Rhetoric is a poor substitute for action, and we have trusted only to rhetoric. If we are really to be a great nation, we must not merely talk; we must act big.

We need to steer clear of this poverty of ambition, where people want to drive fancy cars and wear nice clothes and live in nice apartments but don’t want to work hard to accomplish these things. Everyone should try to realize their full potential.

Listen; there’s a hell of a good universe next door: let’s go.

I used to think as I looked out on the Hollywood night, ‚There must be thousands of girls sitting alone like me dreaming of being a movie star.‘ But I’m not going to worry about them. I’m dreaming the hardest.

Don’t worry about motivation. Motivation is fickle. It comes and goes. It is unreliable – and when you are counting on motivation to get your goals accomplished, you will likely fall short.

When a stupid man is doing something he is ashamed of, he always declares that it is his duty.

Ability is what you’re capable of doing. Motivation determines what you do. Attitude determines how well you do it.

You cannot do a kindness too soon, for you never know how soon it will be too late.

A lot of times I find that people who are blessed with the most talent don’t ever develop that attitude, and the ones who aren’t blessed in that way are the most competitive and have the biggest heart.

One must steer, not talk.

My desire to devolve authority has nothing to do with a wish to shirk responsibility.

I want to make a good, solid kung fu movie.

When the party gives me a responsibility, I must do it with complete dedication. God has given me the ability, which I utilise to its optimum.

How you think when you lose determines how long it will be until you win.

Success isn’t supposed to happen, no matter how hard you work. There’s no guarantee you’re going to succeed. There’s nothing set in stone.

You drown not by falling into a river, but by staying submerged in it.

The question is not whether we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we will be… The nation and the world are in dire need of creative extremists.

Faith is taking the first step even when you don’t see the whole staircase.

Don’t go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first.

If you can ask a young man to give his life for his country, you can lead people.

A man can do only what he can do. But if he does that each day he can sleep at night and do it again the next day.

When you’re in a leadership role, you can never please all of the people all of the time. There’s also a lot of responsibility that goes along with it that others may not realize.

I just think you ought to talk straight with your people.

Terrorist attacks can shake the foundations of our biggest buildings, but they cannot touch the foundation of America. These acts shatter steel, but they cannot dent the steel of American resolve.

Happiness is a ball after which we run wherever it rolls, and we push it with our feet when it stops.

NASA has been one of the most successful public investments in motivating students to do well and achieve all they can achieve. It’s sad that we are turning the programme in a direction where it will reduce the amount of motivation and stimulation it provides to young people.

What is not started today is never finished tomorrow.

I am only an average man but, by George, I work harder at it than the average man.

All the president is, is a glorified public relations man who spends his time flattering, kissing, and kicking people to get them to do what they are supposed to do anyway.

A conservative is a man with two perfectly good legs who, however, has never learned how to walk forward.

Your decision to be, have and do something out of ordinary entails facing difficulties that are out of the ordinary as well. Sometimes your greatest asset is simply your ability to stay with it longer than anyone else.

Excellence is to do a common thing in an uncommon way.

What were once only hopes for the future have now come to pass; it is almost exactly 13 years since the overwhelming majority of people in Ireland and Northern Ireland voted in favour of the agreement signed on Good Friday 1998, paving the way for Northern Ireland to become the exciting and inspirational place that it is today.

Anywhere in Latin America there is a potential threat of the pathology of caudillismo and it has to be guarded against.

Whatever you want to do, if you want to be great at it, you have to love it and be able to make sacrifices for it.

The belief that the world is getting worse, that we can’t solve extreme poverty and disease, isn’t just mistaken. It is harmful.

Any lady who is first lady likes being first lady. I don’t care what they say, they like it.

When the best leader’s work is done the people say, ‚We did it ourselves.‘

I’m more than comfortable just sitting back and scoring 21, 22 points or whatever and getting 10, 11 assists whatever the case might be. More than comfortable with that. It’s just a matter of the pieces that you have around you and what you can do to elevate everybody else.

I pity the fool who just gives up.

What’s dangerous is not to evolve.

I don’t like to see a president who is just out campaigning all year long or for the last four years. I’d like to see somebody who’s going in the office. In fact, I’d like to not see them because that way you’d be sure that they’d be working.

The best government is a benevolent tyranny tempered by an occasional assassination.

It is reasonable to have perfection in our eye that we may always advance toward it, though we know it can never be reached.

Without a moral framework, there is nothing left but immediate self-indulgence by some and the path of least resistance by others. Neither can sustain a free society.

I was a fighting machine with a will of iron.

The important work of moving the world forward does not wait to be done by perfect men.

I couldn’t ever go back home without being something. I probably would never have gone back home. That was definitely a big motivation. To get back home, and not empty-handed.

I will keep America moving forward, always forward, for a better America, for an endless enduring dream and a thousand Points of Light. This is my mission, and I will complete it.

A word after a word after a word is power.

I came, I saw, I conquered.

It’s not ‚can‘; it’s ‚will.‘ You have to will things into fruition.

The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity. The fears are paper tigers. You can do anything you decide to do. You can act to change and control your life; and the procedure, the process is its own reward.

If you want to conquer fear, don’t sit home and think about it. Go out and get busy.

It takes time to persuade men to do even what is for their own good.

You have to be someone.

I have only one counsel for you – be master.

It is better to be feared than loved, if you cannot be both.

I’ve seen firsthand that being president doesn’t change who you are. It reveals who you are.

All very successful commanders are prima donnas and must be so treated.

But man is not made for defeat. A man can be destroyed but not defeated.