Some single mind must be master, else there will be no agreement in anything.

When the burdens of the presidency seem unusually heavy, I always remind myself it could be worse. I could be a mayor.

When I was running training, we would fire a couple of leaders from every SEAL team because they couldn’t lead. And 99.9% of the time, it wasn’t a question of their ability – it was a question of their ability to listen.

In politics nothing is contemptible.

I feel a distaste for hunting, first because of a kind of Buddhist respect for the unity and sacredness of all life, and also because the pursuit of a hare or chamois strikes me as a kind of ‚escape of energy,‘ that is, the expenditure of our effort in an illusory end, one devoid of profit.

The best government is that which teaches us to govern ourselves.

If the people are happy, united, wealthy, and powerful, we presume the rest. We conclude that to be good from whence good is derived.

Facts are to the mind what food is to the body.

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

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.

I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat.

The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted.

What I really want to say: That what the world really needs is a real feeling of kinship. Everybody: stars, laborers, Negroes, Jews, Arabs. We are all brothers.

The poetry you read has been written for you, each of you – black, white, Hispanic, man, woman, gay, straight.

The true history of my administration will be written 50 years from now, and you and I will not be around to see it.

Those who can win a war well can rarely make a good peace and those who could make a good peace would never have won the war.

When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle.

If civilization is to survive, we must cultivate the science of human relationships – the ability of all peoples, of all kinds, to live together, in the same world at peace.

Only Americans can hurt America.

Steve Jobs‘ ability to focus in on a few things that count, get people who get user interface right, and market things as revolutionary are amazing things.

There’s no difference between one’s killing and making decisions that will send others to kill. It’s exactly the same thing, or even worse.

Those who cannot think or take responsibility for themselves need, and clamor for, a leader.

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.

Yes, across Europe, this wall will fall. For it cannot withstand faith; it cannot withstand truth. The wall cannot withstand freedom.

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

Take off your bedroom slippers. Put on your marching shoes,‘ he said, his voice rising as applause and cheers mounted. ‚Shake it off. Stop complainin‘. Stop grumblin‘. Stop cryin‘. We are going to press on. We have work to do.

When the best leader’s work is done the people say, ‚We did it ourselves.‘

I must follow the people. Am I not their leader?

You may be educated abroad, you may be a great scientist, politician, but you always have a sneaking fear that if you don’t go to temples or do the ordinary things that you have been told to do, something evil might happen, so you conform. What happens to the mind that conforms? Investigate it, please.

It is better to lead from behind and to put others in front, especially when you celebrate victory when nice things occur. You take the front line when there is danger. Then people will appreciate your leadership.

To me, consensus seems to be the process of abandoning all beliefs, principles, values and policies. So it is something in which no one believes and to which no one objects.

It is a fine thing to have ability, but the ability to discover ability in others is the true test.

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.

I have behind me not only the splendid traditions and the annals of more than a thousand years but the living strength and majesty of the Commonwealth and Empire; of societies old and new; of lands and races different in history and origins but all, by God’s Will, united in spirit and in aim.

We can learn to see each other and see ourselves in each other and recognize that human beings are more alike than we are unalike.

No man should be in politics unless he would honestly rather not be there.

I don’t mind how much my Ministers talk, so long as they do what I say.

We have created characters and animated them in the dimension of depth, revealing through them to our perturbed world that the things we have in common far outnumber and outweigh those that divide us.

I can move any crowd.

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

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

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.

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.

The army teaches boys to think like men.

Iron rusts from disuse; water loses its purity from stagnation… even so does inaction sap the vigor of the mind.

A word of encouragement from a teacher to a child can change a life. A word of encouragement from a spouse can save a marriage. A word of encouragement from a leader can inspire a person to reach her potential.

Never let your ego get so close to your position that when your position goes, your ego goes with it.

All men are children, and of one family. The same tale sends them all to bed, and wakes them in the morning.

A public man must never forget that he loses his usefulness when he as an individual, rather than his policy, becomes the issue.

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

My humanity is bound up in yours, for we can only be human together.

A toddling little girl is a centre of common feeling which makes the most dissimilar people understand each other.

You know I vowed when I became President not to talk about the loneliest toughest job in the world and I didn’t.

Synergy is better than my way or your way. It’s our way.

A man builds a fine house; and now he has a master, and a task for life: he is to furnish, watch, show it, and keep it in repair, the rest of his days.

All of us are mentors. You’re mentors right here and now. And one of the things I’ve always done throughout my life, I have always found that person, that group of people that I was going to reach my hand out and help bring them along with me.

Sometimes the hardest thing to do is to trust your team. It’s a lesson I’ve had to relearn quite a few times.

The wisest have the most authority.

A business that makes nothing but money is a poor business.

If I’m going to get you to do stuff, I need to lead you. I can’t just order you to do it.

To rule a country of a thousand chariots, there must be reverent attention to business, and sincerity; economy in expenditure, and love for men; and the employment of the people at the proper seasons.