My favourite president, and the one I admired most, was Harry Truman.

The memory of that scene for me is like a frame of film forever frozen at that moment: the red carpet, the green lawn, the white house, the leaden sky. The new president and his first lady.

I always tell people that you should only hire people to be on your team if you would work for them.

It’s one of the few regrets of my presidency – that the rancor and suspicion between the parties has gotten worse instead of better. There’s no doubt a president with the gifts of Lincoln or Roosevelt might have better bridged the divide, and I guarantee I’ll keep trying to be better so long as I hold this office.

In my opinion eight years as president is enough and sometimes too much for any man to serve in that capacity.

Let us be sure that those who come after will say of us in our time, that in our time we did everything that could be done. We finished the race; we kept them free; we kept the faith.

I’m more than comfortable just sitting back and scoring 21, 22 points or whatever and getting 10, 11 assists whatever the case might be. More than comfortable with that. It’s just a matter of the pieces that you have around you and what you can do to elevate everybody else.

The Creator has not thought proper to mark those in the forehead who are of stuff to make good generals. We are first, therefore, to seek them blindfold, and then let them learn the trade at the expense of great losses.

I’m not a one-man show. I was never that in my life, and I never want to be that.

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.

He who exercises government by means of his virtue may be compared to the north polar star, which keeps its place and all the stars turn towards it.

When you want a thing done, ‚Don’t do it yourself‘ is a good motto for Scoutmasters.

When the President does it, that means that it’s not illegal.

I know of no single formula for success. But over the years I have observed that some attributes of leadership are universal and are often about finding ways of encouraging people to combine their efforts, their talents, their insights, their enthusiasm and their inspiration to work together.

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.

When the burdens of the presidency seem unusually heavy, I always remind myself it could be worse. I could be a mayor.

The temptation to take the easy road is always there. It is as easy as staying in bed in the morning and sleeping in. But discipline is paramount to ultimate success and victory for any leader and any team.

Instead of being critical of people in authority over you and envious of their position, be happy you’re not responsible for everything they have to do. Instead of piling on complaints, thank them for what they do. Overwhelm them with encouragement and appreciation!

If you can ask a young man to give his life for his country, you can lead people.

Since it is difficult to join them together, it is safer to be feared than to be loved when one of the two must be lacking.

Politics is not a game. It is an earnest business.

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

To rule a country of a thousand chariots, there must be reverent attention to business, and sincerity; economy in expenditure, and love for men; and the employment of the people at the proper seasons.

I do believe that any successful business starts from the top and works its way down.

Our chief justices have probably had more profound and lasting influence on their times and on the direction of the nation than most presidents.

To some degree it matters who’s in office, but it matters more how much pressure they’re under from the public.

I had very good support from Democrats and Republicans all throughout my administration. I had a very high batting average. We added more jobs per year in my four years than any other president since the Second World War.

Gray Davis can run a dirty campaign better than anyone, but he can’t run a state.

Since the team understands that the leader is de facto in charge, in that respect, a leader has nothing to prove. But in another respect, a leader has everything to prove: Every member of the team must develop the trust and confidence that their leader will exercise good judgment, remain calm, and make the right decisions when it matters most.

I don’t run restaurants that are out of control. We are about establishing phenomenal footholdings with talent.

Ohio claims they are due a president as they haven’t had one since Taft. Look at the United States, they have not had one since Lincoln.

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

Most businesses think that product is the most important thing, but without great leadership, mission and a team that deliver results at a high level, even the best product won’t make a company successful.

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

A good objective of leadership is to help those who are doing poorly to do well and to help those who are doing well to do even better.

I have no ambition to govern men; it is a painful and thankless office.

People who enjoy meetings should not be in charge of anything.

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.

I am not interested in power for power’s sake, but I’m interested in power that is moral, that is right and that is good.

The commander in the field is always right and the rear echelon is wrong, unless proved otherwise.

I vividly remember a conversation I had many years ago in 1974, which marked a turning point in my leadership journey. I was sitting at a Holiday Inn with my friend, Kurt Campmeyer, when he asked me if I had a personal growth plan. I didn’t. In fact, I didn’t even know you were supposed to have one.

But for me to have the opportunity to stand in front of a bunch of executives and present myself, I had to hustle in my own way. I can’t tell you how frustrating it was that they didn’t get that. No joke – I’d leave meetings crying all the time.

We can’t allow the world’s worst leaders to blackmail, threaten, hold freedom-loving nations hostage with the world’s worst weapons.

Nixon was so crooked that he needed servants to help him screw his pants on every morning.

Allow the president to invade a neighboring nation whenever he shall deem it necessary to repel an invasion,and you allow him to do so whenever he may choose to say he deems it necessary for such purpose – and you allow him to make war at pleasure.

If you call yourself a leader, then you have to be decisive. If you’re decisive, then you have the chance to be a leader. These are two sides to the same coin.

A politician is a man who understands government. A statesman is a politician who’s been dead for 15 years.

The nose of a mob is its imagination. By this, at any time, it can be quietly led.

There will be no end to the troubles of states, or of humanity itself, till philosophers become kings in this world, or till those we now call kings and rulers really and truly become philosophers, and political power and philosophy thus come into the same hands.

A general is just as good or just as bad as the troops under his command make him.

When you get to be President, there are all those things, the honors, the twenty-one gun salutes, all those things. You have to remember it isn’t for you. It’s for the Presidency.

When Reagan left office, he was the most unpopular living president, apart from Nixon, even below Carter. If you look at his years in office, he was not particularly popular. He was more or less average. He severely harmed the American economy.

I was honoured when they asked me to appear at the president’s birthday rally in Madison Square Garden. There was like a hush over the whole place when I came on to sing ‚Happy Birthday,‘ like if I had been wearing a slip, I would have thought it was showing or something. I thought, ‚Oh, my gosh, what if no sound comes out!‘

In every society some men are born to rule, and some to advise.

Good leadership consists of showing average people how to do the work of superior people.

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.

When the leaders choose to make themselves bidders at an auction of popularity, their talents, in the construction of the state, will be of no service. They will become flatterers instead of legislators; the instruments, not the guides, of the people.

The philosophy of the school room in one generation will be the philosophy of government in the next.

We still think of a powerful man as a born leader and a powerful woman as an anomaly.

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.

People buy into the leader before they buy into the vision.