No one person controls Microsoft. The board and the shareholders decide whether they want to have me as CEO.

Doing nothing while the middle class is hurting. That’s not leadership. Loose regulations and lax enforcement. That’s not leadership. That’s abandoning our middle class.

I want a president with a record of public service, someone whose life’s work shows our children that we don’t chase fame and fortune for ourselves: we fight to give everyone a chance to succeed.

The best thing is to always keep honest people around, because when you have a bunch of yes men around that know that you’re making a mistake but let you go on with it, that’s when it ruins your mind state as an artist.

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.

We do need women in civic life. We do need women to run for office, to be in political office. We need a feminist to be at the table when decisions are being made so that the right decisions will be made.

I’ve been a mogul and executive since the beginning of my career. People are just born with that skill.

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!

‚Tis better to bear the ills we have than fly to others that we know not of.

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.

In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place, oblige it to control itself.

I’m going to be so much better a president for having been at the CIA that you’re not going to believe it.

I began revolution with 82 men. If I had to do it again, I do it with 10 or 15 and absolute faith. It does not matter how small you are if you have faith and plan of action.

Once I’ve decided to do something, I do usually try to carry it through to fruition.

Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job.

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

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

This President is going to lead us out of this recovery.

Where the senses fail us, reason must step in.

He who is to be a good ruler must have first been ruled.

The best executive is one who has sense enough to pick good people to do what he wants done, and self-restraint enough to keep from meddling with them while they do it.

I’ll be judged on the body of work and not the popularity of any one decision.

I don’t write policy for my government.

I’m the president of the United States. I’m not the emperor of the United States.

If you are a leader, you should never forget that everyone needs encouragement. And everyone who receives it – young or old, successful or less-than-successful, unknown or famous – is changed by it.

When you’re one of the leaders of the team, there are no days off.

Only the guy who isn’t rowing has time to rock the boat.

As our enemies have found we can reason like men, so now let us show them we can fight like men also.

And now, of course this is another thing I didn’t count on, that now as the governor of the state of California, I am selling California worldwide. You see that? Selling.

Conscientious people are apt to see their duty in that which is the most painful course.

The new ruler must determine all the injuries that he will need to inflict. He must inflict them once and for all.

I don’t like to see a president who is just out campaigning all year long or for the last four years. I’d like to see somebody who’s going in the office. In fact, I’d like to not see them because that way you’d be sure that they’d be working.

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.

I would be stupid not to be on my own side. But I’m a human being, too. And I’m on the side of human beings, rather than on the side of crocodiles.

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.

No great man lives in vain. The history of the world is but the biography of great men.

We must think and act like a nation of a billion people and not like that of a million people. Dream, dream, dream!

A director makes 100 decisions an hour. Students ask me how you know how to make the right decision, and I say to them, ‚If you don’t know how to make the right decision, you’re not a director.‘

Go before the people with your example, and be laborious in their affairs.

It’s so hard to know what to do when one wishes earnestly to do right.

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.

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

It is hard to imagine a more stupid or more dangerous way of making decisions than by putting those decisions in the hands of people who pay no price for being wrong.

You’ve all seen over the last eight years what President Obama means to this country. He is the embodiment of honor, resolve, and character – one of the finest presidents we have ever had.

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.

Groups that rose from poverty to prosperity seldom did so by having their own racial or ethnic leaders to follow.

Before we acquire great power we must acquire wisdom to use it well.

I always have a basic plot outline, but I like to leave some things to be decided while I write.

Every family should have the right to spend their money, after tax, as they wish, and not as the government dictates. Let us extend choice, extend the will to choose and the chance to choose.

I must follow the people. Am I not their leader?

Wise leaders generally have wise counselors because it takes a wise person themselves to distinguish them.

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.

Waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be. Be one.

When I checked into SEAL Team One many years ago, one of the things that I noticed was there was this old guy, who was younger than I am today, who I decided that I was going to be like. I wanted to emulate what he was doing, and one of those things was he got to work before anybody else.

The people of the world genuinely want peace. Some day the leaders of the world are going to have to give in and give it to them.

I think I’d be a better president because I was in combat.

In too much of the West, everyone wants the guarantee of safety, and never having to make any decisions.

We the people are the rightful masters of both Congress and the courts, not to overthrow the Constitution but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution.

Certainly in the next 50 years we shall see a woman president, perhaps sooner than you think. A woman can and should be able to do any political job that a man can do.

Men make history and not the other way around. In periods where there is no leadership, society stands still. Progress occurs when courageous, skillful leaders seize the opportunity to change things for the better.

No man is good enough to govern another man without the other’s consent.