He who wishes to be obeyed must know how to command.

My job is not to represent Washington to you, but to represent you to Washington.

Those who govern, having much business on their hands, do not generally like to take the trouble of considering and carrying into execution new projects. The best public measures are therefore seldom adopted from previous wisdom, but forced by the occasion.

If you want to get each individual’s honest opinion, you don’t want that opinion to be influenced by others who are present, much less allow a group to coordinate what they are going to say.

The Scoutmaster teaches boys to play the game by doing so himself.

We must have government that builds stamina into communities and men. That makes men instead of mendicants.

The task of the leader is to get his people from where they are to where they have not been.

If you have to control people, you have to have an administrative force that does it. So in U.S. industry, even more than elsewhere, there’s layer after layer of management – a kind of economic waste, but useful for control and domination. And the same is true in universities.

Obedience of the law is demanded; not asked as a favor.

I have no delusions about my likability in every scenario. I know that in order to get things done the way you want them, oftentimes your position will be unpopular.

Chavez, who came out of the ranks of the Venezuelan Army, is methodical and tireless. I have observed him over the course of 17 years, since his first visit to Cuba. He is an extremely humanitarian and law-abiding person; he has never taken revenge on anybody.

For me, the Immaculate Conception is the feast of ‚passive action,‘ the action that functions simply by the transmission through us of divine energy. Purity, in spite of outward appearances, is essentially an active virtue, because it concentrates God in us and on those who are subject to our influence.

I’m going to be so much better a president for having been at the CIA that you’re not going to believe it.

Through every victory and every setback, I’ve insisted that change is never easy and never quick; that we wouldn’t meet all of our challenges in one term, or one presidency, or even in one lifetime.

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.

The leaders come up from the volunteers that do the work, and it’s amazing because then they do these incredible things in their community that they never thought they had the power to make that happen.

I try to lead by example, being conscious of others and being responsible.

Gray Davis can run a dirty campaign better than anyone, but he can’t run a state.

Think twice before you speak, because your words and influence will plant the seed of either success or failure in the mind of another.

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.‘

I suppose leadership at one time meant muscles; but today it means getting along with people.

History has proven that each generation of Howard graduates will forge the way forward for our country and our world.

When I checked into SEAL Team One many years ago, one of the things that I noticed was there was this old guy, who was younger than I am today, who I decided that I was going to be like. I wanted to emulate what he was doing, and one of those things was he got to work before anybody else.

Pull the string, and it will follow wherever you wish. Push it, and it will go nowhere at all.

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.

Every President wants to do right.

A hero is born among a hundred, a wise man is found among a thousand, but an accomplished one might not be found even among a hundred thousand men.

One word sums up probably the responsibility of any vice-president, and that one word is ‚to be prepared‘.

It’s so easy to settle for less than God’s best for us because we don’t always feel like taking responsibility for our behavior or putting forth some effort to do what we need to do so we can accomplish great things for God and help people. But the cost of settling for less is actually harder than being completely obedient to God’s will.

If you care about other people, you might try to organize to undermine power and authority. That’s not going to happen if you care only about yourself.

You cannot be President of the United States if you don’t have faith. Remember Lincoln, going to his knees in times of trial in the Civil War and all that stuff.

The man who can dominate a London dinner-table can dominate the world.

So long as men worship the Caesars and Napoleons, Caesars and Napoleons will duly arise and make them miserable.

If you do not wish a man to do a thing, you had better get him to talk about it; for the more men talk, the more likely they are to do nothing else.

Concede that the new government of Louisiana is only to what it should be, as the egg is to the fowl; we shall sooner have the fowl by hatching the egg than by smashing it.

Power is the great aphrodisiac.

The time has come for all evangelists to practice full financial disclosure. The world is watching how we walk and how we talk. We must have the highest standards of morality, ethics and integrity if we are to continue to have influence.

The British people know that, given strong leadership, time, and a little bit of hope, the forces of good ultimately rally and triumph over evil.

The people who are doing the work are the moving force behind the Macintosh. My job is to create a space for them, to clear out the rest of the organization and keep it at bay.

Policy makers who have never served in the military continue to use the military to lead social change in this country.

To all the positions, I just bring the determination to win. Me being an unselfish player, I think that can carry on to my teammates. When you have one of the best players on the court being unselfish, I think that transfers to the other players.

I’m more than comfortable just sitting back and scoring 21, 22 points or whatever and getting 10, 11 assists whatever the case might be. More than comfortable with that. It’s just a matter of the pieces that you have around you and what you can do to elevate everybody else.

Character may almost be called the most effective means of persuasion.

America’s promises do not come with a price tag. We meet our commitments. We bear our burdens. That’s one of the reasons why almost every country on Earth sees America as stronger and more respected today than they did eight years ago when I took office.

A leader who confines his role to his people’s experience dooms himself to stagnation; a leader who outstrips his people’s experience runs the risk of not being understood.

Blessed are the people whose leaders can look destiny in the eye without flinching but also without attempting to play God.

I think some people would love to be able to make the clothes I make – and of course, I do influence them, but they keep simplifying, and minimalism doesn’t quite work.

The way people look at me these days – that’s the same way I looked at President Obama before I met him. We tend to forget that people who’ve attained a certain position are human.

Every first-term president has to learn something after he comes into office. Nobody can be completely ready for the inevitable crises.

Most of the confidence which I appear to feel, especially when influenced by noon wine, is only a pretense.

What matters in the Sun-tzu universe are not positions of strength and power, but situations in which you have options, full of potential force.

A President’s hardest task is not to do what is right, but to know what is right.

Just as discipline and freedom are opposing forces that must be balanced, leadership requires finding the equilibrium in the dichotomy of many seemingly contradictory qualities between one extreme and another.

A conductor can’t be too arrogant with an orchestra and try to impose himself too much.

Presumptuous for me to say, but at least – at a minimum – I’ve been able to influence the direction of the Democratic Party on foreign policy. And I’ve been relatively – presumptuous to say – relatively successful legislatively in the Senate, being able to win a lot of Republican friends, and being able to cross the aisle.

Reviews condition people. At the end of the day, a lot of human minds are malleable. They can be easily shaped with strong words.

To rule a country of a thousand chariots, there must be reverent attention to business, and sincerity; economy in expenditure, and love for men; and the employment of the people at the proper seasons.

I’m responsible for starting a whole new school of pretension.

There are times when a leader must move out ahead of the flock, go off in a new direction, confident that he is leading his people the right way.

It confuses me and disappoints me when somebody says, ‚What does he do? What does he do?‘ My records are some of the biggest anthems ever. What do you think, they magically just appear? Obama walked out to my record.

The high destiny of the individual is to serve rather than to rule.