I am often asked if, when I was secretary, I had problems with foreign men. That is not who I had problems with, because I arrived in a very large plane that said United States of America. I had more problems with the men in our own government.

I would not give half a guinea to live under one form of government other than another. It is of no moment to the happiness of an individual.

One of the great strengths of the United States is… we have a very large Christian population – we do not consider ourselves a Christian nation or a Jewish nation or a Muslim nation. We consider ourselves a nation of citizens who are bound by ideals and a set of values.

Clinicians, academicians, and politicians are often put to a test of faith. In pursuit of their goals, will their religion show or will it be hidden? Are they tied back to God or to man?

Are you a politician asking what your country can do for you or a zealous one asking what you can do for your country? If you are the first, then you are a parasite; if the second, then you are an oasis in the desert.

Democracy is when the indigent, and not the men of property, are the rulers.

Management is efficiency in climbing the ladder of success; leadership determines whether the ladder is leaning against the right wall.

I have been up against tough competition all my life. I wouldn’t know how to get along without it.

A piece of spaghetti or a military unit can only be led from the front end.

Without education, your children can never really meet the challenges they will face. So it’s very important to give children education and explain that they should play a role for their country.

Do I think faith will be an important part of being a good president? Yes, I do.

I think whether you’re having setbacks or not, the role of a leader is to always display a winning attitude.

When you work as a humanitarian, you are conscious that politics have to be considered. Because if you really want to make an extreme change, then you have a responsibility.

No one person controls Microsoft. The board and the shareholders decide whether they want to have me as CEO.

Democracy is a device that ensures we shall be governed no better than we deserve.

For a sitting U.S. president to see our allies as freeloaders is nuts.

Politics is not bean bags. It’s serious, tough stuff.

Marriage is like putting your hand into a bag of snakes in the hope of pulling out an eel.

Colonies do not cease to be colonies because they are independent.

The Iranian government is undoubtedly a severe danger to its own population, but not beyond that.

There is no more independence in politics than there is in jail.

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.

If you’re sick and tired of the politics of cynicism and polls and principles, come and join this campaign.

There’s many ups and downs in the fight game.

To the person with a firm purpose all men and things are servants.

I’ll be glad to reply to or dodge your questions, depending on what I think will help our election most.

In politics stupidity is not a handicap.

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

No nation should stoke instability in its neighbor’s country.

The political object is the goal, war is the means of reaching it, and the means can never be considered in isolation from their purposes.

And I think it’s that time. And I think if you just step aside and Mr. Romney can kind of take over. You can maybe still use a plane. Though maybe a smaller one. Not that big gas guzzler you are going around to colleges and talking about student loans and stuff like that.

People buy into the leader before they buy into the vision.

A master performer like Bill Clinton never lost sight of the fact that as president he had to project confidence and power, but if he was speaking to a group of autoworkers he would adjust his accent and his words to fit the audience, and do the same for a group of executives.

When Rumsfeld gets up on television and says we have definitive intelligence that al Qaeda is working with Iraq, how is an ordinary citizen supposed to react? They won’t tell you the evidence, and when anyone asks, they say, ‚Well, you know: It’s secret.‘

The United States fully accepts the profound truth that our own progress, prosperity, and peace are interlocked with the progress, prosperity, and peace of all humanity.

First, how do we give everyone a fair shot at opportunity and security in this new economy? Second, how do we make technology work for us, and not against us – especially when it comes to solving urgent challenges like climate change? Third, how do we keep America safe and lead the world without becoming its policeman?

I belong to no organized party. I am a Democrat.

Magnanimity in politics is not seldom the truest wisdom; and a great empire and little minds go ill together.

When I was running training, we would fire a couple of leaders from every SEAL team because they couldn’t lead. And 99.9% of the time, it wasn’t a question of their ability – it was a question of their ability to listen.

Government does not solve problems; it subsidizes them.

America is just downright mean.

By 1960, the South Africans knew that they were becoming a pariah state.

I do not like broccoli. And I haven’t liked it since I was a little kid and my mother made me eat it. And I’m President of the United States and I’m not going to eat any more broccoli.

Being beautiful is not so fun when you’re in a business with all men.

How wonderful it is to be an American. We have known the best of times and the worst of times.

I am never going to have anything more to do with politics or politicians. When this war is over I shall confine myself entirely to writing and painting.

Taxation is just a sophisticated way of demanding money with menaces.

Good leaders must communicate vision clearly, creatively, and continually. However, the vision doesn’t come alive until the leader models it.

The label ‚liberal‘ or ‚conservative,‘ any – every time I hear that, I think of the great Gilbert and Sullivan song from ‚Iolanthe.‘ It goes, ‚Every gal and every boy that’s born alive is either a little liberal or else a little conservative.‘ What do those labels mean? It depends on whose ox is being gored.

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.

To lead people walk behind them.

I can’t really criticize the Tea Party people, because I came into the White House pretty much on the same basis that they have become popular. That is dissatisfaction with the way things are going in Washington and disillusionment and disencouragement about the government.

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

I desire so to conduct the affairs of this administration that if at the end… I have lost every other friend on earth, I shall at least have one friend left, and that friend shall be down inside of me.

Let’s teach kids, at the kindergarten level, what the contributions of people of color were to building the United States of America.

When there is a lack of honor in government, the morals of the whole people are poisoned.

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.

The issues that cross a president’s desk are never easy. The easy questions don’t even get to the president.

I was not a messiah, but an ordinary man who had become a leader because of extraordinary circumstances.

Obama, of course, outspent McCain.

Following the missile crisis, detente started to gain ground between the United States and the Soviet Union, so the international political climate improved after that.