When it comes to the qualifications that we should demand of our president, to start with, we need someone who will take the job seriously.

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

And I think it’s that time. And I think if you just step aside and Mr. Romney can kind of take over. You can maybe still use a plane. Though maybe a smaller one. Not that big gas guzzler you are going around to colleges and talking about student loans and stuff like that.

When restraint and courtesy are added to strength, the latter becomes irresistible.

When you give everyone a voice and give people power, the system usually ends up in a really good place. So, what we view our role as, is giving people that power.

I had rather be first in a village than second at Rome.

You gotta water your plants. Nobody can water them for you.

The price of greatness is responsibility.

Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it.

You know, you can only lead them from behind.

I’m a mentor to anybody who’s interested.

Absolute liberty is absence of restraint; responsibility is restraint; therefore, the ideally free individual is responsible to himself.

To paraphrase Winston Churchill, I did not take the oath I have just taken with the intention of presiding over the dissolution of the world’s strongest economy.

We had to go on and do the work of the court and we did.

You’re president, if you conclude my judgment is not the right judgment, I abide by that, but I want an opportunity to have an input.

The men who have guided the destiny of the United States have found the strength for their tasks by going to their knees. This private unity of public men and their God is an enduring source of reassurance for the people of America.

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

Just as discipline and freedom are opposing forces that must be balanced, leadership requires finding the equilibrium in the dichotomy of many seemingly contradictory qualities between one extreme and another.

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

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.

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

I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat.

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

A company is a group organized to create a product or service, and it is only as good as its people and how excited they are about creating. I do want to recognize a ton of super-talented people. I just happen to be the face of the companies.

I’m always surprised when people respond positively to what I am saying, given its seriousnessness and strange nature.

There are people who are really good managers, people who can manage a big organization, and then there are people who are very analytic or focused on strategy. Those two types don’t usually tend to be in the same person. I would put myself much more in the latter camp.

I know it’s going to be the private sector that leads this country out of the current economic times we’re in. You can spend your money better than the government can spend your money.

The real danger is not inaction. The real danger is when politicians and CEOs are making it look like action is happening when in fact nothing is being done.

Well I do think, when there are more women, that the tone of the conversation changes, and also the goals of the conversation change. But it doesn’t mean that the whole world would be a lot better if it were totally run by women. If you think that, you’ve forgotten high school.

Errors are not in the art but in the artificers.

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

When you have an efficient government, you have a dictatorship.

Ever since Israel has been a nation the United States has provided the leadership. Every president down to the ages has done this in a fairly balanced way, including George Bush senior, Gerald Ford, and others including myself and Bill Clinton.

When anyone has the power to destroy the whole human race in a matter of hours, it becomes a moral issue. The church must speak out.

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 government, whether state or central, is elected. That means we have a responsibility to elect the right kind of leaders.

God has cared for these trees, saved them from drought, disease, avalanches, and a thousand tempests and floods. But he cannot save them from fools.

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.

I suppose leadership at one time meant muscles; but today it means getting along with people.

Power has only one duty – to secure the social welfare of the People.

A leader who doesn’t hesitate before he sends his nation into battle is not fit to be a leader.

The best executive is one who has sense enough to pick good people to do what he wants done, and self-restraint enough to keep from meddling with them while they do it.

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

As a country, we can’t teach kids how to read and write when we got 18 years to do it. And that’s – that’s a disgrace.

The happiest people in the world are those who feel absolutely terrific about themselves, and this is the natural outgrowth of accepting total responsibility for every part of their life.

Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.

It doesn’t take a majority to make a rebellion; it takes only a few determined leaders and a sound cause.

By imposing too great a responsibility, or rather, all responsibility, on yourself, you crush yourself.

Leaders in all spheres who are living with HIV should be encouraged, not coerced, to lead by example and disclose their HIV status.

Those who can win a war well can rarely make a good peace and those who could make a good peace would never have won the war.

Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other.

As our enemies have found we can reason like men, so now let us show them we can fight like men also.

The greater the power, the more dangerous the abuse.

When I checked into SEAL Team One many years ago, one of the things that I noticed was there was this old guy, who was younger than I am today, who I decided that I was going to be like. I wanted to emulate what he was doing, and one of those things was he got to work before anybody else.

Control is the source of strategic power.

Great men are like eagles, and build their nest on some lofty solitude.

Great things in business are never done by one person. They’re done by a team of people.

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

I believe in Coach Louis Wong. He is so much more than just a football coach.

History has proven that each generation of Howard graduates will forge the way forward for our country and our world.

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