I don’t really plan. I’m almost intuitive about things.

I think that somehow, we learn who we really are and then live with that decision.

Be polite, be professional, but have a plan to kill everybody you meet.

We need someone with superb judgement in their own right because, yes, a president can hire the best advisors on Earth, but I guarantee you this: Five advisors will give five different opinions. And it is the president – and the president alone – who always makes the final call.

To compromise simply means that you go a tiny bit below what you know is right.

Political courage is not political suicide.

On some positions, Cowardice asks the question, ‚Is it safe?‘ Expediency asks the question, ‚Is it politic?‘ And Vanity comes along and asks the question, ‚Is it popular?‘ But Conscience asks the question, ‚Is it right?‘

Nothing is more difficult, and therefore more precious, than to be able to decide.

When I began in 1960, individuality wasn’t an accepted thing to look for; it was about species-specific behaviour. But animal behaviour is not hard science. There’s room for intuition.

In too much of the West, everyone wants the guarantee of safety, and never having to make any decisions.

My mom was on the United Way group that decides how to allocate the money and looks at all the different charities and makes the very hard decisions about where that pool of funds is going to go.

Beautiful sentences pop into my head. Beautiful sentences that aren’t always absolutely accurate. Then, I have to choose between the beautiful sentence and being absolutely accurate. It can be a difficult choice.

Indecision may or may not be my problem.

He who has a task to perform must know how to take sides, or he is quite unworthy of it.

I’ve never gone wrong trusting my gut.

It’s been my experience in politics that you can try and plan it out: ‚I’m going to hit the three ball which will hit the eight ball.‘ You’ve just got to go run and try to do everything right. And then have a little luck.

Young people are fitter to invent than to judge; fitter for execution than for counsel; and more fit for new projects than for settled business.

If I’d known how much packing I’d have to do, I’d have run again.

Leadership is a choice, not a position.

There were the questions of what kind of First Lady I would be, what issues would I focus on. Those were the questions that were being pounded on me through the campaign. A lot of times, I wondered what in the world Barack was even getting us into.

Concentrate your energies, your thoughts and your capital. The wise man puts all his eggs in one basket and watches the basket.

All my life, whenever it comes time to make a decision, I make it and forget about it.

Learn to say ‚no‘ to the good so you can say ‚yes‘ to the best.

The woman that deliberates is lost.

Stupidity has a knack of getting its way.

One must verify or expel his doubts, and convert them into the certainty of Yes or NO.

The mouth obeys poorly when the heart murmurs.

No enterprise is more likely to succeed than one concealed from the enemy until it is ripe for execution.

In the business world, the rearview mirror is always clearer than the windshield.

High office teaches decision making, not substance. It consumes intellectual capital; it does not create it. Most high officials leave office with the perceptions and insights with which they entered; they learn how to make decisions but not what decisions to make.

A good name is rather to be chosen than riches.

The majority of men meet with failure because of their lack of persistence in creating new plans to take the place of those which fail.

Nothing is more expensive than a missed opportunity.

Doing what’s right isn’t the problem. It is knowing what’s right.

The torment of precautions often exceeds the dangers to be avoided. It is sometimes better to abandon one’s self to destiny.

A woman uses her intelligence to find reasons to support her intuition.

The wise man does at once what the fool does finally.

I definitely connected to the fact that life gets out of control and you end up doing things and wishing you were doing other things instead.

We should work with the principle that a work that can be done at a lower level should never be escalated to a higher level.

When you see something that is technically sweet, you go ahead and do it and you argue about what to do about it only after you have had your technical success. That is the way it was with the atomic bomb.

My father will anticipate everything. He will leave you and me no chance to do a great and brilliant deed.

Locally, I’ll vote one way and nationally, maybe another.

If you were to ask me to choose between democratic values and wealth, power, prosperity and fame, I will very easily and without any doubt choose democratic values.

When you’re 40, you can’t ride the fence anymore. You gotta make definite decisions about your life.

It does not take much strength to do things, but it requires great strength to decide on what to do.

A director makes 100 decisions an hour. Students ask me how you know how to make the right decision, and I say to them, ‚If you don’t know how to make the right decision, you’re not a director.‘

The risk for me would be in not taking one – that’s the only thing that’s really risky for me.

Your emotions are very unstable and should never be the foundation for direction in your life.

Human behavior flows from three main sources: desire, emotion, and knowledge.

Whatever you have, you must either use or lose.

A wise ruler ought never to keep faith when by doing so it would be against his interests.

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

The dangers of not thinking clearly are much greater now than ever before. It’s not that there’s something new in our way of thinking – it’s that credulous and confused thinking can be much more lethal in ways it was never before.

I don’t have a magic formula for prioritizing the world’s problems.

If someone is right for you, you’ll know it.

When I get logical, and I don’t trust my instincts – that’s when I get in trouble.

I don’t believe in signing anything and everything that comes my way. I leave it to my agency to help narrow them down for me, but I do research it myself before signing. The image of the brand and its ambassadors go hand in hand.

I thought ‚Heller‘ was a very bad decision.

I don’t think I would run for president.

Put your leaders in stressful scenarios. Make them figure out solutions under pressure. See if you can make them frustrated, angry, and flustered, and then demand decisive leadership from them. They will be challenged at first, but they will get better over time.

Never let your sense of morals get in the way of doing what’s right.