Our diplomacy and development budget is not just about reducing spending and finding efficiencies. We need a frank conversation about what we stand for as that ‚shining city on a hill.‘ And that conversation begins by acknowledging that we can’t do it on the cheap.

I will never say something I don’t agree with or believe in… even if the reward is massive!

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.

Diplomacy is the art of saying ‚Nice doggie‘ until you can find a rock.

I do not think I could myself be brought to support a man for office whom I knew to be an open enemy of, and scoffer at, religion.

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

Everything I do, I hope, is that I represent something, and I represent the right things to my children and give them the right sense of what they’re capable of and the world as it should be seen.

Let us recollect that peace or war will not always be left to our option; that however moderate or unambitious we may be, we cannot count upon the moderation, or hope to extinguish the ambition of others.

Conversation about the weather is the last refuge of the unimaginative.

Honor is simply the morality of superior men.

Most sets of values would give rise to universes that, although they might be very beautiful, would contain no one able to wonder at that beauty.

The value of a man should be seen in what he gives and not in what he is able to receive.

There are only two lasting bequests we can hope to give our children. One of these is roots, the other, wings.

For me, money is not my definition of success. Inspiring people is a definition of success.

Character, not circumstances, makes the man.

Countries which receive aid do graduate. Within a generation, Korea went from being a big recipient to being a big aid donor. China used to get quite a bit of aid; now it’s aid-neutral.

Law is always better than war.

Rights that do not flow from duty well performed are not worth having.

I strongly believe that missionaries make better products. They care more. For a missionary, it’s not just about the business. There has to be a business, and the business has to make sense, but that’s not why you do it. You do it because you have something meaningful that motivates you.

When wealth is lost, nothing is lost; when health is lost, something is lost; when character is lost, all is lost.

My mother always taught us that if people don’t agree with you, the important thing is to listen to them. But if you’ve listened to them carefully and you still think that you’re right, then you must have the courage of your convictions.

I aspire my country eventually has a league where all players play 50 games.

Men are only as great as they are kind.

We need to have business leaders who live by deep, strong principles.

It’s like a muscle – if you stop going to the gym or stop running, you get weak. The military teaches you these great values, but we don’t keep up the discipline on our own, and we lose it. So wherever you go, keep that discipline up.

Tact is the art of making a point without making an enemy.

There is nothing wrong with men possessing riches. The wrong comes when riches possess men.

I’ll never tell a lie. I’ll never make a misleading statement. I’ll never betray the confidence that any of you had in me. And I’ll never avoid a controversial issue.

It’s not morbid to talk about death. Most people don’t worry about death, they worry about a bad death.

Honor has not to be won; it must only not be lost.

You can be rich in spirit, kindness, love and all those things that you can’t put a dollar sign on.

Modesty forbids what the law does not.

No country can really develop unless its citizens are educated.

A nation which has forgotten the quality of courage which in the past has been brought to public life is not as likely to insist upon or regard that quality in its chosen leaders today – and in fact we have forgotten.

Men are what their mothers made them.

If someone lies, well, you had a choice to trust that person or not. I think the way my father raised me, well, he trusted everybody. And that worked for him.

Republicans are for both the man and the dollar, but in case of conflict the man before the dollar.

Love is an adventure and a conquest. It survives and develops, like the universe itself, only by perpetual discovery.

In Hollywood, a lot of times when something is in development, it just takes a lot of time.

Rich countries can afford to overpay for things.

Honor means that a man is not exceptional; fame, that he is. Fame is something which must be won; honor, only something which must not be lost.

The happiest conversation is that of which nothing is distinctly remembered, but a general effect of pleasing impression.

If a man loses his reverence for any part of life, he will lose his reverence for all of life.

What troubles me most about my lovely country is that its children are seldom taught that American freedom will vanish, if, when they grow up, and in the exercise of their duties as citizens, they insist that our courts and policemen and prisons be guided by divine or natural law.

No one gives a damn what Iran thinks on any significant issue. The only reason Iran is at the big boys‘ table is because of their nuclear weapons program.

SEALs are human beings. We may all have the same haircuts, but we aren’t robots. Some SEALs are great people. Some are not great people. Some have done unspeakably terrible things. You’re dealing with different people, different dreams, different desires.

Let us not forget who we are. Drug abuse is a repudiation of everything America is.

People must have righteous principals in the first, and then they will not fail to perform virtuous actions.

The Trump phenomenon is in large part a reaction of Middle America to attacks on its values by intellectual and academic communities. There are other reasons, but this is a significant one.

A mission statement is not something you write overnight… But fundamentally, your mission statement becomes your constitution, the solid expression of your vision and values. It becomes the criterion by which you measure everything else in your life.

Swimming has its educational value – mental, moral, and physical – in giving you a sense of mastery over an element, and of power of saving life, and in the development of wind and limb.

Respect is one of life’s greatest treasures. I mean, what does it all add up to if you don’t have that?

It is by the goodness of God that in our country we have those three unspeakably precious things: freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and the prudence never to practice either of them.

If a man is proud of his wealth, he should not be praised until it is known how he employs it.

It is not the creation of wealth that is wrong, but the love of money for its own sake.

Working with a lot of people at the same time is a task. I really like making stuff and getting stuff done. One of the things I really liked about Facebook was that I could always move so quickly. I wrote the original application in, like, nine days at the end of January.

I feel that the best companies are started not because the founder wanted a company but because the founder wanted to change the world… If you decide you want to found a company, you maybe start to develop your first idea. And hire lots of workers.

Live one day at a time emphasizing ethics rather than rules.

The truth is, hardly any of us have ethical energy enough for more than one really inflexible point of honor.

Democracy is a daring concept – a hope that we’ll be best governed if all of us participate in the act of government. It is meant to be a conversation, a place where the intelligence and local knowledge of the electorate sums together to arrive at actions that reflect the participation of the largest possible number of people.

I don’t care about money.