As president, you can get all kinds of advice from all kinds of people. But at the end of the day, when it comes time to make that decision, as president, all you have to guide you are your values and your vision and the life experiences that make you who you are.

We know what works. Freedom Works. We know what’s right. Freedom is right.

When things haven’t gone well for you, call in a secretary or a staff man and chew him out. You will sleep better and they will appreciate the attention.

I have a fantasy where Ted Turner is elected President but refuses because he doesn’t want to give up power.

Many a man will have the courage to die gallantly, but will not have the courage to say, or even to think, that the cause for which he is asked to die is an unworthy one.

There’s always an element of self delusion among people who believe they ought to be President. There’s an underestimation of your opponent and an overestimation of your own abilities. This is compatible with being rich and powerful, the idea that we were blessed by God because we deserve to be blessed.

Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans – born in this century, tempered by war, disciplined by a hard and bitter peace.

Leaders who fail to prune their pride will meet demise. That’s not a guess, it’s a guarantee. With pride, it’s not a matter of ‚if‘ we will fall, but ‚when.‘ There are no exceptions.

He that won’t be counseled can’t be helped.

When I was young I thought that money was the most important thing in life; now that I am old I know that it is.

Free speech is not just another value. It’s the foundation of Western civilization.

The man with the best job in the country is the vice-president. All he has to do is get up every morning and say, ‚How is the president?‘

Teach us that wealth is not elegance, that profusion is not magnificence, that splendor is not beauty.

I don’t have any regrets. I made all my own decisions.

If you have to control people, you have to have an administrative force that does it. So in U.S. industry, even more than elsewhere, there’s layer after layer of management – a kind of economic waste, but useful for control and domination. And the same is true in universities.

The gift of loneliness is sometimes a radical vision of society or one’s people that has not previously been taken into account.

I think our democracy has it exactly right: two terms, eight years. It’s enough. Because it’s important to have one foot in reality when you have access to this kind of power.

In my heart, I’m confident I could make a good president.

I am often asked if, when I was secretary, I had problems with foreign men. That is not who I had problems with, because I arrived in a very large plane that said United States of America. I had more problems with the men in our own government.

Never let your ego get so close to your position that when your position goes, your ego goes with it.

What troubles me most about my lovely country is that its children are seldom taught that American freedom will vanish, if, when they grow up, and in the exercise of their duties as citizens, they insist that our courts and policemen and prisons be guided by divine or natural law.

Knowledge is love and light and vision.

Many religious confessions share common values. They teach that we should do unto others as we would have them do unto us.

Do not ask for what you will wish you had not got.

A conductor can’t be too arrogant with an orchestra and try to impose himself too much.

Too often the great decisions are originated and given form in bodies made up wholly of men, or so completely dominated by them that whatever of special value women have to offer is shunted aside without expression.

Everything rises and falls on leadership.

I understand everybody in this country doesn’t agree with the decisions I’ve made. And I made some tough decisions. But people know where I stand.

If I’m going to get you to do stuff, I need to lead you. I can’t just order you to do it.

Whenever a man does a thoroughly stupid thing, it is always from the noblest motives.

Doing nothing while the middle class is hurting. That’s not leadership. Loose regulations and lax enforcement. That’s not leadership. That’s abandoning our middle class.

The community which has neither poverty nor riches will always have the noblest principles.

To have done anything just for money is to have been truly idle.

To supervise people, you must either surpass them in their accomplishments or despise them.

What is permissible is not always honorable.

I was born and have ever remained in the most humble walks of life.

I definitely connected to the fact that life gets out of control and you end up doing things and wishing you were doing other things instead.

You should see what our Founding Fathers used to say to each other and in the early part of our nation. But what they were able to do, especially in Philadelphia in 1787, four months, they argued about what a House should be, what a Senate should be, the power of the president, the Congress, the Supreme Court. And they had to deal with slavery.

Every sentence spoken by Napoleon, and every line of his writing, deserves reading, as it is the sense of France.

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

We named the book ‚Extreme Ownership‘ because we really found that when we looked at not only at leaders but at teams that were the most successful, we found that the ones that had this attitude of extreme ownership were the ones that did the best, and it’s definitely an attitude that I had.

Unless we place our religion and our treasure in the same thing, religion will always be sacrificed.

It behooves every man who values liberty of conscience for himself, to resist invasions of it in the case of others: or their case may, by change of circumstances, become his own.

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’m a mentor to anybody who’s interested.

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

Reverence for life is the highest court of appeal.

If I hadn’t been President of the United States, I probably would have ended up a piano player in a bawdy house.

The story being told in ‚Star Wars‘ is a classic one. Every few hundred years, the story is retold because we have a tendency to do the same things over and over again. Power corrupts, and when you’re in charge, you start doing things that you think are right, but they’re actually not.

If you young fellows were wise, the devil couldn’t do anything to you, but since you aren’t wise, you need us who are old.

If you injure your neighbour, better not do it by halves.

You must be afraid, my son. That is how one becomes an honest citizen.

I vividly remember a conversation I had many years ago in 1974, which marked a turning point in my leadership journey. I was sitting at a Holiday Inn with my friend, Kurt Campmeyer, when he asked me if I had a personal growth plan. I didn’t. In fact, I didn’t even know you were supposed to have one.

Life is not long, and too much of it must not pass in idle deliberation how it shall be spent.

If you are the kind of person who is waiting for the ‚right‘ thing to happen, you might wait for a long time. It’s like waiting for all the traffic lights to be green for five miles before starting the trip.

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.

I give opinions, not advice.

Never get married in college; it’s hard to get a start if a prospective employer finds you’ve already made one mistake.

The President is going to benefit from me reporting directly to him when I arrive.

People who add value to others do so intentionally. I say that because to add value, leaders must give of themselves, and that rarely occurs by accident.

The last thing I wanted to do was to be a wartime President.