Alexander Downer Quotes

I had dreams of high political office.

I'm a man with a great political future behind me.

There are politicians who seethe with ambition all the time, and there are a lot of other politicians who don't. I'm in the second category, that's all.

It is no secret that I believe my son, Attorney General Beau Biden would make a great United States Senator - just as I believe he has been a great Attorney General. But Beau has made it clear from the moment he entered public life, that any office he sought, he would earn on his own.

There's nothing in my background that would have said I was destined to be a senior politician.

I have absolutely no political ambitions.

I haven't ruled out another run for office at some point.

I have no intention of being vice president. I have said it clearly.

I'm not into politics. I have received offers to enter politics, but I have not been tempted so far. I can't say about the future.

Everyone believed the Senate could not really be led. It used to take so long to rise up through seniority. In two years Lyndon Johnson is assistant leader of his party. In four years he is the leader of his party.

I am not in politics. 'President Mutombo?' No, no, no. There has never been a politician in my family, and I am not going to try to be the first one.

I got to be White House chief of staff, ten years of congressman, secretary of defense, vice-president. If you're a political junkie like I obviously am - that was - every one of those was just a tremendous experience. I'm very comfortable with what I did and why I did it and how I did it. And I'll let others judge whether they liked it or not.

In ten years I will become president of the United States Of America.

I grew up thinking that if I wanted to go be prime minister, I could.

I am not entering politics to be another Knesset member. If I enter the political arena I want to be prime minister. Period.

Rock stars generally don't last in the Senate, starting with John Kennedy. Too much work, too slow, too little juice. Getting something accomplished takes a remarkable amount of tedious work. Rock stars who become senators either run for something else or retire on the job. They certainly don't make a mark.

I have no political ambitions for myself or my children.

There is absolutely no way that I would enter that world. I would never run for office.

The first years in Parliament I did nothing - nothing to any purpose. My own distinction was my darling object.

[Warren] Harding didn't like being a Senator; he liked being in the Senate.

When I was elected at age 27 to the New York City Council I immediately became Minority Leader. I was the only Republican.

A man’s got to walk if he is going to be in politics.

When I was a young man, I used to dream maybe someday I could be an alderman. Instead of that I became an attorney general, a senator, a vice president, a Democratic nominee.

I can't stop people from writing imaginative stories about me entering politics.

I'm not giving up politics entirely - I'm just giving up leadership of a political party.