United States First Ladies

"Hillary Clinton is now poised to become the Democratic nominee for president of the United States, but she simply lacks the integrity and temperament to serve in the office."

"When she comes on television, I involuntarily cross my legs."

"The cab's idling out front, and she's opening a new bottle of wine."

"Hillary’s 2016 presidential run resembled nothing so much as a counterinsurgency campaign, designed to beat back challenges to existing authority, specifically herself. She collaborated with party bosses to undercut her primary opponent, Bernie Sanders, who posed a threat precisely because he was more popular with the party's younger, idealistic voters."

"I could tell that she was well prepared to serve as president. I'd never met anyone with deeper knowledge about policy than Hillary, and she seemed unflappable and genuinely interested in using the power of the office to benefit the lives of those who don't often have a strong voice in our democracy. She also had a reputation for being politically cautious."

"I can't make her younger, taller, or change her gender. I can't do anything other than to tell you who she is."

"Yes, I think it's an obscene amount of money. You know we had some protesters last night when we pulled up in San Francisco – and they're right to protest, they're absolutely right, it's an obscene amount of money. The Sanders campaign, when they talk about it, is absolutely right, it's ridiculous that we should have this kind of money in politics, I agree."

"Without nepotism, Hillary would be running for the president of Vassar."

"As First Lady, she successfully balanced the tensions between activism and traditionalism that challenged many First Ladies in the twentieth century. She is outspoken and passionate about her projects, such as military families and childhood obesity, but they stay within a conventional female sphere of interest...Despite the significant successes of women in politics, the nation's top offices, the presidency and vice presidency, remained elusive.In her campaign for the 2008 Democratic Party presidential nomination, New York Senator Hillary Clinton dramatically challenged the political "glass ceiling." Throughout the primary season, Clinton and Illinois Senator Barack Obama were locked in a tight and contentious race for the Democratic presidential nomination. The contest between Clinton and Obama raised troubling questions. Their campaigns traded charges of sexism and racism, in a conflict reminiscent of the Stanton/Douglass disagreements over the Fourteenth Amendment. Despite Clinton's Senate experience, the active role she took in the presidency of husband Bill Clinton, and her forceful campaign style, pundits talked about her clothing and speculated about how she responded to key events-charging her with lack of emotion in some cases and too many tears in others. For both candidates, the issues were at times subsumed by questioning about whether the American people were ready to elect either a woman or an African American to the presidency."

"It's a tough voice to listen to for four years. It could be a tough one. If she's just gonna follow what we've been doing, then I wouldn't be for her. ... I'd have to go for Trump ... you know, 'cause she's declared that she's gonna follow in Obama's footsteps."

"As candidate in 2016, now President Donald J. Trump repeatedly asserted his unwillingness to take nuclear first-use threats “off the table” in any conflict, including with ISIS, or in Europe. (He also said that he would be “the last to use nuclear weapons”—unless, evidently, he were the first.) In the first debate of the presidential campaign, he was asked: “On nuclear weapons, President Obama reportedly considered changing the nation’s long-standing policy [i.e., changing it to no-first-use]. Do you support the current policy?” Given two minutes to answer, Trump said, among other things: “I would like everybody to end it, just get rid of it. But I would certainly not do first strike. I think that once the nuclear alternative happens, it’s over. At the same time, we have to be prepared. I can’t take anything off the table.” In her two minutes, Hillary Clinton managed not to repeat Trump’s words about the table, or to respond to the question at all except to “reassure our allies … that we have mutual defense treaties and we will honor them.” But clearly if she had been pressed, the former secretary of state would have given substantially the same answer as Trump did in all his interviews. Our mutual defense treaties have never excluded U.S. first use of nuclear weapons. (As a candidate in 2008, rebuking Senator Barack Obama for saying he would not use nuclear weapons against Pakistan, she said that no president should ever say what weapons he or she would or would not use.)"

"Thank you Hillary Clinton for possibly becoming the first f— president. I would have said “female” but someone deleted the email."

"In December of 2012, Clinton suffered a concussion and then around the New Year had a blood clot (in her head). Based on her doctor's advice, she could only work at State for a few hours a day and could not recall every briefing she received."

"If you crave presidential lawlessness, war crimes, and international mayhem, you should adore Democratic presidential aspirant Hillary Clinton."

"Hillary Clinton is a clear and present danger to the Constitution, the rule of law, and international peace and security."

