Mothers all want their sons to grow up to be president, but they don’t want them to become politicians in the process.

Some single mind must be master, else there will be no agreement in anything.

You can never really live anyone else’s life, not even your child’s. The influence you exert is through your own life, and what you’ve become yourself.

It is a fine thing to have ability, but the ability to discover ability in others is the true test.

My whole family have all been through a difficult time. My focus is my children, our children.

As a young kid, I really wanted to be rich.

I always wanted to be a father and thought it would be great, but it just took the right woman and the right time to make it all happen.

It is better to lead from behind and to put others in front, especially when you celebrate victory when nice things occur. You take the front line when there is danger. Then people will appreciate your leadership.

My children, to the extent that they have found religion, have found it from me, in that I insist on at least a modicum of religious education for them.

Humility must always be the portion of any man who receives acclaim earned in the blood of his followers and the sacrifices of his friends.

The time has come for all evangelists to practice full financial disclosure. The world is watching how we walk and how we talk. We must have the highest standards of morality, ethics and integrity if we are to continue to have influence.

All things considered, there’s nobody better for children than parents.

When it comes to the health of our families, Barack refused to listen to all those folks who told him to leave health reform for another day, another president. He didn’t care whether it was the easy thing to do politically – that’s not how he was raised – he cared that it was the right thing to do.

Kids will remind you that, even though you’ve gone down a road 100 times, it’s brand new for them – and that’s healthy.

The unjustifiable severity of a parent is loaded with this aggravation, that those whom he injures are always in his sight.

When you are winning a war almost everything that happens can be claimed to be right and wise.

Power does not corrupt men; fools, however, if they get into a position of power, corrupt power.

Tell the children the truth.

He who wishes to be obeyed must know how to command.

My three children have brought me great joy.

How can a president not be an actor?

Innovation has nothing to do with how many R & D dollars you have. When Apple came up with the Mac, IBM was spending at least 100 times more on R & D. It’s not about money. It’s about the people you have, how you’re led, and how much you get it.

It takes three to make a child.

Great things in business are never done by one person. They’re done by a team of people.

The thought of being President frightens me and I do not think I want the job.

I once wanted to prove myself by being a great actress. Now I want to prove that I’m a person. Then maybe I’ll be a great actress.

The task of the leader is to get his people from where they are to where they have not been.

Being prime minister is a lonely job… you cannot lead from the crowd.

My parents taught me never to judge others based on whom they love, what color their skin is, or their religion.

I love that we can trust Barack to do what he says he’s going to do, even when it’s hard – especially when it’s hard.

With tech companies, whoever’s the leader is always questioned, you know. They say, ‚Is this the end of them?‘ And – there’s more – more times people think that’s the case than it really is the case.

I always wanted a family.

Those people who develop the ability to continuously acquire new and better forms of knowledge that they can apply to their work and to their lives will be the movers and shakers in our society for the indefinite future.

One word sums up probably the responsibility of any vice-president, and that one word is ‚to be prepared‘.

Our words have wings, but fly not where we would.

When we talk about mortality, we are talking about our children.

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.

What matters in the Sun-tzu universe are not positions of strength and power, but situations in which you have options, full of potential force.

I have dreams, and I want to see them come to fruition.

A mother takes twenty years to make a man of her boy, and another woman makes a fool of him in twenty minutes.

It is the duty of the President to propose and it is the privilege of the Congress to dispose.

These technologies can make life easier, can let us touch people we might not otherwise. You may have a child with a birth defect and be able to get in touch with other parents and support groups, get medical information, the latest experimental drugs. These things can profoundly influence life. I’m not downplaying that.

Modern cynics and skeptics… see no harm in paying those to whom they entrust the minds of their children a smaller wage than is paid to those to whom they entrust the care of their plumbing.

Homework’s hard. Especially math. My kids joke with me. They tell me they have homework. I say, ‚Okay.‘ And then I sit down and they say, ‚It’s math.‘ ‚No! Not math! English, history, anything!‘

We want an Afghanistan that is shaped by the dreams of the great Afghan people, not by irrational fears and overreaching ambitions of others.

Decisiveness is a characteristic of high-performing men and women. Almost any decision is better than no decision at all.

One leader, one people, signifies one master and millions of slaves.

The colonel replied that he didn’t care how my men had got the job done. He was happy that it had been accomplished. He said that, obviously, no matter how much or how little I knew technically, I was able to get the best out of people I worked with.

Our lifestyle was not in any way a negative. That was not the problem. That is and will remain one of the wonderful opportunities we are able to give our children.

To rule is easy, to govern difficult.

In other words, don’t expect to always be great. Disappointments, failures and setbacks are a normal part of the lifecycle of a unit or a company and what the leader has to do is constantly be up and say ‚we have a problem, let’s go and get it‘.

Dictators free themselves, but they enslave the people.

Well I do think, when there are more women, that the tone of the conversation changes, and also the goals of the conversation change. But it doesn’t mean that the whole world would be a lot better if it were totally run by women. If you think that, you’ve forgotten high school.

My greatest blessing has been the birth of my son. My next greatest blessing has been my ability to turn people into children of mine.

Ever since Israel has been a nation the United States has provided the leadership. Every president down to the ages has done this in a fairly balanced way, including George Bush senior, Gerald Ford, and others including myself and Bill Clinton.

If anyone is crazy enough to want to kill a president of the United States, he can do it. All he must be prepared to do is give his life for the president’s.

If you want to occupy the C-suite or the top one-tenth of 1% in any organization, you have to be obsessively devoted to your career at the expense of everything else. And women look at that, and they think, ‚No.‘

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.

One lesson you better learn if you want to be in politics is that you never go out on a golf course and beat the President.

As his vice president for eight years, I learned more from Ronald Reagan than from anyone I encountered in all my years of public life.

Founding a company is hard. Most of it isn’t smooth. You’ll have to make very hard decisions. You have to fire a few people. Therefore, if you don’t believe in your mission, giving up is easy. The majority of founders give up. But the best founders don’t give up.