In the long history of the world, only a few generations have been granted the role of defending freedom in its hour of maximum danger. I do not shrink from this responsibility – I welcome it.

Don’t tell people how to do things, tell them what to do and let them surprise you with their results.

On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.

None but a coward dares to boast that he has never known fear.

Hold those things that tell your history and protect them. During slavery, who was able to read or write or keep anything? The ability to have somebody to tell your story to is so important. It says: ‚I was here. I may be sold tomorrow. But you know I was here.‘

Poetry is nearer to vital truth than history.

Courage is rightly esteemed the first of human qualities… because it is the quality which guarantees all others.

The whole history of pop music had rested on the first person singular, with occasional intrusions of the second person singular.

If you were the President of the United States or the Queen of England – you couldn’t have a person who would be more protective than my mother was for me. Which meant really that I could dare to do all sorts of things.

I think of a hero as someone who understands the degree of responsibility that comes with his freedom.

The three great elements of modern civilization, Gun powder, Printing, and the Protestant religion.

For 2,500 years, India has never invaded anybody.

I’ve always seen first responders as unsung heroes and very special people because, when everyone else is running away from danger, they run into it.

When it comes to the pinch, human beings are heroic.

How many emperors and how many princes have lived and died and no record of them remains, and they only sought to gain dominions and riches in order that their fame might be ever-lasting.

Woz is living his own life now. He hasn’t been around Apple for about five years. But what he did will go down in history.

All my authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.

Who could refrain that had a heart to love and in that heart courage to make love known?

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

I believe that a man is the strongest soldier for daring to die unarmed.

One’s only rival is one’s own potentialities. One’s only failure is failing to live up to one’s own possibilities. In this sense, every man can be a king, and must therefore be treated like a king.

There is nothing in the world so much admired as a man who knows how to bear unhappiness with courage.

I think every age lives in a blend of technology so there’s always older ones mixed in with newer ones, and when the new technology goes down, the immediate fallback position is either that technology just before that or one several technologies back.

The principle that human nature, in its psychological aspects, is nothing more than a product of history and given social relations removes all barriers to coercion and manipulation by the powerful.

There is nothing that compares to the Holocaust.

I do know that throughout history, all paper money has eventually come back to its true value, which is zero.

Most of us have far more courage than we ever dreamed we possessed.

I believe we can continue the Great Society while we fight in Vietnam.

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

The man who can dominate a London dinner-table can dominate the world.

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

We are proud of the history of our country; we learned it in school and have grown up hearing of freedom, justice and human rights.

I think when you see an aircraft fire, these angry, black puffs of smoke, knowing that one of them could kill you that you – you – you understand the seriousness of the mission. And you understand your own mortality.

Blood alone moves the wheels of history.

No, we don’t own our children. Our parental privilege is to love them, to lead them, and to let them go.

The coward only threatens when he is safe.

The future is called ‚perhaps‘, which is the only possible thing to call the future. And the important thing is not to allow that to scare you.

Man is not a machine that can be remodelled for quite other purposes as occasion demands, in the hope that it will go on functioning as regularly as before but in a quite different way. He carries his whole history with him; in his very structure is written the history of mankind.

When I took over as president, I studied the Constitution, and the more I studied it, the more I realised that it does not prevent the president of India from giving the nation a vision. So when I went and presented this vision in Parliament and in legislative assemblies; everyone welcomed it, irrespective of party affiliations.

Simulated disorder postulates perfect discipline; simulated fear postulates courage; simulated weakness postulates strength.

Anything’s possible if you’ve got enough nerve.

Since the team understands that the leader is de facto in charge, in that respect, a leader has nothing to prove. But in another respect, a leader has everything to prove: Every member of the team must develop the trust and confidence that their leader will exercise good judgment, remain calm, and make the right decisions when it matters most.

Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absence of fear.

I would rather earn 1% off a 100 people’s efforts than 100% of my own efforts.

The Bible says to ‚fear not,‘ but this doesn’t mean you should never feel scared. It means when you do feel fear, keep going forward and do what you are supposed to do. Or as I like to say, do it afraid.

He who has faith has… an inward reservoir of courage, hope, confidence, calmness, and assuring trust that all will come out well – even though to the world it may appear to come out most badly.

True terror is to wake up one morning and discover that your high school class is running the country.

From the beginning, Mandela and Tambo was besieged with clients. We were not the only African lawyers in South Africa, but we were the only firm of African lawyers. For Africans, we were the firm of first choice and last resort.

Study the past, if you would divine the future.

The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted.

People invest in businesses that they believe have the leadership, mission and team to grow and operate profitably.

A general is just as good or just as bad as the troops under his command make him.

The responsibility of a writer is to excavate the experience of the people who produced him.

For the record, our democracy is revered around the world. And free elections are the best way on Earth to choose our leaders. This is how we elected John F. Kennedy; Ronald Reagan; two George Bushes; Bill Clinton; and Barack Obama. It has worked for decades.

The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried.

Vulnerability is not weakness. And that myth is profoundly dangerous.

At least the Pilgrim Fathers used to shoot Indians: the Pilgrim Children merely punch time clocks.

I truly believe that when the history books are written, our age will be remembered for three things: the war on terror, the digital revolution, and what we did – or did not do – to put the fire out in Africa. History, like God, is watching what we do.

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.

Those who had demanded no more than an end to the bombing of North Vietnam and a commitment to negotiations saw their demands being realized, and lapsed into silence.

Never be afraid to trust an unknown future to a known God.