America’s promises do not come with a price tag. We meet our commitments. We bear our burdens. That’s one of the reasons why almost every country on Earth sees America as stronger and more respected today than they did eight years ago when I took office.

A leader is a dealer in hope.

A gentleman is one who never hurts anyone’s feelings unintentionally.

Kings are not born: they are made by artificial hallucination.

Since I have come to America, I am often asked whether my next novel will be set in America. I don’t think it will. I think I will be living in America for some time to come, but while living in America, I would like to write about Japanese society from the outside.

Leadership is a choice, not a position.

Russia isn’t going to start a war. They can’t afford it. I think Mr. Putin can be dealt with if we stop screaming at him. You can work with the guy. You just have to know who he is.

When I took over as president, I studied the Constitution, and the more I studied it, the more I realised that it does not prevent the president of India from giving the nation a vision. So when I went and presented this vision in Parliament and in legislative assemblies; everyone welcomed it, irrespective of party affiliations.

I do believe in the old saying, ‚What does not kill you makes you stronger.‘ Our experiences, good and bad, make us who we are. By overcoming difficulties, we gain strength and maturity.

The Bush Administration’s failure to be consistently involved in helping Israel achieve peace with the Palestinians has been both wrong for our friendship with Israel, as well as badly damaging to our standing in the Arab world.

In the brute physical world, and the one encompassed by medicine, there are all too many things that could kill you, don’t kill you, and then leave you considerably weaker.

Free nations are peaceful nations. Free nations don’t attack each other. Free nations don’t develop weapons of mass destruction.

Education is the best friend. An educated person is respected everywhere. Education beats the beauty and the youth.

Always make those above you feel comfortably superior. In your desire to please or impress them, do not go too far in displaying your talents or you might accomplish the opposite – inspire fear and insecurity.

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

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.‘

Management is efficiency in climbing the ladder of success; leadership determines whether the ladder is leaning against the right wall.

Saudi Arabia has allowed training on its soil of American forces.

The United States supports a strong, united Ukraine with productive and peaceful relationships with both the East and the West, with both Russia and Europe.

To be one, to be united is a great thing. But to respect the right to be different is maybe even greater.

Authority poisons everybody who takes authority on himself.

I have never been bewildered for long in any fight with our enemies – I was Armed with Insight.

Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul.

A good indignation brings out all one’s powers.

Science is the captain, and practice the soldiers.

The beautiful seems right by force of beauty, and the feeble wrong because of weakness.

Shallow men believe in luck. Strong men believe in cause and effect.

My dream is of a place and a time where America will once again be seen as the last best hope of earth.

I have seen how leaders rule by intimidation. Leaders who demonize and dehumanize entire groups of people often do so because they have nothing else to offer. And I have seen how places that stifle the voices and dismiss the potential of their citizens are diminished: how they are less vital, less hopeful, less free.

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.

The world is weary of statesmen whom democracy has degraded into politicians.

Clever tyrants are never punished.

My authoritarian and quick manner of making decisions led me to have serious problems and to be accused of being ultraconservative. I have never been a right-winger. It was my authoritarian way of making decisions that created problems.

The measure of a man is what he does with power.

If a leader doesn’t convey passion and intensity then there will be no passion and intensity within the organization and they’ll start to fall down and get depressed.

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

If you are a leader, you should never forget that everyone needs encouragement. And everyone who receives it – young or old, successful or less-than-successful, unknown or famous – is changed by it.

Strength and compassion are not mutually exclusive.

God is not on the side of the big battalions, but on the side of those who shoot best.

Against the assault of laughter, nothing can stand.

You have power over your mind – not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.

The truth of the matter is that Iran is a cancer.

I don’t think I’m supposed to boss other people around just because I’m a so-called celebrity or star. I hate that when people act that way. No one deserves it. I’ve seen it happen. I don’t call those people out – they know who they are. Some enjoy that reputation.

And I love that even in the toughest moments, when we’re all sweating it – when we’re worried that the bill won’t pass, and it seems like all is lost – Barack never lets himself get distracted by the chatter and the noise. Just like his grandmother, he just keeps getting up and moving forward… with patience and wisdom, and courage and grace.

I’m going to be so much better a president for having been at the CIA that you’re not going to believe it.

Of the four wars in my lifetime, none came about because the U.S. was too strong.

Can anything be stupider than that a man has the right to kill me because he lives on the other side of a river and his ruler has a quarrel with mine, though I have not quarrelled with him?

America’s commitment to collective defense under Article 5 of NATO is a sacred obligation in our view – a sacred obligation not just for now, but for all time.

We also can’t try to take over and rebuild every country that falls into crisis. That’s not leadership; that’s a recipe for quagmire, spilling American blood and treasure that ultimately weakens us. It’s the lesson of Vietnam, of Iraq – and we should have learned it by now.

When I checked into SEAL Team One many years ago, one of the things that I noticed was there was this old guy, who was younger than I am today, who I decided that I was going to be like. I wanted to emulate what he was doing, and one of those things was he got to work before anybody else.

Whatever America hopes to bring to pass in the world must first come to pass in the heart of America.

Good executives never put off until tomorrow what they can get someone else to do today.

To all the positions, I just bring the determination to win. Me being an unselfish player, I think that can carry on to my teammates. When you have one of the best players on the court being unselfish, I think that transfers to the other players.

I love those who can smile in trouble, who can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection. ‚Tis the business of little minds to shrink, but they whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves their conduct, will pursue their principles unto death.

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

Among physicists, I’m respected I hope.

What Washington needs is adult supervision.

The only definition by which America’s best days are behind it is on a purely relative basis.

Unless and until you inspire the people, you will not get results. Imposition will never give you the results. Inspiration will always give you the results.

Do not impose on others what you yourself do not desire.

In order to acquire a growing and lasting respect in society, it is a good thing, if you possess great talent, to give, early in your youth, a very hard kick to the right shin of the society that you love. After that, be a snob.