It’s OK to have your eggs in one basket as long as you control what happens to that basket.

When I was running training, we would fire a couple of leaders from every SEAL team because they couldn’t lead. And 99.9% of the time, it wasn’t a question of their ability – it was a question of their ability to listen.

If you have a family mission statement that clarifies what your purpose is, then you use that as the criterion by which you make the 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.

For me, already being part of a single parent household and knowing it was just me and my mom, you’d would wake up times and hope that the next day you’d be able to be alongside your mother because she was out trying to make sure that I was taken care of. But all I cared about was her being home.

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.

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.

Our enemy, the devil, wants to control us, and his target is our will. The main way he tries to influence our will is through lying to us.

Most gods throw dice, but Fate plays chess, and you don’t find out til too late that he’s been playing with two queens all along.

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

Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it.

The more extensive a man’s knowledge of what has been done, the greater will be his power of knowing what to do.

Widespread use of antibiotics promotes the spread of antibiotic resistance. Smart use of antibiotics is the key to controlling its spread.

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.

When you meet chimps you meet individual personalities. When a baby chimp looks at you it’s just like a human baby. We have a responsibility to them.

Commitment is an act, not a word.

I am a leader by default, only because nature does not allow a vacuum.

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.

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

A hero is someone who understands the responsibility that comes with his freedom.

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.

A journey is like marriage. The certain way to be wrong is to think you control it.

The first duty of a state is to see that every child born therein shall be well housed, clothed, fed and educated till it attains years of discretion.

Taste cannot be controlled by law.

When the external factors over which one has no control in a way start to become negative, it starts to affect our creative juices.

Be slow in choosing a friend, slower in changing.

When in doubt, don’t.

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.

Your philosophy determines whether you will go for the disciplines or continue the errors.

There are no easy answers, but there are simple answers. We must have the courage to do what we know is morally right.

Things must be done by parties, not by persons using parties as tools.

When it comes to the qualifications that we should demand of our president, to start with, we need someone who will take the job seriously.

The strongest and most effective force in guaranteeing the long-term maintenance of power is not violence in all the forms deployed by the dominant to control the dominated, but consent in all the forms in which the dominated acquiesce in their own domination.

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

In doubtful cases the more liberal interpretation must always be preferred.

When I have been asked during these last weeks who caused the riots and the killing in L.A., my answer has been direct and simple: Who is to blame for the riots? The rioters are to blame. Who is to blame for the killings? The killers are to blame.

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.

Solutions are not the answer.

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

We never fail when we try to do our duty, we always fail when we neglect to do it.

We are made wise not by the recollection of our past, but by the responsibility for our future.

I repeat… that all power is a trust; that we are accountable for its exercise; that from the people and for the people all springs, and all must exist.

Power has only one duty – to secure the social welfare of the People.

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

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.

For those of you who do not know Him, choosing your eternal home is the most important decision you will ever make.

When the players go home, I can’t tell them what to do, so you need to create an atmosphere of trust. I don’t want to think, ‚What are they doing now? Do I need to call them?‘

Every guilty person is his own hangman.

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

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

My one big regret is that I didn’t play on for ten more years.

I said on the equality side of it, that it is essential to a woman’s equality with man that she be the decision-maker, that her choice be controlling.

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.

Man is fully responsible for his nature and his choices.

Most shareholders have little if any control over the companies in which they own stock, even if they own a million shares.

In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing, the next best thing is the wrong thing, and the worst thing you can do is nothing.

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

Each generation doubtless feels called upon to reform the world. Mine knows that it will not reform it, but its task is perhaps even greater. It consists in preventing the world from destroying itself.

Young people are fitter to invent than to judge; fitter for execution than for counsel; and more fit for new projects than for settled business.

A sword never kills anybody; it is a tool in the killer’s hand.

With artificial intelligence, we are summoning the demon. You know all those stories where there’s the guy with the pentagram and the holy water, and he’s like, yeah, he’s sure he can control the demon? Doesn’t work out.