President

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It should be through a political process, through a constitutional process. That’s how we change presidents, not through terrorism and external intervention. ~ Bashar al-Assad
Let there be justice for all.
Let there be peace for all. ~ Nelson Mandela

A president is a leader of an organization, company, community, club, trade union, university, country, nation, a division or part of any of these, or, more generally, anything else. Etymologically, a president is one who presides (from Latin prae- "before" + sedere "to sit"; giving the term praeses). Originally, the term referred to the presiding officer of a ceremony or meeting (i.e., chairman), but today it most commonly refers to an executive official.

Quotes[edit]

If you want to see your plays performed the way you wrote them, become President. ~ Václav Havel
  • Presidents are made, not born. That’s a good thing to remember. It’s silly to think that Presidents are born, because very few people are 35 years old at birth, and those who are won’t admit it. So if you’re only 16 don’t be discouraged, because it’s only a phase and there’s nothing wrong with you that you won’t outgrow.
    • Gracie Allen, in How to Become President (1940), Ch. 2 : Others make good, why not you?
  • No external party has anything to do with the future of Syria, with the constitution or president or anything like this. We’re not going to discuss it with them. This is a Syrian issue. Whenever the Syrian people want to change their president, it should be changed right away, in the same day… even if we exaggerate, it should be through a political process, through a constitutional process. That’s how we change presidents, not through terrorism and external intervention.
  • I think people have to have some feeling that they have some role in shaping their own future and that they are not just spectators on the [lives] of kings, presidents, prime ministers and so on which is on the whole what modern democraciesAmerica, Britain, Europe — tend to do. They turn people into spectators. Spectators who can be bought by clever advertising to appear to support [the people] — but once they’ve granted their support then they’re expected just to sit back for five years and watch the great and the good they’ve elected governing the country. That is not democratic in the proper sense, but it’s better than not being able to get rid of people who govern you. So it’s a very imperfect democracy: it has no industrial elements, no democracy in the media or business, and not necessarily much democracy in education. The conclusion I’ve reached over the years is that democracy is the most controversial idea. Nobody in power wants democracy. The Pope didn’t want it: he picks all the cardinals. The Church of England doesn’t have it because the Prime Minister picks the leader. Stalin didn’t like it. Hitler didn’t like it, New Labour doesn’t like it. They just want to use an idea to control.
  • The President is the last person in the world to know what the people really want and think.
    • James A. Garfield, as quoted in Garfield of Ohio : The Available Man (1970) by John M. Tyler
  • Let us not be mistaken: the best government in the world, the best parliament and the best president, cannot achieve much on their own. And it would be wrong to expect a general remedy from them alone. Freedom and democracy include participation and therefore responsibility from us all.
    • Václav Havel, in his New Year's Address to the Nation, Prague, Czechoslovakia (1 January 1990)
  • If you want to see your plays performed the way you wrote them, become President.
    • Václav Havel, in an address to the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, as quoted in The Independent, London (24 March 1990), referring to his work as an absurdist playwright.
  • There used to be a time when this country's president could have delivered the same New Year's Address he had given a year before, and nobody would have noticed.
    Fortunately, that time has passed.
    • Václav Havel, in his New Year's Address to the Nation, Prague, Czechoslovakia (1 January 1991)
  • My dear friends, I bid you farewell as your President. I remain with you as your fellow citizen!
    • Václav Havel, in his Farwell Address to the Czech Republic, Czech Radio & Television (2 February 2003)
  • It is through education that the daughter of a peasant can become a doctor, that the son of a mineworker can become the head of the mine, that a child of farmworkers can become the president of a great nation. It is what we make out of what we have, not what we are given, that separates one person from another.
  • Bush is now undermining the United Nations. He is acting outside it, not withstanding the fact that the United Nations was the idea of President Roosevelt and Winston Churchill. Both Bush, as well as Tony Blair, are undermining an idea which was sponsored by their predecessors.
    • Nelson Mandela, in a speech at the International Women's Forum in Johannesburg, South Africa (29 January 2003), prior to the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
  • What I am condemning is that one power, with a president who has no foresight, who cannot think properly, is now wanting to plunge the world into a holocaust.
    • Nelson Mandela, in a speech at the International Women's Forum in Johannesburg, South Africa (29 January 2003), prior to the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
  • All presidents rail against the press. It goes with the turf.
    • Helen Thomas, in her Hearst newspaper column (15 October 2003)
  • People say, “Well, what could anybody do as president?” the one man could turn this country around. The one proper president could turn this country around. I firmly believe that.

See also[edit]

External links[edit]

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