It was George Washington that said “If the freedom of speech is taken away then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter“. Presumably, he copped the line from his mom, because he also said “I attribute my success in life to the moral, intellectual and physical education which I received from my mother“. Presidents, if they do nothing else in the four years they are in office, are kind of obligated to say a quotable thing or two. Some presidents are veritable quote factories, while others are scarcely remembered for saying anything. Some even use that as a basic strategy, and ironically get quoted for it:

If you don’t say anything, you won’t be called on to repeat it.
-Calvin Coolidge

Our current president has had one particularly stellar line:

Cynicism is a sorry kind of wisdom.
-Barack Obama

And if we go back through the last few presidents, most would agree that things that George W Bush said would belong in collections of gaffes, not collections of quotes.

So moving to Clinton, we find a couple of goodies:

Being president is like running a cemetery: you’ve got a lot of people under you and nobody’s listening.
-William J. Clinton

Never pick a fight with people who buy ink by the barrel.
-William J. Clinton

And unlike Washington, the honoree of Presidents Day, who was fond of hemp, Clinton wanted little to do with it:

I tried marijuana once. I did not inhale.
-William J. Clinton

And if you ask if that is a truthful statement, ol’ Slick Willie might reply

It depends on what the meaning of the words ‘is’ is.
-William J. Clinton

George H. W. Bush is probably most remembered for…

Read. My. Lips.
No. New. Taxes.
-George H. W. Bush

And Ronald Reagan?

It’s interesting that Reagan is regularly quoted by conservative pundits for his “the nine most terrifying words in the English language are ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help you’” line, because it wasn’t his line. He was probably a little more honest when he said:

How can a president not be an actor?
-Ronald Reagan

Something another president said a little more eloquently:

I feel incompetent to perform duties…which have been so unexpectedly thrown upon me.
-Andrew Johnson

You may already know that a lot of familiar sayings originated with the mid-twentieth century presidents:

Speak softly and carry a big stick.
-Theodore Roosevelt

Let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.
-Franklin D. Roosevelt

If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.
-Harry S. Truman

The buck stops here.
-Harry S. Truman

What counts is not necessarily the size of the dog in the fight, it’s the size of the fight in the dog.
-Dwight D. Eisenhower

In war there is no substitute for victory.
-Dwight D. Eisenhower

Tricky Dick

We think we’ll wrap it up with one of our more interesting presidents, who was more often quoted for the bizarre statements he made than the inspiring or clever ones:

People have got to know whether or not their president is a crook. Well, I’m not a crook.
-Richard Nixon

When the President does it, that means that it is not illegal.
-Richard M. Nixon

And we couldn’t agree more with his successor:

Our Long national nightmare is over.
-Gerald Ford