Political Temperament Quotes

The sickly, weakly, timid man fears the people and is a Tory [conservative] by nature. The healthy, strong and bold, cherishes them, and is formed a Whig [liberal] by nature.

I am invariably and have been since adolescence inimical to the Republican mind which shows at the most inflated size the bad qualities of the bourgeoisie rather than the good qualities of the middle class which the Democrats call forth.

There are two Americas. One is the America of Lincoln and Adlai Stevenson; the other is the America of Teddy Roosevelt and the modern superpatriots. One is generous and humane, the other narrowly egotistical; one is self-critical, the other self-righteous; one is sensible, the other romantic; one is good-humored, the other solemn; one is inquiring, the other pontificating; one is moderate, the other filled with passionate intensity; one is judicious and the other arrogant in the use of great power.

Trump, like Putin, has a demonstrably thin skin and short temper when it comes to being criticized by journalists.

My friends tell me that I have the wrong temperament for politics.

[Donald Trump] doesn't have the temperament to be president.

President Obama has got the most moderate temperament.

I don't think the American people, if you look historically, elect angry candidates.

We need to have the mind of a conservative and the heart of a liberal.

The same political parties which now agitiate the US have existed through all time. And in fact the terms of whig and tory belong to natural as well as to civil history. They denote the temper and constitution and mind of different individuals.

Reagan is both too fatalistic and too modest to be a crudaser. He doesn't have that darkness around the eyes of a George McGovern.

In middle life politics are not a mental acquisition; they are a temperament.

There is something very quiet and reserved and pessimistic about Obama's temperament that is deeply un-American. There are those people who claim, "Oh, he wasn't born here" - all that is nonsense.

It's just awfully good that someone with the temperament of Donald Trump is not in charge of the law of America.

Barack Obama is uniquely qualified to speak about the knowledge, experience and temperament that the presidency requires. And I know he is raring to get out there and start campaigning and I really look forward to campaigning with him.

The world of politics is divided between people who are introverts - who lose a little bit of energy out of each interaction they have so that by the time the day ends, after 1,000 interactions, they're exhausted - and people like Bill Clinton who are extroverted - who get a little bit of energy from each interaction.

There is something about a Republican that you can only stand him just so long; and on the other hand, there is something about a Democrat that you can't stand him quite that long.

Hillary Clinton has a bad temperament. She's weak.

If John McCain wants to have a debate about who has the temperament, and judgment, to serve as the next Commander-in-Chief, that's a debate I'm ready to have.

I'm going to keep talking about what I would do as president, the experience that I bring, the temperament and judgment that led President [Barack] Obama to ask me to be secretary of state after we ran a really hard primary against each other. It's funny to me, because when I have a position, whether it's first lady, or senator, or secretary of state, and I'm doing the work, I'm really quite popular.