Leadership is a choice, not a position.

Necessity never made a good bargain.

Without a moral framework, there is nothing left but immediate self-indulgence by some and the path of least resistance by others. Neither can sustain a free society.

Barack knows the American Dream because he’s lived it, and he wants everyone in this country to have that same opportunity, no matter who we are or where we’re from or what we look like or who we love.

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

Pessimist: One who, when he has the choice of two evils, chooses both.

A good decision is based on knowledge and not on numbers.

I can’t deny that the thought of being governor, the thought of being president, is alluring. And beyond that, it would be an opportunity to make a real impact on people’s lives on a global scale. But there are a lot of other things I want to do first.

Just as discipline and freedom are opposing forces that must be balanced, leadership requires finding the equilibrium in the dichotomy of many seemingly contradictory qualities between one extreme and another.

I think – I don’t know, maybe it’s nostalgia. But the choice, losing the choice to be able to use film is going to be – it’s gone. It’s going to be gone.

Every man, every woman who has to take up the service of government, must ask themselves two questions: ‚Do I love my people in order to serve them better? Am I humble and do I listen to everybody, to diverse opinions in order to choose the best path?‘ If you don’t ask those questions, your governance will not be good.

We have come to a turning point in the road. If we turn to the right mayhap our children and our children’s children will go that way; but if we turn to the left, generations yet unborn will curse our names for having been unfaithful to God and to His Word.

Democracy cannot succeed unless those who express their choice are prepared to choose wisely. The real safeguard of democracy, therefore, is education.

The common question that gets asked in business is, ‚why?‘ That’s a good question, but an equally valid question is, ‚why not?‘

In politics… never retreat, never retract… never admit a mistake.

You cannot be in a position of power and destroy the life of another person.

Listen, I think that people want a president who is going to be interested in the things that keep them up at night, the things that are weighing on them, the things that are debilitating and can be addressed.

Let me define a leader. He must have vision and passion and not be afraid of any problem. Instead, he should know how to defeat it. Most importantly, he must work with integrity.

Choose your life’s mate carefully. From this one decision will come 90 percent of all your happiness or misery.

If an individual wants to be a leader and isn’t controversial, that means he never stood for anything.

By most accounts, Aristide is the most popular figure in Haiti.

Always make those above you feel comfortably superior. In your desire to please or impress them, do not go too far in displaying your talents or you might accomplish the opposite – inspire fear and insecurity.

If the leader is filled with high ambition and if he pursues his aims with audacity and strength of will, he will reach them in spite of all obstacles.

If you tell people where to go, but not how to get there, you’ll be amazed at the results.

Responsibility, I believe, accrues through privilege.

Pull the string, and it will follow wherever you wish. Push it, and it will go nowhere at all.

You want me to own a team and deal with these rich, spoiled stubborn athletes, and try to get them to perform? No thank you.

If I had chosen the populist course, it would have been a breach of the trust placed in me by the people.

When you have to make a choice and don’t make it, that is in itself a choice.

To paraphrase Winston Churchill, I did not take the oath I have just taken with the intention of presiding over the dissolution of the world’s strongest economy.

Whoever won’t fight when the President calls him, deserves to be kicked back in his hole and kept there.

The torment of precautions often exceeds the dangers to be avoided. It is sometimes better to abandon one’s self to destiny.

Excellence, then, is a state concerned with choice, lying in a mean, relative to us, this being determined by reason and in the way in which the man of practical wisdom would determine it.

I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat.

I often say to people that producing is the best-paid form of cowardice. When you produce things, you almost always get credit if it’s a good record, but you hardly ever get the blame if it’s not! You don’t really take responsibility for your work.

Control is the source of strategic power.

My parents didn’t want to move to Florida, but they turned sixty and that’s the law.

If you want to have sustained joy, you have to not only make sure that you think right, but you also have to make decisions now that are going to guarantee some joy in the future.

The effect of liberty to individuals is that they may do what they please: we ought to see what it will please them to do, before we risk congratulations.

One of my direct subordinates, one of my guys that worked for me, he would call me up or pull me aside with some major problem, some issue that was going on. And he’d say, ‚Boss, we’ve got this, and that, and the other thing.‘ And I’d look at him and I’d say, ‚Good.‘

The President is going to benefit from me reporting directly to him when I arrive.

You should do what other people do, unless you have a very good reason not to.

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

The thing is, if you control the Senate meetings, you control the gavel. And the gavel is a very important instrument… an instrument of power. An instrument that establishes the agenda.

I think our politicians could learn a lot from Mandela.

It is, after all, the responsibility of the expert to operate the familiar and that of the leader to transcend it.

I want to go when I want. It is tasteless to prolong life artificially. I have done my share; it is time to go. I will do it elegantly.

Indecision may or may not be my problem.

One of the things that was really an issue was I did not want to just be a woman secretary of state. I wanted to be a secretary of a state who was a woman, but not just chosen for that particular reason.

It is change, continuing change, inevitable change, that is the dominant factor in society today. 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.

In politics, nothing happens by accident. If it happens, you can bet it was planned that way.

When you’re not engaged in the day-to-day struggles that everybody feels, you slowly start losing touch. And I think it’s important for the people in the White House to have a finger on the pulse.

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

If you have to control people, you have to have an administrative force that does it. So in U.S. industry, even more than elsewhere, there’s layer after layer of management – a kind of economic waste, but useful for control and domination. And the same is true in universities.

Wars may be fought with weapons, but they are won by men. It is the spirit of men who follow and of the man who leads that gains the victory.

I am fearful, or suspicious, of generalizations… They cannot guide me reliably in making decisions about particular individuals.

I am not afraid of an army of lions led by a sheep; I am afraid of an army of sheep led by a lion.

When we assumed the Soldier, we did not lay aside the Citizen.

In matters of truth the fact that you don’t want to publish something is, nine times out of ten, a proof that you ought to publish it.

If I’m going to get you to do stuff, I need to lead you. I can’t just order you to do it.

Great leaders are almost always great simplifiers, who can cut through argument, debate and doubt, to offer a solution everybody can understand.