Remember that the essence of authority is that people willingly follow your lead.

The most successful politician is he who says what the people are thinking most often in the loudest voice.

Until the men of action clear out the talkers we who have social consciences are at the mercy of those who have none.

If we have to use force, it is because we are America. We are the indispensable nation. We stand tall. We see further into the future.

Govern a great nation as you would cook a small fish. Do not overdo it.

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.

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

I wake up every morning in a house that was built by slaves, and I watch my daughters – two beautiful, intelligent black young women – playing with their dogs on the White House lawn. And because of Hillary Clinton, my daughters, and all our sons and daughters, now take for granted that a woman can be president of the United States.

What I’d really like to control is not machines, but people.

No man is above the law and no man is below it: nor do we ask any man’s permission when we ask him to obey it.

Nothing is so strongly fortified that it cannot be taken by money.

There is only one way… to get anybody to do anything. And that is by making the other person want to do it.

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

When you are president, being able to clearly articulate detailed plans to help the people of this country is a good thing. Knowing what you’re doing is a good thing. And let me tell you, Hillary Clinton absolutely knows what she’s doing.

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

I like Italian movies. I was frequently there in the ’60s, in Rome and the vicinity. It was a great period in life. I was very influenced by their stuff.

A good head and a good heart are always a formidable combination.

Listen, I think that people want a president who is going to be interested in the things that keep them up at night, the things that are weighing on them, the things that are debilitating and can be addressed.

In business, if you realize you’ve made a bad decision, you change it.

Through every victory and every setback, I’ve insisted that change is never easy and never quick; that we wouldn’t meet all of our challenges in one term, or one presidency, or even in one lifetime.

The difference is slight, to the influence of an author, whether he is read by five hundred readers, or by five hundred thousand; if he can select the five hundred, he reaches the five hundred thousand.

Many people listen to what I have to say and I appear a lot in media, so therefore I influence a lot of people and therefore I have a bigger responsibility because I have a bigger platform.

For the bureaucrat, the world is a mere object to be manipulated by him.

Leadership to me means duty, honor, country. It means character, and it means listening from time to time.

Whenever a man has cast a longing eye on offices, a rottenness begins in his conduct.

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

And I will do everything that I can as long as I am President of the United States to remind the American people that we are one nation under God, and we may call that God different names but we remain one nation.

There is no necessity to separate the monarch from the mob; all authority is equally bad.

Find your voice and inspire others to find theirs.

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.

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.

A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops.

Everything rises and falls on leadership.

In order to govern, the question is not to follow out a more or less valid theory but to build with whatever materials are at hand. The inevitable must be accepted and turned to advantage.

Work is of two kinds: first, altering the position of matter at or near the earth’s surface relative to other matter; second, telling other people to do so.

At the age of 6, a teacher full of ambitions, who taught in the small public school of Biran, convinced my family that I should travel to Santiago de Cuba to accompany my older sister who would enter a highly prestigious convent school. Including me was a skill of that very teacher from the little school in Biran.

Most of the confidence which I appear to feel, especially when influenced by noon wine, is only a pretense.

I am certainly not one of those who need to be prodded. In fact, if anything, I am the prod.

Train up a child in the way that he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.

The influence of a mother upon the lives of her children cannot be measured. They know and absorb her example and attitudes when it comes to questions of honesty, temperance, kindness, and industry.

I’m a mentor to anybody who’s interested.

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.

People may hear your words, but they feel your attitude.

If you ask the CEO of some major corporation what he does, he will say, in all honesty, that he is slaving 20 hours a day to provide his customers with the best goods or services he can and creating the best possible working conditions for his employees.

Just as treasures are uncovered from the earth, so virtue appears from good deeds, and wisdom appears from a pure and peaceful mind. To walk safely through the maze of human life, one needs the light of wisdom and the guidance of virtue.

With Benghazi, I don’t see anyone saying, ‚Hey look, I am overall responsible for this and therefore, I take responsibility for what happened. It’s my fault.‘ I haven’t heard that yet. Meanwhile, the other side of the coin, the Osama bin Laden raid, it seems everyone made that decision, and that’s just unbelievable to me.

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

You cannot be in a position of power and destroy the life of another person.

We’re not like robots. God promises to guide us through the Holy Spirit, but He gives us the freedom to make our own decisions.

I speak directly to the people, and I know that the people of California want to have better leadership. They want to have great leadership. They want to have somebody that will represent them. And it doesn’t matter if you’re a Democrat or a Republican, young or old.

I think your values are always influenced by your family and your community.

First, how do we give everyone a fair shot at opportunity and security in this new economy? Second, how do we make technology work for us, and not against us – especially when it comes to solving urgent challenges like climate change? Third, how do we keep America safe and lead the world without becoming its policeman?

The presidency has made every man who occupied it, no matter how small, bigger than he was; and no matter how big, not big enough for its demands.

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

People that’s in power – the central banks, these fiat currencies that are traded globally – they got influence over the messaging and the narrative in the media.

If people lose faith in their government, the result is the same whether or not the loss of confidence is justified.

For success of any mission, it is necessary to have creative leadership. Creative leadership is vital for government, non-governmental organisations as well as for industries.

Personally, I’d like to see more of our leaders take a technocratic approach to solving our biggest problems.

Presumptuous for me to say, but at least – at a minimum – I’ve been able to influence the direction of the Democratic Party on foreign policy. And I’ve been relatively – presumptuous to say – relatively successful legislatively in the Senate, being able to win a lot of Republican friends, and being able to cross the aisle.

When I did ‚Bird,‘ it was a surprise to some people, first because I wasn’t in it and second because most of the films I’d been doing were cop movies or westerns or adventure films, so to be doing one about Charlie Parker, who was a great influence on American music, was a great thrill for me.

I have a different vision of leadership. A leadership is someone who brings people together.