Any woman who understands the problems of running a home will be nearer to understanding the problems of running a country.

I’ve seen how the issues that come across a president’s desk are always the hard ones – the problems where no amount of data or numbers will get you to the right answer.

Women may fall when there’s no strength in men.

There’s a lack of people in power that are motivated by the idea of helping people.

They are resilient children, but they are children, and as much as they need help to understand the hard truths in life, they also need what we all need – protection and love.

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.

I think my message to the politicians who have within their power the ability to make change is, ‚Do you really, really not care about the future of your great-grandchildren? Because if we let the world continue to be destroyed the way we are now, what’s the world going to be like for your great-grandchildren?‘

Cruel leaders are replaced only to have new leaders turn cruel.

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

God has cared for these trees, saved them from drought, disease, avalanches, and a thousand tempests and floods. But he cannot save them from fools.

Some people will never learn anything, for this reason, because they understand everything too soon.

No one ever teaches well who wants to teach, or governs well who wants to govern.

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 you get to be President, there are all those things, the honors, the twenty-one gun salutes, all those things. You have to remember it isn’t for you. It’s for the Presidency.

The place of justice is a hallowed place.

No, we don’t own our children. Our parental privilege is to love them, to lead them, and to let them go.

I don’t have a problem with Hulk Hogan. People say things and do things, and who am I to judge?

Although the circumstances of our lives may seem very disengaged, with me standing here as the First Lady of the United States of America and you just getting through school, I want you to know we have very much in common. For nothing in my life ever would have predicted that I would be standing here as the first African-American First Lady.

The ideals and principles for which Dr King fought have never been forgotten and are as relevant today as they were 40 years ago.

Listen with your eyes for feelings.

You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today.

I would feel no hesitation in saying that it is the responsibility of a decent human being to give assistance to a child who is being attacked by a rabid dog, but I would not intend this to imply that in all imaginable circumstances one must, necessarily, act in accordance with this general responsibility.

If you are a parent, you have probably already realized that your children are always watching what you do. And just as children watch their parents and emulate their behavior, so do employees who are watching their bosses.

When it comes to the health of our families, Barack refused to listen to all those folks who told him to leave health reform for another day, another president. He didn’t care whether it was the easy thing to do politically – that’s not how he was raised – he cared that it was the right thing to do.

Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it.

Dictators free themselves, but they enslave the people.

Whoever won’t fight when the President calls him, deserves to be kicked back in his hole and kept there.

Love has reasons which reason cannot understand.

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’m for women choosing whatever they want to do but they have to really know what they are doing.

To govern means to pillage, as everyone knows.

Ultimately, a real understanding of history means that we face nothing new under the sun.

The first method for estimating the intelligence of a ruler is to look at the men he has around him.

Great leaders are almost always great simplifiers, who can cut through argument, debate and doubt, to offer a solution everybody can understand.

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.

Except for the title ‚father,‘ there is no title, including ‚vice president,‘ that I am more proud to wear than that of United States senator.

Gays are some of the nicest, kindest, most loving people in the world.

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

Let there be work, bread, water and salt for all.

The finest works of art are precious, among other reasons, because they make it possible for us to know, if only imperfectly and for a little while, what it actually feels like to think subtly and feel nobly.

We herd sheep, we drive cattle, we lead people. Lead me, follow me, or get out of my way.

It’s presumptuous to say you know how somebody feels.

A wise ruler ought never to keep faith when by doing so it would be against his interests.

In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free – honorable alike in that we give and what we preserve. We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best hope of earth.

We should understand the source of our authority and something of the keys that control its power.

Poverty must not be a bar to learning and learning must offer an escape from poverty.

In the white community, the path to a more perfect union means acknowledging that what ails the African-American community does not just exist in the minds of black people; that the legacy of discrimination – and current incidents of discrimination, while less overt than in the past – are real and must be addressed.

He has committed the crime who profits by it.

As president, you can get all kinds of advice from all kinds of people. But at the end of the day, when it comes time to make that decision, as president, all you have to guide you are your values and your vision and the life experiences that make you who you are.

What Britain needs is an iron lady.

The most important thing for a director is being able to communicate.

If you hate a person, you hate something in him that is part of yourself. What isn’t part of ourselves doesn’t disturb us.

We really have to understand the person we want to love. If our love is only a will to possess, it is not love. If we only think of ourselves, if we know only our own needs and ignore the needs of the other person, we cannot love.

Even if it turns out that time travel is impossible, it is important that we understand why it is impossible.

At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.

You have to see and smell and feel the circumstances of people to really understand them.

An enemy generally says and believes what he wishes.

The right of every American to first-class citizenship is the most important issue of our time.

No greater injury can be done to any youth than to let him feel that because he belongs to this or that race he will be advanced in life regardless of his own merits or efforts.

I am a writer of books in retrospect. I talk in order to understand; I teach in order to learn.

Initiative is doing the right things without being told.