Presidents Day 2016 Quotes: 18 Inspirational And Funny Sayings Spoken By Some Of The Greatest US Leaders

Presidents’ Day is Monday and that means it’s time to celebrate your favorite U.S. presidents past and present. While the holiday now mostly means a three-day weekend with shopping and travel deals, it’s also a great time to be patriotic.

The holiday was originally established to celebrate George Washington’s birthday, but now it always takes place on the third Monday in February, so it acts as a combo celebration for Washington, Abraham Lincoln and any other presidents you like.

In honor of the nation’s commanders-in-chief, here are some of their best quotes from over the years, collected from GoodReads and BrainyQuote.

Serious Quotes

“If freedom of speech is taken away, then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.” – George Washington

“Pride costs us more than hunger, thirst and cold.” — Thomas Jefferson

“If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.” — John Quincy Adams

“If you once forfeit the confidence of your fellow citizens, you can never regain their respect and esteem. It is true that you may fool all of the people some of the time; you can even fool some of the people all of the time; but you can't fool all of the people all of the time.” — Abraham Lincoln

“It is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed. In this life we get nothing save by effort.” — Theodore Roosevelt

“The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have little.” — Franklin D. Roosevelt

“Extremes to the right and to the left of any political dispute are always wrong.” — Dwight D. Eisenhower

“The rights of every man are diminished when the rights of one man are threatened.” — John F. Kennedy

“Until justice is blind to color, until education is unaware of race, until opportunity is unconcerned with the color of men's skins, emancipation will be a proclamation but not a fact.” — Lyndon B. Johnson

“We become not a melting pot but a beautiful mosaic. Different people, different beliefs, different yearnings, different hopes, different dreams.” — Jimmy Carter

“Think about every problem, every challenge, we face. The solution to each starts with education.” – George H.W. Bush

“We cannot build our own future without helping others to build theirs.” — Bill Clinton

“Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.” — Barack Obama

Funny Quotes

“If this is coffee, please bring me some tea; but if this is tea, please bring me some coffee.” — Abraham Lincoln

“When they call the roll in the Senate, the senators do not know whether to answer ‘present’ or ‘not guilty.’” — Theodore Roosevelt

“I always figured the American public wanted a solemn ass for president, so I went along with them.” — Calvin Coolidge

“If I don’t have a woman for three days, I get terrible headaches.” — John F. Kennedy

“I would have made a good pope.” — Richard Nixon