Niall Ferguson Quotes

The art of politics is knowing what to do next.

President Obama... is a wimp.

In politics a capable ruler must be guided by circumstances, conjectures and conjunctions.

The wound-tight, travel-light Obama has a distaste for the adversarial and the random. But if you stick too rigidly to a 'No Drama' rule in the White House, you risk keeping reality at bay. Presidencies are always about crisis management.

President Obama is permanently ambivalent .

Leadership is important in politics.

President Obama's greatest failure is his failure regarding foreign policy and national security.

Donald Trump says he’s President Obama’s worst nightmare. That’s not true. Having to make a decision is Obama’s worst nightmare.

Like Lyndon Johnson, President Obama understands that timidity in a time of troubles is a prescription for failure.

It's so much easier to throw rocks than it is to govern.

Politics is not the art of the possible. It consists in choosing between the disastrous and the unpalatable.

President Obama has his faults, but overall, I think, is a good president.

A prime minister has to keep a certain balance when dealing with sensitive issues.

I love Obama's calm and dignity. A lot of people confuse that with being aloof, but I know people that have held that job. It's a 24-hour barrage of information.

As a member of Congress, I'm often reminded that in baseball, as in diplomacy, you have to know when to hit, when to run, and when to show grace.

Your personality as the prime minister feeds through to what you emphasise, and what you don't, how you'll handle a situation - whether you've got the combination of intelligence or instincts to adapt and to make good decisions.

If the critics are right that I've made all my decisions based on polls, then I must not be very good at reading them.

I think the problem with President Obama - and I like him personally, I came into the Senate with him - is his agenda.

In any leadership position, you're always going to be disappointing somebody.

War is often about making the least-worst decision. The same could be said about politics. But the stakes are higher in war, when the commander-in-chief is called upon to defend the nation.

I think that President Obama is beginning to realize that a lot of his plans have backfired.

In this job, you're going to make decisions. You'll say things that some people are going to love them, some people are going to hate them. It's just part of the job.

A wise governor told me a long time ago, political capital you don't get more of by keeping it. You get it by using it.

We need a great president.

The art of statesmanship is to foresee the inevitable and to expedite its occurrence.