"They were urged to assemble that conference call and to speak frankly to Hillary by some of the top strategists around Hillary. … Close associates of hers, friends of hers were saying she really didn't want the vice presidency. She really didn't want it, even though she wouldn't mind being offered it, or talked about it. Some of what we know tonight is that in the vetting [of potential VP candidates] process that's going to be set up, they were going to demand, that is, Jim Johnson and the others looking at her as a possible candidate, that Bill Clinton open up the records of the Clinton Library -- all the donors, the tens of millions of dollars, where they came from? And I think Hillary's reluctance to more fully really consider or give her heart to the notion of the vice presidency is she knew that it would require a legal vetting of her husband, and she he couldn't pass it. … If she wants Obama's fundraising prowess, if she wants contributors to help erase that enormous debt that she's got, she needs to quickly get back in the fold and get with the program, and I think that's what she's doing now. I really don't think it's about the Veep thing because the Obama people have pretty much already said as of today that they're really not interested."

"Donald Trump is Hillary Clinton’s Christmas gift wrapped up under a tree. I am the lump of coal in her stocking."

"It's not a very big thing to say, "I made a mistake" on the war, and typical of Hillary Clinton that she can't. She's advised by so many smart advisers who are covering every base. I think that America was better served when the candidates were chosen in smoke-filled rooms."

"Clinton had also been silent on the Standing Rock issue but finally issued a statement on October 27, the same day as the 1851 Treaty Camp incident and the Bundy decision. The only reason she said anything at all was because a contingent of Native youth stormed her campaign office in Brooklyn, New York, demanding some kind of acknowledgment."

"Hillary Clinton could be considered a founding member of ISIS."

"Daunasia Yancey asked Clinton, "You and your family have been personally and politically responsible for policies that have caused health and human services disasters in impoverished communities of color through the domestic and international war on drugs that you championed as first lady, senator, and secretary of state. And so I just want to know how you feel about your role in that violence and how you plan to reverse it?" Julius Jones, from the Black Lives Matter movement in Worcester, Massachusetts, also questioned Clinton: "How do you actually feel that's different than you did before? What were the mistakes? And how can those mistakes that you made be lessons for all of America for a moment of reflection on how we treat black people in this country?" Clinton responded: "I don't believe you change hearts. I believe you change laws, you change allocation of resources, you change the way systems operate.""

"I think she’s represented our nation well. She is extremely well respected throughout the world, handles herself in a very classy way and has a work ethic second to none."

"Some of [Clinton’s] anger was privately aimed at Colin Powell in a personal pique. Talking with reporters in later years, Clinton would often harp on Powell’s role in Somalia, that he had signed on to the partial escalation and yet had accepted none of the blame."

"The leadership of the party, the Clintons, Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, Tom Perez, are creations of corporate America. In an open and democratic political process, one not dominated by party elites and corporate money, these people would not hold political power. They know this. They would rather implode the entire system than give up their positions of privilege. And that, I fear, is what will happen. The idea that the Democratic Party is in any way a bulwark against despotism defies the last three decades of its political activity. It is the guarantor of despotism."

"If you complain of neglect of Education in sons, what shall I say with regard to daughters, who every day experience the want of it? With regard to the Education of my own children, I find myself soon out of my depth, destitute and deficient in every part of Education. I most sincerely wish that some more liberal plan might be laid and executed for the Benefit of the rising Generation, and that our new Constitution may be distinguished for encouraging Learning and Virtue. If we mean to have Heroes, Statesmen and Philosophers, we should have learned women. The world perhaps would laugh at me and accuse me of vanity, But you I know have a mind too enlarged and liberal to disregard the Sentiment. If much depends as is allowed upon the early education of youth and the first principles which are instill'd take the deepest root, great benefit must arise from literary accomplishments in women."

"Deliver me from your cold phlegmatic preachers, politicians, friends, lovers and husbands."

"I can not say that I think you very generous to the Ladies, for Whilst you are proclaiming peace and good will to men, emancipating all nations, you insist upon retaining an absolute power over wives. But you must remember that arbitrary power is like most other things which are very hard, very liable to be broken — and notwithstanding all your wise laws and maxims we have it in our power not only to free ourselves but to subdue our masters, and without violence throw both your natural and legal authority at our feet."

"Shall we be despised by foreign powers for hesitating so long at a word?"

"I long to hear that you have declared an independency. And by the way, in the new Code of Laws which I suppose it will be necessary for you to make I desire you would Remember the Ladies, and be more generous and favourable to them than your ancestors. Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of the Husbands. Remember all Men would be tyrants if they could. If particular care and attention is not paid to the Ladies we are determined to foment a Rebellion, and will not hold ourselves bound by any Laws in which we have no voice, or Representation. That your Sex are Naturally Tyrannical is a Truth so thoroughly established as to admit of no dispute, but such of you as wish to be happy willingly give up the harsh title of Master for the more tender and endearing one of Friend. Why, then, not put it out of the power of the vicious and the Lawless to use us with cruelty and indignity with impunity? Men of Sense in all Ages abhor those customs which treat us only as the vassals of your sex; regard us then as Beings placed by Providence under your protection, and in imitation of the Supreme Being make use of that power only for our happiness."

