It is as hard and severe a thing to be a true politician as to be truly moral.

When you want a thing done, ‚Don’t do it yourself‘ is a good motto for Scoutmasters.

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.

I think that we all know what evil is. We have a sense of what’s evil, and certainly killing innocent people is evil. We’re less sure about what is good. There’s sort of good, good enough, could be better – but absolute good is a little harder to define.

No great man lives in vain. The history of the world is but the biography of great men.

And I love that even in the toughest moments, when we’re all sweating it – when we’re worried that the bill won’t pass, and it seems like all is lost – Barack never lets himself get distracted by the chatter and the noise. Just like his grandmother, he just keeps getting up and moving forward… with patience and wisdom, and courage and grace.

Motivation is the art of getting people to do what you want them to do because they want to do it.

Only a liberal senator from Massachusetts would say that a 49 percent increase in funding for education was not enough.

If a leader doesn’t convey passion and intensity then there will be no passion and intensity within the organization and they’ll start to fall down and get depressed.

Most liberals think of civil liberties as their Achilles heel. It isn’t.

A good objective of leadership is to help those who are doing poorly to do well and to help those who are doing well to do even better.

Thieves respect property. They merely wish the property to become their property that they may more perfectly respect it.

A business that makes nothing but money is a poor business.

If you’re a quarterback, you want everything on your shoulders. You want to be the one to make the decisions.

When I started Virgin from a basement in west London, there was no great plan or strategy. I didn’t set out to build a business empire… For me, building a business is all about doing something to be proud of, bringing talented people together and creating something that’s going to make a real difference to other people’s lives.

If you’re in favour of any policy – reform, revolution, stability, regression, whatever – if you’re at least minimally moral, it’s because you think it’s somehow good for people. And good for people means conforming to their fundamental nature.

The people of the world genuinely want peace. Some day the leaders of the world are going to have to give in and give it to them.

High office teaches decision making, not substance. It consumes intellectual capital; it does not create it. Most high officials leave office with the perceptions and insights with which they entered; they learn how to make decisions but not what decisions to make.

Sometimes we look at gay being a bigger sin than being proud or not telling the truth. I don’t think God categorizes sins.

If the present Congress errs in too much talking, how can it be otherwise in a body to which the people send one hundred and fifty lawyers, whose trade it is to question everything, yield nothing, and talk by the hour?

The supreme quality for leadership is unquestionably integrity. Without it, no real success is possible, no matter whether it is on a section gang, a football field, in an army, or in an office.

Whenever a man has cast a longing eye on offices, a rottenness begins in his conduct.

No body can be healthful without exercise, neither natural body nor politic, and certainly, to a kingdom or estate, a just and honourable war is the true exercise.

Being a good listener is absolutely critical to being a good leader; you have to listen to the people who are on the front line.

To prefer evil to good is not in human nature; and when a man is compelled to choose one of two evils, no one will choose the greater when he might have the less.

When you give everyone a voice and give people power, the system usually ends up in a really good place. So, what we view our role as, is giving people that power.

The function of wisdom is to discriminate between good and evil.

It is unnecessary to say that Fidel Castro possesses the high qualities of a fighter and statesman: our path, our struggle, and our triumph we owed to his vision.

This nuclear option is ultimately an example of the arrogance of power.

Some day I shall be President.

Example is not the main thing in influencing others. It is the only thing.

Fit no stereotypes. Don’t chase the latest management fads. The situation dictates which approach best accomplishes the team’s mission.

Never let your sense of morals get in the way of doing what’s right.

Ethics is the activity of man directed to secure the inner perfection of his own personality.

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

The fact is that we would have had comprehensive health care now, had it not been for Ted Kennedy’s deliberately blocking the legislation that I proposed in 1978 or ’79.

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

It is wise to persuade people to do things and make them think it was their own idea.

The proper study of Man is anything but Man; and the most improper job of any man, even saints (who at any rate were at least unwilling to take it on), is bossing other men. Not one in a million is fit for it, and least of all those who seek the opportunity.

Power does not corrupt men; fools, however, if they get into a position of power, corrupt power.

Leaders must be close enough to relate to others, but far enough ahead to motivate them.

I was not a messiah, but an ordinary man who had become a leader because of extraordinary circumstances.

The opportunity for doing mischief is found a hundred times a day, and of doing good once in a year.

He who is not a good servant will not be a good master.

The topic of leadership is a touchy one. A lot of leaders fail because they don’t have the bravery to touch that nerve or strike that chord. Throughout my years, I haven’t had that fear.

Let us never forget that government is ourselves and not an alien power over us. The ultimate rulers of our democracy are not a President and senators and congressmen and government officials, but the voters of this country.

The moral arc of the universe bends at the elbow of justice.

Always make those above you feel comfortably superior. In your desire to please or impress them, do not go too far in displaying your talents or you might accomplish the opposite – inspire fear and insecurity.

I think that people are tired. They’re tired of the same old kind of politics. People want a new tone to politics.

To see what is right and not to do it is want of courage, or of principle.

Great things in business are never done by one person. They’re done by a team of people.

I desire so to conduct the affairs of this administration that if at the end… I have lost every other friend on earth, I shall at least have one friend left, and that friend shall be down inside of me.

Fortunately, we have help from the media. I have to say this: I’m very grateful for the support and kindness that we’ve gotten. People have respected their privacy and in that way, I think, you know, no matter what people may feel about my husband’s policies or what have you, they care about children and that’s been good to see.

Running for office is similar to being a trial lawyer in a very long trial. It requires adrenaline and stamina; it requires being in shape mentally and emotionally. It’s a marathon.

Speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far.

To announce that there must be no criticism of the president… is morally treasonable to the American public.

Politics is a profession; a serious, complicated and, in its true sense, a noble one.

Sin is geographical.

We’ve become, now, an oligarchy instead of a democracy. I think that’s been the worst damage to the basic moral and ethical standards to the American political system that I’ve ever seen in my life.

I claim that human mind or human society is not divided into watertight compartments called social, political and religious. All act and react upon one another.

Kings are not born: they are made by artificial hallucination.