The story being told in ‚Star Wars‘ is a classic one. Every few hundred years, the story is retold because we have a tendency to do the same things over and over again. Power corrupts, and when you’re in charge, you start doing things that you think are right, but they’re actually not.

Perhaps people like us cannot love. Ordinary people can – that is their secret.

William Gladstone has not a single redeeming defect.

At Microsoft there are lots of brilliant ideas but the image is that they all come from the top – I’m afraid that’s not quite right.

There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things.

In business, if you realize you’ve made a bad decision, you change it.

The abdomen is the reason why man does not readily take himself to be a god.

You’ve all seen over the last eight years what President Obama means to this country. He is the embodiment of honor, resolve, and character – one of the finest presidents we have ever had.

Discipline is the soul of an army. It makes small numbers formidable; procures success to the weak, and esteem to all.

Each of us has a vision of good and of evil. We have to encourage people to move towards what they think is good… Everyone has his own idea of good and evil and must choose to follow the good and fight evil as he conceives them. That would be enough to make the world a better place.

Let us not seek the Republican answer or the Democratic answer, but the right answer. Let us not seek to fix the blame for the past. Let us accept our own responsibility for the future.

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.

He who would be no slave must consent to have no slave. Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves and, under a just God, cannot long retain it.

I don’t need a successor, only willing hands to accept the torch for a new generation.

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

Many people, including some conservatives, have been very impressed with how brainy the president and his advisers are. But that is not quite as reassuring as it might seem.

Lot’s wife, of course, was told not to look back where all those people and their homes had been. But she did look back, and I love her for that, because it was so human.

A good model of how to ‚work with the enemy‘ internally is presented by the Dalai Lama, in his endless caretaking of his soul as he confronts the Chinese government that invaded Tibet.

A return to first principles in a republic is sometimes caused by the simple virtues of one man. His good example has such an influence that the good men strive to imitate him, and the wicked are ashamed to lead a life so contrary to his example.

Let me tell you what I literally told every world leader I’ve met with, and I’ve met them all: It’s never, never, never been a good bet to bet against America. We have the finest fighting force in the world.

I would be stupid not to be on my own side. But I’m a human being, too. And I’m on the side of human beings, rather than on the side of crocodiles.

It’s human nature to gripe, but I’m going ahead and doing the best I can.

I realized why directors are such horrible people – in a way – because you want things to be right, and people will just not listen to you, and there is no time to be nice to people, no time to be delicate.

What is great in man is that he is a bridge and not a goal.

How easy it is to govern when one follows a system of consulting the will of the people and one holds as the only norm all the actions which contribute to the well being of the people.

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

Men are more easily governed through their vices than through their virtues.

Humanity, you never had it to begin with.

Speculative fiction encompasses that which we could actually do. Sci-fi is that which we’re probably not going to see.

Man is, properly speaking, based upon hope, he has no other possession but hope; this world of his is emphatically the place of hope.

What makes us human, I think, is an ability to ask questions, a consequence of our sophisticated spoken language.

Human nature is not totally fixed, but on any realistic scale, evolutionary processes are much too slow to affect it.

I’m responsible for starting a whole new school of pretension.

Virtue cannot separate itself from reality without becoming a principle of evil.

If you lead a country like Britain, a strong country, a country which has taken a lead in world affairs in good times and in bad, a country that is always reliable, then you have to have a touch of iron about you.

Isn’t it amazing that we are all made in God’s image, and yet there is so much diversity among his people?

Of course we all know Biden is the intellect of the Democratic Party. Kind of a grin with a body behind it.

Money has never made man happy, nor will it, there is nothing in its nature to produce happiness. The more of it one has the more one wants.

If the leader is filled with high ambition and if he pursues his aims with audacity and strength of will, he will reach them in spite of all obstacles.

The man who can dominate a London dinner-table can dominate the world.

What Britain needs is an iron lady.

You’re morally tainted if you don’t treat both the accuser and the accused with fairness and with respect, and with due process.

When the best leader’s work is done the people say, ‚We did it ourselves.‘

It is better to do one’s own duty, however defective it may be, than to follow the duty of another, however well one may perform it. He who does his duty as his own nature reveals it, never sins.

It is possible for one never to transgress a single law and still be a bastard.

All the commandments: You shall not commit adultery, you shall not kill, you shall not steal, you shall not covet, and so on, are summed up in this single command: You must love your neighbor as yourself.

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.

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.

People that seem so glorious are all show; underneath they are like everyone else.

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.

When I was elected President nobody asked me to negotiate between Israel and Egypt. It was not even a question raised in my campaign. But I felt that one of the reasons that I was elected President was to try to bring peace to the Holy Land.

The day-to-day making of policy is arguing all the time. You’re trying to get the right approach and the right answer, and there are moments that aren’t very pleasant. But in the end, you look at the overall product.

War is evil, but it is often the lesser evil.

If history repeats itself, and the unexpected always happens, how incapable must Man be of learning from experience.

Whatever position I occupied, it was the result of colleagues – of my comrades in the movement – who had decided in their wisdom to use me for the purpose of focusing the attention of the country and the international community on me.

Although modesty is natural to man, it is not natural to children. Modesty only begins with the knowledge of evil.

As president, I’m committed to making Washington work better and rebuilding the trust of the people who sent us here.

A master performer like Bill Clinton never lost sight of the fact that as president he had to project confidence and power, but if he was speaking to a group of autoworkers he would adjust his accent and his words to fit the audience, and do the same for a group of executives.

It’s human nature to not say everything that’s on your mind at the time you think it. Because we fear saying something that people will laugh at, people will think is dumb. We’re afraid of being embarrassed.

There is a higher court than courts of justice and that is the court of conscience. It supercedes all other courts.

Control is the source of strategic power.