Quotes by Robert Dallek

Don't be intimidated by people who seem to be experts. Hear their points of view and get their judgements. But at the end of day, you've got to make a judgement because it's not their life that's going to be affected so much as your future.

— Robert Dallek

Hope

In his State of the Union speech in January 1941, President Franklin Roosevelt declared America's commitment to Four Freedoms in the struggle against Nazi totalitarianism. Among them was the freedom from fear.

— Robert Dallek

Courage

For those of us who cry out for gun control, our fears cannot be eliminated as long as the country remains an armed camp in which the most troubled among us can find ways to appropriate one of the easily available weapons in all our communities.

— Robert Dallek

Courage

John F. Kennedy went to bed at 3:30 in the morning on November 9, 1960, uncertain whether he had defeated Richard Nixon for the presidency. He thought he had won, but six states hung in the balance, and after months of exhaustive campaigning, he was too tired to stay awake any longer.

— Robert Dallek

Wisdom

Obama's endorsement of gay marriage is hardly as consequential as Johnson's legislative success on civil rights.

— Robert Dallek

Love

Despite all the public hand-wringing about negative advertising, political veterans will tell you that it persists because, more often than not, it works. But tearing down the other guy has another attraction: It can be a substitute for building much of a case for what the mudslinger will do once in office.

— Robert Dallek

Success

Truman is now seen as a near-great president because he put in place the containment doctrine boosted by the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan and NATO, which historians now see as having been at the center of American success in the cold war.

— Robert Dallek

Success

Whatever the long-term legal prospects for same-sex marriage, President Obama's willingness to put the matter front and center in an election year can at least make him a candidate for inclusion in Kennedy's Profiles in Courage.

— Robert Dallek

Love

Despite its flaws, the American electoral system has produced Lincoln, the two Roosevelts, and Harry Truman.

— Robert Dallek

Wisdom

When President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal eased but did not end the country's economic ills, a trio of leftist radicals - Sen. Huey Long of Louisiana; the Rev. Charles Coughlin, the Detroit radio priest; and Francis Townsend in California - enjoyed temporary notoriety as the spokesmen for nostrums promising more rapid and longer-term cures.

— Robert Dallek

Happiness

A president cannot sit on his hands and be seen as passive in the face of ruthless action by a foreign dictator.

— Robert Dallek

Wisdom

Access to presidential materials should be as wide as possible.

— Robert Dallek

Wisdom

American politics is theatre. There is a frightening emotionalism at national conventions.

— Robert Dallek

Wisdom

Concealing one's true medical condition from the voting public is a time-honored tradition of the American presidency.

— Robert Dallek

Wisdom

Flattery was one of Kissinger's principal tools in winning over Nixon, and a tool he employed shamelessly.

— Robert Dallek

Wisdom

Governing is one thing, campaigning is another - and the latter becomes far more pronounced in an election-year State of the Union.

— Robert Dallek

Wisdom

If nobody trusts you as president, then you can't get anything done.

— Robert Dallek

Wisdom

Kennedy is remembered as a success mainly because of what came after: Johnson and Vietnam. Nixon and Watergate.

— Robert Dallek

Success

The institution of the presidency was profoundly affected by Watergate.

— Robert Dallek

Wisdom

There are examples of ex-presidents speaking out. Jimmy Carter has not held back on a variety of issues. Harry Truman didn't.

— Robert Dallek

Wisdom

Unity is Obama's theme.

— Robert Dallek

Wisdom

Few American presidents are held in higher esteem than Thomas Jefferson. Though historians have scrutinized every phase of his long public career and found him wanting in a number of respects, he holds an unshakable place in the pantheon of American heroes.

— Robert Dallek

Success

George Washington sets the nation on its democratic path. Abraham Lincoln preserves it. Franklin Roosevelt sees the nation through depression and war.

— Robert Dallek

Wisdom

Theodore Roosevelt had drawn public attention to his attractive family in order to create a bond with ordinary Americans. Eleanor Roosevelt had successfully broached the idea that a First Lady could be nearly as much a public figure as her husband.

— Robert Dallek

Success