Mr. President Said What?
Surprising Quips from the Past 50 Years
by Betsy Towner in aarp.org/bulletin JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2013
You remember the Great Society and a thousand points of light. You ask not what your country can do for you.
But can you match each president with two of his lesser-known witticisms?
- "Our growing softness, our increasing lack of physical fitness, is a menace to our society."
- "I know I am getting better at golf because I am hitting fewer spectators."
- "You can tell a lot about a fellow's character by his way of eating jelly beans."
- "One lesson you'd better learn if you want to be in politics is that you never go out on the golf course and beat the president."
- "I'm the Preident of the United States, and I'm not going to eat any more broccoli."
- "The ultimate test of leadership is not the polls you take, but the risks you take."
- "Even Albert Einstein reportedly needed help on his 1040 form."
- "My esteem in the country has gone up ... it's very nice now that when people wave at me, they use all their fingers."
- "Finishing second in the Olympics gets you silver. Finishing second in politics gets you oblivion."
- "The trouble with Republicans is that when they get into trouble, they start acting like cannibals."
- "America did not invent human rights. In a very real sense, it's the other way around. Human rights invented America."
- "My doctor ordered me to shut up, which will make every American happy."
- "Words wound. But as a veteran of 12 years in the United States Senate, I happily attest they do not kill."
- "Politics is like football. If you see daylight, go through the hole."
- "The fact that my 15 minutes of fame has extended a little longer than 15 minutes is somewhat surprising to me and completely baffling to my wife."
- "These stories about my intellectual capacity do get under my skin a little bit."
- "It wasn't my finest hour. It wasn't even my finest hour and a half."
- "If this were a dictatorship, it'd be a heck of a lot easier, just so long as I'm the dictator."
- "What's wrong with being a boring kind of guy?"
- "What Washington needs is adult supervision."