I must follow the people. Am I not their leader?

I am not deeply involved in Australian politics but I know there are prime ministers, governments around the world who are not acting responsibly in relation to climate change.

I am worrying about my country. I feel I have a responsibility as a novelist to do something.

Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.

In every walk of life, you must have leaders. An education in the spiritual world, in the labor field, in the agricultural field, we must have leaders.

The government’s job is good governance for everybody. My government will make policies; if you fit into it, come on board, or stay where you are. My job is not to spoon-feed anyone.

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.

Today we did what we had to do. They counted on America to be passive. They counted wrong.

You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today.

The best leaders understand the motivations of their team members and know their people – their lives and their families. But a leader must never grow so close to subordinates that one member of the team becomes more important than another, or more important than the mission itself.

As an elder of the Americas and of the rest of the planet, it is my responsibility to care for and protect, to the best of my ability, the young.

Few things can help an individual more than to place responsibility on him, and to let him know that you trust him.

And I will do everything that I can as long as I am President of the United States to remind the American people that we are one nation under God, and we may call that God different names but we remain one nation.

From a young age, I learned to focus on the things I was good at and delegate to others what I was not good at. That’s how Virgin is run. Fantastic people throughout the Virgin Group run our businesses, allowing me to think creatively and strategically.

What Washington needs is adult supervision.

When the external factors over which one has no control in a way start to become negative, it starts to affect our creative juices.

We have an obligation and a responsibility to be investing in our students and our schools. We must make sure that people who have the grades, the desire and the will, but not the money, can still get the best education possible.

You gotta water your plants. Nobody can water them for you.

Fight for the things that you care about, but do it in a way that will lead others to join you.

The 21st century is going to be the American century. Because we lead not only by the example of our power, but by the power of our example. That is the history of the journey of America.

There are times when a leader must move out ahead of the flock, go off in a new direction, confident that he is leading his people the right way.

I had rather be first in a village than second at Rome.

The last thing I wanted to do was to be a wartime President.

My music is influenced by L.A. culture.

Do you realize the responsibility I carry? I’m the only person standing between Richard Nixon and the White House.

To me, a leader is someone who holds her- or himself accountable for finding potential in people and processes. And so what I think is really important is sustainability.

A fashion is nothing but an induced epidemic.

On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.

Discipline is the soul of an army. It makes small numbers formidable; procures success to the weak, and esteem to all.

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

I know I have a responsibility to the fans.

We live in a day that nobody’s lived in before: where you can touch more people. The message I’ll speak tonight and the message that I speak at home, people in India will hear. It’s just an amazing day.

Perhaps the greatest social service that can be rendered by anybody to the country and to mankind is to bring up a family.

If you lead a country like Britain, a strong country, a country which has taken a lead in world affairs in good times and in bad, a country that is always reliable, then you have to have a touch of iron about you.

In various countries and times, leaders of groups that lagged behind, economically and educationally, have taught their followers to blame all their problems on other people – and to hate those other people.

I always tell people that you should only hire people to be on your team if you would work for them.

Until the great mass of the people shall be filled with the sense of responsibility for each other’s welfare, social justice can never be attained.

I am not afraid of an army of lions led by a sheep; I am afraid of an army of sheep led by a lion.

Look, when you’re the president, there’s all kinds of things said about us. I mean, it’s just the nature of the job.

When anyone has the power to destroy the whole human race in a matter of hours, it becomes a moral issue. The church must speak out.

All of us are mentors. You’re mentors right here and now. And one of the things I’ve always done throughout my life, I have always found that person, that group of people that I was going to reach my hand out and help bring them along with me.

My job is to play quarterback, and I’m going to do that the best way I know how, because I owe that to my teammates regardless of who is out there on the field with me.

Put two or three men in positions of conflicting authority. This will force them to work at loggerheads, allowing you to be the ultimate arbiter.

Leadership is hard. It’s a skill. It’s a technique.

At the age of 6, a teacher full of ambitions, who taught in the small public school of Biran, convinced my family that I should travel to Santiago de Cuba to accompany my older sister who would enter a highly prestigious convent school. Including me was a skill of that very teacher from the little school in Biran.

You don’t lead by hitting people over the head – that’s assault, not leadership.

Here in the West, people often don’t like listening to their leaders, even if they are right.

A good leader doesn’t get stuck behind a desk.

I am a leader by default, only because nature does not allow a vacuum.

A President cannot always be popular.

Sometimes the hardest thing to do is to trust your team. It’s a lesson I’ve had to relearn quite a few times.

We should work with the principle that a work that can be done at a lower level should never be escalated to a higher level.

I would rather try to persuade a man to go along, because once I have persuaded him, he will stick. If I scare him, he will stay just as long as he is scared, and then he is gone.

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 never fail when we try to do our duty, we always fail when we neglect to do it.

I don’t mind how much my Ministers talk, so long as they do what I say.

Great men are like eagles, and build their nest on some lofty solitude.

This country is being managed to death, being public related to death.

I’ve seen how the issues that come across a president’s desk are always the hard ones – the problems where no amount of data or numbers will get you to the right answer.

I often say of George Washington that he was one of the few in the whole history of the world who was not carried away by power.

Never forget that no military leader has ever become great without audacity.