If the American people don’t love me, their descendants will.

The one thing I want to leave my children is an honorable name.

I think a number of the leaders are, whether you like it or not, in the hip-hop generation. And when they understand enough, they’ll do wonders. I count on them.

I’m the only president you’ve got.

Take off your bedroom slippers. Put on your marching shoes,‘ he said, his voice rising as applause and cheers mounted. ‚Shake it off. Stop complainin‘. Stop grumblin‘. Stop cryin‘. We are going to press on. We have work to do.

You’re president, if you conclude my judgment is not the right judgment, I abide by that, but I want an opportunity to have an input.

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.

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.

In war, you can only be killed once, but in politics, many times.

There’s backlash about everything I do.

The supreme quality for leadership is unquestionably integrity. Without it, no real success is possible, no matter whether it is on a section gang, a football field, in an army, or in an office.

The story being told in ‚Star Wars‘ is a classic one. Every few hundred years, the story is retold because we have a tendency to do the same things over and over again. Power corrupts, and when you’re in charge, you start doing things that you think are right, but they’re actually not.

If you’re going to change things, you have to be with the people who hold the levers.

The best government is a benevolent tyranny tempered by an occasional assassination.

Organization charts and fancy titles count for next to nothing.

We also can’t try to take over and rebuild every country that falls into crisis. That’s not leadership; that’s a recipe for quagmire, spilling American blood and treasure that ultimately weakens us. It’s the lesson of Vietnam, of Iraq – and we should have learned it by now.

If I made a commitment, I stood by that commitment – and try to make it real. Because when you become leaders, the most important thing you have is your word, your trust. That’s where respect comes from.

What we won when all of our people united must not be lost in suspicion and distrust and selfishness and politics. Accordingly, I shall not seek, and I will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term as president.

I began revolution with 82 men. If I had to do it again, I do it with 10 or 15 and absolute faith. It does not matter how small you are if you have faith and plan of action.

I desire so to conduct the affairs of this administration that if at the end… I have lost every other friend on earth, I shall at least have one friend left, and that friend shall be down inside of me.

Self-centered leaders manipulate when they move people for personal benefit. Mature leaders motivate by moving people for mutual benefit.

From a young age, I learned to focus on the things I was good at and delegate to others what I was not good at. That’s how Virgin is run. Fantastic people throughout the Virgin Group run our businesses, allowing me to think creatively and strategically.

It is pretty ironic that the so-called ‚least advanced‘ people are the ones taking the lead in trying to protect all of us, while the richest and most powerful among us are the ones who are trying to drive the society to destruction.

When I left Dortmund, I said it’s not important what people think when you come in but what they think when you leave.

There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things.

In a world of complex threats, our security and leadership depends on all elements of our power – including strong and principled diplomacy.

I was not a messiah, but an ordinary man who had become a leader because of extraordinary circumstances.

No man will make a great leader who wants to do it all himself or get all the credit for doing it.

Putin goes to bed at night knowing he can break all the rules, and the West will follow all the rules.

You do the policy, I’ll do the politics.

A typical vice of American politics is the avoidance of saying anything real on real issues.

Politics is not a game. It is an earnest business.

There’s no difference between one’s killing and making decisions that will send others to kill. It’s exactly the same thing, or even worse.

My relationship to power and authority is that I’m all for it. People need somebody to watch over them. Ninety-five percent of the people in the world need to be told what to do and how to behave.

Generally speaking, the public appetite for criminal justice policy is just tough talk.

I have been on the road and visited numerous places and met people from all over the globe. I can say that it looks nearly the same everywhere I have been: The climate crisis is ignored by people in charge, despite the science being crystal clear.

Imagine for yourself a character, a model personality, whose example you determine to follow, in private as well as in public.

The 21st century is going to be the American century. Because we lead not only by the example of our power, but by the power of our example. That is the history of the journey of America.

What life half gives a man, posterity gives entirely.

No one can pass through life, any more than he can pass through a bit of country, without leaving tracks behind, and those tracks may often be helpful to those coming after him in finding their way.

I can easily imagine Obama sitting down and talking to any leader – or any person – in the world, with no baggage of past servitude or race supremacy to mar their talks.

Personally, I’d like to see more of our leaders take a technocratic approach to solving our biggest problems.

This is a moment that I deeply wish my parents could have lived to share. My father would have enjoyed what you have so generously said of me-and my mother would have believed it.

No man is good enough to govern another man without the other’s consent.

The most successful politician is he who says what the people are thinking most often in the loudest voice.

Leaders who are kind of insecure or egocentric, they basically sabotage themselves.

Most Americans think there’s already universal background checks. They don’t understand why there wouldn’t be a background check to purchase a weapon.

The eye of the master will do more work than both his hands.

As President Nixon says, presidents can do almost anything, and President Nixon has done many things that nobody would have thought of doing.

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

My celebrity status allows me an opportunity, allows me a pulpit to preach and reach out to the people. Not even always preaching but just leading, motivating them by being a leader.

Nothing doth more hurt in a state than that cunning men pass for wise.

That’s the one for my tombstone… Here lies David Byrne. Why the big suit?

That was always the difference between Muhammad Ali and the rest of us. He came, he saw, and if he didn’t entirely conquer – he came as close as anybody we are likely to see in the lifetime of this doomed generation.

We need an adult in the White House. When making life-or-death, war-or-peace decisions, a president can’t just pop off or lash out irrationally.

Put two or three men in positions of conflicting authority. This will force them to work at loggerheads, allowing you to be the ultimate arbiter.

I don’t think that a leader can control, to any great extent, his destiny. Very seldom can he step in and change the situation if the forces of history are running in another direction.

Back in the day, what motivated me was overcoming myself. Now I believe in being a leader. I’ve done it all – I’m good. Now, it’s about setting an example for others to follow. I can’t just talk it – I have to live it.

Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job.

It constitutes a superhuman effort to lead any people in times of crisis. Without them, the changes would be impossible.

I want to be just a pure spiritual leader.