Governing a great nation is like cooking a small fish – too much handling will spoil it.

People have discovered that they can fool the devil; but they can’t fool the neighbors.

If once you forfeit the confidence of your fellow-citizens, you can never regain their respect and esteem.

Kings will be tyrants from policy, when subjects are rebels from principle.

As a leader, you have to have the ability to assimilate new information and understand that there might be a different view.

If you’re looking for the safe choice, you shouldn’t be supporting a black guy named Barack Obama to be the next leader of the free world.

The Scoutmaster who is a hero to his boys holds a powerful lever to their development but at the same time brings a great responsibility on himself. They are quick enough to see the smallest characteristic about him, whether it be a virtue or a vice.

Science is the captain, and practice the soldiers.

Anybody who tells you that a two-day conference, you’re going to turn into the General Patton of leadership, they’re not telling you the truth. But you can learn the fundamentals; you can absolutely understand the fundamentals.

I have an expression I use as I’ve gone around the world through my career: ‚You never tell another man or woman what’s in their interest. They know their interest better than you know their interest.‘

Any lady who is first lady likes being first lady. I don’t care what they say, they like it.

In the practice of tolerance, one’s enemy is the best teacher.

The 21st century is going to be the American century. Because we lead not only by the example of our power, but by the power of our example. That is the history of the journey of America.

Beauty and folly are old companions.

No country can act wisely simultaneously in every part of the globe at every moment of time.

Without publicity there can be no public support, and without public support every nation must decay.

Common sense is not so common.

A clever man commits no minor blunders.

The men who have guided the destiny of the United States have found the strength for their tasks by going to their knees. This private unity of public men and their God is an enduring source of reassurance for the people of America.

No great man lives in vain. The history of the world is but the biography of great men.

Ask an older person you respect to tell you his or her greatest regret.

Never neglect details. When everyone’s mind is dulled or distracted the leader must be doubly vigilant.

What I believe unites the people of this nation, regardless of race or region or party, young or old, rich or poor, is the simple, profound belief in opportunity for all – the notion that if you work hard and take responsibility, you can get ahead.

Rhetoric is a poor substitute for action, and we have trusted only to rhetoric. If we are really to be a great nation, we must not merely talk; we must act big.

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.

Our care should not be to have lived long as to have lived enough.

If God treats you well by teaching you a disastrous lesson, you never forget it.

Work is of two kinds: first, altering the position of matter at or near the earth’s surface relative to other matter; second, telling other people to do so.

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

I’m considered wise, and sometimes I see myself as knowing. Most of the time, I see myself as wanting to know. And I see myself as a very interested person. I’ve never been bored in my life.

The wit knows that his place is at the tail of a procession.

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.

At Microsoft there are lots of brilliant ideas but the image is that they all come from the top – I’m afraid that’s not quite right.

I am the most unselfish chef in Britain today.

Americans… still believe in an America where anything’s possible – they just don’t think their leaders do.

Some single mind must be master, else there will be no agreement in anything.

The superior man acts before he speaks, and afterwards speaks according to his action.

Kisses are a better fate than wisdom.

There are only two things. Truth and lies. Truth is indivisible, hence it cannot recognize itself; anyone who wants to recognize it has to be a lie.

If you are out to describe the truth, leave elegance to the tailor.

Truth is by nature self-evident. As soon as you remove the cobwebs of ignorance that surround it, it shines clear.

Fear is the main source of superstition, and one of the main sources of cruelty. To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom.

Love is the wisdom of the fool and the folly of the wise.

There can be no greater error than to expect, or calculate, upon real favors from nation to nation. It is an illusion which experience must cure, which a just pride ought to discard.

I am not promising that God will give you everything you want. There are times when we want things that God knows would not be good for us.

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.

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.

Blessed is the man who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed was the ninth beatitude.

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.

A democracy which makes or even effectively prepares for modern, scientific war must necessarily cease to be democratic. No country can be really well prepared for modern war unless it is governed by a tyrant, at the head of a highly trained and perfectly obedient bureaucracy.

When you give everyone a voice and give people power, the system usually ends up in a really good place. So, what we view our role as, is giving people that power.

Information is not knowledge.

You can tell the tree by the fruit it bears. You see it through what the organization is delivering as far as a concrete program. If the tree’s fruit sours or grows brackish, then the time has come to chop it down – bury it and walk over it and plant new seeds.

Men make history and not the other way around. In periods where there is no leadership, society stands still. Progress occurs when courageous, skillful leaders seize the opportunity to change things for the better.

No woman in my time will be prime minister or chancellor or foreign secretary – not the top jobs. Anyway, I wouldn’t want to be prime minister; you have to give yourself 100 percent.

Find your voice and inspire others to find theirs.

You don’t lead by hitting people over the head – that’s assault, not leadership.

The story being told in ‚Star Wars‘ is a classic one. Every few hundred years, the story is retold because we have a tendency to do the same things over and over again. Power corrupts, and when you’re in charge, you start doing things that you think are right, but they’re actually not.

Do not bite at the bait of pleasure, till you know there is no hook beneath it.

In my heart, I’m confident I could make a good president.

There is more of good nature than of good sense at the bottom of most marriages.