The public history of all countries, and all ages, is but a sort of mask, richly colored. The interior working of the machinery must be foul. – John Quincy Adams

It is an unfortunate human failing that a full pocketbook often groans more loudly than an empty stomach. – Franklin D. Roosevelt

I think this is the most extraordinary collection of talent, of human knowledge, that has ever been gathered together at the White House – with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined here alone. – John F. Kennedy, to his Nobel Prize-winning guests