Great men are like eagles, and build their nest on some lofty solitude.

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

To win a national championship, you’ve got to be a little lucky.

Beware of endeavoring to become a great man in a hurry. One such attempt in ten thousand may succeed. These are fearful odds.

I’ve seen how the issues that come across a president’s desk are always the hard ones – the problems where no amount of data or numbers will get you to the right answer.

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.

Just because I managed to do a little something, I don’t want anyone back home to think I got the big head.

If you want to occupy the C-suite or the top one-tenth of 1% in any organization, you have to be obsessively devoted to your career at the expense of everything else. And women look at that, and they think, ‚No.‘

Life is too short to be little. Man is never so manly as when he feels deeply, acts boldly, and expresses himself with frankness and with fervor.

Liverpool is a club with a big, big, big history, and all the clubs in the world have a big history if the present is not too successful. If you have never had success, then nobody knows how it is, but in Liverpool, everybody knows how it was.

It sure is hell to be president.

Well I think any author or musician is anxious to have legitimate sales of their products, partly so they’re rewarded for their success, partly so they can go on and do new things.

The most important single ingredient in the formula of success is knowing how to get along with people.

So never lose an opportunity of urging a practical beginning, however small, for it is wonderful how often in such matters the mustard-seed germinates and roots itself.

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

A great thing can only be done by a great person; and they do it without effort.

I love that we can trust Barack to do what he says he’s going to do, even when it’s hard – especially when it’s hard.

Stand a little less between me and the sun.

With a tree, all the growth takes place at the growing tips. Humanity is exactly the same. All the growth takes place in the growing tip: among that one percent of the population. It’s made up of pioneers, the beginners. That’s where the action is.

The most successful war seldom pays for its losses.

You cannot be in a position of power and destroy the life of another person.

It isn’t enough to talk about peace. One must believe in it. And it isn’t enough to believe in it. One must work at it.

Barack knows the American Dream because he’s lived it, and he wants everyone in this country to have that same opportunity, no matter who we are or where we’re from or what we look like or who we love.

If we have to use force, it is because we are America. We are the indispensable nation. We stand tall. We see further into the future.

I played by the rules of politics as I found them.

We’re all dreamers.

I never dreamt, in my dream, I’m Dalai Lama.

I’m not a one-man show. I was never that in my life, and I never want to be that.

As your career grows, the list of things that makes you happy should not become smaller, it should become bigger.

A collection is not just one basic idea. It comes from something that is in the air, something you suddenly like and put down on paper and then work out.

True terror is to wake up one morning and discover that your high school class is running the country.

It’s not ‚can‘; it’s ‚will.‘ You have to will things into fruition.

The man who knows it can’t be done counts the risk, not the reward.

I’m asking myself, ‚What do my girls, what do all our children deserve in their president? What kind of a president do we want for them?‘ Well, to start with, I think we want someone who is a unifying force in this country: someone who sees our differences not as a threat, but as a blessing.

I’m telling you there is hope. I have seen it, but it does not come from the governments or corporations. It comes from the people.

If two smart, intelligent, clever guys sit together on a table, and you both want the same, where can be the problem? We all want to be successful.

In a world of complex threats, our security and leadership depends on all elements of our power – including strong and principled diplomacy.

In all things of nature there is something of the marvelous.

A politician is a man who understands government. A statesman is a politician who’s been dead for 15 years.

The truth of it is that every singer out there with songs on the radio is raising the next generation, so make your words count.

A good character is the best tombstone. Those who loved you and were helped by you will remember you when forget-me-nots have withered. Carve your name on hearts, not on marble.

Music is well said to be the speech of angels.

I just think overall there’s not as many female ministers than there are male ministers.

Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved.

When a person is going through hell, and she encounters someone who went through hellish hell and survived, then she can say, ‚Mine is not so bad as all that. She came through, and so can I.‘

I have to admit, I sometimes wonder how much more successful I would have been as a coach had it not been for my spending summers on the golf course. I could have watched more film, that’s for sure. One advantage Joe Paterno had over me was that he didn’t play golf.

The rich are those who play to win. The middle class plays not to lose.

If a man does his best, what else is there?

Take the course opposite to custom and you will almost always do well.

The true revolutionary is guided by a great feeling of love. It is impossible to think of a genuine revolutionary lacking this quality.

And when it rains on your parade, look up rather than down. Without the rain, there would be no rainbow.

Music should strike fire from the heart of man, and bring tears from the eyes of woman.

A good model of how to ‚work with the enemy‘ internally is presented by the Dalai Lama, in his endless caretaking of his soul as he confronts the Chinese government that invaded Tibet.

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.

I would rather try to persuade a man to go along, because once I have persuaded him, he will stick. If I scare him, he will stay just as long as he is scared, and then he is gone.

If the leader is filled with high ambition and if he pursues his aims with audacity and strength of will, he will reach them in spite of all obstacles.

If you get something right, you really feel it, right in your chest, on stage. I think it’s an incomparable experience.

The President is going to benefit from me reporting directly to him when I arrive.

Many of my fans often tell me that they listen to my songs to get through things. And therefore, obviously, I hope that they can picture being in a place where things are better… I hope my songs can bring people to a calm place.

When I heard ‚Jesus, Take the Wheel,‘ I was like, OK. Some people look at it as a song written for an American Idol, Carrie Underwood, who is wonderful. But when you’re a songwriter listening to a song, you hear something else. I heard that song, and wow.

The man who has done his level best… is a success, even though the world may write him down a failure.