President Obama seems completely unaware of how many of the policies he is trying to impose have been tried before, in many times and places around the world, and have failed time and again.

Put two or three men in positions of conflicting authority. This will force them to work at loggerheads, allowing you to be the ultimate arbiter.

Rhetoric is a poor substitute for action, and we have trusted only to rhetoric. If we are really to be a great nation, we must not merely talk; we must act big.

History does not long entrust the care of freedom to the weak or the timid.

History has proven that each generation of Howard graduates will forge the way forward for our country and our world.

To walk through the ruined cities of Germany is to feel an actual doubt about the continuity of civilization.

Control is the source of strategic power.

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

If you must break the law, do it to seize power: in all other cases observe it.

In the early 1940s, as a young teenager, I was utterly appalled by the racist and jingoist hysteria of the anti-Japanese propaganda. The Germans were evil, but treated with some respect: They were, after all, blond Aryan types, just like our imaginary self-image. Japanese were mere vermin, to be crushed like ants.

I don’t think anyone has been slandered more than the Jews.

The wisest have the most authority.

There are some women I definitely would not want to succeed me… but a man like David Souter, that would be great.

At least the Pilgrim Fathers used to shoot Indians: the Pilgrim Children merely punch time clocks.

I think with the Romans, that the general of today should be a soldier tomorrow if necessary.

Our global economy is much more fragile than many of us realize.

History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people.

I want to use my position of leadership to help move along at a faster pace what I believe and know the Obama administration wants to do around the urgency of climate change.

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.

Our present moment is a mystery that we are part of. Here and now is where all the wonder of life lies hidden. And make no mistake about it, to strive to live completely in the present is to strive for what already is the case.

I will only hire someone to work directly for me if I would work for that person. It’s a pretty good test.

This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when he first appears he is a protector.

The authority you establish must emerge naturally from your character, from the particular strengths you possess.

Hence poetry is something more philosophic and of graver import than history, since its statements are rather of the nature of universals, whereas those of history are singulars.

Magnanimity in politics is not seldom the truest wisdom; and a great empire and little minds go ill together.

I sent American troops to Iraq to make its people free, not to make them American. Iraqis will write their own history and find their own way.

What we have found in this country, and maybe we’re more aware of it now, is one problem that we’ve had, even in the best of times, and that is the people who are sleeping on the grates, the homeless, you might say, by choice.

If you lead a country like Britain, a strong country, a country which has taken a lead in world affairs in good times and in bad, a country that is always reliable, then you have to have a touch of iron about you.

The Middle East is obviously an issue that has plagued the region for centuries.

Politically there were failures. And also on the personal level, there were tremendous failures.

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

We need a president who will choose to do what’s best for the country, even when it doesn’t personally benefit them.

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.

The wisest hustler can suddenly fall for the worst tramp and lose all of his money on her. The hustler is aware of his own weaknesses and openings to con. This awareness is his edge.

If you read history you will find that the Christians who did most for the present world were precisely those who thought most of the next. It is since Christians have largely ceased to think of the other world that they have become so ineffective in this.

Soldiers generally win battles; generals get credit for them.

Antiquities are history defaced, or some remnants of history which have casually escaped the shipwreck of time.

We also can’t try to take over and rebuild every country that falls into crisis. That’s not leadership; that’s a recipe for quagmire, spilling American blood and treasure that ultimately weakens us. It’s the lesson of Vietnam, of Iraq – and we should have learned it by now.

I hate letting my teammates down. I know I’m not going to make every shot. Sometimes I try to make the right play, and if it results in a loss, I feel awful. I don’t feel awful because I have to answer questions about it. I feel awful in that locker room because I could have done something more to help my teammates win.

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.

Colonies do not cease to be colonies because they are independent.

The buck stops here!

You know, you can only lead them from behind.

I think our democracy has it exactly right: two terms, eight years. It’s enough. Because it’s important to have one foot in reality when you have access to this kind of power.

It’s time to stop thinking of the Republican Party as an exclusive club where your ideological card is checked at the door, and start thinking about how we can attract more solution-based leaders like Nathan Fletcher and Anthony Adams.

We live in a world that has narrowed into a neighborhood before it has broadened into a brotherhood.

The attempt to combine wisdom and power has only rarely been successful and then only for a short while.

In my country we go to prison first and then become President.

Britain kept its position as the dominant world power well into the 20th century despite steady decline. By the end of World War II, dominance had shifted decisively into the hands of the upstart across the sea, the United States, by far the most powerful and wealthy society in world history.

I am a leader by default, only because nature does not allow a vacuum.

There is no king who has not had a slave among his ancestors, and no slave who has not had a king among his.

He who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead; his eyes are closed.

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

Being president isn’t anything like reality TV. It’s not about sending insulting tweets or making fiery speeches; it’s about whether or not the candidate can handle the awesome responsibility of leading this country.

It seems that when you have cancer you are a brave battler against the disease, but when you have Alzheimer’s you are an old fart. That’s how people see you. It makes you feel quite alone.

The more responsibility the Scoutmaster gives his patrol leaders, the more they will respond.

The fact that we are here today to debate raising America’s debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership. Americans deserve better. I, therefore, intend to oppose the effort to increase America’s debt.

The deceit and distortion surrounding the American invasion of Vietnam is by now so familiar that it has lost its power to shock.

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

Surveys show our standing around the world is higher than when I was elected to this office, and when it comes to every important international issue, people of the world do not look to Beijing or Moscow to lead – they call us.

I am opposed to the accumulation of executive power anywhere.