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

You know, one of the things I think you understand as president is you’re held responsible for everything, but you don’t always have control of everything, right?

The people of the world genuinely want peace. Some day the leaders of the world are going to have to give in and give it to them.

I can tell you this: If I’m ever in a position to call the shots, I’m not going to rush to send somebody else’s kids into a war.

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.

We must have government that builds stamina into communities and men. That makes men instead of mendicants.

Governments need to have both shepherds and butchers.

I am sometimes a fox and sometimes a lion. The whole secret of government lies in knowing when to be the one or the other.

I believe in a president whose religious views are his own private affair, neither imposed by him upon the nation or imposed by the nation upon him as a condition to holding that office.

Doing nothing while the middle class is hurting. That’s not leadership. Loose regulations and lax enforcement. That’s not leadership. That’s abandoning our middle class.

First, how do we give everyone a fair shot at opportunity and security in this new economy? Second, how do we make technology work for us, and not against us – especially when it comes to solving urgent challenges like climate change? Third, how do we keep America safe and lead the world without becoming its policeman?

But I do not believe that the world would be entirely different if there were more women leaders. Maybe if everybody in leadership was a woman, you might not get into the conflicts in the first place. But if you watch the women who have made it to the top, they haven’t exactly been non-aggressive – including me.

He who has great power should use it lightly.

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

I have no ambition to govern men; it is a painful and thankless office.

I believe God wants you to have money to pay your bills, send your kids to college and do charity work and build orphanages. There’s the teaching that we’re supposed to be poor to show that we’re humble. I don’t buy that. I think we’re supposed to be leaders. We’re supposed to excel.

By improving health, empowering women, population growth comes down.

Politics is not bean bags. It’s serious, tough stuff.

As president, I’m committed to making Washington work better and rebuilding the trust of the people who sent us here.

If the American people don’t love me, their descendants will.

In order to govern, the question is not to follow out a more or less valid theory but to build with whatever materials are at hand. The inevitable must be accepted and turned to advantage.

Effective leadership is putting first things first. Effective management is discipline, carrying it out.

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

In business, if you realize you’ve made a bad decision, you change it.

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.

Innovation has nothing to do with how many R & D dollars you have. When Apple came up with the Mac, IBM was spending at least 100 times more on R & D. It’s not about money. It’s about the people you have, how you’re led, and how much you get it.

When it comes to the qualifications that we should demand of our president, to start with, we need someone who will take the job seriously.

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.

Some day I shall be President.

The attempt to combine wisdom and power has only rarely been successful and then only for a short while.

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.

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.

As his vice president for eight years, I learned more from Ronald Reagan than from anyone I encountered in all my years of public life.

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

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

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

If I made a commitment, I stood by that commitment – and try to make it real. Because when you become leaders, the most important thing you have is your word, your trust. That’s where respect comes from.

The true history of my administration will be written 50 years from now, and you and I will not be around to see it.

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

We have to work harder to develop a profound theology of women within the church. The feminine genius is needed wherever we make important decisions.

Everywhere I go I find that people… both leaders and individuals… are asking one basic question, ‚Is there any hope for the future?‘ My answer is the same, ‚Yes, through Jesus Christ.‘

High office teaches decision making, not substance. It consumes intellectual capital; it does not create it. Most high officials leave office with the perceptions and insights with which they entered; they learn how to make decisions but not what decisions to make.

Too often the great decisions are originated and given form in bodies made up wholly of men, or so completely dominated by them that whatever of special value women have to offer is shunted aside without expression.

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

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.

When a team takes ownership of its problems, the problem gets solved. It is true on the battlefield, it is true in business, and it is true in life.

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.

One word sums up probably the responsibility of any vice-president, and that one word is ‚to be prepared‘.

You want me to own a team and deal with these rich, spoiled stubborn athletes, and try to get them to perform? No thank you.

It’d be stupid for me to sit here and say that there aren’t kids who look up to me, but my responsibility is not to them. I’m not a baby sitter.

How do leaders serve their people? They may pay good wages and treat employees with respect.

A good head and a good heart are always a formidable combination.

I separated from the Southern Baptists when they adopted the discriminatory attitude towards women, because I believe what Paul taught in Galatians that there is no distinction in God’s eyes between men and women, slaves and masters, Jews and non-Jews – everybody is created equally in the eyes of God.

The task of the leader is to get his people from where they are to where they have not been.

Fellow citizens, we cannot escape history. We, of this Congress and this administration, will be remembered in spite of ourselves. No personal significance, or insignificance, can spare one or another of us. The fiery trial through which we pass will light us down in honor or dishonor, to the latest generation.

I must follow the people. Am I not their leader?

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.‘

I have always been grateful to Colonel Longley. He proved to me that when people in authority take a stand, good can come out of it.

It’s amazing, the culture Coach Belichick has been able to create in our system.

Sadly, the truth is, there aren’t many people who can be put in high positions who won’t start thinking highly of themselves.

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.