I can see clearly now… that I was wrong in not acting more decisively and more forthrightly in dealing with Watergate.

Confession of errors is like a broom which sweeps away the dirt and leaves the surface brighter and clearer. I feel stronger for confession.

When you make a mistake and the devil comes and tells you ‚You’re no good,‘ you don’t have to take on the guilt and condemnation he wants to put on you. No! You can immediately confess your mistake to God, thank Him for forgiving you and cleansing you with the blood of Jesus, and move forward in the victory of His grace and forgiveness.

Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.

It is hard to imagine a more stupid or more dangerous way of making decisions than by putting those decisions in the hands of people who pay no price for being wrong.

If you call yourself a leader, then you have to be decisive. If you’re decisive, then you have the chance to be a leader. These are two sides to the same coin.

On the court, I want to try and get to the free-throw line a little more. And as a point guard, you can always get better at your decision-making and limiting your mistakes.

When a man assumes a public trust he should consider himself a public property.

History will point out some of the things I did wrong and some of the things I did right.

I do take pride in saying that in spite of being in public life for so long, there is not a single case against me, not even for wrongly parking a scooter or driving on the wrong side.

You can’t talk your way out of problems you behave yourself into.

I’ll never tell a lie. I’ll never make a misleading statement. I’ll never betray the confidence that any of you had in me. And I’ll never avoid a controversial issue.

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 want the Israeli government to be made accountable for its behaviour to the Palestinians, and I want the people of the U.S. to cease acting as if they don’t understand what is going on.

The farther backward you can look, the farther forward you can see.

Experience is simply the name we give our mistakes.

The human wish to credit good things as miraculous and to charge bad things to another account is apparently universal.

I often say to people that producing is the best-paid form of cowardice. When you produce things, you almost always get credit if it’s a good record, but you hardly ever get the blame if it’s not! You don’t really take responsibility for your work.

I always avoid prophesying beforehand, because it is a much better policy to prophesy after the event has already taken place.

You cannot be in a position of power and destroy the life of another person.

To err is human; to forgive, divine.

Accountability breeds response-ability.

In politics… never retreat, never retract… never admit a mistake.

One of the disadvantages of wine is that it makes a man mistake words for thoughts.

I always want to listen to people and receive good criticism, but I just don’t have to answer to them; I have to answer to God.

Your success, or lack of success, is your responsibility. Even when you have a chain of command that you don’t like as well, its your responsibility to work with the up chain of command.

I’ve done a lot of things I’m not proud of, such as getting my girlfriend pregnant when I was 23 and the way I handled that.

Mistakes can be corrected by those who pay attention to facts but dogmatism will not be corrected by those who are wedded to a vision.

Woe to him that claims obedience when it is not due; woe to him that refuses it when it is.

Any action is often better than no action, especially if you have been stuck in an unhappy situation for a long time. If it is a mistake, at least you learn something, in which case it’s no longer a mistake. If you remain stuck, you learn nothing.

Mistakes are almost always of a sacred nature. Never try to correct them. On the contrary: rationalize them, understand them thoroughly. After that, it will be possible for you to sublimate them.

Remember upon the conduct of each depends the fate of all.

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

I tend to feel if people say they’re going to do something, they will, if given the chance.

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

I have many regrets, and I’m sure everyone does. The stupid things you do, you regret… if you have any sense, and if you don’t regret them, maybe you’re stupid.

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

America makes prodigious mistakes, America has colossal faults, but one thing cannot be denied: America is always on the move. She may be going to Hell, of course, but at least she isn’t standing still.

I believe – we all pay taxes. I’m happy to pay it, but I hate to have it abused, money wasted, no accountability. That’s going to bother you.

I brought myself down. I impeached myself by resigning.

When you campaign and have to participate in so many debates just to the win the nomination of your party, you’ve had a lot of practice. You get to figure out as you go from one debate to another where you made your mistakes. By the time you get to the big debate you’re pretty polished.

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.

Being willing to donate the taxpayers‘ money is not the same as being willing to put your own money where your mouth is.

You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something – your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.

Some old men, continually praise the time of their youth. In fact, you would almost think that there were no fools in their days, but unluckily they themselves are left as an example.

The buck stops here!

Whenever you do a thing, act as if all the world were watching.

One thing is certain in business. You and everyone around you will make mistakes.

I haven’t been faithful to my own advice in the past. I will in the future.

Yes, sir, no, sir, clock in, clock out. Why were you late? Why are you not in today? That’s not how humans are supposed to live.

Nothing stands out so conspicuously, or remains so firmly fixed in the memory, as something which you have blundered.

Understand, our police officers put their lives on the line for us every single day. They’ve got a tough job to do to maintain public safety and hold accountable those who break the law.

We should all be obliged to appear before a board every five years and justify our existence… on pain of liquidation.

There is no sin except stupidity.

A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new.

I didn’t want to submit to the army and then, on the day of judgment, have God say to me, ‚Why did you do that?‘ This life is a trial, and you realize that what you do is going to be written down for Judgment Day.

And oftentimes excusing of a fault doth make the fault the worse by the excuse.

If I’d written all the truth I knew for the past ten years, about 600 people – including me – would be rotting in prison cells from Rio to Seattle today. Absolute truth is a very rare and dangerous commodity in the context of professional journalism.

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.

Frankly, I think that the news industry is critically important because it points out things and surfaces truths that can often be uncomfortable. I think that that’s working, and the spotlight has been pointed on things that we have a responsibility to do better, and I accept that.

I suppose that’s one of the ironies of life doing the wrong thing at the right moment.