It sure is hell to be president.

I once told Nixon that the Presidency is like being a jackass caught in a hail storm. You’ve got to just stand there and take it.

I can move any crowd.

Do I think faith will be an important part of being a good president? Yes, I do.

Ancient Rome declined because it had a Senate, now what’s going to happen to us with both a House and a Senate?

No untroubled day has ever dawned for me.

A business that makes nothing but money is a poor business.

It’s not easy being young. It’s hard to know what to do.

It’s not proper for the government to intrude too thoroughly into the domain of the family. It’s inappropriate.

The government, whether state or central, is elected. That means we have a responsibility to elect the right kind of leaders.

The challenge of work-life balance is without question one of the most significant struggles faced by modern man.

As for accomplishments, I just did what I had to do as things came along.

You can tell the tree by the fruit it bears. You see it through what the organization is delivering as far as a concrete program. If the tree’s fruit sours or grows brackish, then the time has come to chop it down – bury it and walk over it and plant new seeds.

By 1960, the South Africans knew that they were becoming a pariah state.

I got the stern end of the stick. It was kind of that iron fist. I am who I am today because of my mother.

Presidents quickly realize that while a single act might destroy the world they live in, no one single decision can make life suddenly better or can turn history around for the good.

The basis of our political system is the right of the people to make and to alter their constitutions of government.

And I have no doubt that every new example will succeed, as every past one has done, in showing that religion and Government will both exist in greater purity, the less they are mixed together.

Sometimes we be playing the politics too much and forget who we are just to win.

For the introduction of a new kind of music must be shunned as imperiling the whole state; since styles of music are never disturbed without affecting the most important political institutions.

Most of the problems a President has to face have their roots in the past.

No part of the education of a politician is more indispensable than the fighting of elections.

Republicans are men of narrow vision, who are afraid of the future.

And they that rule in England, in stately conclaves met, alas, alas for England they have no graves as yet.

It doesn’t take a majority to make a rebellion; it takes only a few determined leaders and a sound cause.

The most terrifying words in the English language are: I’m from the government and I’m here to help.

You know I vowed when I became President not to talk about the loneliest toughest job in the world and I didn’t.

When I started Virgin from a basement in west London, there was no great plan or strategy. I didn’t set out to build a business empire… For me, building a business is all about doing something to be proud of, bringing talented people together and creating something that’s going to make a real difference to other people’s lives.

Governments need to have both shepherds and butchers.

Power is the measure of the degree of control you have over circumstances in your life and the actions of the people around you. It is a skill that is developed by a deep understanding of human nature, of what truly motivates people, and of the manipulations necessary for advancement and protection.

Which government is the best? The one that teaches us to govern ourselves.

The faults of a superior person are like the sun and moon. They have their faults, and everyone sees them; they change and everyone looks up to them.

No government can help the destinies of people who insist in putting sectional and class consciousness ahead of general weal.

I don’t think I could think of a single thing that’s more isolating than being famous.

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

The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive.

I would hear stories about Steve Jobs and feel like he was at 100 percent exactly what he wanted to do, but I’m sure even a Steve Jobs has compromised. Even a Rick Owens has compromised. You know, even a Kanye West has compromised. Sometimes you don’t even know when you’re being compromised till after the fact, and that’s what you regret.

I pass my life in preventing the storm from blowing down the tent, and I drive in the pegs as fast as they are pulled up.

I neither will aspire to nor will I accept, the position of president of the council of state and commander in chief.

I don’t make jokes. I just watch the government and report the facts.

The rulers of the state are the only persons who ought to have the privilege of lying, either at home or abroad; they may be allowed to lie for the good of the state.

Read my lips: no new taxes.

No man lives without jostling and being jostled; in all ways he has to elbow himself through the world, giving and receiving offence.

By definition, a government has no conscience. Sometimes it has a policy, but nothing more.

Whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government.

I believe that many of my young guys lived because I didn’t waste their lives because I didn’t have the vision in my mind of how to destroy the enemy at least cost to our guys and to the innocents on the battlefields.

Life is divided into the horrible and the miserable.

Rhetoric is a poor substitute for action, and we have trusted only to rhetoric. If we are really to be a great nation, we must not merely talk; we must act big.

If we could just find out who’s in charge, we could kill him.

You and I are stuck with the necessity of taking the worst of two evils or none at all. So-I’m taking the immature Democrat as the best of the two. Nixon is impossible.

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 political object is the goal, war is the means of reaching it, and the means can never be considered in isolation from their purposes.

There are seasons in every country when noise and impudence pass current for worth; and in popular commotions especially, the clamors of interested and factious men are often mistaken for patriotism.

No body can be healthful without exercise, neither natural body nor politic, and certainly, to a kingdom or estate, a just and honourable war is the true exercise.

Public opinion is the thermometer a monarch should constantly consult.

Remember, it is not about voting for the perfect candidate – there is no such thing. Presidents are human.

One man with courage is a majority.

When you tell a recruiter that you’re almost 300 pounds and you want to be a SEAL, it doesn’t go too well. I got hung up on a lot.

Blessed are the people whose leaders can look destiny in the eye without flinching but also without attempting to play God.

There was a stool there, and some fella kept asking me if I wanted to sit down. When I saw the stool sitting there, it gave me the idea. I’ll just put the stool out there and I’ll talk to Mr. Obama and ask him why he didn’t keep all of the promises he made to everybody.

History reminds us that dictators and despots arise during times of severe economic crisis.