James David Barber quotes

“The Kennedy home was a place of much action and laughter, a lively, brawling mob of children overseen by a mother who knew when to look the other way.”
-- James David Barber

Source : James David Barber (1992). “The Presidential Character: Predicting Performance in the White House”

#Mother Quotes #Laughter Quotes #Children Quotes

“Trying to make the presidency work these days is like trying to sew buttons on a custard pie.”
-- James David Barber

#Pie Quotes #Trying Quotes #Buttons Quotes

“Ronald Reagan is the first modern President whose contempt for the facts is treated as a charming idiosyncrasy.”
-- James David Barber

Source : "On Bended Knee: The Press and the Reagan Presidency". Book by Mark Hertsgaard, 1988.

#President Quotes #Firsts Quotes #Facts Quotes

“[The American public demands] a sense of legitimacy from and in the presidency. There is more to this than dignity, more than propriety. The president is expected to personify our betterness in an inspiring way, to express in what he does and is, not just what he says, a moral idealism which, in much of the public mind, is the very opposite of politics.”
-- James David Barber

#Opposites Quotes #Mind Quotes #President Quotes

“Wanderers eastward, wanderers west, Know you why you cannot rest? 'Tis that every mother's son Travails with a skeleton. Lie down in the bed of dust; Bear the fruit that bear you must; Bring the eternal seed to light, And morn is all the same as night.”

“Don't let's go to the dogs tonight, For mother will be there.”

Source : She-Shanties (1926) "Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight"

“I'm the daughter of two Indian immigrant doctors, and I have an older sister and younger brother, and none of us have pursued medicine as a career. We're all over the artistic side of things.”

“When mother is happy, family is happy. When family is happy, nation is happy.”

“Do you recall the laughter of the Philistines at the helpless Sampson? You can hear the echo of that laughter to-day, as the church, shorn of her strength by her own sin, is an object of ridicule to the world, who cry in derision, "Where is your boasted triumph and your Millennial glory?”

Source : "Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers" by Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, p. 147, 1895.

“During 'Saturday Night Fever' at the end of the first act dance number I tried to perform a split-jump, only I can't do them so I ended up on my ***** followed by the most unsightly backward roll out of it, followed by the cast falling over in laughter and a good portion of the audience too.”

Source : "Biography/Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

“Laugh at yourself, but don't ever aim your doubt at yourself. Be bold. When you embark for strange places, don't leave any of yourself safely on shore. Have the nerve to go into unexplored territory.”

“The usual sniggering examples of animal behaviour were brought in to explain cheating. Funny how the behaviour of shrews and gibbons is never used to explain table manners or road safety or gardening, only sex. Anyway, it was bad Darwinism. Taking the example of a monkey and applying it to yourself misses the point that animal behaviour is made for the benefit of the species, not as an excuse for the individual. Being incapable of sustaining a stable pair and supporting children is really not in the interests of our species. Neither is it really in the best interests of the philanderer.”

“There is no wonder more supernatural and divine in the life of a believer than the mystery and ministry of prayer...the hand of the child touching the arm of the Father and moving the wheel of the universe.”

“Chum was a British boy's weekly which, at the end of the year was bound into a single huge book; and the following Christmas parents bought it as Christmas presents for male children.”