I don’t think there’s any point going for second or third.

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

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.

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

The superior man understands what is right; the inferior man understands what will sell.

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.

Those who cry out that the government should ‚do something‘ never even ask for data on what has actually happened when the government did something, compared to what actually happened when the government did nothing.

Create a ladder of values and priorities in your life, reminding yourself of what really matters to you.

It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you’ll do things differently.

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.

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

I’m not a marketing person. I don’t ask myself questions. I go by instinct.

I bought a gun and chose drugs instead.

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.

In countries where innocent people are dying, the leaders are following their blood rather than their brains.

I just usually go with my own taste. If I like something, and it happens to be against the law, well, then I might have a problem.

There are two ways of being happy: We must either diminish our wants or augment our means – either may do – the result is the same and it is for each man to decide for himself and to do that which happens to be easier.

Every time I try to retire, or even think of retiring from acting, my agent comes up with a script.

We choose our joys and sorrows long before we experience them.

I understood that with the swipe of my pen as a prosecutor, I would have the decision in my pen to make a decision about someone’s life.

The best thing is to always keep honest people around, because when you have a bunch of yes men around that know that you’re making a mistake but let you go on with it, that’s when it ruins your mind state as an artist.

Work is the meat of life, pleasure the dessert.

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 perplexity of life arises from there being too many interesting things in it for us to be interested properly in any of them.

When in doubt, don’t.

If an idea isn’t exciting, you shouldn’t do it.

Do not ask for what you will wish you had not got.

If I had chosen the populist course, it would have been a breach of the trust placed in me by the people.

Every nation in every region now has a decision to make. Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists.

Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth.

The life which men praise and regard as successful is but one kind. Why should we exaggerate any one kind at the expense of the others?

I am like a man so busy in letting rooms in one end of his house, that he can’t stop to put out the fire that is burning the other.

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

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

I only change things where I know about a situation. I’d never change just for change.

I would rather be able to appreciate things I can not have than to have things I am not able to appreciate.

You may be rich, but there is one thing you can’t afford – that is, if you are a good sort – you can’t afford to spend money on your own luxuries while there are people around you wanting the necessaries of life.

As is the case with most people in this game, I am driven by financial motives and creative motives; the question I had to answer is which motive I will give priority to?

You should do what other people do, unless you have a very good reason not to.

Great leaders are almost always great simplifiers, who can cut through argument, debate and doubt, to offer a solution everybody can understand.

Wherever you are, be there totally. If you find your here and now intolerable and it makes you unhappy, you have three options: remove yourself from the situation, change it, or accept it totally. If you want to take responsibility for your life, you must choose one of those three options, and you must choose now. Then accept the consequences.

Most gods throw dice, but Fate plays chess, and you don’t find out til too late that he’s been playing with two queens all along.

I never worry about action, but only inaction.

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

When I had to make a decision whether or not an activity was appropriate for the Sabbath, I simply asked myself, ‚What sign do I want to give to God?‘ That question made my choices about the Sabbath day crystal clear.

Time is the least thing we have of.

You know how advice is. You only want it if it agrees with what you wanted to do anyway.

Every act you have ever performed since the day you were born was performed because you wanted something.

It is a characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things.

I said on the equality side of it, that it is essential to a woman’s equality with man that she be the decision-maker, that her choice be controlling.

Fate pulls you in different directions.

Not life, but good life, is to be chiefly valued.

It is the superfluous things for which men sweat, – superfluous things that wear our togas theadbare, that force us to grow old in camp, that dash us upon foreign shores.

If I’d had good discipline, I might have gone into music.

I base a lot of decisions on my gut, and going with an independent label was a good one.

The answer to many of the domestic problems we face is not higher taxes and more spending. It is less waste, more results and greater freedom for the individual American to earn a rightful place in his own community – and for States and localities to address their own needs in their own ways, in the light of their own priorities.

When you’re in a leadership role, you can never please all of the people all of the time. There’s also a lot of responsibility that goes along with it that others may not realize.

I met my husband before I became a star, and he doesn’t care about any of it.

One of the most important decisions you’ll ever make is choosing the kind of universe you exist in: is it helpful and supportive or hostile and unsupportive? Your answer to this question will make all the difference in terms of how you live your life and what kind of Divine assistance you attract.

We have the power to make this the best generation of mankind in the history of the world or to make it the last.

Ultimately this issue is on us. We’re the ones who make the decisions about what our kids eat.