Presidential Precedent Quotes

Our founders thought long and hard about what the office of president should be. George Washington resisted the role, and then defined it.

I did business the same way President Lee did, and from what I read in the papers, the same way President Ma has done. But I have been charged for misuse and misappropriation. People need to learn at the most basic level that valid charges have not been brought against me.

My belief was that it was not only the President's right but his duty to do anything that the needs of the nation demanded unless such action was forbidden by the Constitution or by the laws. Under this interpretation of executive power I did and caused to be done many things not previously done by the President.

One might as well make a sailor a cock, or a soldier a goose, as a President of Andrew Jackson.

Every president is a product of those who preceded him.

I intend to withdraw after my second term. General Washington set the example. I will follow.

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

Obama prefers to look forward, not back, as he has stated. So at least during his tenure, there will be no reliable record compiled as a cautionary tale for lawmakers and presidents in future times of crisis. This is the historical Obama.

When we look at the history of the American Presidency, we are forced to conclude that Darwin had it backwards.

Washington's is the mightiest name of earth - long since mightiest in the cause of civil liberty; still mightiest in moral reformation. On that name no eulogy is expected. It cannot be. To add brightness to the sun, or glory to the name of Washington, is alike impossible. Let none attempt it. In solemn awe pronounce the name, and in its naked deathless splendor leave it shining on.

Presidents live and work in a house of history. They dwell with ghosts. Present power and the weight of the past are ambient realities of daily life in the presidency, and the two are intimately connected.

What message do we send to America if we impeach Obama and he gets away?

Here is a pretty good rule of thumb for Democratic Presidents: if it didn't work for Franklin D. Roosevelt, who won four terms and a World War, it probably won't work for you either.

I mean, if President Reagan could be an actor and become a President, if Michael Douglas is your next choice, maybe I could become an actor. And I've got a good pension; I can work cheap, which is unusual around here.

Donald Trump, perhaps the least historically minded man ever to reach the pinnacle of power, has fallen under the spell of what (and who) has come before. What's revealing about a President's sense of history is less about the history itself than about what that President's perspective on the history tells us about him.

For 40 years, everyone running for president has released their tax returns. You can go and see nearly, I think, 39, 40 years of our tax returns, but everyone has done it.

President Obama, don't you think you should follow in the footsteps of your predecessor? Remember, President George W. Bush? He stayed out of the political arena, and he let you, his successor, do your job.