Groups that rose from poverty to prosperity seldom did so by having their own racial or ethnic leaders to follow.

And I will do everything that I can as long as I am President of the United States to remind the American people that we are one nation under God, and we may call that God different names but we remain one nation.

We were poor, but we smiled.

Remember that the essence of authority is that people willingly follow your lead.

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

When you are winning a war almost everything that happens can be claimed to be right and wise.

People buy into the leader before they buy into the vision.

Weak minds sink under prosperity as well as adversity; but strong and deep ones have two high tides.

Great things in business are never done by one person. They’re done by a team of people.

I think our politicians could learn a lot from Mandela.

Certainly in the next 50 years we shall see a woman president, perhaps sooner than you think. A woman can and should be able to do any political job that a man can do.

To be good is noble; but to show others how to be good is nobler and no trouble.

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

You can choose a future where more Americans have the chance to gain the skills they need to compete, no matter how old they are or how much money they have. Education was the gateway to opportunity for me. It was the gateway for Michelle. And now more than ever, it is the gateway to a middle-class life.

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.

I once told Nixon that the Presidency is like being a jackass caught in a hail storm. You’ve got to just stand there and take it.

He who wishes to be obeyed must know how to command.

Only the guy who isn’t rowing has time to rock the boat.

It constitutes a superhuman effort to lead any people in times of crisis. Without them, the changes would be impossible.

When the tyrant has disposed of foreign enemies by conquest or treaty, and there is nothing more to fear from them, then he is always stirring up some war or other, in order that the people may require a leader.

I often say of George Washington that he was one of the few in the whole history of the world who was not carried away by power.

If investments in banks fall, it is a tragedy, and people say, ‚What are we going to do?‘ but if people die of hunger, have nothing to eat or suffer from poor health, that’s nothing.

To me, a leader is someone who holds her- or himself accountable for finding potential in people and processes. And so what I think is really important is sustainability.

Being the boss anywhere is lonely. Being a female boss in a world of mostly men is especially so.

Those who can win a war well can rarely make a good peace and those who could make a good peace would never have won the war.

Capitalism does not permit an even flow of economic resources. With this system, a small privileged few are rich beyond conscience, and almost all others are doomed to be poor at some level. That’s the way the system works. And since we know that the system will not change the rules, we are going to have to change the system.

Leadership to me means duty, honor, country. It means character, and it means listening from time to time.

Science is the captain, and practice the soldiers.

Wars of nations are fought to change maps. But wars of poverty are fought to map change.

You can play fast but not in a hurry. As a point guard, I can dictate that.

No man will ever carry out of the Presidency the reputation which carried him into it.

Practice Golden-Rule 1 of Management in everything you do. Manage others the way you would like to be managed.

Who, being loved, is poor?

Whereas it has long been known and declared that the poor have no right to the property of the rich, I wish it also to be known and declared that the rich have no right to the property of the poor.

I believe in Coach Louis Wong. He is so much more than just a football coach.

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

You’re president, if you conclude my judgment is not the right judgment, I abide by that, but I want an opportunity to have an input.

Loneliness and the feeling of being unwanted is the most terrible poverty.

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.

The things that will destroy America are prosperity-at-any-price, peace-at-any-price, safety-first instead of duty-first, the love of soft living, and the get-rich-quick theory of life.

I can die a happy man never having been president of the United States of America. But it doesn’t mean I won’t run.

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.

All of us are mentors. You’re mentors right here and now. And one of the things I’ve always done throughout my life, I have always found that person, that group of people that I was going to reach my hand out and help bring them along with me.

The high destiny of the individual is to serve rather than to rule.

Anywhere in Latin America there is a potential threat of the pathology of caudillismo and it has to be guarded against.

Founding a company is hard. Most of it isn’t smooth. You’ll have to make very hard decisions. You have to fire a few people. Therefore, if you don’t believe in your mission, giving up is easy. The majority of founders give up. But the best founders don’t give up.

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.

Being a good listener is absolutely critical to being a good leader; you have to listen to the people who are on the front line.

If one has the answers to all the questions – that is the proof that God is not with him. It means that he is a false prophet using religion for himself. The great leaders of the people of God, like Moses, have always left room for doubt. You must leave room for the Lord, not for our certainties; we must be humble.

I worked my way up from nothing to a state of extreme poverty.

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

When you are president, being able to clearly articulate detailed plans to help the people of this country is a good thing. Knowing what you’re doing is a good thing. And let me tell you, Hillary Clinton absolutely knows what she’s doing.

Poverty breeds despair. We know this. Despair breeds violence. We know this. In turbulent times, isn’t it cheaper, and smarter, to make friends out of potential enemies than to defend yourself against them later?

When you have an efficient government, you have a dictatorship.

I see drawings and pictures in the poorest of huts and the dirtiest of corners.

By most accounts, Aristide is the most popular figure in Haiti.

If you go back to 1800, everybody was poor. I mean everybody. The Industrial Revolution kicked in, and a lot of countries benefited, but by no means everyone.

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

In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage.

Unless a president can protect the privacy of the advice he gets, he cannot get the advice he needs.

Putin goes to bed at night knowing he can break all the rules, and the West will follow all the rules.