Want of foresight, unwillingness to act when action would be simple and effective, lack of clear thinking, confusion of counsel until the emergency comes, until self-preservation strikes its jarring gong – these are the features which constitute the endless repetition of history.

If I knew for a certainty that a man was coming to my house with the conscious design of doing me good, I should run for my life.

I’ve noticed a terrible thing, which is I will agree to anything if it’s far enough in the future.

Your emotions are very unstable and should never be the foundation for direction in your life.

We will burn that bridge when we come to it.

I can make more generals, but horses cost money.

To see the right and not to do it is cowardice.

When I was running training, we would fire a couple of leaders from every SEAL team because they couldn’t lead. And 99.9% of the time, it wasn’t a question of their ability – it was a question of their ability to listen.

We are the creative force of our life, and through our own decisions rather than our conditions, if we carefully learn to do certain things, we can accomplish those goals.

I had to make a choice at one point in my life, of missing films or missing my children. It was a very easy decision to make because I missed my children so very much.

Eight, as you know, is not a good number for a multi-member court.

A woman uses her intelligence to find reasons to support her intuition.

I’ve turned down shows offering large amounts of money.

My justification is that most people my age spend a lot of time thinking about what they’re going to do for the next five or ten years. The time they spend thinking about their life, I just spend drinking.

If we could just find out who’s in charge, we could kill him.

Surround yourself with the best people you can find, delegate authority, and don’t interfere as long as the policy you’ve decided upon is being carried out.

I have always believed in evolving a consensus before taking any major decision.

It is normal to give away a little of one’s life in order not to lose it all.

Action may not bring happiness but there is no happiness without action.

When a country has the skill and self-confidence to take action against its biggest problems, it makes outsiders eager to be a part of it.

The executive has no right, in any case, to decide the question, whether there is or is not cause for declaring war.

How many cares one loses when one decides not to be something but to be someone.

To learn something but not to do is really not to learn. To know something but not to do is really not to know.

Wise men don’t need advice. Fools won’t take it.

Political courage is not political suicide.

A lot of people tell me a lot of things about my conduct, my game, my future… but I try to stay away from their words of wisdom. I don’t let it distract me. On the field, you will be facing the ball alone. If you fail, you will the only one to blame. So, you should be the one deciding for yourself.

I’m not sure if it’s good to have freedom or not. I’m really confused now.

The common question that gets asked in business is, ‚why?‘ That’s a good question, but an equally valid question is, ‚why not?‘

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

I’ve got a pen and I’ve got a phone – and I can use that pen to sign executive orders and take executive actions and administrative actions that move the ball forward.

There is a time to take counsel of your fears, and there is a time to never listen to any fear.

There are goods so opposed that we cannot seize both, but, by too much prudence, may pass between them at too great a distance to reach either.

There’s a reason why the Foo Fighters don’t blast out Nirvana songs every night: because we have a lot of respect for them. You know, that’s hallowed ground. We have to be careful. We have to tread lightly. We have talked about it before, but the opportunity hasn’t really come up, or it just hasn’t felt right.

We have to work harder to develop a profound theology of women within the church. The feminine genius is needed wherever we make important decisions.

At one point he decided enough was enough.

You are doomed to make choices. This is life’s greatest paradox.

I was a peripheral visionary. I could see the future, but only way off to the side.

I have considered voting Conservative because I am so against the Labour party.

No sensible decision can be made any longer without taking into account not only the world as it is, but the world as it will be.

When I get logical, and I don’t trust my instincts – that’s when I get in trouble.

One must verify or expel his doubts, and convert them into the certainty of Yes or NO.

A ‚No‘ uttered from the deepest conviction is better than a ‚Yes‘ merely uttered to please, or worse, to avoid trouble.

What can I know? What ought I to do? What can I hope?

You only have to do a very few things right in your life so long as you don’t do too many things wrong.

So convenient a thing it is to be a reasonable creature, since it enables one to find or make a reason for every thing one has a mind to do.

The original reason to start the project, which was that the Germans were a danger, started me off on a process of action, which was to try to develop this first system at Princeton and then at Los Alamos, to try to make the bomb work.

The chief condition on which, life, health and vigor depend on, is action. It is by action that an organism develops its faculties, increases its energy, and attains the fulfillment of its destiny.

Men’s actions are too strong for them. Show me a man who has acted, and who has not been the victim and slave of his action.

Sometimes if you want to get rid of the gun, you have to pick the gun up.

Doing is the great thing, for if people resolutely do what is right, they come in time to like doing it.

If you want to have sustained joy, you have to not only make sure that you think right, but you also have to make decisions now that are going to guarantee some joy in the future.

We should not be so taken up in the search for truth, as to neglect the needful duties of active life; for it is only action that gives a true value and commendation to virtue.

Before you start some work, always ask yourself three questions – Why am I doing it, What the results might be and Will I be successful. Only when you think deeply and find satisfactory answers to these questions, go ahead.

An act has no ethical quality whatever unless it be chosen out of several all equally possible.

Forethought we may have, undoubtedly, but not foresight.

It does not take much strength to do things, but it requires great strength to decide on what to do.

If we could first know where we are, and whither we are tending, we could then better judge what to do, and how to do it.

I never do anything that I don’t want to do.

I don’t try to describe the future. I try to prevent it.

A truly good book teaches me better than to read it. I must soon lay it down, and commence living on its hint. What I began by reading, I must finish by acting.

I bought a gun and chose drugs instead.