Politics & Power Quote by Woodrow Wilson

Power is supposed to be intoxicating; Wilson admits it can also be claustrophobic. That little phrase, "blessed intervals", doesn’t just mean relief. It signals that the presidency, for all its glamour, is an identity you wear like a heavy uniform. The word "forget" is doing quiet work here: not negligence, but temporary escape from a role that consumes attention, privacy, and even the self.

Wilson’s "by one means or another" is a politician’s tactful shrug, a coy refusal to name the coping mechanisms. It widens the possibilities - reading, solitude, family, music, maybe sheer exhaustion - while keeping the mystique intact. The subtext is that leadership requires a kind of compartmentalization: if you cannot occasionally step outside the office, the office steps inside you. Coming from a man famously cerebral and self-possessed, the line feels like a pressure valve hiss rather than a dramatic confession.

Context sharpens it. Wilson’s presidency was not a ceremonial glide; it was a gauntlet of progressive reforms, wartime mobilization, the League of Nations crusade, and a punishing public schedule that would culminate in a debilitating stroke. Against that backdrop, "blessed intervals" reads less like whimsy and more like survival. It also subtly humanizes executive authority: the president isn’t a permanent symbol, but a person craving moments when the symbolic weight lifts - and when, briefly, he can be simply Wilson again.