Sometimes I wonder if we shall ever grow up in our politics and say definite things which mean something, or whether we shall always go on using generalities to which everyone can subscribe, and which mean very little.

I’m the president of the United States. I’m not the emperor of the United States.

Put it this way: If I asked, ‚How’s business?‘ and you say, ‚Boomin‘ or ‚Amazing,‘ I already know the answer.

There are some people, you know, they think the way to be a big man is to shout and stomp and raise hell-and then nothing ever really happens. I’m not like that I never shoot blanks.

I long remained a child, and I am still one in many respects.

I hold a lot of things in. I’m always making sure everybody is okay. I usually don’t rage; I usually don’t curse. So for me, it’s a great thing to be able to scream and say whatever I want.

It may happen sometimes that a long debate becomes the cause of a longer friendship. Commonly, those who dispute with one another at last agree.

I’m sure most parents read to their children to explain what certain things mean. So books are a good way to convey a message to anybody. Everybody reads.

Never find fault with the absent.

Suppose you were an idiot, and suppose you were a member of Congress; but I repeat myself.

A lot of people are realizing they had the wool pulled over their eyes by Obama.

Let the path be open to talent.

I believe growth should be constant, sustained and inclusive. It’s only meaningful if these three things are there. Otherwise they’re just economic figures.

Politics is for the present, but an equation is for eternity.

Some guys look better as they get older.

I don’t like people going behind my back.

I was gratified to be able to answer promptly, and I did. I said I didn’t know.

You have to come to your closed doors before you get to your open doors… What if you knew you had to go through 32 closed doors before you got to your open door? Well, then you’d come to closed door number eight and you’d think, ‚Great, I got another one out of the way’… Keep moving forward.

Even a mistake may turn out to be the one thing necessary to a worthwhile achievement.

I think a lot of people, including me, clammed up when a civilian asked about battle, about war. It was fashionable. One of the most impressive ways to tell your war story is to refuse to tell it, you know. Civilians would then have to imagine all kinds of deeds of derring-do.

If I have the chance to say something, I will say it – but that doesn’t obligate me to always say something, or to shed light on every problem, as if I were a lawmaker.

This country has come to feel the same when Congress is in session as when the baby gets hold of a hammer.

We cannot always oblige; but we can always speak obligingly.

Whenever you’re in conflict with someone, there is one factor that can make the difference between damaging your relationship and deepening it. That factor is attitude.

Great industries are never made from single companies. There is room in space for a lot of winners.

When the people we love stop paying attention, trust begins to slip away and hurt starts seeping in.

History reminds us that dictators and despots arise during times of severe economic crisis.

Your big opportunity may be right where you are now.

If I don’t run for president, we’ll all be OK.

I have already demonstrated, by crucial tests, the practicability of signaling by my system from one to any other point of the globe, no matter how remote, and I shall soon convert the disbelievers.

I don’t like to see a president who is just out campaigning all year long or for the last four years. I’d like to see somebody who’s going in the office. In fact, I’d like to not see them because that way you’d be sure that they’d be working.

Politics is almost as exciting as war, and quite as dangerous. In war you can only be killed once, but in politics many times.

We think when God speaks to us, there’s going to be a boom out of Heaven or we’re going to get some chill bumps, but I really believe God’s talking to us all the time. He’s talking to us right in here. I call it our heart, our conscience, but it’s the Holy Spirit talking to us.

Barack Obama would not be President if he were dark skin. You know what I mean? That’s just the truth. I might not be as successful as I am now if I was dark skin.

It’s a good thing we don’t get all the government we pay for.

Our whole life is set up in the path of least resistance. We don’t want to suffer. We don’t want to feel discomfort. So the whole time, we’re living our lives in a very comfortable area. There’s no growth in that.

To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often.

All of the books in the world contain no more information than is broadcast as video in a single large American city in a single year. Not all bits have equal value.

Kids who have an understanding of how and why their feelings are what they are are much more likely to talk to us about what’s happening, and they have better skills to work it out.

In general, the art of government consists of taking as much money as possible from one class of citizens to give to another.

Silence is argument carried out by other means.

There is nothing so pitiful as a young cynic because he has gone from knowing nothing to believing nothing.

Putin sought to destabilize Ukraine’s economy.

New roads; new ruts.

Prime time for men is, say, 35 to 45. Then they level off and fall off.

Writing, to me, is simply thinking through my fingers.

Remind yourself that winning an argument or proving your point really gets you nowhere in the long run. Win through your actions, not your words.

Arguments are to be avoided: they are always vulgar and often convincing.

We often refuse to accept an idea merely because the tone of voice in which it has been expressed is unsympathetic to us.

A human being would certainly not grow to be seventy or eighty years old if this longevity had no meaning for the species. The afternoon of human life must also have a significance of its own and cannot be merely a pitiful appendage to life’s morning.

I never gave anybody hell! I just told the truth and they thought it was hell.

You want to play another kind of character in another genre, and it’s been something I’ve been trying to do if I can in the career so far, and it’s something I hope to continue because it’s interesting to me and you get to do different things as an actor.

A leader in the Democratic Party is a boss, in the Republican Party he is a leader.

I became an actress because my mom wanted me to become an actress. It took me until my mid-30s to realize I actually didn’t. I actually wanted to write and direct and be more involved in politics and humanitarian issues.

Repartee is something we think of twenty-four hours too late.

I actually started off majoring in computer science, but I knew right away I wasn’t going to stay with it. It was because I had this one professor who was the loneliest, saddest man I’ve ever known. He was a programmer, and I knew that I didn’t want to do whatever he did. So after that, I switched to Communications.

It is good to express a thing twice right at the outset and so to give it a right foot and also a left one. Truth can surely stand on one leg, but with two it will be able to walk and get around.

Remember that creating a successful marriage is like farming: you have to start over again every morning.

I’m really bad with answering questions. Usually, I don’t even answer them. I try to find inspiration inside of the question. I think, and I jump from one beam of inspiration or energy to the next, as opposed to explaining the energy.

When the players go home, I can’t tell them what to do, so you need to create an atmosphere of trust. I don’t want to think, ‚What are they doing now? Do I need to call them?‘

Lying is not only saying what isn’t true. It is also, in fact especially, saying more than is true and, in the case of the human heart, saying more than one feels. We all do it, every day, to make life simpler.