Unless a president can protect the privacy of the advice he gets, he cannot get the advice he needs.

How do leaders serve their people? They may pay good wages and treat employees with respect.

A President needs political understanding to run the government, but he may be elected without it.

As a leader, the first person I need to lead is me. The first person that I should try to change is me.

For me every ruler is alien that defies public opinion.

Military school was great and especially great for leadership and then I spent two years in Vietnam.

Never neglect details. When everyone’s mind is dulled or distracted the leader must be doubly vigilant.

This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when he first appears he is a protector.

People are getting smarter nowadays; they are letting lawyers, instead of their conscience, be their guide.

I don’t think I’m bad for people. If I did think I was bad for people, I would go back to driving a truck, and I really mean this.

All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.

If you want to occupy the C-suite or the top one-tenth of 1% in any organization, you have to be obsessively devoted to your career at the expense of everything else. And women look at that, and they think, ‚No.‘

In doubtful cases the more liberal interpretation must always be preferred.

I would like to be remembered as a guy who had a set of priorities, and was willing to live by those priorities. In terms of accomplishments, my biggest accomplishment is that I kept the country safe amidst a real danger.

Faced with what is right, to leave it undone shows a lack of courage.

Don’t swap horses in crossing a stream.

When the players go home, I can’t tell them what to do, so you need to create an atmosphere of trust. I don’t want to think, ‚What are they doing now? Do I need to call them?‘

If one has the answers to all the questions – that is the proof that God is not with him. It means that he is a false prophet using religion for himself. The great leaders of the people of God, like Moses, have always left room for doubt. You must leave room for the Lord, not for our certainties; we must be humble.

The buck stops here!

I just usually go with my own taste. If I like something, and it happens to be against the law, well, then I might have a problem.

Don’t wait for the last judgment – it takes place every day.

Leaders in all spheres who are living with HIV should be encouraged, not coerced, to lead by example and disclose their HIV status.

In countries where innocent people are dying, the leaders are following their blood rather than their brains.

The jury consist of twelve persons chosen to decide who has the better lawyer.

A ‚No‘ uttered from the deepest conviction is better than a ‚Yes‘ merely uttered to please, or worse, to avoid trouble.

I don’t ever make moves under pressure.

We have come to a turning point in the road. If we turn to the right mayhap our children and our children’s children will go that way; but if we turn to the left, generations yet unborn will curse our names for having been unfaithful to God and to His Word.

I am confident that when the facts and policies have been examined, when the record of performances have been reviewed, Barack Obama and Joe Biden will once again be elected to lead our beloved country to a better future.

I just hate meetings. Though it’s true that once you’ve made a lot of money, people around you might be full of ideas about ways to make lots more money and might be disappointed that you don’t want to seize every opportunity to do so.

Clever tyrants are never punished.

A disposition to preserve, and an ability to improve, taken together, would be my standard of a statesman.

Go before the people with your example, and be laborious in their affairs.

History has proven that each generation of Howard graduates will forge the way forward for our country and our world.

I’m not trying to get myself up a notch on the ladder by shoving somebody else down on the ladder, whether it’s a candidate or the president of the United States or anybody else. I just don’t believe that’s the way one oughta campaign, I’ve never done that.

No one can give you better advice than yourself.

I once told Nixon that the Presidency is like being a jackass caught in a hail storm. You’ve got to just stand there and take it.

Those people who develop the ability to continuously acquire new and better forms of knowledge that they can apply to their work and to their lives will be the movers and shakers in our society for the indefinite future.

If I’d had good discipline, I might have gone into music.

Romney and Ryan would do a much better job running the country, and that’s what everybody needs to know.

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

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

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

In a world of complex threats, our security and leadership depends on all elements of our power – including strong and principled diplomacy.

A leader does not deserve the name unless he is willing occasionally to stand alone.

The example that America knows how to govern itself is one of the compelling aspects of our national security.

A people free to choose will always choose peace.

You know how advice is. You only want it if it agrees with what you wanted to do anyway.

The President is not only the leader of a party, he is the President of the whole people. He must interpret the conscience of America. He must guide his conduct by the idealism of our people.

Power is poison. Its effect on Presidents had always been tragic.

Once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen.

I don’t care whether you’re driving a hybrid or an SUV. If you’re headed for a cliff, you have to change direction. That’s what the American people called for in November, and that’s what we intend to deliver.

If you want to have sustained joy, you have to not only make sure that you think right, but you also have to make decisions now that are going to guarantee some joy in the future.

Every mind must make its choice between truth and repose. It cannot have both.

There are people who are really good managers, people who can manage a big organization, and then there are people who are very analytic or focused on strategy. Those two types don’t usually tend to be in the same person. I would put myself much more in the latter camp.

The task of the leader is to get his people from where they are to where they have not been.

I always wanted to do things right and represent myself as somebody that took the art serious and someone that took the business serious also, so I had time to weigh the options and figure it out and do my best to create the situation that was ideal.

Be the chief but never the lord.

Any man can call time out, but no man can say how long the time out will be.

The common question that gets asked in business is, ‚why?‘ That’s a good question, but an equally valid question is, ‚why not?‘

As president, you can get all kinds of advice from all kinds of people. But at the end of the day, when it comes time to make that decision, as president, all you have to guide you are your values and your vision and the life experiences that make you who you are.

I base a lot of decisions on my gut, and going with an independent label was a good one.