I don’t think consensus-building politics is what I’m meant to be doing.

To paraphrase Winston Churchill, I did not take the oath I have just taken with the intention of presiding over the dissolution of the world’s strongest economy.

It’s not called quitting if you quit while you ahead. It’s about being aware and being strategic enough to know that you got to get out the pool at some point. You got to put your clothes back on and dry off.

It is inaccurate to say that I hate everything. I am strongly in favor of common sense, common honesty, and common decency. This makes me forever ineligible for public office.

Sometimes I catch myself stooping, and whenever I am like that, I am sure something is not quite right.

First, I’m trying to prove to myself that I’m a person. Then maybe I’ll convince myself that I’m an actress.

Leaders who are kind of insecure or egocentric, they basically sabotage themselves.

It doesn’t take much to make me angry.

The rulers of the state are the only persons who ought to have the privilege of lying, either at home or abroad; they may be allowed to lie for the good of the state.

Standing as I do, with my hand upon this staff, and under the folds of the American flag, I ask you to stand by me so long as I stand by it.

I don’t like politicians, and I don’t like politics. I definitely don’t want to be associated with any of them.

When Rumsfeld gets up on television and says we have definitive intelligence that al Qaeda is working with Iraq, how is an ordinary citizen supposed to react? They won’t tell you the evidence, and when anyone asks, they say, ‚Well, you know: It’s secret.‘

In too much of the West, everyone wants the guarantee of safety, and never having to make any decisions.

Engage your brain before you engage your weapon.

True self is non-self, the awareness that the self is made only of non-self elements. There’s no separation between self and other, and everything is interconnected. Once you are aware of that you are no longer caught in the idea that you are a separate entity.

Politics, as a practise, whatever its professions, has always been the systematic organization of hatreds.

You are only afraid if you are not in harmony with yourself. People are afraid because they have never owned up to themselves.

Warren Buffet told me once and he said always follow your gut. When you have that gut feeling, you have to go with don’t go back on it.

In order to rally people, governments need enemies… if they do not have a real enemy, they will invent one in order to mobilize us.

The executive has no right, in any case, to decide the question, whether there is or is not cause for declaring war.

As commanders and staff officers, we are coaches and sentries for our units: how can we coach anything if we don’t know a hell of a lot more than just the TTPs?

I have a reputation for taking on governors a lot more powerful than me.

I have no ambition to govern men; it is a painful and thankless office.

It’s not worth doing something unless you were doing something that someone, somewere, would much rather you weren’t doing.

A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way, and shows the way.

If you begin to understand what you are without trying to change it, then what you are undergoes a transformation.

The Democratic position seems to be everything is going to be free. Free education. Free health care. Free housing. Free love. Free kittens, I don’t know.

I don’t think President Trump is a racist.

An Englishman thinks he is moral when he is only uncomfortable.

Day by day we should weigh what we have granted to the spirit of the world against what we have denied to the spirit of Jesus, in thought and especially in deed.

Politics is the entertainment branch of industry.

I’m no longer just a candidate. I’m the President. I know what it means to send young Americans into battle, for I have held in my arms the mothers and fathers of those who didn’t return. I’ve shared the pain of families who’ve lost their homes, and the frustration of workers who’ve lost their jobs.

And now, of course this is another thing I didn’t count on, that now as the governor of the state of California, I am selling California worldwide. You see that? Selling.

My mom was on the United Way group that decides how to allocate the money and looks at all the different charities and makes the very hard decisions about where that pool of funds is going to go.

My wife told me if there is any rumors about me, it better be about politics and not about my social life.

It is just as important that business keep out of government as that government keep out of business.

It is better to lead from behind and to put others in front, especially when you celebrate victory when nice things occur. You take the front line when there is danger. Then people will appreciate your leadership.

Fortunately we’re not a public company – we’re a private group of companies, and I can do what I want.

But even the President of the United States sometimes must have to stand naked.

My celebrity status allows me an opportunity, allows me a pulpit to preach and reach out to the people. Not even always preaching but just leading, motivating them by being a leader.

If we have to use force, it is because we are America. We are the indispensable nation. We stand tall. We see further into the future.

I felt I had to solve everyone’s problems.

You use a glass mirror to see your face; you use works of art to see your soul.

People do not make wars; governments do.

The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground.

In our age there is no such thing as ‚keeping out of politics.‘ All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred and schizophrenia.

If you have embraced a creed which appears to be free from the ordinary dirtiness of politics – a creed from which you yourself cannot expect to draw any material advantage – surely that proves that you are in the right?

The wit knows that his place is at the tail of a procession.

My confidence is easy to shake. I am very well aware of all of my flaws. I am aware of all the insecurities that I have.

I am certainly not one of those who need to be prodded. In fact, if anything, I am the prod.

In a country well governed, poverty is something to be ashamed of. In a country badly governed, wealth is something to be ashamed of.

Everything’s intentional. It’s just filling in the dots.

For the introduction of a new kind of music must be shunned as imperiling the whole state; since styles of music are never disturbed without affecting the most important political institutions.

None are more taken in by flattery than the proud, who wish to be the first and are not.

Use your health, even to the point of wearing it out. That is what it is for. Spend all you have before you die; do not outlive yourself.

In the business world, the rearview mirror is always clearer than the windshield.

He who exercises government by means of his virtue may be compared to the north polar star, which keeps its place and all the stars turn towards it.

Government does not solve problems; it subsidizes them.

I always tell people that religious institutions and political institutions should be separate. So while I’m telling people this, I myself continue with them combined. Hypocrisy!

I found that the corridors of power in Delhi were littered with lobbies of various kinds.

You’ve got to work things out in the cloakroom, and when you’ve got them worked out, you can debate a little before you vote.