I believe that many of my young guys lived because I didn’t waste their lives because I didn’t have the vision in my mind of how to destroy the enemy at least cost to our guys and to the innocents on the battlefields.

So long as I’m Commander-in-Chief, we will sustain the strongest military the world has ever known. When you take off the uniform, we will serve you as well as you’ve served us – because no one who fights for this country should have to fight for a job, or a roof over their head, or the care that they need when they come home.

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

I don’t like to see a president who is just out campaigning all year long or for the last four years. I’d like to see somebody who’s going in the office. In fact, I’d like to not see them because that way you’d be sure that they’d be working.

One civilization after another has been wrecked upon the attempt to secure sufficient leadership from a single group or class.

Self-pity is our worst enemy and if we yield to it, we can never do anything wise in this world.

In this age, I don’t care how tactically or operationally brilliant you are: if you cannot create harmony – even vicious harmony – on the battlefield based on trust across service lines, across coalition and national lines, and across civilian/military lines, you need to go home, because your leadership is obsolete.

When I take action, I’m not going to fire a $2 million missile at a $10 empty tent and hit a camel in the butt. It’s going to be decisive.

I don’t need a successor, only willing hands to accept the torch for a new generation.

There are different ways to do innovation. You can plant a lot of seeds, not be committed to any particular one of them, but just see what grows. And this really isn’t how we’ve approached this. We go mission-first, then focus on the pieces we need and go deep on them and be committed to them.

Anywhere in Latin America there is a potential threat of the pathology of caudillismo and it has to be guarded against.

No woman in my time will be prime minister or chancellor or foreign secretary – not the top jobs. Anyway, I wouldn’t want to be prime minister; you have to give yourself 100 percent.

Even if the politics needed doesn’t exist today, we still need to use our voices to make sure that the people in power are focused on the right things. Because this is a democracy, and in a democracy, people are the ones who run the country.

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.

Whoever blushes is already guilty; true innocence is ashamed of nothing.

In the practice of tolerance, one’s enemy is the best teacher.

The time has come for us to draw the line. The time has come for the responsible leaders of both political parties to take a stand against overgrown Government and for the American taxpayer.

When you are in any contest, you should work as if there were – to the very last minute – a chance to lose it. This is battle, this is politics, this is anything.

The army teaches boys to think like men.

But let me tell you, this gender thing is history. You’re looking at a guy who sat down with Margaret Thatcher across the table and talked about serious issues.

When we have the ball, the other team has to run. The most important thing is for the players to be prepared to be a little bit wild.

We don’t believe in planners and deciders making the decisions on behalf of Americans.

You must not fight too often with one enemy, or you will teach him all your art of war.

Some people want to win races. Other people want to be President of the United States.

One of my direct subordinates, one of my guys that worked for me, he would call me up or pull me aside with some major problem, some issue that was going on. And he’d say, ‚Boss, we’ve got this, and that, and the other thing.‘ And I’d look at him and I’d say, ‚Good.‘

I don’t mind how much my Ministers talk, so long as they do what I say.

I had never been in charge of anything. I’d always worked for someone. I worked for a furniture warehouse. I did masonry. I always had a boss yelling at me. So I’d never been in charge of an organization.

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

The President is always abused. If he isn’t, he isn’t doing anything.

Our favorite holding period is forever.

So, for example, a country was into recession right after I was sworn in, a dot-com bust had taken place. Then the attacks of September the 11th, and then of course the great financial meltdown in the -the fundamental question facing any presidency is how do you deal with the hand you’re dealt?

The military can buy our diplomats some time.

I’m glad I’m not Brezhnev. Being the Russian leader in the Kremlin. You never know if someone’s tape recording what you say.

I want a president with a record of public service, someone whose life’s work shows our children that we don’t chase fame and fortune for ourselves: we fight to give everyone a chance to succeed.

The President is not only the leader of a party, he is the President of the whole people. He must interpret the conscience of America. He must guide his conduct by the idealism of our people.

Solutions are not the answer.

Tomorrow belongs to those who can hear it coming.

When you’re around the kids, you feel like you act the most grown up just because you’re supposed to lead. I say things, like every other parent, that reminds you of your own parents. One thing I do know about being a parent, you understand why your father was in a bad mood a lot.

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

I believe in a president whose religious views are his own private affair, neither imposed by him upon the nation or imposed by the nation upon him as a condition to holding that office.

They are ill discoverers that think there is no land, when they can see nothing but sea.

We need to have business leaders who live by deep, strong principles.

It is true that the king has made a truce with the duke of Burgundy for fifteen days and that the duke is to turn over the city of Paris at the end of fifteen days. Yet you should not marvel if I do not enter that city so quickly.

There is probably a perverse pride in my administration… that we were going to do the right thing, even if short-term it was unpopular. And I think anybody who’s occupied this office has to remember that success is determined by an intersection in policy and politics and that you can’t be neglecting of marketing and P.R. and public opinion.

The minute you got the Nobel Peace Prize, things that I said yesterday, with nobody paying too much attention, I say the same things after I got it – oh! It was quite crucial for people, and it helped our morale because apartheid did look invincible.

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

Self-interest is the enemy of all true affection.

I’m not comparing myself with anyone, but I am very confident about my captaincy, as I have already led India and in the IPL also. I have confidence I can bring out each player’s ability fully and also give them a lot of confidence… I would like to stick to what I know best and what I have confidence in.

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

Leadership to me means duty, honor, country. It means character, and it means listening from time to time.

We can’t allow the world’s worst leaders to blackmail, threaten, hold freedom-loving nations hostage with the world’s worst weapons.

A nation which has forgotten the quality of courage which in the past has been brought to public life is not as likely to insist upon or regard that quality in its chosen leaders today – and in fact we have forgotten.

Daring ideas are like chessmen moved forward; they may be beaten, but they may start a winning game.

You can tell the tree by the fruit it bears. You see it through what the organization is delivering as far as a concrete program. If the tree’s fruit sours or grows brackish, then the time has come to chop it down – bury it and walk over it and plant new seeds.

The companies that work are the ones that people really care about and have a vision for the world so do something you like.

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.

Every citizen should be a soldier. This was the case with the Greeks and Romans, and must be that of every free state.

We are not about to send American boys 9 or 10 thousand miles away from home to do what Asian boys ought to be doing for themselves.

Remember that the essence of authority is that people willingly follow your lead.

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.

It is important to emphasize that guerrilla warfare is a war of the masses, a war of the people. The guerrilla band is an armed nucleus, the fighting vanguard of the people. It draws its great force from the mass of the people themselves.