Don’t blame the marketing department. The buck stops with the chief executive.

Some people will have to be afraid. Those who plunder the nation, deliver injustice, will have to feel scared of me. And I am not afraid of admitting this. Government cannot be so lenient that it forgives them.

No one gets away with anything, ever, so take responsibility for your own life.

Any man who wants to be president is either an egomaniac or crazy.

On every front there are clear answers out there that can make this country stronger, but we’re going to break through the fear and the frustration people are feeling. Our job is to make sure that even as we make progress, that we are also giving people a sense of hope and vision for the future.

I believe that many of my young guys lived because I didn’t waste their lives because I didn’t have the vision in my mind of how to destroy the enemy at least cost to our guys and to the innocents on the battlefields.

Show me a poorly uniformed troop and I’ll show you a poorly uniformed leader.

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.

One of the key qualities a leader must possess is the ability to detach from the chaos, mayhem, and emotions in a situation and make good, clear decisions based on what is actually happening.

Every first-term president has to learn something after he comes into office. Nobody can be completely ready for the inevitable crises.

I’m a mentor to anybody who’s interested.

Let us be sure that those who come after will say of us in our time, that in our time we did everything that could be done. We finished the race; we kept them free; we kept the faith.

People need to be insured so when you have an accident out there, or when something catastrophic happens to you, that you’re covered and there’s not someone else has to pay for you. That is as simple as that.

I have no delusions about my likability in every scenario. I know that in order to get things done the way you want them, oftentimes your position will be unpopular.

Every right implies a responsibility; Every opportunity, an obligation, Every possession, a duty.

The time has come for all evangelists to practice full financial disclosure. The world is watching how we walk and how we talk. We must have the highest standards of morality, ethics and integrity if we are to continue to have influence.

When we assumed the Soldier, we did not lay aside the Citizen.

The biggest problem that we have is that California is being run now by special interests. All of the politicians are not anymore making the moves for the people, but for special interests and we have to stop that.

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

So, for example, a country was into recession right after I was sworn in, a dot-com bust had taken place. Then the attacks of September the 11th, and then of course the great financial meltdown in the -the fundamental question facing any presidency is how do you deal with the hand you’re dealt?

We did not choose to be the guardians of the gate, but there is no one else.

Although I don’t have a prescription for what others should do, I know I have been very fortunate and feel a responsibility to give back to society in a very significant way.

For me, already being part of a single parent household and knowing it was just me and my mom, you’d would wake up times and hope that the next day you’d be able to be alongside your mother because she was out trying to make sure that I was taken care of. But all I cared about was her being home.

By most accounts, Aristide is the most popular figure in Haiti.

As our enemies have found we can reason like men, so now let us show them we can fight like men also.

We are taught you must blame your father, your sisters, your brothers, the school, the teachers – but never blame yourself. It’s never your fault. But it’s always your fault, because if you wanted to change you’re the one who has got to change.

One of the things that was really an issue was I did not want to just be a woman secretary of state. I wanted to be a secretary of a state who was a woman, but not just chosen for that particular reason.

My mother had a saying: ‚Kamala, you may be the first to do many things, but make sure you’re not the last.‘

You are not only responsible for what you say, but also for what you do not say.

To lead people walk behind them.

You need to understand, if you take out a government, take out a regime, guess who becomes the government and regime and is responsible for the country? You are. So if you break it, you own it.

Moral authority is never retained by any attempt to hold on to it. It comes without seeking and is retained without effort.

If you don’t drive your business, you will be driven out of business.

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

I don’t think consensus-building politics is what I’m meant to be doing.

In politics, nothing happens by accident. If it happens, you can bet it was planned that way.

Trust, but verify.

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

I would rather earn 1% off a 100 people’s efforts than 100% of my own efforts.

People have got to know whether or not their president is a crook. Well, I’m not a crook. I earned everything I’ve got.

The price of greatness is responsibility.

I was probably the first footballer ever to have a pop-star profile, and my agent was right when he said we could put my name on stair rods and sell them to people in bungalows.

We also can’t try to take over and rebuild every country that falls into crisis. That’s not leadership; that’s a recipe for quagmire, spilling American blood and treasure that ultimately weakens us. It’s the lesson of Vietnam, of Iraq – and we should have learned it by now.

To some extent I happily don’t know what I’m doing. I feel that it’s an artist’s responsibility to trust that.

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

My fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.

Henry Kissinger should have the door shut in his face by every decent person and should be shamed, ostracized and excluded.

I believe in benevolent dictatorship provided I am the dictator.

It is a paradox that every dictator has climbed to power on the ladder of free speech. Immediately on attaining power each dictator has suppressed all free speech except his own.

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

You want me to own a team and deal with these rich, spoiled stubborn athletes, and try to get them to perform? No thank you.

Leaders who are kind of insecure or egocentric, they basically sabotage themselves.

In the long history of the world, only a few generations have been granted the role of defending freedom in its hour of maximum danger. I do not shrink from this responsibility – I welcome it.

People buy into the leader before they buy into the vision.

I stand by all the misstatements that I’ve made.

I just figured out that if I gave my all into this game – if I put everything into the fight business – then I would eventually run the fight business.

How can a president not be an actor?

Those who govern, having much business on their hands, do not generally like to take the trouble of considering and carrying into execution new projects. The best public measures are therefore seldom adopted from previous wisdom, but forced by the occasion.

We all have the duty to do good.

Democracy is the process by which people choose the man who’ll get the blame.

Every President wants to do right.