President

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

If you want to see your plays performed the way you wrote them, become President. ~ Václav Havel

• The difference between being a good w:governor and president is approximately the difference between sandlot basketball and the NBA Finals.
  • Lamar Alexander, as quoted in "Bush Ink: Manufacturing a President" (25 June 1999), by Michael King, The Texas Observer, Texas

• 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.
  • Bashar al-Assad, in Interview with the CBS News. 2015

• By almost universal agreement, the most vague and ineffectual of all Presidents was Millard Fillmore, who succeeded to the office in 1850 upon the death of Zachary Taylor, and spent the next three years demonstrating how the country would have been run if they had just propped Taylor up in a chair with cushions.
  • Bill Bryson, in I'm a Stranger Here Myself (US) / Notes From a Big Country (UK) (1998)

• 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

• American university presidents are a nervous breed; I have never thought well of them as a class.
  • John Kenneth Galbraith, in The Age of Uncertainty (1977) Chapter 2, p. 60

• 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)

• Today, every president is the target of criticism and mockery. It is inconceivable that even the most caustic critic would be imprisoned for his or her words.
  • Anthony Lewis, in Freedom for the Thought That We Hate : A Biography of the First Amendment (2007)

• We are both humbled and elevated by the honour and privilege that you, the people of South Africa, have bestowed on us, as the first President of a united, democratic, non-racial and non-sexist government.
  We understand it still that there is no easy road to freedom
  We know it well that none of us acting alone can achieve success.
  We must therefore act together as a united people, for national reconciliation, for nation building, for the birth of a new world.
  Let there be justice for all.
  Let there be peace for all.
  • Nelson Mandela, in his Inaugural celebration address, Pretoria, South Africa (10 May 1994)

• 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.
  • Nelson Mandela, in Long Walk to Freedom (1995)

• In my country we go to prison first and then become President.
  • Nelson Mandela, in Long Walk to Freedom (1995)

• 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.

• The most thoroughly and relentlessly Damned, banned, excluded, condemned, forbidden, ostracized, ignored, suppressed, repressed, robbed, brutalized and defamed of all Damned things is the individual human being. The social engineers, statisticians, psychologists, sociologists, market researchers, landlords, bureaucrats, captains of industry, bankers, governors, commissars, kings and presidents are perpetually forcing this Damned Thing into carefully prepared blueprints and perpetually irritated that the Damned Thing will not fit into the slot assigned to it. The theologians call it a sinner and tries to reform it. The governor calls it a criminal and tries to punish it. The psychotherapist calls it neurotic and tries to cure it. Still, the Damned Thing will not fit into their slots.
  • Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson, in Illuminatus! (1975)

• 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.
  • Donald Trump, An interview with Rona Barrett (1980)

Dialogue

Michael: My father's no different than any other powerful man – any man who's responsible for other people, like a senator or a president.

Kay: You know how naïve you sound?

Michael: Why?

Kay: Senators and presidents don't have men killed.

Michael: Oh. Who's being naïve, Kay?

• Michael Corleone as interpreted by Al Pacino & Kay Adams as interpreted by Diane Keaton in The Godfather, (1972); written by Francis Ford Coppola & Mario Puzo, based on Puzo's novel

See also

• Category:Presidents by country
• President of the United States