The art of delegation is one of the key skills any entrepreneur must master.

After launching the first version of Facebook for a few thousand users, we would discuss how this should be built for the world. It wasn’t even a thought that maybe it could be us. We always thought it would be someone else doing it.

Be willing to use yourself to get out there and put the company on the market. If you have to make a fool of yourself, make a fool of yourself, but make sure that you end up on the front pages, not the back pages. In time, it’s possible that your company will stand out from the crowd, and you’ll be successful.

It’d be stupid for me to sit here and say that there aren’t kids who look up to me, but my responsibility is not to them. I’m not a baby sitter.

Anything important is never left to the vote of the people. We only get to vote on some man; we never get to vote on what he is to do.

Just as discipline and freedom are opposing forces that must be balanced, leadership requires finding the equilibrium in the dichotomy of many seemingly contradictory qualities between one extreme and another.

A good leader doesn’t get stuck behind a desk.

The government’s job is good governance for everybody. My government will make policies; if you fit into it, come on board, or stay where you are. My job is not to spoon-feed anyone.

I am a leader by default, only because nature does not allow a vacuum.

Politicians must set their aims for the high ground and according to our various leanings, Democratic, Republican, Independent, we will follow. Politicians must be told if they continue to sink into the mud of obscenity, they will proceed alone.

We get paid for bringing value to the market place.

My favourite president, and the one I admired most, was Harry Truman.

How can a president not be an actor?

I’m glad I’m not Brezhnev. Being the Russian leader in the Kremlin. You never know if someone’s tape recording what you say.

Peace comes when you talk to the guy you most hate. And that’s where the courage of a leader comes, because when you sit down with your enemy, you as a leader must already have very considerable confidence from your own constituency.

Authority poisons everybody who takes authority on himself.

Wise and humane management of the patient is the best safeguard against infection.

My early business ventures included growing Christmas trees and breeding birds.

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.

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

Example is not the main thing in influencing others. It is the only thing.

I don’t mind how much my Ministers talk, so long as they do what I say.

Through my education, I didn’t just develop skills, I didn’t just develop the ability to learn, but I developed confidence.

Even if the politics needed doesn’t exist today, we still need to use our voices to make sure that the people in power are focused on the right things. Because this is a democracy, and in a democracy, people are the ones who run the country.

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.

One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.

We the people are the rightful masters of both Congress and the courts, not to overthrow the Constitution but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution.

A leader is a dealer in hope.

If the leader is filled with high ambition and if he pursues his aims with audacity and strength of will, he will reach them in spite of all obstacles.

How easy it is to govern when one follows a system of consulting the will of the people and one holds as the only norm all the actions which contribute to the well being of the people.

A piece of spaghetti or a military unit can only be led from the front end.

But, the thing is, since I always had my own little shop and direct access to the public, I’ve been able to build up a technique without marketing people ever telling me what the public wants.

I’m a businessman as well as an entertainer. The reason why is because I want to own whatever I’m doing. I don’t want to work for other people forever.

I realized why directors are such horrible people – in a way – because you want things to be right, and people will just not listen to you, and there is no time to be nice to people, no time to be delicate.

A kingdom founded on injustice never lasts.

I nearly failed when Virgin was in its infancy; I nearly failed in the early 1980s, and, of course, I have nearly died more than once trying to achieve a world record for boating or ballooning. But through a combination of luck and planning, both Virgin and I are still here.

In my opinion eight years as president is enough and sometimes too much for any man to serve in that capacity.

To some degree it matters who’s in office, but it matters more how much pressure they’re under from the public.

One leader, one people, signifies one master and millions of slaves.

I always tell people that you should only hire people to be on your team if you would work for them.

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

The first mistake in public business is the going into it.

If you’re trying to create a company, it’s like baking a cake. You have to have all the ingredients in the right proportion.

Having the support from everyone, the bosses, whoever within the team, definitely makes it much easier for me as a driver.

I have a different vision of leadership. A leadership is someone who brings people together.

I don’t think it’s a good idea to plan to sell a company.

The presidency has many problems, but boredom is the least of them.

Leadership is influence.

You know I vowed when I became President not to talk about the loneliest toughest job in the world and I didn’t.

And you know, I’ve had great fun turning quite a lot of different industries on their head and making sure those industries will never be the same again, because Virgin went in and took them on.

The man who can dominate a London dinner-table can dominate the world.

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.

Community colleges play an important role in helping people transition between careers by providing the retooling they need to take on a new career.

Right now it’s only a notion, but I think I can get the money to make it into a concept, and later turn it into an idea.

Governments need to have both shepherds and butchers.

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.

Our country was founded by geniuses, but it’s being run by idiots.

If you continue to keep low performers on your team, that are actually dragging the team down; you’re failing the whole team, and eventually, the whole team is going to fail.

As I followed my dream – stayed in-Spirit, that is, inspired – I made more money in the first year after I gave up my employment than I had made in the previous 35 years of my life.

We go to school to learn to work hard for money. I write books and create products that teach people how to have money work hard for them.

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.