There are some women I definitely would not want to succeed me… but a man like David Souter, that would be great.

The best government is that which teaches us to govern ourselves.

I’m responsible for starting a whole new school of pretension.

Leadership is influence.

Men and women do think differently, and frankly, we don’t understand each other. Not at all! But that’s what makes relationships so amazing.

I will only hire someone to work directly for me if I would work for that person. It’s a pretty good test.

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.

The woman who is known only through a man is known wrong.

What I admire most about Hillary is that she never buckles under pressure. She never takes the easy way out. And Hillary Clinton has never quit on anything in her life.

I want a president with a record of public service, someone whose life’s work shows our children that we don’t chase fame and fortune for ourselves: we fight to give everyone a chance to succeed.

The way people look at me these days – that’s the same way I looked at President Obama before I met him. We tend to forget that people who’ve attained a certain position are human.

Women are made to be loved, not understood.

A hero is born among a hundred, a wise man is found among a thousand, but an accomplished one might not be found even among a hundred thousand men.

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

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.

All the president is, is a glorified public relations man who spends his time flattering, kissing, and kicking people to get them to do what they are supposed to do anyway.

Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then be trusted with the government of others? Or have we found angels in the form of kings to govern him? Let history answer this question.

Sometimes the hardest thing to do is to trust your team. It’s a lesson I’ve had to relearn quite a few times.

The idea that women were oppressed throughout history is an appalling theory.

The more responsibility the Scoutmaster gives his patrol leaders, the more they will respond.

I don’t think I would run for president.

One of my direct subordinates, one of my guys that worked for me, he would call me up or pull me aside with some major problem, some issue that was going on. And he’d say, ‚Boss, we’ve got this, and that, and the other thing.‘ And I’d look at him and I’d say, ‚Good.‘

Every first-term president has to learn something after he comes into office. Nobody can be completely ready for the inevitable crises.

In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place, oblige it to control itself.

Some years ago I became president of Columbia University and learned within 24 hours to be ready to speak at the drop of a hat, and I learned something more, the trustees were expected to be ready to speak at the passing of the hat.

I think there’s more women that watch me than men, but I don’t look at myself as just a minister to women. My ministry began that way, but I really feel like the Word of God is for everybody.

One must steer, not talk.

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

In politics nothing is contemptible.

I have said this many times, that there seems to be enough room in the world for mediocre men, but not for mediocre women, and we really have to work very, very hard.

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.

So people are talking about revolution. What a revolution it would be to have a woman president.

Women fight for democracy and engage in the world. But they shouldn’t try and be copying men and be masculine; they should anchor on the home and build on those fundamentals.

Woman was God’s second mistake.

People make a big fuss over you when you’re President. But I’m very serious about doing everything I can to make sure that it doesn’t go to my head.

It is wise to persuade people to do things and make them think it was their own idea.

I’ve never been a feminist.

Leadership is solving problems. The day soldiers stop bringing you their problems is the day you have stopped leading them. They have either lost confidence that you can help or concluded you do not care. Either case is a failure of leadership.

We must think and act like a nation of a billion people and not like that of a million people. Dream, dream, dream!

Being president isn’t anything like reality TV. It’s not about sending insulting tweets or making fiery speeches; it’s about whether or not the candidate can handle the awesome responsibility of leading this country.

What matters in the Sun-tzu universe are not positions of strength and power, but situations in which you have options, full of potential force.

Clever and attractive women do not want to vote; they are willing to let men govern as long as they govern men.

Steve Jobs‘ ability to focus in on a few things that count, get people who get user interface right, and market things as revolutionary are amazing things.

Plain women know more about men than beautiful women do.

Before we acquire great power we must acquire wisdom to use it well.

I was tremendously fortunate to be alive and a lawyer, working at a university so I had more flexible hours, when the women’s movement was coming alive and when it became possible to argue successfully for a view of the equal protection clause that included women.

If you don’t drive your business, you will be driven out of business.

One civilization after another has been wrecked upon the attempt to secure sufficient leadership from a single group or class.

If women believed in their husbands they would be a good deal happier and also a good deal more foolish.

I think women go crazy for a reason. It’s not like it just happens.

If you want to reach the top, don’t run over others. Likely, the only way you’ll reach the top is to be carried there by others.

Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton both had exceptional natural abilities. Nelson Rockefeller was very good statewide but never gained national traction.

All the reasonings of men are not worth one sentiment of women.

Politics is not a game. It is an earnest business.

The colonel replied that he didn’t care how my men had got the job done. He was happy that it had been accomplished. He said that, obviously, no matter how much or how little I knew technically, I was able to get the best out of people I worked with.

A leader who confines his role to his people’s experience dooms himself to stagnation; a leader who outstrips his people’s experience runs the risk of not being understood.

You must capture and keep the heart of the original and supremely able man before his brain can do its best.

Men have a much better time of it than women. For one thing, they marry later; for another thing, they die earlier.

Fashion is always of the time in which you live. It is not something standing alone. But the grand problem, the most important problem, is to rejeuvenate women. To make women look young. Then their outlook changes. They feel more joyous.

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.

A director makes 100 decisions an hour. Students ask me how you know how to make the right decision, and I say to them, ‚If you don’t know how to make the right decision, you’re not a director.‘