I don’t think it’s a good idea to plan to sell a company.

A vote is like a rifle; its usefulness depends upon the character of the user.

I don’t think consensus-building politics is what I’m meant to be doing.

Choose the life that is most useful, and habit will make it the most agreeable.

What changed our lives forever was when Malcolm had the idea to sell rock ‚n roll records to trendy customers.

He only employs his passion who can make no use of his reason.

I’ve never gone wrong trusting my gut.

The woman that deliberates is lost.

I can make more generals, but horses cost money.

And it comes from saying no to 1,000 things to make sure we don’t get on the wrong track or try to do too much. We’re always thinking about new markets we could enter, but it’s only by saying no that you can concentrate on the things that are really important.

A good name is rather to be chosen than riches.

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

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.

In any decision for action, when you have to make up your mind what to do, there is always a ‚should‘ involved, and this cannot be worked out from, ‚If I do this, what will happen?‘ alone.

Waiting is painful. Forgetting is painful. But not knowing which to do is the worse kind of suffering.

One aspect of appellate judging is we have to give reasons for all of our decisions. And when you sit down and try to write it out, sometimes you find that your first judgment wasn’t the right one.

I delayed my father’s funeral because of cricket.

I actually started off majoring in computer science, but I knew right away I wasn’t going to stay with it. It was because I had this one professor who was the loneliest, saddest man I’ve ever known. He was a programmer, and I knew that I didn’t want to do whatever he did. So after that, I switched to Communications.

Business opportunities are like buses, there’s always another one coming.

So convenient a thing it is to be a reasonable creature, since it enables one to find or make a reason for every thing one has a mind to do.

It’s easier to aim to please and say what others want to hear than to form an opinion and fight for it, even if it means taking a risk or losing your job.

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.

If to do were as easy as to know what were good to do, chapels had been churches, and poor men’s cottage princes‘ palaces.

I would rather live my life as if there is a God and die to find out there isn’t, than live as if there isn’t and to die to find out that there is.

The effect of liberty to individuals is that they may do what they please: we ought to see what it will please them to do, before we risk congratulations.

It’s rare for a startup to make money immediately, so you need to make sure that you have enough saved or that you have another income stream that can support you.

I’m an entrepreneur. I’m a young mogul. I’m blessed.

Wise kings generally have wise counselors; and he must be a wise man himself who is capable of distinguishing one.

When I started my last business, I didn’t receive a paycheck for 13 months. The average person can’t handle that pressure.

Being prime minister is a lonely job… you cannot lead from the crowd.

One of the key qualities a leader must possess is the ability to detach from the chaos, mayhem, and emotions in a situation and make good, clear decisions based on what is actually happening.

Seek not the favor of the multitude; it is seldom got by honest and lawful means. But seek the testimony of few; and number not voices, but weigh them.

People are usually more convinced by reasons they discovered themselves than by those found by others.

Leadership is a choice, not a position.

The advantage of the emotions is that they lead us astray.

A majority is always better than the best repartee.

To me, consensus seems to be the process of abandoning all beliefs, principles, values and policies. So it is something in which no one believes and to which no one objects.

I made a decision when my father passed away that I was going to be who God made me to be and not try to preach like my father.

I want to be very clear: I will not sign on to any health plan that adds to our deficits over the next decade.

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.

A woman seldom asks advice before she has bought her wedding clothes.

A president has an inescapable responsibility to provide direction: What are we trying to achieve? What are we trying to prevent? Why? To do that, he has to both analyze and reflect.

It’s not called quitting if you quit while you ahead. It’s about being aware and being strategic enough to know that you got to get out the pool at some point. You got to put your clothes back on and dry off.

The way to develop decisiveness is to start right where you are, with the very next question you face.

No man is so foolish but he may sometimes give another good counsel, and no man so wise that he may not easily err if he takes no other counsel than his own. He that is taught only by himself has a fool for a master.

Faced with what is right, to leave it undone shows a lack of courage.

With Benghazi, I don’t see anyone saying, ‚Hey look, I am overall responsible for this and therefore, I take responsibility for what happened. It’s my fault.‘ I haven’t heard that yet. Meanwhile, the other side of the coin, the Osama bin Laden raid, it seems everyone made that decision, and that’s just unbelievable to me.

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.

Chaotic action is preferable to orderly inaction.

It is wise to persuade people to do things and make them think it was their own idea.

As president, you can get all kinds of advice from all kinds of people. But at the end of the day, when it comes time to make that decision, as president, all you have to guide you are your values and your vision and the life experiences that make you who you are.

While still working for others, your goal at some point must be to carve out little areas that you can operate on your own, cultivating entrepreneurial skills.

Don’t wait for the last judgment – it takes place every day.

I’m working on my life story. I’m not decided if it’s going to be a musical or a movie with music in it.

You can’t have a value structure without a hierarchy. They’re the same thing because a value structure means one thing takes precedence over another.

Over a 10-year period, 99 out of 100 new entrepreneurs will fail. Only one will be left standing as others get pushed out of the market or burn out from working so hard. It’s really sad.

Are we a nation that educates the world’s best and brightest in our universities, only to send them home to create businesses in countries that compete against us? Or are we a nation that encourages them to stay and create jobs, businesses, and industries right here in America?

My goal was never to just create a company. A lot of people misinterpret that, as if I don’t care about revenue or profit or any of those things. But what not being just a company means to me is not being just that – building something that actually makes a really big change in the world.

The court generally moves in small steps rather than in one giant step.

I think that a president needs to have a variety of views presented. But also, there has to be a team effort, because otherwise, I think it creates a dissonance and difficulty.

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.