There is a level of disrespect for the office that occurs. And that occurs in some cases and maybe even many cases because he is African American. There’s no question about that and it’s the kind of thing nobody ever says but everybody’s thinking it.
If I stay on for the time being, bearing the burden at my age, it is not because of love for power or office. I have had an ample share of both. If I stay it is because I have a feeling that I may, through things that have happened, have an influence about what I care about above all else, the building of a sure and lasting peace.
Time is short, my strength is limited, the office is a horror, the apartment is noisy, and if a pleasant, straightforward life is not possible, then one must try to wriggle through by subtle manoeuvres.
Abraham Lincoln and Millard Fillmore had the same title. They were both presidents of the United States, but their tenure in office and their legacy could not be more different.
The superior man does not mind being in office; all he minds about is whether he has qualities that entitle him to office. He does not mind failing to get recognition; he is too busy doing the things that entitle him to recognition.
... No, the office is one thing, and private life is another. When I go into the office, I leave the Castle behind me, and when I come into the Castle, I leave the office behind me.
Politics comes and goes, but your principles don't. And everybody wants to be loved -- not everybody. ... You never heard anybody say, 'I want to be despised, I'm running for office.'
I have a very serious censorship office inside my head; it censors things that I could tell you that you would never forget, and I don't want to be the person to stick that in your brain.
Fellow countrymen: At this second appearing to take the oath of the Presidential office, there is less occasion for an extended address than there was at the first...The progress of our arms, upon which all else chiefly depends, is as well known to the public as to myself; and it is, I trust, reasonably satisfactory and encouraging to all. With high hope for the future, no prediction in regard to it is ventured.
It seems only reasonable that the people have a right to know virtually everything about the personality they are buying each time they put their money through the box office
Let none presume To wear an undeserved dignity. O that estates, degrees, and offices Were not derived corruptly, and that clear honour Were purchased by the merit of the wearer!
That sort of lack of awareness on the part of an activist about the constraints of our political system and the constraints on this office, I think, sometimes would leave me to mutter under my breath. Very rarely did I lose it publicly. Yeah, usually I'd just smile.