If I were to make public these tapes, containing blunt and candid remarks on many different subjects, the confidentiality of the office of the president would always be suspect.

I remember the last three days that I was president, I never went to bed at all. I never went to bed until we had negotiated the final release of the hostages.

People have got to know whether or not their president is a crook. Well, I’m not a crook. I earned everything I’ve got.

I neither will aspire to nor will I accept, the position of president of the council of state and commander in chief.

Being president is like being a jackass in a hailstorm. There’s nothing to do but to stand there and take it.

I kept a very full diary of my relationship with Nixon, for some strange reason, until he became president.

Official dignity tends to increase in inverse ratio to the importance of the country in which the office is held.

Nixon was so crooked that he needed servants to help him screw his pants on every morning.

The only secrets are the secrets that keep themselves.

When we got into office, the thing that surprised me most was to find that things were just as bad as we’d been saying they were.

The first mistake in public business is the going into it.

How can we help President Obama?

When you are president, being able to clearly articulate detailed plans to help the people of this country is a good thing. Knowing what you’re doing is a good thing. And let me tell you, Hillary Clinton absolutely knows what she’s doing.

No decent career was ever founded on a public.

The President is always abused. If he isn’t, he isn’t doing anything.

Ohio claims they are due a president as they haven’t had one since Taft. Look at the United States, they have not had one since Lincoln.

The President’s post should not be politicised. Once a president is elected, he is above politics.

To keep your secret is wisdom; but to expect others to keep it is folly.

The man with the best job in the country is the vice-president. All he has to do is get up every morning and say, ‚How is the president?‘

The President is going to benefit from me reporting directly to him when I arrive.

This election is about who’s going to be the next President of the United States!

In 2008, I spoke out against calling the president a Muslim as if that was a curse. And then in 2012, once again, I was very disturbed about some of the intolerance I was seeing in the party, so I made a statement saying there’s a level of intolerance in some parts of the Republican Party. And there was, and I think there still is.

To announce that there must be no criticism of the president… is morally treasonable to the American public.

I would put our legislative and foreign policy accomplishments in our first two years against any president – with the possible exceptions of Johnson, FDR, and Lincoln – just in terms of what we’ve gotten done in modern history. But, you know, but when it comes to the economy, we’ve got a lot more work to do. And we’re gonna keep on at it.

Of all the men that have run for president in the twentieth century, only George McGovern truly understood what a monument America could be to the human race.

The thought of being President frightens me and I do not think I want the job.

We don’t have to guess what Mitt Romney would have done if he were president. Because he told us. He said we should let foreclosures – and I quote – ‚hit the bottom‘ so the market could – I quote – ‚run its course.‘

Barack Obama would not be President if he were dark skin. You know what I mean? That’s just the truth. I might not be as successful as I am now if I was dark skin.

When I took over as president, I studied the Constitution, and the more I studied it, the more I realised that it does not prevent the president of India from giving the nation a vision. So when I went and presented this vision in Parliament and in legislative assemblies; everyone welcomed it, irrespective of party affiliations.

Look, when you’re the president, there’s all kinds of things said about us. I mean, it’s just the nature of the job.

There is nothing we like to communicate to others as much as the seal of secrecy together with what lies under it.

I want a president who will teach our children that everyone in this country matters, a president who truly believes in the vision that our Founders put forth all those years ago that we are all created equal, each a beloved part of the great American story.

Only the public can make a star. It’s the studios who try to make a system out of it.

I’ve seen how the issues that come across a president’s desk are always the hard ones – the problems where no amount of data or numbers will get you to the right answer.

I was honoured when they asked me to appear at the president’s birthday rally in Madison Square Garden. There was like a hush over the whole place when I came on to sing ‚Happy Birthday,‘ like if I had been wearing a slip, I would have thought it was showing or something. I thought, ‚Oh, my gosh, what if no sound comes out!‘

It is the duty of the President to propose and it is the privilege of the Congress to dispose.

I don’t like to see a president who is just out campaigning all year long or for the last four years. I’d like to see somebody who’s going in the office. In fact, I’d like to not see them because that way you’d be sure that they’d be working.

Secrets are things we give to others to keep for us.

If anyone is crazy enough to want to kill a president of the United States, he can do it. All he must be prepared to do is give his life for the president’s.

A master performer like Bill Clinton never lost sight of the fact that as president he had to project confidence and power, but if he was speaking to a group of autoworkers he would adjust his accent and his words to fit the audience, and do the same for a group of executives.

Whoever wishes to keep a secret must hide the fact that he possesses one.

A candidate is not going to suddenly change once they get into office. Just the opposite, in fact. Because the minute that individual takes that oath, they are under the hottest, harshest light there is. And there is no way to hide who they really are.

That’s the good thing about being president, I can do whatever I want.

One lesson you better learn if you want to be in politics is that you never go out on a golf course and beat the President.

I think when the president of the United States calls for military action, he should do it for a united people, especially when the methods have been so cruel, so explicitly directed at Americans.

Under the doctrine of separation of powers, the manner in which the president personally exercises his assigned executive powers is not subject to questioning by another branch of government.

How can a president not be an actor?

My father was not a failure. After all, he was the father of a president of the United States.

If segregationists had their way, I would not be a member of the United States Senate today, I would not be a top contender to be president of the United States.

When I was president, I announced and I still maintain that I can live with Roe v. Wade. I did everything I possibly could as president under that ruling, which I don’t think ought to be changed, to minimize the need for abortions. I think every abortion is a result of a horrible series of errors on the part of people involved.

Unless a president can protect the privacy of the advice he gets, he cannot get the advice he needs.

This desk of mine is one at which a man may die, but from which he cannot resign.

This President is going to lead us out of this recovery.

It wasn’t until we got our first office in Palo Alto where things became more like a company. We never went into this wanting to build a company.

The President is not only the leader of a party, he is the President of the whole people. He must interpret the conscience of America. He must guide his conduct by the idealism of our people.

As president, I’m committed to making Washington work better and rebuilding the trust of the people who sent us here.

You know I vowed when I became President not to talk about the loneliest toughest job in the world and I didn’t.

I’ve used the prestige and influence of having been a president of the United States as effectively as possible. And secondly, I’ve still been able to carry out my commitments to peace and human rights and environmental quality and freedom and democracy and so forth.

We are time’s subjects, and time bids be gone.

Whoever won’t fight when the President calls him, deserves to be kicked back in his hole and kept there.

That’s when it becomes a business. When you’ve been public a long time, when it’s a career. You do certain films, you sell them.