I vividly remember a conversation I had many years ago in 1974, which marked a turning point in my leadership journey. I was sitting at a Holiday Inn with my friend, Kurt Campmeyer, when he asked me if I had a personal growth plan. I didn’t. In fact, I didn’t even know you were supposed to have one.

Millions of people live their entire lives without finding themselves. But it is something I must do.

We need a president who will choose to do what’s best for the country, even when it doesn’t personally benefit them.

We are all sculptors and painters, and our material is our own flesh and blood and bones. Any nobleness begins at once to refine a man’s features, any meanness or sensuality to imbrute them.

Bad times have a scientific value. These are occasions a good learner would not miss.

Now, you lose something in your life, or you come into a conflict, and there’s gonna come a time that you’re gonna know: There was a reason for that. And at the end of your life, all the things you thought were periods, they turn out to be commas. There was never a full stop in any of it.

I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by conscious endeavor.

I’m not a one-man show. I was never that in my life, and I never want to be that.

A company is a group organized to create a product or service, and it is only as good as its people and how excited they are about creating. I do want to recognize a ton of super-talented people. I just happen to be the face of the companies.

Let others lead small lives, but not you. Let others argue over small things, but not you. Let others cry over small hurts, but not you. Let others leave their future in someone else’s hands, but not you.

When a team takes ownership of its problems, the problem gets solved. It is true on the battlefield, it is true in business, and it is true in life.

I must follow the people. Am I not their leader?

It takes as much energy to wish as it does to plan.

Littera scripta manet – ‚The written word will remain‘. That’s true, but it won’t be that much comfort to me.

I walk tall; I got a tall attitude.

The thing to do, it seems to me, is to prepare yourself so you can be a rainbow in somebody else’s cloud. Somebody who may not look like you. May not call God the same name you call God – if they call God at all. I may not dance your dances or speak your language. But be a blessing to somebody. That’s what I think.

All successful people men and women are big dreamers. They imagine what their future could be, ideal in every respect, and then they work every day toward their distant vision, that goal or purpose.

There are many harsh lessons to be learned from the gambling experience, but the harshest one of all is the difference between having Fun and being Smart.

Achievement brings its own anticlimax.

Make the most of yourself, for that is all there is of you.

I’m totally myself.

We are tied to the ocean. And when we go back to the sea, whether it is to sail or to watch – we are going back from whence we came.

There is no love of life without despair of life.

Shall I, that have destroyed my Preservers, return home?

Wars may be fought with weapons, but they are won by men. It is the spirit of men who follow and of the man who leads that gains the victory.

No man is rich enough to buy back his past.

I think my worst problem is actually living in the moment and understanding everything that’s going on. I feel like I’m in my own bubble.

Politicians must set their aims for the high ground and according to our various leanings, Democratic, Republican, Independent, we will follow. Politicians must be told if they continue to sink into the mud of obscenity, they will proceed alone.

The best minds are not in government. If any were, business would steal them away.

If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, change your attitude.

Managers today have to do more with less, and get better results from limited resources, more than ever before.

We could never learn to be brave and patient, if there were only joy in the world.

I try to not focus on what people expect from me.

Every writer has his writing technique – what he can and can’t do to describe something like war or history. I’m not good at writing about those things, but I try because I feel it is necessary to write that kind of thing.

I don’t see how people are comfortable with seeing other people be great. You can be happy for anybody, but what is your excuse to not want to be great? These people are great because they just say, ‚I’ma do that,‘ and they do it. That’s it. There’s no scientifical process.

I intend to inspire people with my story: motivate young people that grew up like myself, or even not like myself. Just, you know, go through the human experience.

Love is a state of being.

Beware of no man more than of yourself; we carry our worst enemies within us.

We all want progress, but if you’re on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; in that case, the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive.

All of us are guinea pigs in the laboratory of God. Humanity is just a work in progress.

Some people seem to fade away but then when they are truly gone, it’s like they didn’t fade away at all.

Few men would dare to read their own autobiography if all their deeds were recorded in it; few can look back upon their entire career without a blush.

Almost all absurdity of conduct arises from the imitation of those who we cannot resemble.

I think I’m like most people – we fear the unknown and the things that have yet to come to pass, which are the very things that don’t deserve to be feared. When you give God complete control, it’s very hard not to be fearless.

There may sometimes be ungenerous attempts to keep a young man down; and they will succeed, too, if he allows his mind to be diverted from its true channel to brood over the attempted injury.

It is by no means an irrational fancy that, in a future existence, we shall look upon what we think our present existence, as a dream.

Nine-tenths of wisdom is being wise in time.

I really started writing music to challenge myself, to see what I could write.

I deeply regret any harm, or any perceived harm, that I may have done to anyone by any behaviour of mine.

The President is going to benefit from me reporting directly to him when I arrive.

Any man is liable to err, only a fool persists in error.

You have to feel confident. If you don’t, then you’re going to be hesitant and defensive, and there’ll be a lot of things working against you.

I am sometimes a fox and sometimes a lion. The whole secret of government lies in knowing when to be the one or the other.

Correcting bad habits cannot be done by forbidding or punishment.

There are some Christian people who taste and see and enjoy religion in their own souls, and who get at a deeper knowledge of it than books can ever give them, though they should search all their days.

It is impossible to underrate human intelligence – beginning with one’s own.

Sports are such a great teacher. I think of everything they’ve taught me: camaraderie, humility, how to resolve differences.

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.

Success is steady progress toward one’s personal goals.

If you go to work on your goals, your goals will go to work on you. If you go to work on your plan, your plan will go to work on you. Whatever good things we build end up building us.

Very often, say what you will, a knave is only a fool.