Show me a poorly uniformed troop and I’ll show you a poorly uniformed leader.

Never invoke the gods unless you really want them to appear. It annoys them very much.

The revolution has always been in the hands of the young. The young always inherit the revolution.

I was in Europe and it was at this stage that I fell in love with Americans in uniform. And I continue to have that love affair.

A great social success is a pretty girl who plays her cards as carefully as if she were plain.

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.

Never forget that no military leader has ever become great without audacity.

I believe that many of my young guys lived because I didn’t waste their lives because I didn’t have the vision in my mind of how to destroy the enemy at least cost to our guys and to the innocents on the battlefields.

I loved being Secretary of State, that’s probably evident to everyone who watched me.

I like the discipline of well-cut, impeccable clothes. I think it’s a very healthy discipline.

The biggest problem with every art is by the use of appearance to create a loftier reality.

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

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

I don’t want to tell President Obama how to make a speech. He’s a much better speech maker than I am. But I think always to tell the truth in a sometimes blatant way, even though it might be temporarily unpopular, is the best approach.

Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.

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

Science is not only a disciple of reason but, also, one of romance and passion.

A child who is allowed to be disrespectful to his parents will not have true respect for anyone.

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

There are four ways, and only four ways, in which we have contact with the world. We are evaluated and classified by these four contacts: what we do, how we look, what we say, and how we say it.

I have always been grateful to Colonel Longley. He proved to me that when people in authority take a stand, good can come out of it.

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.

My concern today is not with the length of a person’s hair but with his conduct.

I can’t deny that the thought of being governor, the thought of being president, is alluring. And beyond that, it would be an opportunity to make a real impact on people’s lives on a global scale. But there are a lot of other things I want to do first.

The human body has two ends on it: one to create with and one to sit on. Sometimes people get their ends reversed. When this happens they need a kick in the seat of the pants.

Probably the battle of Waterloo was won on the playing-fields of Eton, but the opening battles of all subsequent wars have been lost there.

I am mindful not only of preserving executive powers for myself, but for predecessors as well.

Fight for the things that you care about, but do it in a way that will lead others to join you.

My mother was a powerful influence. She made me toe the line. If I didn’t have a perfect report card, she showed her disappointment.

There is only one sort of discipline, perfect discipline.

The fact that our task is exactly commensurate with our life gives it the appearance of being infinite.

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.

What Britain needs is an iron lady.

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

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

Clever tyrants are never punished.

How easy it is to govern when one follows a system of consulting the will of the people and one holds as the only norm all the actions which contribute to the well being of the people.

I don’t want a brat on my team.

Management is efficiency in climbing the ladder of success; leadership determines whether the ladder is leaning against the right wall.

In various countries and times, leaders of groups that lagged behind, economically and educationally, have taught their followers to blame all their problems on other people – and to hate those other people.

How can we help President Obama?

Don’t tell people how to do things, tell them what to do and let them surprise you with their results.

Discipline is the soul of an army. It makes small numbers formidable; procures success to the weak, and esteem to all.

The President’s post should not be politicised. Once a president is elected, he is above politics.

I’m responsible for starting a whole new school of pretension.

As President Nixon says, presidents can do almost anything, and President Nixon has done many things that nobody would have thought of doing.

At fifty everyone has the face he deserves.

I break ground. I trailblaze.

When I started Virgin from a basement in west London, there was no great plan or strategy. I didn’t set out to build a business empire… For me, building a business is all about doing something to be proud of, bringing talented people together and creating something that’s going to make a real difference to other people’s lives.

That nice, soft pillow and the warm blanket, and it’s all comfortable, and no one wants to leave that comfort – but if you can wake up early in the morning, get a head start on everyone else that’s still sleeping, get productive time doing things that you need to do – that’s a huge piece to moving your life forward.

When it comes to the health of our families, Barack refused to listen to all those folks who told him to leave health reform for another day, another president. He didn’t care whether it was the easy thing to do politically – that’s not how he was raised – he cared that it was the right thing to do.

No one is so miserable as the poor person who maintains the appearance of wealth.

Political courage is not political suicide.

In the long-run every Government is the exact symbol of its People, with their wisdom and unwisdom; we have to say, Like People like Government.

I want to look my best for God. So many people have the attitude that if you’re a Christian you’ve got to dress bad, wear an old color, not do anything to your hair, have nothing. It’s no wonder that Christianity is not very attractive. I mean, how many people do you know in a Western culture that’s going to go, ‚Yeah, give me some of that?‘

As his vice president for eight years, I learned more from Ronald Reagan than from anyone I encountered in all my years of public life.

Standing as I do, with my hand upon this staff, and under the folds of the American flag, I ask you to stand by me so long as I stand by it.

Wise kings generally have wise counselors; and he must be a wise man himself who is capable of distinguishing one.

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.

We don’t believe in planners and deciders making the decisions on behalf of Americans.