I bought a gun and chose drugs instead.

A vote is like a rifle; its usefulness depends upon the character of the user.

To me, consensus seems to be the process of abandoning all beliefs, principles, values and policies. So it is something in which no one believes and to which no one objects.

I actually started off majoring in computer science, but I knew right away I wasn’t going to stay with it. It was because I had this one professor who was the loneliest, saddest man I’ve ever known. He was a programmer, and I knew that I didn’t want to do whatever he did. So after that, I switched to Communications.

We’re not like robots. God promises to guide us through the Holy Spirit, but He gives us the freedom to make our own decisions.

One thing I have learned in my painful career as a gambler is that bragging when you get lucky and win a few games will plunge you into gloom and unacceptable beatings very soon. It happens every time.

The die is cast.

Of the blessings set before you make your choice, and be content.

Consequences are unpitying.

In matters of conscience, the law of the majority has no place.

The new ruler must determine all the injuries that he will need to inflict. He must inflict them once and for all.

It’s not called quitting if you quit while you ahead. It’s about being aware and being strategic enough to know that you got to get out the pool at some point. You got to put your clothes back on and dry off.

I think that somehow, we learn who we really are and then live with that decision.

It’s what counts, isn’t it, on the Sunday, rather than pre-season testing. If you lock up, you do a little mistake, it’s nothing, but if you do it on Sunday, you lose a place or you have to box for a flat spot or something like that. It’s a much bigger problem.

How does a nice Catholic girl end up going to prison for a year? It’s crazy. I’ve made mistakes. I have to pay for those mistakes.

I have never been a quitter. To leave office before my term is completed is opposed to every instinct in my body. But as president I must put the interests of America first Therefore, I shall resign the presidency effective at noon tomorrow.

If you know how to read, you have a complete education about life, then you know how to vote within a democracy. But if you don’t know how to read, you don’t know how to decide. That’s the great thing about our country – we’re a democracy of readers, and we should keep it that way.

When you have to make a choice and don’t make it, that is in itself a choice.

If you are part of a religion that very strongly insists that you believe then to decide not to do that is quite a big hurdle to jump over. You never forget the thought process you went through. It becomes part of your whole intellectual picture.

All of our reasoning ends in surrender to feeling.

My dad seemed comfortable with his decision to be a ‚have-not,‘ but I knew that I wasn’t.

The problem with car dealerships is you’ve already decided what you want to buy before you even go there, and you’re really just going there to talk through some annoying negotiation.

He that sows thorns should never go barefoot.

To compromise simply means that you go a tiny bit below what you know is right.

We need someone with superb judgement in their own right because, yes, a president can hire the best advisors on Earth, but I guarantee you this: Five advisors will give five different opinions. And it is the president – and the president alone – who always makes the final call.

Part of the reason that our politics seems so tough right now and facts and science and argument does not seem to be winning the day all the time is because we’re hardwired not to always think clearly when we’re scared. And the country’s scared.

You have to just make the choices you make in life. I made the choices I made because I believed they were right for me.

But if you – if what – the reports are true, what they’re saying is, is that as a consequence of us getting 30 million additional people health care, at the margins that’s going to increase our costs, we knew that.

If I hit a man, his head is gonna go into the bleachers.

If every choice you make comes from an honest place, you’re solid, and nothing anybody can say about you can rock you or change your opinion.

Like Frank Sinatra, I’m doing it my way.

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

The fact is, violence is not only not a beautiful thing, but it’s also very painful and not without consequences for the perpetrator as well as the victim.

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

I always like to take my time and examine the two candidates, see not only the two candidates but the policies they will bring in, the people they will bring in, who they might appoint to the Supreme Court, and look at the whole range of issues before making a decision.

It’s not worth doing something unless you were doing something that someone, somewere, would much rather you weren’t doing.

There are risks and costs to action. But they are far less than the long range risks of comfortable inaction.

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.

Use every man after his desert, and who should scape whipping?

Risk comes from not knowing what you’re doing.

Necessity never made a good bargain.

I only change things where I know about a situation. I’d never change just for change.

Perhaps if you are in support functions waiting on the warfighters to spell out the specifics of what you are to do, you can avoid the consequences of not reading. Those who must adapt to overcoming an independent enemy’s will are not allowed that luxury.

Quitting is the easiest thing to do.

It does not take much strength to do things, but it requires great strength to decide on what to do.

Most gods throw dice, but Fate plays chess, and you don’t find out til too late that he’s been playing with two queens all along.

My biographers… would like to have my time at the court almost complete before they finish the book. We decided… to flip the order.

The more a person seeks security, the more that person gives up control over their life.

An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last.

Leaders are responsible not for running public opinion polls but for the consequences of their actions.

Chaotic action is preferable to orderly inaction.

We misjudge risk if we feel we have some control over it, even if it’s an illusory sense of control.

The people themselves, and not their servants, can safely reverse their own deliberate decisions.

The wise use of your freedom to make your own decisions is crucial to your spiritual growth, now and for eternity.

With Benghazi, I don’t see anyone saying, ‚Hey look, I am overall responsible for this and therefore, I take responsibility for what happened. It’s my fault.‘ I haven’t heard that yet. Meanwhile, the other side of the coin, the Osama bin Laden raid, it seems everyone made that decision, and that’s just unbelievable to me.

When you see something that is technically sweet, you go ahead and do it and you argue about what to do about it only after you have had your technical success. That is the way it was with the atomic bomb.

A lot of people tell me a lot of things about my conduct, my game, my future… but I try to stay away from their words of wisdom. I don’t let it distract me. On the field, you will be facing the ball alone. If you fail, you will the only one to blame. So, you should be the one deciding for yourself.

I think that there is never an indispensable leader, you know? I think that there is a time with dignity that one needs to leave.

My parents pretty much realized that I would do whatever I wanted, and that was it, really.

On some positions, Cowardice asks the question, ‚Is it safe?‘ Expediency asks the question, ‚Is it politic?‘ And Vanity comes along and asks the question, ‚Is it popular?‘ But Conscience asks the question, ‚Is it right?‘

If we must not act save on a certainty, we ought not to act on religion, for it is not certain. But how many things we do on an uncertainty, sea voyages, battles!