The commander in the field is always right and the rear echelon is wrong, unless proved otherwise.

To be good is noble; but to show others how to be good is nobler and no trouble.

No one person controls Microsoft. The board and the shareholders decide whether they want to have me as CEO.

The attempt to combine wisdom and power has only rarely been successful and then only for a short while.

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

Surround yourself with people who take their work seriously, but not themselves, those who work hard and play hard.

Take calculated risks. That is quite different from being rash.

Choose your life’s mate carefully. From this one decision will come 90 percent of all your happiness or misery.

I am fearful, or suspicious, of generalizations… They cannot guide me reliably in making decisions about particular individuals.

I am not interested in power for power’s sake, but I’m interested in power that is moral, that is right and that is good.

I second-guess and overthink and rethink every single thing that I do.

Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.

As is the case with most people in this game, I am driven by financial motives and creative motives; the question I had to answer is which motive I will give priority to?

The last thing I wanted to do was to be a wartime President.

Let’s just be smart this time. I’m looking for smart.

The most practical kind of politics is the politics of decency.

If the American people don’t love me, their descendants will.

The people themselves, and not their servants, can safely reverse their own deliberate decisions.

I remember the last three days that I was president, I never went to bed at all. I never went to bed until we had negotiated the final release of the hostages.

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

I think Clinton, after getting into office and into Washington, was shocked at being bludgeoned. So he spent time trying to be all things to all people – one way guaranteed not to be successful or respected in a lion’s den. You can’t just play around with all those big cats – you’ve got to take somebody on.

The British soldier can stand up to anything except the British War Office.

It is a well-known fact that those people who must want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it… anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job.

After winning, most teams become individuals; most teams become complacent.

Never let your sense of morals get in the way of doing what’s right.

Facebook are an amazing team, a brilliant team. It’s a technology that brings people together.

There is something about building up a comradeship – that I still believe is the greatest of all feats – and sharing in the dangers with your company of peers. It’s the intense effort, the giving of everything you’ve got. It’s really a very pleasant sensation.

SEALs are human beings. We may all have the same haircuts, but we aren’t robots. Some SEALs are great people. Some are not great people. Some have done unspeakably terrible things. You’re dealing with different people, different dreams, different desires.

With Malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds.

When the tyrant has disposed of foreign enemies by conquest or treaty, and there is nothing more to fear from them, then he is always stirring up some war or other, in order that the people may require a leader.

I’ve just tried to grow up in the most natural and gradual process that I possibly can and make choices I feel are right for me and my fans.

International affairs is very much run like the mafia. The godfather does not accept disobedience, even from a small storekeeper who doesn’t pay his protection money. You have to have obedience; otherwise, the idea can spread that you don’t have to listen to the orders, and it can spread to important places.

Those people who develop the ability to continuously acquire new and better forms of knowledge that they can apply to their work and to their lives will be the movers and shakers in our society for the indefinite future.

Leadership is solving problems. The day soldiers stop bringing you their problems is the day you have stopped leading them. They have either lost confidence that you can help or concluded you do not care. Either case is a failure of leadership.

I break ground. I trailblaze.

When you give everyone a voice and give people power, the system usually ends up in a really good place. So, what we view our role as, is giving people that power.

The Army will take its lessons learned. They’re excellent at looking into themselves and reflecting on what did we do right, what did we do wrong.

No man is good enough to govern another man without the other’s consent.

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!

Of two evils, choose neither.

We’re African-American and we work together as a family, so people assume we’re like the Jacksons. But I didn’t have parents using me to get out of a bad situation.

Some day I shall be President.

But even the President of the United States sometimes must have to stand naked.

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.

I just figured out that if I gave my all into this game – if I put everything into the fight business – then I would eventually run the fight business.

The best minds are not in government. If any were, business would steal them away.

I’m for women choosing whatever they want to do but they have to really know what they are doing.

Put your leaders in stressful scenarios. Make them figure out solutions under pressure. See if you can make them frustrated, angry, and flustered, and then demand decisive leadership from them. They will be challenged at first, but they will get better over time.

The time to take counsel of your fears is before you make an important battle decision. That’s the time to listen to every fear you can imagine! When you have collected all the facts and fears and made your decision, turn off all your fears and go ahead!

When love and skill work together, expect a masterpiece.

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

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

The trouble with Nixon is that he’s a serious politics junkie. He’s totally hooked and like any other junkie, he’s a bummer to have around, especially as President.

Nothing is more expensive than a missed opportunity.

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.

We choose our joys and sorrows long before we experience them.

It’s so hard to know what to do when one wishes earnestly to do right.

There have been so many great players that I’ve played with, that I’ve played against over the years.

If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts, but if he will content to begin with doubts, he shall end in certainties.

Look, when you’re the president, there’s all kinds of things said about us. I mean, it’s just the nature of the job.