national office have been at great disadvantage. It takes them a long time to become acquainted with the Federal office-holders and the Federal Government.

The powers that are surrendered [by Congress] to one President remain to be used by others.

Any President has authority who asserts authority.

The more publicized the presidency the less powerful the office.

The need for this amendment grows directly out of the unfortunate experience we had in this country in 1940 and again in 1944 when a President (FDR) who had entrenched himself in power by use of patronage and the public purse refused to vacate the office at the conclusion of 2 terms, but used the great powers of the Presidency to perpetuate himself in office.

Every President does it. It goes back to George Washington. I can’t say that past Administrations have asked the same questions, but the end result is the same—you put people on boards that you want.

No man who ever held the office of President would ever congratulate a friend on obtaining it.

It was not revolution as men are prone to say. It was a popular expansion of governmental powers beyond all constitutional grants; and nearly all men everywhere hope the President may succeed.

Most Americans look upon the President as superior to the Congress and the Supreme Court, about whose powers and functions they know very little;

Any President can control the agenda.

More than any other U. S. President, Theodore Roosevelt permanently transformed the position of Chief Executive…. What had been largely an administrative position subordinate in many ways to Congress, grew into the locus of policy making and the office everyone looked to for leadership on issues large and small.

The concentration of power in the Presidency—in the White House—only grows over time.

The actions of our president systematically provide both the legal and political justifications for similar initiatives undertaken by later presidents.

Every president makes the Oval Office theirs.

I'm not a creature of Washington.