A president has an inescapable responsibility to provide direction: What are we trying to achieve? What are we trying to prevent? Why? To do that, he has to both analyze and reflect.

Anything popular is populist, and populist is rarely a good adjective.

I’m the first to admit this whole salary thing is getting out of control. In the final analysis, it’s still about the work.

My first job in all honesty is going to continue to be mom-in-chief. Making sure that in this transition, which will be even more of a transition for the girls… that they are settled and that they know they will continue to be the center of our universe.

Soldiers generally win battles; generals get credit for them.

It is a characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things.

I never worry about action, but only inaction.

It is always your next move.

Basically, when you get to my age, you’ll really measure your success in life by how many of the people you want to have love you actually do love you.

We can’t allow the world’s worst leaders to blackmail, threaten, hold freedom-loving nations hostage with the world’s worst weapons.

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.

Without stirring abroad, One can know the whole world; Without looking out of the window One can see the way of heaven. The further one goes The less one knows.

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.

Probably the battle of Waterloo was won on the playing-fields of Eton, but the opening battles of all subsequent wars have been lost there.

One aspect of appellate judging is we have to give reasons for all of our decisions. And when you sit down and try to write it out, sometimes you find that your first judgment wasn’t the right one.

For those of you who do not know Him, choosing your eternal home is the most important decision you will ever make.

He who loves practice without theory is like the sailor who boards ship without a rudder and compass and never knows where he may cast.

Without a moral framework, there is nothing left but immediate self-indulgence by some and the path of least resistance by others. Neither can sustain a free society.

My personal telephone book is a book of the dead now. I’m so old. Almost all of my friends have died, and I don’t have the guts to take their names out of the book.

Seriousness is the only refuge of the shallow.

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.

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

Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.

Quitting is the easiest thing to do.

Americans are rising to the tasks of history, and they expect the same of us.

Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.

Adopt responsibility for your own well-being, try to put your family together, try to serve your community, try to seek for eternal truth… That’s the sort of thing that can ground you in your life, enough so that you can withstand the difficulty of life.

And it comes from saying no to 1,000 things to make sure we don’t get on the wrong track or try to do too much. We’re always thinking about new markets we could enter, but it’s only by saying no that you can concentrate on the things that are really important.

I had very good support from Democrats and Republicans all throughout my administration. I had a very high batting average. We added more jobs per year in my four years than any other president since the Second World War.

There are hunters, and there are victims. By your discipline, cunning, obedience, and alertness, you will decide if you are a hunter or a victim.

My observation is that whenever one person is found adequate to the discharge of a duty… it is worse executed by two persons, and scarcely done at all if three or more are employed therein.

If you ask the CEO of some major corporation what he does, he will say, in all honesty, that he is slaving 20 hours a day to provide his customers with the best goods or services he can and creating the best possible working conditions for his employees.

No duty the Executive had to perform was so trying as to put the right man in the right place.

I never resist temptation, because I have found that things that are bad for me do not tempt me.

After you finish a book, you know, you’re dead. But no one knows you’re dead. All they see is the irresponsibility that comes in after the terrible responsibility of writing.

What I can say is that all my characters are searching for their souls, because they are my mirrors. I’m someone who is constantly trying to understand my place in the world, and literature is the best way that I found in order to see myself.

By the sole fact of his entering into ‚Thought,‘ man represents something entirely singular and absolutely unique in the field of our experience. On a single planet, there could not be more than one centre of emergence for reflexion.

The minute you got the Nobel Peace Prize, things that I said yesterday, with nobody paying too much attention, I say the same things after I got it – oh! It was quite crucial for people, and it helped our morale because apartheid did look invincible.

Who would ever think that so much went on in the soul of a young girl?

The best leaders are readers of people. They have the intuitive ability to understand others by discerning how they feel and recognizing what they sense.

What a waste it is to lose one’s mind. Or not to have a mind is being very wasteful. How true that is.

If I think too hard about a relationship, I’ll talk myself out of it.

We only consult the ear because the heart is wanting.

The universe is change; our life is what our thoughts make it.

It was one of those evenings when men feel that truth, goodness and beauty are one. In the morning, when they commit their discovery to paper, when others read it written there, it looks wholly ridiculous.

I am still far from being what I want to be, but with God’s help I shall succeed.

In my country we go to prison first and then become President.

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 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.

There is no gambling like politics.

Culture: the cry of men in face of their destiny.

In no instance have… the churches been guardians of the liberties of the people.

For Forms of Government let fools contest; whatever is best administered is best.

You do the policy, I’ll do the politics.

If you spend too much time thinking about a thing, you’ll never get it done.

When I had to make a decision whether or not an activity was appropriate for the Sabbath, I simply asked myself, ‚What sign do I want to give to God?‘ That question made my choices about the Sabbath day crystal clear.

As abhorrent as some of this content can be, I do think that it gets down to this principle of giving people a voice.

It is true that going out on to the street implies the risk of accidents happening, as they would to any ordinary man or woman. But if the church stays wrapped up in itself, it will age. And if I had to choose between a wounded church that goes out on to the streets and a sick, withdrawn church, I would definitely choose the first one.

I would be stupid not to be on my own side. But I’m a human being, too. And I’m on the side of human beings, rather than on the side of crocodiles.

No memory of having starred atones for later disregard, or keeps the end from being hard.

Instead of being critical of people in authority over you and envious of their position, be happy you’re not responsible for everything they have to do. Instead of piling on complaints, thank them for what they do. Overwhelm them with encouragement and appreciation!