Top Ten Presidential Quotes

[W. Gray]

Top Ten Presidential Quotes
Compiled by Randy Sowell, an archivist for the Truman Library, and the Independence Examiner (Mo) for Presidents Day, 2009.


10   "I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky." – Bill Clinton

It was a lie. Yes, he did. Or didn't he. Depends on what your definition of is, is. Clinton fed this line to reporters during a Jan. 26, 1998, White House press conference. Allegations were all over the place of an alleged sexual relationship between Clinton and Monica Lewinsky, a White House intern. "There's other things Clinton said that are more elegant, but this is the one that stands out in which people will remember the most," Sowell said.

9 "Well, I'm not a crook." – Richard Nixon

Nixon said these words when mired in controversy during the Watergate scandal. Nixon said these words during a press conference with Associated Press managing editors on Nov. 18, 1973, according to a Washington Post article that used the quote in the lede (first paragraph). Nixon said: "People have got to know whether or not their president is a crook. Well, I'm not a crook. I've earned everything I've got."

8 "The buck stops here." – Harry S. Truman

Truman did not come up with this quote, Sowell said. A friend sent him a desktop sign that had the quote printed on it. He placed the sign at the front of his desk at the Oval Office. The phrase, used by presidents and leaders after Truman, means that the chain of command stops at the president's desk. The president makes the final decision and takes the blame if it's a bad one. It's doubtful we would ever have heard of it had he not adopted it.

7  "Speak softly and carry a big stick." – Theodore Roosevelt

Roosevelt got the quote from an old African proverb but chopped off the ending of "...and you will go far." It established America's big-stick diplomacy at the time, meaning the U.S. had the right to enforce international police power over the Western Hemisphere and other countries didn't have the authority to cause unrest, according to historians. Roosevelt first used the term in a speech at the Minnesota State Fair on Sept. 2, 1901.

6 "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall." – Ronald Reagan

The 40th president was referring to the Berlin Wall. He challenged Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to destroy the wall that separated democratic West Berlin, Germany from Soviet-controlled East Germany. Reagan said the words at a speech in front of the wall on June 12,1987. The wall was torn down in 1989.

5 "If you can't stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen." – Harry S. Truman

Truman used this saying when talking about the pressures of politics. He said the phrase often when speaking off the cuff and wrote the sentence in his book "Mr. Citizen," Sowell said. The quote through the years has been tied to other pressure-packed professions other than the presidency.

4 "And so, my fellow Americans: Ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country." – John F. Kennedy

Simple and to the point. He spoke for the need of all Americans to be active citizens. Kennedy said these words near the end of his inaugural address on Jan. 20, 1961. It's one of the most recognized quotes from a president.

3 "That we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain – that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom – and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth." – Abraham Lincoln

This is the end of the Gettysburg Address. Historians and politicians regard the speech as one of the greatest in American history and one of the most quoted. Lincoln was saying democracy was worth fighting for and that a divided nation could not survive. The speech was delivered on Nov. 19, 1863, four months after the Civil War battle in which 7,500 soldiers died. [this figure seemed low to me for the Battle of Gettysburg but it is actually in the neighborhood: 4,708 died for the South, and 3,155 died for the North out of 46,000 total casualties and 165,500 men involved]

2 "We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness," – Thomas Jefferson

Jefferson did not say this in a speech. Rather, these are the words he wrote in the Declaration of Independence. The words summed up the decades of frustration and colonists' urge to be free. The phrase is rich in the belief of human rights.

1 "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself." – Franklin Delano Roosevelt

In the current economy, these words ring true. Roosevelt, in a dramatic and forceful delivery, said this in his first inaugural address on March 4, 1933. The nation was in the midst of the Great Depression. The sentence helped lift Americans out of their mental depression and on the road to prosperity. Sowell said historians believe it was the most powerful sentence ever used in an inaugural address.