Some day I shall be President.

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

It’d be stupid for me to sit here and say that there aren’t kids who look up to me, but my responsibility is not to them. I’m not a baby sitter.

I’m no longer just a candidate. I’m the President. I know what it means to send young Americans into battle, for I have held in my arms the mothers and fathers of those who didn’t return. I’ve shared the pain of families who’ve lost their homes, and the frustration of workers who’ve lost their jobs.

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

As president, you can get all kinds of advice from all kinds of people. But at the end of the day, when it comes time to make that decision, as president, all you have to guide you are your values and your vision and the life experiences that make you who you are.

Ever since I was a little kid, I wanted to be in combat.

People buy into the leader before they buy into the vision.

I love dresses, and I’ve definitely thought about designing them someday. I just want to make sure that I wait until the time is perfect and I can do it right.

A President needs political understanding to run the government, but he may be elected without it.

Politics is not bean bags. It’s serious, tough stuff.

Power is poison. Its effect on Presidents had always been tragic.

The Creator has not thought proper to mark those in the forehead who are of stuff to make good generals. We are first, therefore, to seek them blindfold, and then let them learn the trade at the expense of great losses.

I have won this lottery. It’s a gigantic lottery, and it’s called Amazon.com. And I’m using my lottery winnings to push us a little further into space.

If I had chosen the populist course, it would have been a breach of the trust placed in me by the people.

People invest in businesses that they believe have the leadership, mission and team to grow and operate profitably.

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!

Well I do think, when there are more women, that the tone of the conversation changes, and also the goals of the conversation change. But it doesn’t mean that the whole world would be a lot better if it were totally run by women. If you think that, you’ve forgotten high school.

The superior man acts before he speaks, and afterwards speaks according to his action.

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.

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

Political courage is not political suicide.

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.

Kings will be tyrants from policy, when subjects are rebels from principle.

All leaders in the Lord’s Church are called by proper authority. No prophet or any other leader in this Church, for that matter, has ever called himself or herself. No prophet has ever been elected.

Upon the farm of the uncle with whom I lived, we did know of the mortgage as some dreadful damper on youthful hopes of things that could not be bought. I do have a vivid recollection that the major purpose of a farm was to produce a living right on the spot for the family.

Man is not the sum of what he has already, but rather the sum of what he does not yet have, of what he could have.

Let us never forget that government is ourselves and not an alien power over us. The ultimate rulers of our democracy are not a President and senators and congressmen and government officials, but the voters of this country.

Speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far.

I’m glad I’m not Brezhnev. Being the Russian leader in the Kremlin. You never know if someone’s tape recording what you say.

I hoped to be able to write a novel which would enable me to live on it while I wrote the next.

Great ambition is the passion of a great character. Those endowed with it may perform very good or very bad acts. All depends on the principles which direct them.

I have met 18 million youth, and each wants to be unique.

If you’re working 50 hours a week to try to maintain family income, and your children have the kinds of aspirations that come from being flooded with television from age one, and associations have declined, people end up hopeless, even though they have every option.

I break ground. I trailblaze.

Moderation has been called a virtue to limit the ambition of great men, and to console undistinguished people for their want of fortune and their lack of merit.

I think a number of the leaders are, whether you like it or not, in the hip-hop generation. And when they understand enough, they’ll do wonders. I count on them.

I’ve seen how the issues that come across a president’s desk are always the hard ones – the problems where no amount of data or numbers will get you to the right answer.

With tech companies, whoever’s the leader is always questioned, you know. They say, ‚Is this the end of them?‘ And – there’s more – more times people think that’s the case than it really is the case.

One civilization after another has been wrecked upon the attempt to secure sufficient leadership from a single group or class.

I think whether you’re having setbacks or not, the role of a leader is to always display a winning attitude.

In my next incarnation, I want to be a writer.

It’s one of the few regrets of my presidency – that the rancor and suspicion between the parties has gotten worse instead of better. There’s no doubt a president with the gifts of Lincoln or Roosevelt might have better bridged the divide, and I guarantee I’ll keep trying to be better so long as I hold this office.

My relationship to power and authority is that I’m all for it. People need somebody to watch over them. Ninety-five percent of the people in the world need to be told what to do and how to behave.

Americans… still believe in an America where anything’s possible – they just don’t think their leaders do.

I don’t think consensus-building politics is what I’m meant to be doing.

We want an Afghanistan that is shaped by the dreams of the great Afghan people, not by irrational fears and overreaching ambitions of others.

There are people who are really good managers, people who can manage a big organization, and then there are people who are very analytic or focused on strategy. Those two types don’t usually tend to be in the same person. I would put myself much more in the latter camp.

The high destiny of the individual is to serve rather than to rule.

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.

To be clever enough to get all that money, one must be stupid enough to want it.

Great things in business are never done by one person. They’re done by a team of people.

I would rather earn 1% off a 100 people’s efforts than 100% of my own efforts.

I have no ambition to govern men; it is a painful and thankless office.

One of the huge imbalances in life is the disparity between your daily existence, with its routines and habits, and the dream you have within yourself of some extraordinarily satisfying way of living.

For a true writer, each book should be a new beginning where he tries again for something that is beyond attainment. He should always try for something that has never been done or that others have tried and failed. Then sometimes, with great luck, he will succeed.

Courage is contagious. When a brave man takes a stand, the spines of others are often stiffened.

The most important thing for a director is being able to communicate.

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.

People say ‚I want to be rich‘. The question is, ‚Are you willing to do what it takes?‘

When I was a kid, I never thought much about football. I thought about following in my family’s footsteps and going into professional wrestling.