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.

Some people plant in the spring and leave in the summer. If you’re signed up for a season, see it through. You don’t have to stay forever, but at least stay until you see it through.

There is nothing wrong with America that faith, love of freedom, intelligence, and energy of her citizens cannot cure.

I’ll never make it, it will never happen, because they’re never going to hear me ‚cause they’re screaming all the time.

The place where you made your stand never mattered. Only that you were there… and still on your feet.

It’s one of the few regrets of my presidency – that the rancor and suspicion between the parties has gotten worse instead of better. There’s no doubt a president with the gifts of Lincoln or Roosevelt might have better bridged the divide, and I guarantee I’ll keep trying to be better so long as I hold this office.

If you look at my life, generally, I’ve been put in situations which were difficult and which I conquered.

In college, a loss is pretty devastating. That feeling kind of goes away in an 82-game season. You hate to lose, but you also have a lot more games to make up for it.

The greatest story of all is Colonel Sanders. He didn’t start until he was sixty-six on a freeway bypass for his chicken shop. Anything is possible!

Building a mission and building a business go hand in hand. The primary thing that excites me is the mission. But we have always had a healthy understanding that we need to do both.

You must capture and keep the heart of the original and supremely able man before his brain can do its best.

I have only one yardstick by which I test every major problem – and that yardstick is: Is it good for America?

People ask the difference between a leader and a boss. The leader leads, and the boss drives.

I’m no leader; I’m a little humble follower.

America is a country of inventors, and the greatest of inventors are the newspaper men.

Leadership to me means duty, honor, country. It means character, and it means listening from time to time.

Character, in great and little things, means carrying through what you feel able to do.

We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope.

That’s the good thing about being president, I can do whatever I want.

It’s like a muscle – if you stop going to the gym or stop running, you get weak. The military teaches you these great values, but we don’t keep up the discipline on our own, and we lose it. So wherever you go, keep that discipline up.

You fail only if you stop writing.

I knew I was a winner back in the late sixties. I knew I was destined for great things. People will say that kind of thinking is totally immodest. I agree. Modesty is not a word that applies to me in any way – I hope it never will.

I struggled with being a broke college graduate, and while all my friends were getting career jobs, I was working horrible part-time jobs. That’s why now, even when I get tired, I think, ‚This is what I asked for.‘

It was such a leap in my career when ‚Truman Show‘ came along. It’s always been a long process for me insofar as recognition goes, but that’s OK because you appreciate it when it comes.

I know what it feels like to struggle to get the education that you need.

The size of your success is measured by the strength of your desire; the size of your dream; and how you handle disappointment along the way.

If you take no risks, you will suffer no defeats. But if you take no risks, you win no victories.

So while I will never minimize the costs involved in military action, I am convinced that a failure to act in Libya would have carried a far greater price for America.

A lot has happened over the years. And while this nation has been tested by war, and it’s been tested by recession and all manner of challenges – I stand before you again tonight, after almost two terms as your president, to tell you I am more optimistic about the future of America than ever before.

One of the roles of the Presidency is to lead a political party. Having a President in office is usually a huge advantage to a party because it gives the party a mouthpiece and an advocate at the highest level.

Better to fight for something than live for nothing.

Only by contending with challenges that seem to be beyond your strength to handle at the moment you can grow more surely toward the stars.

I read in the newspapers they are going to have 30 minutes of intellectual stuff on television every Monday from 7:30 to 8. to educate America. They couldn’t educate America if they started at 6:30.

Quitting doesn’t enter my mind.

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

The probability that we may fail in the struggle ought not to deter us from the support of a cause we believe to be just.

Certainly it is valuable to a trained writer to crash in an aircraft which burns. He learns several important things very quickly. Whether they will be of use to him is conditioned by survival. Survival, with honor, that outmoded and all-important word, is as difficult as ever and as all-important to a writer.

If you’ve spent a long time developing a skill and techniques, and now some 14 year-old upstart can get exactly the same result, you might feel a bit miffed I suppose, but that has happened forever.

The time has come for us to draw the line. The time has come for the responsible leaders of both political parties to take a stand against overgrown Government and for the American taxpayer.

No man should be in politics unless he would honestly rather not be there.

No matter the nationality, no matter the religion, no matter the ethnic background, America brings out the best in people.

The faults of a superior person are like the sun and moon. They have their faults, and everyone sees them; they change and everyone looks up to them.

We’re all of us guinea pigs in the laboratory of God. Humanity is just a work in progress.

I don’t create companies for the sake of creating companies, but to get things done.

‚They‘ are the people that don’t believe in you, that say that you won’t succeed. We stay away from ‚They.‘

People always fear change. People feared electricity when it was invented, didn’t they? People feared coal, they feared gas-powered engines… There will always be ignorance, and ignorance leads to fear. But with time, people will come to accept their silicon masters.

What by a straight path cannot be reached by crooked ways is never won.

Before we acquire great power we must acquire wisdom to use it well.

It’s the philosophies of being an athlete that carry me today.

What old people say you cannot do, you try and find that you can. Old deeds for old people, and new deeds for new.

A record deal doesn’t make you an artist; you make yourself an artist.

It’s not because things are difficult that we dare not venture. It’s because we dare not venture that they are difficult.

No one has ever drowned in sweat.

When I took over as president, I studied the Constitution, and the more I studied it, the more I realised that it does not prevent the president of India from giving the nation a vision. So when I went and presented this vision in Parliament and in legislative assemblies; everyone welcomed it, irrespective of party affiliations.

Nothing will work unless you do.

When I graduated from high school, it was during the Depression and we had no money.

You’ve all seen over the last eight years what President Obama means to this country. He is the embodiment of honor, resolve, and character – one of the finest presidents we have ever had.

These times are so hard, and they’re getting even harder.

Flaming enthusiasm, backed up by horse sense and persistence, is the quality that most frequently makes for success.

What we face may look insurmountable. But I learned something from all those years of training and competing. I learned something from all those sets and reps when I didn’t think I could lift another ounce of weight. What I learned is that we are always stronger than we know.

Disciplining yourself to do what you know is right and important, although difficult, is the highroad to pride, self-esteem, and personal satisfaction.