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.

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

Courage is rightly esteemed the first of human qualities… because it is the quality which guarantees all others.

Mistakes are always forgivable, if one has the courage to admit them.

It is more difficult to rule yourself than to rule a city.

I’m always pushing for human responsibility. Given that chimpanzees and many other animals are sentient and sapient, then we should treat them with respect.

Read no history: nothing but biography, for that is life without theory.

America had often been discovered before Columbus, but it had always been hushed up.

In law a man is guilty when he violates the rights of others. In ethics he is guilty if he only thinks of doing so.

I noticed words crudely spray-painted upon the wall, perhaps by a young Berliner: ‚This wall will fall. Beliefs become reality.‘ Yes, across Europe, this wall will fall. For it cannot withstand faith; it cannot withstand truth. The wall cannot withstand freedom.

A lot of people ask me when I do a stunt, ‚Jackie, are you scared?‘ Of course I’m scared. I’m not Superman.

Those who commit injustice bear the greatest burden.

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.

In the ’70s, terrorism was much more serious, in that many more people got killed.

You cannot be President of the United States if you don’t have faith. Remember Lincoln, going to his knees in times of trial in the Civil War and all that stuff.

We do not know what we want and yet we are responsible for what we are – that is the fact.

The absent are never without fault, nor the present without excuse.

Do I think faith will be an important part of being a good president? Yes, I do.

I think I was identified as a failed president because I wasn’t re-elected.

For my part, I consider that it will be found much better by all parties to leave the past to history, especially as I propose to write that history myself.

Absolute liberty is absence of restraint; responsibility is restraint; therefore, the ideally free individual is responsible to himself.

The worst disease which can afflict executives in their work is not, as popularly supposed, alcoholism; it’s egotism.

A nation which has forgotten the quality of courage which in the past has been brought to public life is not as likely to insist upon or regard that quality in its chosen leaders today – and in fact we have forgotten.

A hero is no braver than an ordinary man, but he is brave five minutes longer.

As his vice president for eight years, I learned more from Ronald Reagan than from anyone I encountered in all my years of public life.

The truth is: Belonging starts with self-acceptance. Your level of belonging, in fact, can never be greater than your level of self-acceptance, because believing that you’re enough is what gives you the courage to be authentic, vulnerable and imperfect.

The upward course of a nation’s history is due in the long run to the soundness of heart of its average men and women.

I can easily imagine Obama sitting down and talking to any leader – or any person – in the world, with no baggage of past servitude or race supremacy to mar their talks.

Old men are dangerous: it doesn’t matter to them what is going to happen to the world.

Always do everything you ask of those you command.

In the business world, the rearview mirror is always clearer than the windshield.

Arafat’s departure has created an awesome opportunity.

Leadership is absolutely vital if there are comparable countries which can affect the security of the world you live in. Between Lincoln and Roosevelt’s time, America was protected by huge oceans and, in practice, by the British navy. Today, it’s different, and the obsession of the Obama administration has been for retrenchment.

If I can be a leader, I will.

Brave men are all vertebrates; they have their softness on the surface and their toughness in the middle.

I think we have a duty to maintain the light of consciousness to make sure it continues into the future.

Some people want to win races. Other people want to be President of the United States.

March on. Do not tarry. To go forward is to move toward perfection. March on, and fear not the thorns, or the sharp stones on life’s path.

As a country, we can’t teach kids how to read and write when we got 18 years to do it. And that’s – that’s a disgrace.

History teaches that war begins when governments believe the price of aggression is cheap.

War should be the only study of a prince. He should consider peace only as a breathing-time, which gives him leisure to contrive, and furnishes as ability to execute, military plans.

A kingdom founded on injustice never lasts.

History, a distillation of rumour.

There is no king who has not had a slave among his ancestors, and no slave who has not had a king among his.

Decisiveness is a characteristic of high-performing men and women. Almost any decision is better than no decision at all.

My husband and I had to raise five of my younger brothers and sisters. They lived with us. We sent them to school.

A company is a group organized to create a product or service, and it is only as good as its people and how excited they are about creating. I do want to recognize a ton of super-talented people. I just happen to be the face of the companies.

I think we all have empathy. We may not have enough courage to display it.

Understand, when you eat meat, that something did die. You have an obligation to value it – not just the sirloin but also all those wonderful tough little bits.

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.

The revolution has always been in the hands of the young. The young always inherit the revolution.

I don’t think we handled the aftermath of the fall of Baghdad as well as we might have. But that’s now history.

I think you have a moral responsibility when you’ve been given far more than you need, to do wise things with it and give intelligently.

Being prime minister is a lonely job… you cannot lead from the crowd.

Whatever final judgment awaits ‚Bush v. Gore‘ in the annals of history, I am certain that the good work and good faith of the U.S. federal judiciary as a whole will continue to sustain public confidence at a level never beyond repair.

People who make history know nothing about history. You can see that in the sort of history they make.

A politician needs the ability to foretell what is going to happen tomorrow, next week, next month, and next year. And to have the ability afterwards to explain why it didn’t happen.

On October 15, 1965, an estimated 70,000 people took part in large-scale anti-war demonstrations.

The Chinese government wants me to say that for many centuries Tibet has been part of China. Even if I make that statement, many people would just laugh. And my statement will not change past history. History is history.

He who has faith has… an inward reservoir of courage, hope, confidence, calmness, and assuring trust that all will come out well – even though to the world it may appear to come out most badly.