I actually do think you’re seeing this trend towards organizations just caring more about their brand and engaging. And so I think Home Depot will want to humanize itself. I think that’s a lot of why companies are starting blogs, are just giving more insight into what’s going on with them.

I love going one-on-one with someone. That’s what I do. I’ve never lost. It’s a whole different game, just to have them right in front of you and be able to do whatever you want.

To the extent I am known, I think I am known as a person who expresses his opinion freely about things – and I was sensitive to the possibility that if I was seen taking money for saying nice things about a product, my comments and choices and opinions would become, understandably, suspect.

I will govern my life and thoughts as if the whole world were to see the one and read the other, for what does it signify to make anything a secret to my neighbor, when to God, who is the searcher of our hearts, all our privacies are open?

For in the end, freedom is a personal and lonely battle; and one faces down fears of today so that those of tomorrow might be engaged.

There will be no whitewash in the White House.

In ideal form of social control is an atomised collection of individuals focused on their own narrow concern, lacking the kinds of organisations in which they can gain information, develop and articulate their thoughts, and act constructively to achieve common ends.

They consider me to have sharp and penetrating vision because I see them through the mesh of a sieve.

All I can do is try to create my own brand and have people appreciate me for that.

Once people are aware of your presence, and perhaps vaguely intrigued, you need to stir their interest before it settles on someone else.

To restore the trust of the people, we must reform the way the government operates.

I don’t mind telling a dark side.

The American people are entitled to see the president and to hear his views directly, and not to see him only through the press.

If I’ve got a problem with one of my clients that needs to get solved, guess what I’m going to do? I’m going to call them up, and I’m going to say, ‚Hey, here’s what’s going on. This is the situation. This thing went sideways. I didn’t expect it. Now it’s going to take me some more time to get you what you need.‘ But I’m going to do that upfront.

I don’t see the point of doing an interview unless you’re going to share the things you learn in life and the mistakes you make. So to admit that I’m extremely human and have done some dark things I don’t think makes me unusual or unusually dark. I think it actually is the right thing to do, and I’d like to think it’s the nice thing to do.

The problem with EMMA is that it is cost prohibitive for the small investors who were supposed to benefit from the new transparency.

The best teacher is very interactive.

Let us begin by committing ourselves to the truth to see it like it is, and tell it like it is, to find the truth, to speak the truth, and to live the truth.

I don’t have any secrets I need kept any more.

Every successful businessman will have experienced set-backs and failures – they’re lying if they say they haven’t. Virgin has had some tremendously successful businesses and some that have not quite worked out. Virgin Cola springs to mind – the product wasn’t distinct enough from Coca-Cola.

The spread of online information isn’t just good for charities. It’s also good for donors. You can go to a site like Charity Navigator, which evaluates nonprofits on their financial health as well as the amount of information they share about their work.

There’s plenty to criticize about the mass media, but they are the source of regular information about a wide range of topics. You can’t duplicate that on blogs.

To see clearly is poetry, prophecy and religion all in one.

I filed the MSRB Reform Act, along with Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Doug Jones, because the board that oversees the muni-bond market is too secretive and too incestuous. Its membership shares the same DNA. That means the rulebook for municipal bonds is in the hands of a board that resembles a revolving door of longtime industry confederates.

Transparency at the MSRB is dubious with data downloads too costly for all but the Vanguards of the world.

To conceal anything from those to whom I am attached, is not in my nature. I can never close my lips where I have opened my heart.

On the outskirts of every agony sits some observant fellow who points.

Everybody thinks that when new technologies come along that they’re transparent and you can just do your job well on it. But technologies always import a whole new set of values with them.

A gaffe in Washington is someone telling the truth, and telling the truth has never hurt me.

In the normal flow of a conversation, our attention is divided. We hear parts of what other people are saying, in order to follow and keep the conversation going. At the same time, we’re planning what we’ll say next, some exciting story of our own.

Brand is just a perception, and perception will match reality over time. Sometimes it will be ahead, other times it will be behind. But brand is simply a collective impression some have about a product.

Be willing to use yourself to get out there and put the company on the market. If you have to make a fool of yourself, make a fool of yourself, but make sure that you end up on the front pages, not the back pages. In time, it’s possible that your company will stand out from the crowd, and you’ll be successful.

International summits and organisations like WTO take decisions, which will bind us, and if we are not present in such summits, we may be hurt by the decisions taken.

Advertising is the art of convincing people to spend money they don’t have for something they don’t need.

Experience has shown, and a true philosophy will always show, that a vast, perhaps the larger portion of the truth arises from the seemingly irrelevant.

If it’s going to come out eventually, better have it come out immediately.

Where sense is wanting, everything is wanting.

It was always a plan that we were going to have a retail side with what were doing musically, like an Apple store or Nike Town. I wanted something where you can come get everything – ‚Marathon‘ or ‚All Money‘ or ‚Crenshaw‘ – and make it like an experience. Especially with what Crenshaw and Slauson meant to my story.

Refuse to be a lazy Christian, and resist a passive, apathetic attitude.

I’m very active on social media and see the huge impact it has on engaging with fans and being able to have a voice.

A good leader can engage in a debate frankly and thoroughly, knowing that at the end he and the other side must be closer, and thus emerge stronger. You don’t have that idea when you are arrogant, superficial, and uninformed.

One of my mentors schooled me on branding before it was a cliche term in the game.

It is the mark of a truly intelligent person to be moved by statistics.

Any fact that needs to be disclosed should be put out now or as quickly as possible, because otherwise the bleeding will not end.

You know, my main reaction to this money thing is that it’s humorous, all the attention to it, because it’s hardly the most insightful or valuable thing that’s happened to me.

Fiction reveals truth that reality obscures.

Tis but a part we see, and not a whole.

You might be the funniest guy in the world, but if you don’t have anything to talk about, people are eventually going to gravitate towards the guy that’s actually saying something.

Meditation is to get insight, to get understanding and compassion, and when you have them, you are compelled to act.

If one is master of one thing and understands one thing well, one has at the same time, insight into and understanding of many things.

On engagement, we’re already seeing that mobile users are more likely to be daily active users than desktop users. They’re more likely to use Facebook six or seven days of the week.

It is well known that the Soviet Union closely regulates all organizations and movements, including religion.

To me, we’re marketing hope.

There is no logical way to the discovery of these elemental laws. There is only the way of intuition, which is helped by a feeling for the order lying behind the appearance.

What I have never been afraid of is to be a little silly, and you can engage people that way. My view is, first you get them to laugh, then you get them to listen.

People are generally amazed that I would take an interest in any forum that would require me to stop talking for three hours.

Those who have knowledge, don’t predict. Those who predict, don’t have knowledge.

I think our capacity for wholeheartedness can never be greater than our willingness to be broken-hearted. It means engaging with the world from a place of vulnerability and worthiness.

It takes a wise man to discover a wise man.

We don’t hide our space program. We don’t keep secrets and cover things up. We do it all up front and in public. That’s the way freedom is, and we wouldn’t change it for a minute.

A lack of transparency results in distrust and a deep sense of insecurity.