The Scoutmaster who is a hero to his boys holds a powerful lever to their development but at the same time brings a great responsibility on himself. They are quick enough to see the smallest characteristic about him, whether it be a virtue or a vice.

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

Idleness is the beginning of all vice, the crown of all virtues.

Character isn’t something you were born with and can’t change, like your fingerprints. It’s something you weren’t born with and must take responsibility for forming.

To remain a credible leader, I must always work first, hardest, and longest on changing myself. This is neither easy nor natural, but it is essential.

I think it’s my responsibility, as a person of influence… to sometimes try to do what I can.

For everything I do, I think about a 6-year-old girl and her mom that I saw at my concert last night. I think about what those two individuals would think if I were at a club last night. I never want to be arrested, and I never want to get a DUI, those are my moral values.

No, we don’t own our children. Our parental privilege is to love them, to lead them, and to let them go.

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

We must find our duties in what comes to us, not in what might have been.

By most accounts, Aristide is the most popular figure in Haiti.

The first duty of a state is to see that every child born therein shall be well housed, clothed, fed and educated till it attains years of discretion.

In Hollywood, a lot of times when something is in development, it just takes a lot of time.

Pull the string, and it will follow wherever you wish. Push it, and it will go nowhere at all.

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

To practice five things under all circumstances constitutes perfect virtue; these five are gravity, generosity of soul, sincerity, earnestness, and kindness.

Constant development is the law of life, and a man who always tries to maintain his dogmas in order to appear consistent drives himself into a false position.

You know, one of the things I think you understand as president is you’re held responsible for everything, but you don’t always have control of everything, right?

I think I’ve got wiser.

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

When things haven’t gone well for you, call in a secretary or a staff man and chew him out. You will sleep better and they will appreciate the attention.

The great thieves lead away the little thief.

Your success, or lack of success, is your responsibility. Even when you have a chain of command that you don’t like as well, its your responsibility to work with the up chain of command.

I have always been grateful to Colonel Longley. He proved to me that when people in authority take a stand, good can come out of it.

Clever tyrants are never punished.

You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today.

The issues a president faces are not black and white, and cannot be boiled down into 140 characters. Because when you have the nuclear codes at your fingertips and the military at your command, you can’t make snap decisions. You can’t have a thin skin or the tendency to lash out.

I want a president with a record of public service, someone whose life’s work shows our children that we don’t chase fame and fortune for ourselves: we fight to give everyone a chance to succeed.

All the gold which is under or upon the earth is not enough to give in exchange for virtue.

Rhetoric is a poor substitute for action, and we have trusted only to rhetoric. If we are really to be a great nation, we must not merely talk; we must act big.

The foolish and wicked practice of profane cursing and swearing is a vice so mean and low that every person of sense and character detests and despises it.

As President Nixon says, presidents can do almost anything, and President Nixon has done many things that nobody would have thought of doing.

The object of the superior man is truth.

Civilization is the making of civil persons.

Whenever a man has cast a longing eye on offices, a rottenness begins in his conduct.

A good leader doesn’t get stuck behind a desk.

Our DNA is as a consumer company – for that individual customer who’s voting thumbs up or thumbs down. That’s who we think about. And we think that our job is to take responsibility for the complete user experience. And if it’s not up to par, it’s our fault, plain and simply.

No man will make a great leader who wants to do it all himself or get all the credit for doing it.

I desire so to conduct the affairs of this administration that if at the end… I have lost every other friend on earth, I shall at least have one friend left, and that friend shall be down inside of me.

Leadership is influence.

Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.

There will be no end to the troubles of states, or of humanity itself, till philosophers become kings in this world, or till those we now call kings and rulers really and truly become philosophers, and political power and philosophy thus come into the same hands.

For Forms of Government let fools contest; whatever is best administered is best.

Unless a president can protect the privacy of the advice he gets, he cannot get the advice he needs.

There is no austerity equal to a balanced mind, and there is no happiness equal to contentment; there is no disease like covetousness, and no virtue like mercy.

Until the men of action clear out the talkers we who have social consciences are at the mercy of those who have none.

One civilization after another has been wrecked upon the attempt to secure sufficient leadership from a single group or class.

Having the support from everyone, the bosses, whoever within the team, definitely makes it much easier for me as a driver.

Most businesses think that product is the most important thing, but without great leadership, mission and a team that deliver results at a high level, even the best product won’t make a company successful.

The issues that cross a president’s desk are never easy. The easy questions don’t even get to the president.

Being prime minister is a lonely job… you cannot lead from the crowd.

The President is always abused. If he isn’t, he isn’t doing anything.

China has to go along with world trends. That’s democracy, liberty, individual freedom. China sooner or later has to go that way. It cannot go backward.

He who is to be a good ruler must have first been ruled.

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

I cannot lead you into battle. I do not give you laws or administer justice but I can do something else – I can give my heart and my devotion to these old islands and to all the peoples of our brotherhood of nations.

Africa is on the rise.

People have got to know whether or not their president is a crook. Well, I’m not a crook. I earned everything I’ve got.

Commitment is an act, not a word.

One’s philosophy is not best expressed in words; it is expressed in the choices one makes… and the choices we make are ultimately our responsibility.

Of all the enemies of public liberty, war is perhaps the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other.