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

Founding a company is hard. Most of it isn’t smooth. You’ll have to make very hard decisions. You have to fire a few people. Therefore, if you don’t believe in your mission, giving up is easy. The majority of founders give up. But the best founders don’t give up.

As commanders and staff officers, we are coaches and sentries for our units: how can we coach anything if we don’t know a hell of a lot more than just the TTPs?

Even if the politics needed doesn’t exist today, we still need to use our voices to make sure that the people in power are focused on the right things. Because this is a democracy, and in a democracy, people are the ones who run the country.

War should be the only study of a prince. He should consider peace only as a breathing-time, which gives him leisure to contrive, and furnishes as ability to execute, military plans.

The last thing I wanted to do was to be a wartime President.

The most fundamental fact about the ideas of the political left is that they do not work. Therefore we should not be surprised to find the left concentrated in institutions where ideas do not have to work in order to survive.

To be good is noble; but to show others how to be good is nobler and no trouble.

In the successful organization, no detail is too small to escape close attention.

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.

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

Political courage is not political suicide.

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.

Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans – born in this century, tempered by war, disciplined by a hard and bitter peace.

My celebrity status allows me an opportunity, allows me a pulpit to preach and reach out to the people. Not even always preaching but just leading, motivating them by being a leader.

In every walk of life, you must have leaders. An education in the spiritual world, in the labor field, in the agricultural field, we must have leaders.

The government’s job is good governance for everybody. My government will make policies; if you fit into it, come on board, or stay where you are. My job is not to spoon-feed anyone.

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 Creator has not thought proper to mark those in the forehead who are of stuff to make good generals. We are first, therefore, to seek them blindfold, and then let them learn the trade at the expense of great losses.

I am confident that when the facts and policies have been examined, when the record of performances have been reviewed, Barack Obama and Joe Biden will once again be elected to lead our beloved country to a better future.

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 myself would like to become more disciplined within my work.

Back in the day, what motivated me was overcoming myself. Now I believe in being a leader. I’ve done it all – I’m good. Now, it’s about setting an example for others to follow. I can’t just talk it – I have to live it.

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.

Talent without discipline is like an octopus on roller skates. There’s plenty of movement, but you never know if it’s going to be forward, backwards, or sideways.

I would rather earn 1% off a 100 people’s efforts than 100% of my own efforts.

Leaders in all spheres who are living with HIV should be encouraged, not coerced, to lead by example and disclose their HIV status.

When the burdens of the presidency seem unusually heavy, I always remind myself it could be worse. I could be a mayor.

Nothing doth more hurt in a state than that cunning men pass for wise.

You know I vowed when I became President not to talk about the loneliest toughest job in the world and I didn’t.

The President’s post should not be politicised. Once a president is elected, he is above politics.

I understand everybody in this country doesn’t agree with the decisions I’ve made. And I made some tough decisions. But people know where I stand.

A good objective of leadership is to help those who are doing poorly to do well and to help those who are doing well to do even better.

My desire to devolve authority has nothing to do with a wish to shirk responsibility.

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

It is wise to persuade people to do things and make them think it was their own idea.

The more nobly a man wills and acts, the more avid he becomes for great and sublime aims to pursue. He will no longer be content with family, country, and the remunerative aspect of his work. He will want wider organisations to create, new paths to blaze, causes to uphold, truths to discover, an ideal to cherish and defend.

He who has great power should use it lightly.

Power is of two kinds. One is obtained by the fear of punishment and the other by acts of love. Power based on love is a thousand times more effective and permanent then the one derived from fear of punishment.

One of the key qualities a leader must possess is the ability to detach from the chaos, mayhem, and emotions in a situation and make good, clear decisions based on what is actually happening.

A business that makes nothing but money is a poor business.

If I’d had good discipline, I might have gone into music.

Most people dream a dream when they are asleep. But to be a writer, you have to dream while you are awake, intentionally. So I get up early in the morning, 4 o’clock, and I sit at my desk and what I do is just dream. After three or four hours, that’s enough. In the afternoon, I run. The next day, the dream will continue.

Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then be trusted with the government of others? Or have we found angels in the form of kings to govern him? Let history answer this question.

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.

A child who is allowed to be disrespectful to his parents will not have true respect for anyone.

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.

Here in the West, people often don’t like listening to their leaders, even if they are right.

Juvenile crime is not naturally born in the boy, but is largely due either to the spirit of adventure that is in him, to his own stupidity, or to his lack of discipline, according to the nature of the individual.

I can make more generals, but horses cost money.

Be the chief but never the lord.

I have never yet seen any plan which has not been mended by the observations of those who were much inferior in understanding to the person who took the lead in the business.

I don’t run restaurants that are out of control. We are about establishing phenomenal footholdings with talent.

Courage is contagious. When a brave man takes a stand, the spines of others are often stiffened.

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.

Read the best books first, or you may not have a chance to read them at all.

Justice and power must be brought together, so that whatever is just may be powerful, and whatever is powerful may be just.

The guerrilla fighters should be required to go to bed and get up at fixed hours. Games that have no social function and that hurt the morale of the troops and the consumption of alcoholic drinks should both be prohibited.

Let us never forget that government is ourselves and not an alien power over us. The ultimate rulers of our democracy are not a President and senators and congressmen and government officials, but the voters of this country.

In politics, nothing happens by accident. If it happens, you can bet it was planned that way.

In other words, don’t expect to always be great. Disappointments, failures and setbacks are a normal part of the lifecycle of a unit or a company and what the leader has to do is constantly be up and say ‚we have a problem, let’s go and get it‘.