Best 36 quotes of Nancy Gibbs on MyQuotes

A president cant go to every memorial service.

A runner's stride is not perfectly efficient.

Death will never be pretty - its sights and smells too close and crude. And it will never come under our control: it gallops where we tiptoe, rips up our routines, burns our very breath with its heat and sting.

Dwight Eisenhower was candid in private, but he was circumspect in public.

Eisenhower advocated a variety of strong actions which he had never taken when he was president. Maybe this was just the pattern of former presidents; maybe it reflected how much the circumstances had changed on the ground.

Eisenhower had run the Army; he knew all the ways decision making can go off the rails, and insisted on collective debate precisely to prevent senior officials from freelancing, or putting their departmental interests first. For all the formal machinery, Eisenhower was very literally the commander in chief, making the key decisions himself and monitoring closely how they were carried out. Even years after D-Day, when critics needled him for not being on the front lines with the invading forces, he retorted, “I planned it and took responsibility for it. Did you want me to unload a truck?

For God to be kept out of the classroom or out of America's public debate by nervous school administrators or overcautious politicians serves no one's interests. That restriction prevents people from drawing on this country's rich and diverse religious heritage for guidance, and it degrades the nation's moral discourse by placing a whole realm of theological reasoning out of bounds. The price of that sort of quarantine, at a time of moral dislocation, is - and has been - far too high.

[Former chief executives] come away thinking that America needs a strong, functioning presidency to succeed, and they become very protective of that office. Democrats and Republicans alike are willing to put aside their own party's self-interest to preserve the presidency. That's been true over the decades.

For the truly faithful, no miracle is necessary. For those who doubt, no miracle is sufficient.

If Heaven is willing to sing to us, it is little to ask that we be ready to listen.

If you want to humble an empire it makes sense to maim its cathedrals. They are symbols of its faith, and when they crumple and burn, it tells us we are not so powerful and we can't be safe. The Twin Towers of the World Trade Center, planted at the base of Manhattan island with the Statue of Liberty as their sentry, and the Pentagon, a squat, concrete fort on the banks of the Potomac, are the sanctuaries of money and power that our enemies may imagine define us. But that assumes our faith rests on what we can buy and build, and that has never been America's true God.

Illusions are the truths we live by until we know better.

In his final remarks to the White House staff, on the day he resigned his office, Nixon applied a version of the lesson to himself. “Always remember, others may hate you, but those who hate you don’t win unless you hate them, and then you destroy yourself.

In many parts of the world, more people have access to a mobile device than to a toilet or running water...

I would like to see every newspaper and every magazine have a network of bureaus all over the world, gathering news.

Kids are more nimble than wise.

Lyndon Johnson realized he really was President, that his identity had changed by President Kennedy's shocking death, when aides who had been like family to him minutes before, stood in his presence on Air Force One.

Maybe as times get worse we get better. Our pain makes us feel other people's too; our fear lets us practice valor; we are tense, and tender as well. And among the things we can no longer afford are things we never really wanted anyway.

Nixon urged Clinton to maintain his relationship with Yeltsin but make contact with other democrats in Russia. He warned Clinton away from some ultranationalists and toward those interested in liberty and reform. He pressed Clinton to replace his ambassador in Kiev and concentrate future U.S. economic aid on Ukraine, where it would matter most.

Of all ennobling sentiments, patriotism may be the most easily manipulated. On the one hand, it gives powerful expression to what is best in a nation's character: a commitment to principle, a willingness to sacrifice, a devotion to the community by the choice of the individual. But among its toxic fruits are intolerance, belligerence and blind obedience, perhaps because it blooms most luxuriantly during times of war.

On a normal day, we value heroism because it is uncommon. On Sept. 11, we valued heroism because it was everywhere.

Praise of blame in the moment means little: it is how their decisions play out over time that matters, and so the redemption they're looking for is of a more lasting kind. They are one another's peers; who else can really judge them?

Some Christians worried about a faith that was so embracing as to be meaningless, that exalted not the Almighty so much as the American way of life. When civil religion bleached the challenge from faith and left behind a watery patriotism, there was room for concern.

Some princes are born in palaces. Some are born in mangers. But a few are born in the imagination, out of scraps of history and hope... Barack Hussein Obama did not win because of the color of his skin. Nor did he win in spite of it. He won because at a very dangerous moment in the life of a still young country, more people than have ever spoken before came together to try to save it. And that was a victory all its own.

Studies show that the more often families eat together, the less likely kids are to smoke, drink, do drugs, get depressed, develop eating disorders and consider suicide, and the more likely they are to do well in school, delay having sex, eat their vegetables, learn big words and know which fork to use.

The challenge was that it was harder to be subtle than strident.

The one problem with the Internet for journalists who like doing long form is that any story that's going to involve 16 screens on the web page... that's asking a lot of people.

There may be no less original idea than the notion that our hearts hold dominion over our heads.

While we meant to invite debate about some ways the word was used this year, that nuance was lost, and we regret that its inclusion has become a distraction from the important debate over equality and justice.

You know, when a president is about to leave office, most of the time most people are dying for him to go on and get out of there. But there are a few little rituals that have to be observed. One of them is that the president must host the incoming president in the White House, smile as if they love each other and give the American people the idea that democracy is peaceful and honourable and there will be a good transfer of power

You must get courageous men, men of strong views and let them debate and argue with each other.

(Billy) Graham went through passages of hypochondria and his closest friends had to assure him that he was not about to die.

His manner somehow friendly and courtly at the same time.

If compassion and mercy are not compatible with politics," Ford said, "then something is the matter with politics.

Lydon Johnson realized he really was President, that his identity had changed by President Kennedy's shocking death, when aides who had been like family to him minutes before, stood in his presence on Air Force One.

Nixon to Clinton: "When seeking advice from people who are more experienced than you, tell them what you plan to do first, and then ask for their reaction. Don't ask for their advice, and then ignore it. That way you save on bruised feelings.