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

I can easily imagine Obama sitting down and talking to any leader – or any person – in the world, with no baggage of past servitude or race supremacy to mar their talks.

One must change one’s tactics every ten years if one wishes to maintain one’s superiority.

Should you find yourself in a chronically leaking boat, energy devoted to changing vessels is likely to be more productive than energy devoted to patching leaks.

You can live within the institutions and work hard to change them.

Things are more like they are now than they ever were before.

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.

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.

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.

The supreme quality for leadership is unquestionably integrity. Without it, no real success is possible, no matter whether it is on a section gang, a football field, in an army, or in an office.

The poor have sometimes objected to being governed badly; the rich have always objected to being governed at all.

I felt we must separate political responsibility. The Dalai Lama should not carry that burden. So that is my selfish reason – to protect the old Dalai Lama tradition. It is safer without political involvement.

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.

The biggest risk is not taking any risk… In a world that is changing really quickly, the only strategy that is guaranteed to fail is not taking risks.

No one person controls Microsoft. The board and the shareholders decide whether they want to have me as CEO.

So the bodhisattva saves all beings, not by preaching sermons to them, but by showing them that they are delivered, they are liberated, by the act of not being able to stop changing.

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!

If you don’t drive your business, you will be driven out of business.

I think that a president needs to have a variety of views presented. But also, there has to be a team effort, because otherwise, I think it creates a dissonance and difficulty.

The presidency has made every man who occupied it, no matter how small, bigger than he was; and no matter how big, not big enough for its demands.

The most successful politician is he who says what the people are thinking most often in the loudest voice.

Changing is not just changing the things outside of us. First of all we need the right view that transcends all notions including of being and non-being, creator and creature, mind and spirit. That kind of insight is crucial for transformation and healing.

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

Humility must always be the portion of any man who receives acclaim earned in the blood of his followers and the sacrifices of his friends.

I don’t think consensus-building politics is what I’m meant to be doing.

The public is not to see where power lies, how it shapes policy, and for what ends. Rather, people are to hate and fear one another.

God is cruel. Sometimes he makes you live.

By most accounts, Aristide is the most popular figure in Haiti.

He not busy being born is busy dying.

I just figured out that if I gave my all into this game – if I put everything into the fight business – then I would eventually run the fight business.

Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.

A politician needs the ability to foretell what is going to happen tomorrow, next week, next month, and next year. And to have the ability afterwards to explain why it didn’t happen.

I don’t care whether you’re driving a hybrid or an SUV. If you’re headed for a cliff, you have to change direction. That’s what the American people called for in November, and that’s what we intend to deliver.

When I was elected President nobody asked me to negotiate between Israel and Egypt. It was not even a question raised in my campaign. But I felt that one of the reasons that I was elected President was to try to bring peace to the Holy Land.

Things that I felt absolutely sure of but a few years ago, I do not believe now. This thought makes me see more clearly how foolish it would be to expect all men to agree with me.

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

The more responsibility the Scoutmaster gives his patrol leaders, the more they will respond.

I’ve been a mogul and executive since the beginning of my career. People are just born with that skill.

The President is not only the leader of a party, he is the President of the whole people. He must interpret the conscience of America. He must guide his conduct by the idealism of our people.

The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance.

Many years ago, I concluded that a few hair shirts were part of the mental wardrobe of every man. The president differs from other men in that he has a more extensive wardrobe.

Govern a great nation as you would cook a small fish. Do not overdo it.

The mob is the mother of tyrants.

The men who followed Him were unique in their generation. They turned the world upside down because their hearts had been turned right side up. The world has never been the same.

I had rather be first in a village than second at Rome.

You can’t have a relationship with a device whose limits are unknown to you, because without limits, it keeps becoming something else.

Remember that the essence of authority is that people willingly follow your lead.

Everything is changing. People are taking their comedians seriously and the politicians as a joke.

I don’t know the law, the kind of law of quantity and quality, but I think the opportunity of people being able to express themselves and to have the means of production is a great thing. It’s also changing how we’re telling stories.

We should learn to accept that change is truly the only thing that’s going on always, and learn to ride with it and enjoy it.

Ever since Israel has been a nation the United States has provided the leadership. Every president down to the ages has done this in a fairly balanced way, including George Bush senior, Gerald Ford, and others including myself and Bill Clinton.

I had the classic 40 meltdown. I did. It’s embarrassing. It was pretty funny. But then I recovered. To me, it was like a second adolescence. Hormonally, my body was changing, my mind was changing, and so my relationship to myself and the world around me came to this assault of finiteness.

Observe constantly that all things take place by change, and accustom thyself to consider that the nature of the Universe loves nothing so much as to change the things which are, and to make new things like them.

If you want to reach the top, don’t run over others. Likely, the only way you’ll reach the top is to be carried there by others.

Wise leaders generally have wise counselors because it takes a wise person themselves to distinguish them.

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

On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.

I’m not trying to get myself up a notch on the ladder by shoving somebody else down on the ladder, whether it’s a candidate or the president of the United States or anybody else. I just don’t believe that’s the way one oughta campaign, I’ve never done that.

The most practical kind of politics is the politics of decency.

A kingdom founded on injustice never lasts.

He that will not apply new remedies must expect new evils; for time is the greatest innovator.