The best government is a benevolent tyranny tempered by an occasional assassination.

Military school was great and especially great for leadership and then I spent two years in Vietnam.

A revolution can be neither made nor stopped. The only thing that can be done is for one of several of its children to give it a direction by dint of victories.

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.

The New Deal repudiation of democracy has left the Republican Party alone the guardian of the Ark of the Covenant with its charter of freedom.

We must have government that builds stamina into communities and men. That makes men instead of mendicants.

I am a Christian and a Democrat, that’s all.

A leader is a dealer in hope.

The welfare of the people in particular has always been the alibi of tyrants.

The economy’s always been the engine for our national security.

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

It is amazing that people who think we cannot afford to pay for doctors, hospitals, and medication somehow think that we can afford to pay for doctors, hospitals, medication and a government bureaucracy to administer it.

If we had more hell in the pulpit, we would have less hell in the pew.

Ninety-nine percent of the men and women of the FBI… are just professionals. I don’t want Americans, if an FBI agent knocks on their door, to have to be worried about well, is he a Democrat or a Republican? He’s an FBI agent.

I have no further use for America. I wouldn’t go back there if Jesus Christ was President.

For all who love freedom and peace, the world without Saddam Hussein’s regime is a better and safer place.

If I can be a leader, I will.

Whoever won’t fight when the President calls him, deserves to be kicked back in his hole and kept there.

My dear sisters, whatever your calling, whatever your circumstances, we need your impressions, your insights, and your inspiration. We need you to speak up and speak out in ward and stake councils.

I will only hire someone to work directly for me if I would work for that person. It’s a pretty good test.

In America the President reigns for four years, and Journalism governs forever and ever.

The best leaders are readers of people. They have the intuitive ability to understand others by discerning how they feel and recognizing what they sense.

I am humble Abraham Lincoln. I have been solicited by my friends to become a candidate for the Legislature. My politics are short and sweet, like the old woman’s dance.

Since the team understands that the leader is de facto in charge, in that respect, a leader has nothing to prove. But in another respect, a leader has everything to prove: Every member of the team must develop the trust and confidence that their leader will exercise good judgment, remain calm, and make the right decisions when it matters most.

A good Catholic meddles in politics, offering the best of himself, so that those who govern can govern. But what is the best that we can offer to those who govern? Prayer!

And I have no doubt that every new example will succeed, as every past one has done, in showing that religion and Government will both exist in greater purity, the less they are mixed together.

Example is not the main thing in influencing others. It is the only thing.

So confident am I in the intentions, as well as wisdom, of the government, that I shall always be satisfied that what is not done, either cannot, or ought not to be done.

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

Men make history and not the other way around. In periods where there is no leadership, society stands still. Progress occurs when courageous, skillful leaders seize the opportunity to change things for the better.

I can’t really criticize the Tea Party people, because I came into the White House pretty much on the same basis that they have become popular. That is dissatisfaction with the way things are going in Washington and disillusionment and disencouragement about the government.

Honor is not the exclusive property of any political party.

I have never yet seen any plan which has not been mended by the observations of those who were much inferior in understanding to the person who took the lead in the business.

Justice and power must be brought together, so that whatever is just may be powerful, and whatever is powerful may be just.

A President cannot always be popular.

Just as discipline and freedom are opposing forces that must be balanced, leadership requires finding the equilibrium in the dichotomy of many seemingly contradictory qualities between one extreme and another.

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

A company is a group organized to create a product or service, and it is only as good as its people and how excited they are about creating. I do want to recognize a ton of super-talented people. I just happen to be the face of the companies.

This nuclear option is ultimately an example of the arrogance of power.

A good objective of leadership is to help those who are doing poorly to do well and to help those who are doing well to do even better.

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.

Here, sir, the people govern; here they act by their immediate representatives.

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

It is a virtual reflex for governments to plead security concerns when they undertake any controversial action, often as a pretext for something else.

Now from a distance, I look back on what the Corps taught me: to think like men of action, and to act like men of thought!

Richard Nixon is a no good, lying bastard. He can lie out of both sides of his mouth at the same time, and if he ever caught himself telling the truth, he’d lie just to keep his hand in.

The U.S.S.R. had absolutely nothing to do with the triumph of the Cuban Revolution.

At the bottom of education, at the bottom of politics, even at the bottom of religion, there must be for our race economic independence.

The government of Israel doesn’t like the kinds of things I say, which puts them into the same category as every other government in the world.

My celebrity status allows me an opportunity, allows me a pulpit to preach and reach out to the people. Not even always preaching but just leading, motivating them by being a leader.

The difference between a democracy and a dictatorship is that in a democracy you vote first and take orders later; in a dictatorship you don’t have to waste your time voting.

I have seen how leaders rule by intimidation. Leaders who demonize and dehumanize entire groups of people often do so because they have nothing else to offer. And I have seen how places that stifle the voices and dismiss the potential of their citizens are diminished: how they are less vital, less hopeful, less free.

There was a stool there, and some fella kept asking me if I wanted to sit down. When I saw the stool sitting there, it gave me the idea. I’ll just put the stool out there and I’ll talk to Mr. Obama and ask him why he didn’t keep all of the promises he made to everybody.

In order to rally people, governments need enemies… if they do not have a real enemy, they will invent one in order to mobilize us.

I despise people who go to the gutter on either the right or the left and hurl rocks at those in the center.

Governments will always play a huge part in solving big problems. They set public policy and are uniquely able to provide the resources to make sure solutions reach everyone who needs them. They also fund basic research, which is a crucial component of the innovation that improves life for everyone.

Leadership is hard. It’s a skill. It’s a technique.

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

All ideologies are idiotic, whether religious or political, for it is conceptual thinking, the conceptual word, which has so unfortunately divided man.

I don’t think that a leader can control, to any great extent, his destiny. Very seldom can he step in and change the situation if the forces of history are running in another direction.

The intersection of law, politics, and technology is going to force a lot of good thinking.