We named the book ‚Extreme Ownership‘ because we really found that when we looked at not only at leaders but at teams that were the most successful, we found that the ones that had this attitude of extreme ownership were the ones that did the best, and it’s definitely an attitude that I had.

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

A lot of football success is in the mind. You must believe you are the best and then make sure that you are.

In my opinion eight years as president is enough and sometimes too much for any man to serve in that capacity.

Good management consists in showing average people how to do the work of superior people.

But let me tell you, this gender thing is history. You’re looking at a guy who sat down with Margaret Thatcher across the table and talked about serious issues.

Develop success from failures. Discouragement and failure are two of the surest stepping stones to success.

Climbing to the top demands strength, whether it is to the top of Mount Everest or to the top of your career.

If you sit there and have that mentality of ‚triple down on what you’re good at,‘ you’re never going to grow. You’re always going to stay the same.

I’ve seen how the issues that come across a president’s desk are always the hard ones – the problems where no amount of data or numbers will get you to the right answer.

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

You stand out in the crowd only because you have these many, many carrying you on their shoulders.

When you want a thing done, ‚Don’t do it yourself‘ is a good motto for Scoutmasters.

If you look at any Muslim society and you make a scale of how developed they are, and how successful the economy is, it’s a straight line. It depends on how much they emancipate their women.

The man who has won millions at the cost of his conscience is a failure.

What is easy is seldom excellent.

The person who goes farthest is generally the one who is willing to do and dare. The sure-thing boat never gets far from shore.

Any of us can be happy and have a good attitude when everything is going our way. But I believe it’s the real test of your character and of your faith to say, ‚Things are not going our way, but I’m still being good to people; I’m still attending church; I still have a good attitude.‘

Solidarity is an attitude of resistance, I suppose, or it should be.

There’s been a lot of talk of me being a one-man show but that’s simply not the case. We win games when I score 40 points and we’ve won when I score 10.

You’ve got to go out on a limb sometimes because that’s where the fruit is.

It’s OK for China to invent cancer drugs that cure patients in the United States. We want them to catch up. But as the leader, we want to keep setting a very, very high standard. We don’t want them to catch up because we’re slowing down or, even worse, going into reverse.

A good head and a good heart are always a formidable combination.

War should be the only study of a prince. He should consider peace only as a breathing-time, which gives him leisure to contrive, and furnishes as ability to execute, military plans.

In ninth grade, I came up with a new form of rebellion. I hadn’t been getting good grades, but I decided to get all A’s without taking a book home. I didn’t go to math class, because I knew enough and had read ahead, and I placed within the top 10 people in the nation on an aptitude exam.

Be more dedicated to making solid achievements than in running after swift but synthetic happiness.

In the business world, the rearview mirror is always clearer than the windshield.

The only thing that will redeem mankind is cooperation.

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

Everywhere I go, the kids call me ‚the book lady.‘ The older I get, the more appreciative I seem to be of the ‚book lady‘ title. It makes me feel more like a legitimate person, not just a singer or an entertainer. But it makes me feel like I’ve done something good with my life and with my success.

Business is never so healthy as when, like a chicken, it must do a certain amount of scratching around for what it gets.

If you don’t drive your business, you will be driven out of business.

Whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve.

The more successful I become, the more I need a man.

My job is to play quarterback, and I’m going to do that the best way I know how, because I owe that to my teammates regardless of who is out there on the field with me.

Sometimes I wonder why I’m a novelist right now. There is no definite career reason why I became a writer. Something happened, and I became a writer. And now I’m a successful writer.

When I was nine years old, living on the south side of Chicago, my father was a minister and my mother used to scrub floors. I had seven brothers and four sisters. I told my mama, ‚One of these days I’m going to be big and strong and buy you a beautiful house.‘ That’s all I’ve ever wanted to do with my life, is to take care of my mother.

So, for example, a country was into recession right after I was sworn in, a dot-com bust had taken place. Then the attacks of September the 11th, and then of course the great financial meltdown in the -the fundamental question facing any presidency is how do you deal with the hand you’re dealt?

What one has, one ought to use: and whatever he does he should do with all his might.

Those of us who submitted or surrendered our ideas and dreams and identities to the ‚leaders‘ must take back our rights, our identities, our responsibilities.

Your attitude towards failure determines your altitude after failure.

Every President wants to do right.

Soldiers generally win battles; generals get credit for them.

Give a boy address and accomplishments and you give him the mastery of palaces and fortunes where he goes.

If you can build a business up big enough, it’s respectable.

If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help… Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you’ve got a business – you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen.

I won’t accept anything less than the best a player’s capable of doing… and he has the right to expect the best that I can do for him and the team!

So long as men worship the Caesars and Napoleons, Caesars and Napoleons will duly arise and make them miserable.

It’s not essential for me to have a big debut week; it’s not essential for me to have big radio records.

Only he is successful in his business who makes that pursuit which affords him the highest pleasure sustain him.

I get impatient with people working on a film that have their head in their hands like it’s the most complicated thing in the world.

I think I hate cynicism more than anything else. It’s the curse of our age, and I want to avoid it at all costs.

New ideas pass through three periods: 1) It can’t be done. 2) It probably can be done, but it’s not worth doing. 3) I knew it was a good idea all along!

The greatest day in your life and mine is when we take total responsibility for our attitudes. That’s the day we truly grow up.

If I have seen further than others, it is by standing upon the shoulders of giants.

On one of my last days at school, the headmaster said I would either end up in prison or become a millionaire. That was quite a startling prediction, but in some respects, he was right on both counts!

It’s not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters.

A business absolutely devoted to service will have only one worry about profits. They will be embarrassingly large.

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.

I’m filthy rich!

The faults of a superior person are like the sun and moon. They have their faults, and everyone sees them; they change and everyone looks up to them.