Inability to make decisions is one of the principal reasons executives fail. Deficiency in decision-making ranks much higher than lack of specific knowledge or technical know-how as an indicator of leadership failure.

High office teaches decision making, not substance. It consumes intellectual capital; it does not create it. Most high officials leave office with the perceptions and insights with which they entered; they learn how to make decisions but not what decisions to make.

At the end of the day, when it comes time to make that decision, as president, all you have to guide you are your values, and your vision, and the life experiences that make you who you are.

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

The buck stops here!

I just know what is right and I want to do what is right.

All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.

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.

I won’t do something unless I can get at least two or three good laughs out of it. If I can’t, it’s not gonna make the team.

I think that there is never an indispensable leader, you know? I think that there is a time with dignity that one needs to leave.

Put your leaders in stressful scenarios. Make them figure out solutions under pressure. See if you can make them frustrated, angry, and flustered, and then demand decisive leadership from them. They will be challenged at first, but they will get better over time.

Life is a constant oscillation between the sharp horns of dilemmas.

We should work with the principle that a work that can be done at a lower level should never be escalated to a higher level.

I shall never be a heretic; I may err in dispute, but I do not wish to decide anything finally; on the other hand, I am not bound by the opinions of men.

It’s not called quitting if you quit while you ahead. It’s about being aware and being strategic enough to know that you got to get out the pool at some point. You got to put your clothes back on and dry off.

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.

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

I give opinions, not advice.

When in doubt, don’t.

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

We will burn that bridge when we come to it.

A majority is always better than the best repartee.

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.

Whatever position I occupied, it was the result of colleagues – of my comrades in the movement – who had decided in their wisdom to use me for the purpose of focusing the attention of the country and the international community on me.

A man can’t be too careful in the choice of his enemies.

I had therefore to remove knowledge, in order to make room for belief.

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.

Leaders are responsible not for running public opinion polls but for the consequences of their actions.

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

Every mind must make its choice between truth and repose. It cannot have both.

Loving others always costs us something and requires effort. And you have to decide to do it on purpose. You can’t wait for a feeling to motivate you.

When in doubt tell the truth.

To compromise simply means that you go a tiny bit below what you know is right.

For how many things, which for our own sake we should never do, do we perform for the sake of our friends.

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

A director makes 100 decisions an hour. Students ask me how you know how to make the right decision, and I say to them, ‚If you don’t know how to make the right decision, you’re not a director.‘

As soon as questions of will or decision or reason or choice of action arise, human science is at a loss.

I think women want to take care of themselves, and I think having a voice in how that is done is very important.

It’s not worth doing something unless you were doing something that someone, somewere, would much rather you weren’t doing.

The government’s job is good governance for everybody. My government will make policies; if you fit into it, come on board, or stay where you are. My job is not to spoon-feed anyone.

Entrepreneurs are natural problem-solvers, which means that we always have ideas for new businesses popping into our heads. Having a lot of options is great, but sometimes it can be hard to focus on one when you are keen to move onto the next.

There are goods so opposed that we cannot seize both, but, by too much prudence, may pass between them at too great a distance to reach either.

I always have a basic plot outline, but I like to leave some things to be decided while I write.

If you judge, investigate.

If you do not change direction, you may end up where you are heading.

The business aspect is one of the most important things about having a music career, because every choice you make in a management meeting affects your life a year-and-a-half from now.

When you see something that is technically sweet, you go ahead and do it and you argue about what to do about it only after you have had your technical success. That is the way it was with the atomic bomb.

There are horrible people who, instead of solving a problem, tangle it up and make it harder to solve for anyone who wants to deal with it. Whoever does not know how to hit the nail on the head should be asked not to hit it at all.

Nothing is more difficult, and therefore more precious, than to be able to decide.

All of our reasoning ends in surrender to feeling.

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.

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.

Cowardice asks the question, is it safe? Expediency asks the question, is it politic? Vanity asks the question, is it popular? But conscience asks the question, is it right? And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but one must take it because it is right.

You can’t have a value structure without a hierarchy. They’re the same thing because a value structure means one thing takes precedence over another.

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

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

The superior man understands what is right; the inferior man understands what will sell.

Do I wear a helmet? Ugh. I do when I’m riding through a precarious part of town, meaning Midtown traffic. But when I’m riding on secure protected lanes or on the paths that run along the Hudson or through Central Park – no, I don’t wear the dreaded helmet then.

Obviously I faced the possibility of not returning when first I considered going. Once faced and settled there really wasn’t any good reason to refer to it.

Fortunately we’re not a public company – we’re a private group of companies, and I can do what I want.

I bought a gun and chose drugs instead.