If you make up your own mind, you can only blame yourself.

You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself in any direction you choose. You’re on your own, and you know what you know. And you are the guy who’ll decide where to go.

The former colonies, in Latin America in particular, have a better chance than ever before to overcome centuries of subjugation, violence and foreign intervention, which they have so far survived as dependencies with islands of luxury in a sea of misery.

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.

Do what you feel in your heart to be right- for you’ll be criticized anyway. You’ll be damned if you do, and damned if you don’t.

Your life must be a progression towards ownership – first mentally of your independence, and then physically of your work, owning what you produce.

The people themselves, and not their servants, can safely reverse their own deliberate decisions.

I don’t know what’s better gettin‘ laid or gettin‘ paid.

How one life turns out is not dependent on what people do to us or what they don’t do for us.

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

When you’re 40, you can’t ride the fence anymore. You gotta make definite decisions about your life.

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.

The new ruler must determine all the injuries that he will need to inflict. He must inflict them once and for all.

I think I became more productive through not having children. I never really had the desire to have them. My husband didn’t want them either, so it worked out well.

I think Clinton, after getting into office and into Washington, was shocked at being bludgeoned. So he spent time trying to be all things to all people – one way guaranteed not to be successful or respected in a lion’s den. You can’t just play around with all those big cats – you’ve got to take somebody on.

Remember: your bosses prefer to keep you in dependent positions. It is in their interest that you do not become self-reliant, and so they will tend to hoard information. You must secretly work against this and seize this information for yourself.

In politics… never retreat, never retract… never admit a mistake.

If you only do things where you know the answer in advance, your company goes away.

A leader does not deserve the name unless he is willing occasionally to stand alone.

I think it makes sense to believe in God, but exactly what decision in your life you make differently because of it, I don’t know.

If you’re a quarterback, you want everything on your shoulders. You want to be the one to make the decisions.

Work alone is noble.

The common question that gets asked in business is, ‚why?‘ That’s a good question, but an equally valid question is, ‚why not?‘

People seldom do what they believe in. They do what is convenient, then repent.

I’m for women choosing whatever they want to do but they have to really know what they are doing.

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

I was offered a job on Wall Street by my uncle. But I wanted to get out. Make-it-on-my-own kinda thing.

I had three points I wanted to make: That not everybody in Hollywood is on the left, that Obama has broken a lot of the promises he made when he took office, and that the people should feel free to get rid of any politician who’s not doing a good job. But I didn’t make up my mind exactly what I was going to say until I said it.

The man who is aware of himself is henceforward independent; and he is never bored, and life is only too short, and he is steeped through and through with a profound yet temperate happiness.

A man’s own judgment should be the final appeal in all that relates to himself.

I myself have been on my own and utterly independent since I graduated. I haven’t belonged to any company or any system. It isn’t easy to live like this in Japan.

I don’t kiss nobody’s butt.

He alone is free who lives with free consent under the entire guidance of reason.

In the good old days when I was a senator, I was my own man.

I just hate meetings. Though it’s true that once you’ve made a lot of money, people around you might be full of ideas about ways to make lots more money and might be disappointed that you don’t want to seize every opportunity to do so.

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.

The risk for me would be in not taking one – that’s the only thing that’s really risky for me.

I decided to pursue music, so I dropped out of school and I told my parents I didn’t want any money from them. I got three jobs and I just hit the ground running.

I have always believed in evolving a consensus before taking any major decision.

Human behavior flows from three main sources: desire, emotion, and knowledge.

I have considered voting Conservative because I am so against the Labour party.

The ultimate authority must always rest with the individual’s own reason and critical analysis.

Nobody is my boss.

No country can act wisely simultaneously in every part of the globe at every moment of time.

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

I’ve noticed a terrible thing, which is I will agree to anything if it’s far enough in the future.

The shortest answer is doing the thing.

It is change, continuing change, inevitable change, that is the dominant factor in society today. No sensible decision can be made any longer without taking into account not only the world as it is, but the world as it will be.

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

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

You only have to do a very few things right in your life so long as you don’t do too many things wrong.

I thank God I’m in a position where I can pick and choose – there are some roles I don’t play.

Locally, I’ll vote one way and nationally, maybe another.

Solitude is independence.

On the court, I want to try and get to the free-throw line a little more. And as a point guard, you can always get better at your decision-making and limiting your mistakes.

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.

Only that thing is free which exists by the necessities of its own nature, and is determined in its actions by itself alone.

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

Two roads diverged in a wood and I – I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.

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.

We lost the American colonies because we lacked the statesmanship to know the right time and the manner of yielding what is impossible to keep.