"I feel anxious for the fate of our monarchy, or democracy, or whatever is to take place. I soon get lost in a labyrinth of perplexities; but, whatever occurs, may justice and righteousness be the stability of our times, and order arise out of confusion. Great difficulties may be surmounted by patience and perseverance."

"The reins of government have been so long slackened, that I fear the people will not quietly submit to those restraints which are necessary for the peace and security of the community."

"I am more and more convinced that man is a dangerous creature; and that power, whether vested in many or a few, is ever grasping, and, like the grave, cries, “Give, give!” The great fish swallow up the small; and he who is most strenuous for the rights of the people, when vested with power, is as eager after the prerogatives of government. You tell me of degrees of perfection to which human nature is capable of arriving, and I believe it, but at the same time lament that our admiration should arise from the scarcity of the instances."

"How difficult the task to quench the fire and the pride of private ambition, and to sacrifice ourselves and all our hopes and expectations to the public weal! How few have souls capable of so noble an undertaking! How often are the laurels worn by those who have had no share in earning them! But there is a future recompense of reward, to which the upright man looks, and which he will most assuredly obtain, provided he perseveres unto the end."

"I wish most sincerely there was not a slave in this province. It always appeared a most iniquitous scheme to me — to fight ourselves for what we are daily robbing and plundering from those who have as good a right to freedom as we have."

"We have too many high sounding words, and too few actions that correspond with them."

"I had always resented the pains that militant suffragists took to belittle the work that woman had done in the past in the world, picturing her as a meek and prostrate "doormat." They refused, I felt, to pay proper credit to the fine social and economic work that women had done in the building of America. And in 1909, after we took over the American Magazine, I burst out with a series of studies of leading American women from the Revolution to the Civil War, including such stalwarts as Mercy Warren, Abigail Adams, Esther Reed, Mary Lyon, Catharine Beecher, the fighting antislavery leaders-not omitting two for whom I had warm admiration, if I was not in entire agreement with them, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony."

"In the revolution, Mrs. Adams sad to her husband, “It seems to me that while you are struggling for your own liberty, you are not applying the principle universally” — the women and the slaves had been left out. The principle was not applied then, and has not been applied since."

"Great necessities call forth great leaders."

"Do not put such unlimited powers in the hands of the husband, Remember all men would be tyrants if they could."

"Men of sense in all ages abhor those customs, which treat us only as the vessels of your sex"

"Do not grieve, my friend, my dearest friend. I am ready to go. And John, it will not be long."

"I acknowledge myself a unitarian — Believing that the Father alone, is the supreme God, and that Jesus Christ derived his Being, and all his powers and honors from the Father. … There is not any reasoning which can convince me, contrary to my senses, that three is one, and one three."

"Knowledge is a fine thing, and mother Eve thought so; but she smarted so severly for hers, that most of her daughters have been afraid of it since."

"To be good, and to do good, is the whole duty of man comprised in a few words."

"I begin to think, that a calm is not desirable in any situation in life. Every object is beautiful in motion; a ship under sail, trees gently agitated with the wind, and a fine woman dancing, are three instances in point. Man was made for action and for bustle too, I believe."

"Patriotism in the female s*x is the most disinterested of all virtues. Excluded from honors and from offices, we cannot attach ourselves to the State or Government from having held a place of eminence. Even in the freest countries our property is subject to the control and disposal of our partners, to whom the laws have given a sovereign authority. Deprived of a voice in legislation, obliged to submit to those laws which are imposed upon us, is it not sufficient to make us indifferent to the public welfare? Yet all history and every age exhibit instances of patriotic virtue in the female sex; which considering our situation equals the most heroic of yours."

"Learning is not attained by chance, it must be sought for with ardor and attended to with diligence."

"A little of what you call frippery is very necessary towards looking like the rest of the world."

"These are times in which a genius would wish to live. It is not in the still calm of life, or in the repose of a pacific station, that great characters are formed. The habits of a vigorous mind are formed in contending with difficulties. Great necessities call out great virtues. When a mind is raised, and animated by the scenes that engage the heart, then those qualities which would otherwise lay dormant, wake into life and form the character of the hero and the statesman."

"Luxury, that baneful poison, has unstrung and enfeebled her sons."