Quotes & Sayings About Presidential Character

Character is "a stamp of good repute on a person." — Euripides

The Senate has been debased to the level of a forum of hate and character assassination sheltered by the shield of congressional immunity. — Margaret Chase Smith

Presidential biography is, by its nature, out of scale; no character is bigger, no action greater, than the person and the doings of the American president. — Jill Lepore

It is as if Clinton had called one of the most respected character witnesses in all of U.S. history to testify that the primal urge has a most distinguished presidential pedigree. — Joseph J. Ellis

Almost no one under 60 remembers what fundraising was like before Watergate. Until the 1970s, campaign money was collected by "bagmen," familiar characters from the world of organized crime. As fans of Boardwalk Empire know, a bagman is a political fixer who walked around with stacks of $100 and $1,000 bills. At lower levels, he used brown paper bags. In presidential campaigns, the cash was more likely to be in briefcases. Classier that way. — Jonathan Alter

This mode of electioneering suited neither my taste nor my principles. I thought it equally unsuitable to my personal character and to the station in which I am placed. — John Quincy Adams

A good character carries with it the highest power of causing a thing to be believed. — Aristotle.

All the political seers and sorcerers seem to be agreed that the coming Presidential campaign will be full of bitterness, and that most of it will be caused by religion. I count Prohibition as a part of religion, for it has surely become so in the United States. The Prohibitionists, seeing all their other arguments destroyed by the logic of events, have fallen back upon the mystical doctrine that God is somehow on their side, and that opposing them thus takes on the character of blasphemy. — H.L. Mencken

The politics of crime is not about a party's record or a candidates proposals, but about perceived character and values. — Susan Estrich

The President in particular is very much a figurehead - he wields no real power whatsoever. He is apparently chosen by the government, but the qualities he is required to display are not those of leadership but those of finely judged outrage. For this reason the President is always a controversial choice, always an infuriating but fascinating character. His job is not to wield power but to draw attention away from it. On those criteria Zaphod Beeblebrox is one of the most successful Presidents the Galaxy has ever had - he has already spent two of his ten presidential years in prison for fraud. — Douglas Adams