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

In the long run, we shape our lives, and we shape ourselves. The process never ends until we die. And the choices we make are ultimately our own responsibility.

I think life is a matter of choices and that wherever we are, good or bad, is because of choices we make.

I always say, decisions I make, I live with them. There’s always ways you can correct them or ways you can do them better. At the end of the day, I live with them.

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.

My philosophy in life is, Decide what you want to do. You have to have something to hope for.

Life was always a matter of waiting for the right moment to act.

If every choice you make comes from an honest place, you’re solid, and nothing anybody can say about you can rock you or change your opinion.

If you judge, investigate.

My one big regret is that I didn’t play on for ten more years.

A lot of people tell me a lot of things about my conduct, my game, my future… but I try to stay away from their words of wisdom. I don’t let it distract me. On the field, you will be facing the ball alone. If you fail, you will the only one to blame. So, you should be the one deciding for yourself.

What matters in the Sun-tzu universe are not positions of strength and power, but situations in which you have options, full of potential force.

Wisdom stands at the turn in the road and calls upon us publicly, but we consider it false and despise its adherents.

You can always count on Americans to do the right thing – after they’ve tried everything else.

If you want to have sustained joy, you have to not only make sure that you think right, but you also have to make decisions now that are going to guarantee some joy in the future.

Car designers are just going to have to come up with an automobile that outlasts the payments.

I wonder how many decisions we make every day. I believe it’s probably hundreds. We decide whether or not to get out of bed, what we’ll eat, what we’ll do, what we’ll think about, what we’ll say… and on and on.

Nothing is more expensive than a missed opportunity.

Forgiveness is not a feeling – it’s a decision we make because we want to do what’s right before God. It’s a quality decision that won’t be easy and it may take time to get through the process, depending on the severity of the offense.

Your philosophy determines whether you will go for the disciplines or continue the errors.

The possibilities are numerous once we decide to act and not react.

I think that that’s the wisest thing – to prevent illness before we try to cure something.

Surround yourself with the best people you can find, delegate authority, and don’t interfere as long as the policy you’ve decided upon is being carried out.

It has not yet become obvious to me that there’s no real problem. I cannot define the real problem; therefore, I suspect there’s no real problem, but I’m not sure there’s no real problem.

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

Where the senses fail us, reason must step in.

In low-income countries, the main problems you have is infectious diseases.

You know capitalism is this wonderful thing that motivates people, it causes wonderful inventions to be done. But in this area of diseases of the world at large, it’s really let us down.

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.

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

You are doomed to make choices. This is life’s greatest paradox.

Trust your instinct to the end, though you can render no reason.

Let’s just be smart this time. I’m looking for smart.

In order to govern, the question is not to follow out a more or less valid theory but to build with whatever materials are at hand. The inevitable must be accepted and turned to advantage.

An act has no ethical quality whatever unless it be chosen out of several all equally possible.

Belief is a wise wager. Granted that faith cannot be proved, what harm will come to you if you gamble on its truth and it proves false? If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing. Wager, then, without hesitation, that He exists.

I never make conscious decisions.

The baby boomers are getting older, and will stay older for longer. And they will run right into the dementia firing range. How will a society cope? Especially a society that can’t so readily rely on those stable family relationships that traditionally provided the backbone of care?

Finality is not the language of politics.

I am always wary of decisions made hastily. I am always wary of the first decision, that is, the first thing that comes to my mind if I have to make a decision. This is usually the wrong thing. I have to wait and assess, looking deep into myself, taking the necessary time.

If I think too hard about a relationship, I’ll talk myself out of it.

Take calculated risks. That is quite different from being rash.

I’ve seen how the issues that come across a president’s desk are always the hard ones – the problems where no amount of data or numbers will get you to the right answer.

Every man, every woman who has to take up the service of government, must ask themselves two questions: ‚Do I love my people in order to serve them better? Am I humble and do I listen to everybody, to diverse opinions in order to choose the best path?‘ If you don’t ask those questions, your governance will not be good.

A man is usually more careful of his money than he is of his principles.

I bought a company in the mid-’90s called Dexter Shoe and paid $400 million for it. And it went to zero. And I gave about $400 million worth of Berkshire stock, which is probably now worth $400 billion. But I’ve made lots of dumb decisions. That’s part of the game.

I would rather drink weedkiller than support Obamacare.

You know we’re going to control the insurance companies.

In every country except – industrial country except the United States, the government uses its massive purchasing power to negotiate drug prices. That’s one of the reasons prices are so much higher in the United States than in other countries.

Those who govern, having much business on their hands, do not generally like to take the trouble of considering and carrying into execution new projects. The best public measures are therefore seldom adopted from previous wisdom, but forced by the occasion.

Cancer is still a word that strikes fear into people’s hearts, producing a deep sense of powerlessness. But today it is possible to find out through a blood test whether you are highly susceptible to breast and ovarian cancer, and then take action.

Men often oppose a thing merely because they have had no agency in planning it, or because it may have been planned by those whom they dislike.

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.

It’s a question of whether we’re going to go forward into the future, or past to the back.

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

The day-to-day making of policy is arguing all the time. You’re trying to get the right approach and the right answer, and there are moments that aren’t very pleasant. But in the end, you look at the overall product.

I have too many clothes, I have too many options.

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

It may seem a strange principle to enunciate as the very first requirement in a hospital that it should do the sick no harm.

Treatment without prevention is simply unsustainable.

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