Character is like a tree and reputation like a shadow. The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing.

Reputation is the cornerstone of power. Through reputation alone you can intimidate and win; once it slips, however, you are vulnerable, and will be attacked on all sides. Make your reputation unassailable.

What my character is or how many jails I have lounged in, or wards or walls or wassails, how many lonely-heart poetry readings I have dodged, is beside the point. A man’s soul or lack of it will be evident with what he can carve upon a white sheet of paper.

There is a difference between happiness and wisdom: he that thinks himself the happiest man is really so; but he that thinks himself the wisest is generally the greatest fool.

Create a ladder of values and priorities in your life, reminding yourself of what really matters to you.

I don’t like that man. I must get to know him better.

The greatness of a man is not in how much wealth he acquires, but in his integrity and his ability to affect those around him positively.

If one has a good disposition, what other virtue is needed? If a man has fame, what is the value of other ornamentation?

Bondage is the life of personality, and for bondage the personal self will fight with tireless resourcefulness and the most stubborn cunning.

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.

Good governance with good intentions is the hallmark of our government. Implementation with integrity is our core passion.

There’s no reality except the one contained within us. That’s why so many people live an unreal life. They take images outside them for reality and never allow the world within them to assert itself.

The spirit of man is more important than mere physical strength, and the spiritual fiber of a nation than its wealth.

Just as your car runs more smoothly and requires less energy to go faster and farther when the wheels are in perfect alignment, you perform better when your thoughts, feelings, emotions, goals, and values are in balance.

If we don’t believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don’t believe in it at all.

Time, which alone makes the reputation of men, ends by making their defects respectable.

The distinction between the past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.

Were it not for imagination a man would be as happy in arms of a chambermaid as of a duchess.

Everybody looks like clones and the only people you notice are my age. I don’t notice anybody unless they look great, and every now and again they do, and they are usually 70.

At ev’ry word a reputation dies.

A man without ethics is a wild beast loosed upon this world.

The pressure on young chefs today is far greater than ever before in terms of social skills, marketing skills, cooking skills, personality and, more importantly, delivering on the plate. So you need to be strong. Physically fit. So my chefs get weighed every time they come into the kitchen.

I have only one yardstick by which I test every major problem – and that yardstick is: Is it good for America?

The man who promises everything is sure to fulfil nothing, and everyone who promises too much is in danger of using evil means in order to carry out his promises, and is already on the road to perdition.

Hollywood is a place where they’ll pay you a thousand dollars for a kiss and fifty cents for your soul.

How sweet is the perception of a new natural fact!

To be in love is merely to be in a state of perceptual anesthesia – to mistake an ordinary young woman for a goddess.

In Italy they take cheap cloth and make it look expensive, but I take expensive cloth and make it look cheap. They just don’t understand.

I follow three rules: Do the right thing, do the best you can, and always show people you care.

Personality is an unbroken series of successful gestures.

Sometimes we be playing the politics too much and forget who we are just to win.

My father used to have an expression. He’d say, ‚Joey, a job is about a lot more than a paycheck. It’s about your dignity. It’s about respect. It’s about your place in your community.‘

In football, it’s the job of the player to play, the coach to coach, the official to officiate. Each guy is charged with upholding his end, nothing more. In golf, the player, coach and official are rolled into one, and they overlap completely. Golf really is the best microcosm of life – or at least the way life should be.

The difference between false memories and true ones is the same as for jewels: it is always the false ones that look the most real, the most brilliant.

Knowledge will give you power, but character respect.

Public behavior is merely private character writ large.

My aim is to make the poor look rich and the rich look poor.

It takes a smart man to play dumb.

The United States and our allies are determined: we refuse to live in the shadow of this ultimate danger.

Journalism is popular, but it is popular mainly as fiction. Life is one world, and life seen in the newspapers is another.

The strength of a nation derives from the integrity of the home.

The truth is, hardly any of us have ethical energy enough for more than one really inflexible point of honor.

The more people rationalize cheating, the more it becomes a culture of dishonesty. And that can become a vicious, downward cycle. Because suddenly, if everyone else is cheating, you feel a need to cheat, too.

Fiction is like a spider’s web, attached ever so slightly perhaps, but still attached to life at all four corners. Often the attachment is scarcely perceptible.

If a work of art is rich and vital and complete, those who have artistic instincts will see its beauty, and those to whom ethics appeal more strongly than aesthetics will see its moral lesson. It will fill the cowardly with terror, and the unclean will see in it their own shame.

Death is no more than passing from one room into another. But there’s a difference for me, you know. Because in that other room I shall be able to see.

Not everyone can see the truth, but he can be it.

It’s better to be good than evil, but one achieves goodness at a terrific cost.

It all depends on how we look at things, and not how they are in themselves.

Keep your face to the sunshine and you cannot see a shadow.

It’s not about charisma and personality, it’s about results and products and those very bedrock things that are why people at Apple and outside of Apple are getting more excited about the company and what Apple stands for and what its potential is to contribute to the industry.

I’m not really concerned with portraying this tough warrior – I mean, that’s part of my job and I take that very seriously. But I don’t have anything to hide, and I’m not concerned with what people think.

You can’t reverse fame. You can lose all the money, but you’ll never lose people knowing you.

There are more things to alarm us than to harm us, and we suffer more often in apprehension than reality.

I think there are a whole host of things that are civil rights, and then there are other things – such as traditional marriage – that, I think, express a community’s concern and regard for a particular institution.

One of the great strengths of the United States is… we have a very large Christian population – we do not consider ourselves a Christian nation or a Jewish nation or a Muslim nation. We consider ourselves a nation of citizens who are bound by ideals and a set of values.

‚Tis strange what a man may do, and a woman yet think him an angel.

It is not fair to ask of others what you are not willing to do yourself.

When I was a kid, I never did funny things to get attention. I was never a funny person. I was never, like, ‚Oh, wow. I could say this some day on stage.‘

A man’s manners are a mirror in which he shows his portrait.

My idea of an agreeable person is a person who agrees with me.