Bill Clinton Quotes

By the time you become the leader of a country, someone else makes all the decisions.

There's nothing to be said for opposition. You can only talk about things and you can lay your plans. You can't actually achieve very much; you have to be in government for that.

No man ever exercised less influence in the Senate or the House of Representatives than he, but no man ever exercised more power as a political leader.

To be frank, politics is about wanting power, getting it, exercising it, and keeping it.

When everyone owns something, in reality nobody owns it. Control then occurs merely by the whims of the politicians in power.

People think of politicians having true power, but that's less and less true. After all, they are often constrained or being edged into a corner by a whole series of contingencies.

Once you've built the big machinery of political power, remember you won't always be the one to run it.

Leadership is important in politics.

The orators and the despots have the least power in their cities ... since they do nothing that they wish to do, practically speaking, though they do whatever they think to be best.

The president is the country's scapegoat more than the country's leader; the president has as much power as we think the president has. Whoever has the most money is the puppet master.

Politics and power is a realm of relative influence.

I think I can regard myself as a political decision-maker.

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

You have to spend your political capital on great causes for your country.

Real politics are the possession and distribution of power.

It is very difficult to get legislation passed. But then the danger always is that you have no power at all if you do not exercise constant power.

The career of politics grants a feeling of power. The knowledge of influencing men, of participating in power over them, and above all, the feeling of holding in one's hands a nerve fiber of historically important events can elevate the professional politician above everyday routine even when he is placed in formally modest positions.

What matters is not a simple sense of an issue’s salience, but whether a government can shape outcomes on it, where there is the greatest likelihood that the parties will actually be able to implement their policies.

Politics is the art of dominating men.

Do you not know, my son, with how little wisdom the world is governed?

Certainly I shall not be one of those who, having gained power, do not wish to use it.

Washington has political power combined with the insider illusion of being in control.

Andrew Mellon [Treasury Secretary and multi-millionaire] is today the real President of the United States. Calvin Coolidge is merely the man who occupies the White House.

There is something wrong with the way in which we make our decisions. The Government listen too much to the pollsters and the party managers. The trouble is that they are not even very good at politics, and they are entering too much into policy decisions. As a result, there is too much short-termism, too much reacting to events, and not enough shaping of events. We give the impression of being in office but not in power. Far too many important decisions are made for 36 hours' publicity.

The leaders of a party, or those who are so called, have but little sway over their followers, particularly when not in Government, and when they have it not in their power to threaten them with any very serious consequences