The nose of a mob is its imagination. By this, at any time, it can be quietly led.

Imagination rules the world.

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

I am a leader by default, only because nature does not allow a vacuum.

In order to govern, the question is not to follow out a more or less valid theory but to build with whatever materials are at hand. The inevitable must be accepted and turned to advantage.

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

There is but one way for a president to deal with Congress, and that is continuously, incessantly, and without interruption. If it is really going to work, the relationship has got to be almost incestuous.

I just think overall there’s not as many female ministers than there are male ministers.

One of the things you do when you make a piece of art is you try to make the world you’d rather be in.

However my parents – both of whom came from impoverished backgrounds and neither of whom had been to college, took the view that my overactive imagination was an amusing quirk that would never pay a mortgage or secure a pension.

I have fallen in love with the imagination. And if you fall in love with the imagination, you understand that it is a free spirit. It will go anywhere, and it can do anything.

You can’t do it unless you can imagine it.

Before I became a chief minister, I never thought that one day I’d be the chief minister.

The greatness of a man is not in how much wealth he acquires, but in his integrity and his ability to affect those around him positively.

In Hawaii, some of the biggest radio stations are reggae. The local bands are heavily influenced by Bob Marley.

In my heart, I’m confident I could make a good president.

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

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.

A politician is a man who understands government. A statesman is a politician who’s been dead for 15 years.

The will is a beast of burden. If God mounts it, it wishes and goes as God wills; if Satan mounts it, it wishes and goes as Satan wills; Nor can it choose its rider… the riders contend for its possession.

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.

Earn your success based on service to others, not at the expense of others.

All the breaks you need in life wait within your imagination, Imagination is the workshop of your mind, capable of turning mind energy into accomplishment and wealth.

It is usually the imagination that is wounded first, rather than the heart; it being much more sensitive.

First, how do we give everyone a fair shot at opportunity and security in this new economy? Second, how do we make technology work for us, and not against us – especially when it comes to solving urgent challenges like climate change? Third, how do we keep America safe and lead the world without becoming its policeman?

Leadership is influence.

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.

Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job.

We live in a day that nobody’s lived in before: where you can touch more people. The message I’ll speak tonight and the message that I speak at home, people in India will hear. It’s just an amazing day.

I was born during the war and grew up in a time of rationing. We didn’t have anything. It’s influenced the way I look at the world.

The best leaders understand the motivations of their team members and know their people – their lives and their families. But a leader must never grow so close to subordinates that one member of the team becomes more important than another, or more important than the mission itself.

Unless and until you inspire the people, you will not get results. Imposition will never give you the results. Inspiration will always give you the results.

Yeah, I wasn’t chosen to be first. I was just chosen to command that flight. Circumstance put me in that particular role. That wasn’t planned by anyone.

The moment people feel they know what to expect from you, your spell on them is broken. More: You have ceded them power.

People who enjoy meetings should not be in charge of anything.

I look at athletes in all sports and try to picture what kind of football player they’d be, what position they’d play and so on.

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.

I would rather try to persuade a man to go along, because once I have persuaded him, he will stick. If I scare him, he will stay just as long as he is scared, and then he is gone.

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

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

Any man who wants to be president is either an egomaniac or crazy.

If you will have a person enslaved, the first thing you must do is convince yourself that the person is subhuman. The second thing you have to do is convince your allies so you’ll have some help, and the third and probably unkindest cut of all is to convince that person that he or she is subhuman and deserves it.

The first method for estimating the intelligence of a ruler is to look at the men he has around him.

Flattery corrupts both the receiver and the giver.

Nothing is so strongly fortified that it cannot be taken by money.

Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living, it’s a way of looking at life through the wrong end of a telescope, and that enables you to laugh at life’s realities.

The moment a person forms a theory, his imagination sees in every object only the traits which favor that theory.

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.

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

Why does the eye see a thing more clearly in dreams than the imagination when awake?

I believe in that old adage that ‚as goes California, so goes the country.‘

I was warped early by Ray Bradbury and Edgar Allan Poe. I was very fond of Franz Kafka.

As we look ahead into the next century, leaders will be those who empower others.

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

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

People want to know why I do this, why I write such gross stuff. I like to tell them I have the heart of a small boy… and I keep it in a jar on my desk.

Fiction is such a world of freedom, it’s wonderful. If you want someone to fly, they can fly.

To me, a leader is someone who holds her- or himself accountable for finding potential in people and processes. And so what I think is really important is sustainability.

Being the boss anywhere is lonely. Being a female boss in a world of mostly men is especially so.

A leader who confines his role to his people’s experience dooms himself to stagnation; a leader who outstrips his people’s experience runs the risk of not being understood.

No man will ever carry out of the Presidency the reputation which carried him into it.