I believe in Coach Louis Wong. He is so much more than just a football coach.

Especially when you’re at a high level in an organization, criticism can be devastating to an employee. I prefer to praise employees for what they’re doing right, and it tends to lead to them doing more of the same. Not always, but it’s the way I choose to bet.

Surveys show our standing around the world is higher than when I was elected to this office, and when it comes to every important international issue, people of the world do not look to Beijing or Moscow to lead – they call us.

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.

The authority you establish must emerge naturally from your character, from the particular strengths you possess.

Even if you have nothing to write, write and say so.

I like George Carlin’s jokes. I like his humor. He’s one of my heroes, and I like what he did with talking about everyday things.

Ideas are the beginning points of all fortunes.

When you are organizing a group of people, the first thing that we do is we talk about the history of what other people have been able to accomplish – people that look like them, workers like them, ordinary people, working people – and we give them the list: these are people like yourself; this is what they were able to do in their community.

I’ve got a pen and I’ve got a phone – and I can use that pen to sign executive orders and take executive actions and administrative actions that move the ball forward.

When things haven’t gone well for you, call in a secretary or a staff man and chew him out. You will sleep better and they will appreciate the attention.

If you call yourself a leader, then you have to be decisive. If you’re decisive, then you have the chance to be a leader. These are two sides to the same coin.

When you get to be President, there are all those things, the honors, the twenty-one gun salutes, all those things. You have to remember it isn’t for you. It’s for the Presidency.

Practice Golden-Rule 1 of Management in everything you do. Manage others the way you would like to be managed.

There’s no formula.

The most important thing for a director is being able to communicate.

The power of imagination makes us infinite.

A general is just as good or just as bad as the troops under his command make him.

My kind of composing is more like the work of a gardener. The gardener takes his seeds and scatters them, knowing what he is planting but not quite what will grow where and when – and he won’t necessarily be able to reproduce it again afterwards either.

A leader is best when people barely know he exists, when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say: we did it ourselves.

As a leader, the first person I need to lead is me. The first person that I should try to change is me.

Keep your eyes on the stars, and your feet on the ground.

One of the wonderful things about Oprah: She teaches you to keep on stepping.

I speak directly to the people, and I know that the people of California want to have better leadership. They want to have great leadership. They want to have somebody that will represent them. And it doesn’t matter if you’re a Democrat or a Republican, young or old.

Great art is the contempt of a great man for small art.

I don’t write the books. God writes the books and delivers the speeches.

It is a paradox that every dictator has climbed to power on the ladder of free speech. Immediately on attaining power each dictator has suppressed all free speech except his own.

This country is being managed to death, being public related to death.

Actions are the seed of fate deeds grow into destiny.

I think with the Romans, that the general of today should be a soldier tomorrow if necessary.

There is but one way for a president to deal with Congress, and that is continuously, incessantly, and without interruption. If it is really going to work, the relationship has got to be almost incestuous.

A home without books is a body without soul.

You know, as a writer, I’m more of a listener than a writer, cuz if I hear something I will write it down.

I do have motivation. A lot of motivation.

It’s like a jar of salad dressing sitting on a shelf… most of the seasoning settles to the bottom of the bottle. But when you shake that bottle up, all the ingredients mix together and then the dressing can add flavor to a salad. In the same way, we can stir ourselves up and regain the reverence, respect and awe we once had for the Lord.

Every heart sings a song, incomplete, until another heart whispers back. Those who wish to sing always find a song. At the touch of a lover, everyone becomes a poet.

One element of Madonna’s career that really takes center stage is how many times she’s reinvented herself. It’s easier to stay in one look, one comfort zone, one musical style. It’s inspiring to see someone whose only predictable quality is being unpredictable.

President Obama seems completely unaware of how many of the policies he is trying to impose have been tried before, in many times and places around the world, and have failed time and again.

I only hope that we don’t lose sight of one thing – that it was all started by a mouse.

The nose of a mob is its imagination. By this, at any time, it can be quietly led.

Wise leaders generally have wise counselors because it takes a wise person themselves to distinguish them.

There will be no end to the troubles of states, or of humanity itself, till philosophers become kings in this world, or till those we now call kings and rulers really and truly become philosophers, and political power and philosophy thus come into the same hands.

I have a cult-like following because I exemplify what it is to be a human being.

Big jobs usually go to the men who prove their ability to outgrow small ones.

Men shrink less from offending one who inspires love than one who inspires fear.

We’re not a fragile people. We’re not a frightful people. Our power doesn’t come from some self-declared savior promising that he alone can restore order as long as we do things his way. We don’t look to be ruled.

As President Nixon says, presidents can do almost anything, and President Nixon has done many things that nobody would have thought of doing.

Ideas excite me, and as soon as I get excited, the adrenaline gets going and the next thing I know I’m borrowing energy from the ideas themselves.

Those who do not want to imitate anything, produce nothing.

Music is the voice that tells us that the human race is greater than it knows.

People ask the difference between a leader and a boss. The leader leads, and the boss drives.

I only wish that ordinary people had an unlimited capacity for doing harm; then they might have an unlimited power for doing good.

Hope is the magic carpet that transports us from the present moment into the realm of infinite possibilities.

The ‚Maddox Jolie-Pitt‘ Foundation’s work is inspired by our children and their connections to particular countries.

It is a fact often observed, that men have written good verses under the inspiration of passion, who cannot write well under other circumstances.

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

Susceptibility to the highest forces is the highest genius.

Personally, I’d like to see more of our leaders take a technocratic approach to solving our biggest problems.

Political courage is not political suicide.

Doing nothing while the middle class is hurting. That’s not leadership. Loose regulations and lax enforcement. That’s not leadership. That’s abandoning our middle class.

The only way to discover the limits of the possible is to go beyond them into the impossible.