In business, if you realize you’ve made a bad decision, you change it.

Although prepared for martyrdom, I preferred that it be postponed.

Good leadership consists of showing average people how to do the work of superior people.

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

A business like an automobile, has to be driven, in order to get results.

There are risks and costs to action. But they are far less than the long range risks of comfortable inaction.

We can’t drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times… and then just expect that other countries are going to say OK. That’s not leadership. That’s not going to happen.

Whenever a man has cast a longing eye on offices, a rottenness begins in his conduct.

If you can build a business up big enough, it’s respectable.

I do not believe a man can ever leave his business. He ought to think of it by day and dream of it by night.

Organization charts and fancy titles count for next to nothing.

My parents pretty much realized that I would do whatever I wanted, and that was it, really.

I don’t think I would run for president.

So long as men worship the Caesars and Napoleons, Caesars and Napoleons will duly arise and make them miserable.

America isn’t Congress. America isn’t Washington. America is the striving immigrant who starts a business, or the mom who works two low-wage jobs to give her kid a better life. America is the union leader and the CEO who put aside their differences to make the economy stronger.

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 never make conscious decisions.

One’s philosophy is not best expressed in words; it is expressed in the choices one makes… and the choices we make are ultimately our responsibility.

Cruel leaders are replaced only to have new leaders turn cruel.

Governments need to have both shepherds and butchers.

If you are ever in doubt as to whether to kiss a pretty girl, always give her the benefit of the doubt.

I have a different vision of leadership. A leadership is someone who brings people together.

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

If you were to ask me to choose between democratic values and wealth, power, prosperity and fame, I will very easily and without any doubt choose democratic values.

If you can ask a young man to give his life for his country, you can lead people.

I’ve had some ‚riotous excursions of the human spirit‘ alongside the young Sailors and Marines, and it’s time to leave the stage to the young leaders who got their rank the old-fashioned way – they earned their stripes in combat.

Only the guy who isn’t rowing has time to rock the boat.

There are hunters, and there are victims. By your discipline, cunning, obedience, and alertness, you will decide if you are a hunter or a victim.

I am not interested in power for power’s sake, but I’m interested in power that is moral, that is right and that is good.

People make a big fuss over you when you’re President. But I’m very serious about doing everything I can to make sure that it doesn’t go to my head.

I suppose that’s one of the ironies of life doing the wrong thing at the right moment.

He who has a task to perform must know how to take sides, or he is quite unworthy of it.

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

A President’s hardest task is not to do what is right, but to know what is right.

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

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.

Don’t swap horses in crossing a stream.

A hero is born among a hundred, a wise man is found among a thousand, but an accomplished one might not be found even among a hundred thousand men.

I try to lead by example, being conscious of others and being responsible.

It’s safe to say headphones is a good business.

The Scoutmaster teaches boys to play the game by doing so himself.

Control and surrender have to be kept in balance. That’s what surfers do – take control of the situation, then be carried, then take control. In the last few thousand years, we’ve become incredibly adept technically. We’ve treasured the controlling part of ourselves and neglected the surrendering part.

Political courage is not political suicide.

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

Let your Discourse with Men of Business be Short and Comprehensive.

Those of us who submitted or surrendered our ideas and dreams and identities to the ‚leaders‘ must take back our rights, our identities, our responsibilities.

The success I have achieved in bodybuilding, motion pictures, and business would not have been possible without the generosity of the American people and the freedom here to pursue your dreams.

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.

Control is the source of strategic power.

Being a good listener is absolutely critical to being a good leader; you have to listen to the people who are on the front line.

The more responsibility the Scoutmaster gives his patrol leaders, the more they will respond.

You can always amend a big plan, but you can never expand a little one. I don’t believe in little plans. I believe in plans big enough to meet a situation which we can’t possibly foresee now.

No great man lives in vain. The history of the world is but the biography of great men.

Nothing can be more hurtful to the service, than the neglect of discipline; for that discipline, more than numbers, gives one army the superiority over another.

It is a fine game to play – the game of politics – and it is well worth waiting for a good hand before really plunging.

My job is not to represent Washington to you, but to represent you to Washington.

This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when he first appears he is a protector.

People do not understand what a great revenue economy is.

Earn your success based on service to others, not at the expense of others.

Having unlimited choices can paralyze you creatively.

Real art has been… what’s the word? Kidnapped? No, that’s not it. But, OK, kidnapped by business.