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.

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.

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.

If I had chosen the populist course, it would have been a breach of the trust placed in me by the people.

I’ve had some ‚riotous excursions of the human spirit‘ alongside the young Sailors and Marines, and it’s time to leave the stage to the young leaders who got their rank the old-fashioned way – they earned their stripes in combat.

Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves are its only safe depositories.

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

As his vice president for eight years, I learned more from Ronald Reagan than from anyone I encountered in all my years of public life.

Wherever you are, be there totally. If you find your here and now intolerable and it makes you unhappy, you have three options: remove yourself from the situation, change it, or accept it totally. If you want to take responsibility for your life, you must choose one of those three options, and you must choose now. Then accept the consequences.

To some extent I happily don’t know what I’m doing. I feel that it’s an artist’s responsibility to trust that.

A leader is a dealer in hope.

A sword never kills anybody; it is a tool in the killer’s hand.

Do you realize the responsibility I carry? I’m the only person standing between Richard Nixon and the White House.

We have no more right to consume happiness without producing it than to consume wealth without producing it.

People who add value to others do so intentionally. I say that because to add value, leaders must give of themselves, and that rarely occurs by accident.

Anything important is never left to the vote of the people. We only get to vote on some man; we never get to vote on what he is to do.

Americans are rising to the tasks of history, and they expect the same of us.

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?

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.

Feels good to try, but playing a father, I’m getting a little older. I see now that I’m taking it more serious and I do want that lifestyle.

You need to understand, if you take out a government, take out a regime, guess who becomes the government and regime and is responsible for the country? You are. So if you break it, you own it.

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

One of my direct subordinates, one of my guys that worked for me, he would call me up or pull me aside with some major problem, some issue that was going on. And he’d say, ‚Boss, we’ve got this, and that, and the other thing.‘ And I’d look at him and I’d say, ‚Good.‘

The Creator has not thought proper to mark those in the forehead who are of stuff to make good generals. We are first, therefore, to seek them blindfold, and then let them learn the trade at the expense of great losses.

Every man, every woman who has to take up the service of government, must ask themselves two questions: ‚Do I love my people in order to serve them better? Am I humble and do I listen to everybody, to diverse opinions in order to choose the best path?‘ If you don’t ask those questions, your governance will not be good.

If you want to occupy the C-suite or the top one-tenth of 1% in any organization, you have to be obsessively devoted to your career at the expense of everything else. And women look at that, and they think, ‚No.‘

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.

Most of the problems a President has to face have their roots in the past.

It is a well-known fact that those people who must want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it… anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job.

I would rather have peace in the world than be President.

When there is a lack of honor in government, the morals of the whole people are poisoned.

We need to have business leaders who live by deep, strong principles.

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

If you have to control people, you have to have an administrative force that does it. So in U.S. industry, even more than elsewhere, there’s layer after layer of management – a kind of economic waste, but useful for control and domination. And the same is true in universities.

Kings are not born: they are made by artificial hallucination.

Show me a poorly uniformed troop and I’ll show you a poorly uniformed leader.

The superior man acts before he speaks, and afterwards speaks according to his action.

As an elder of the Americas and of the rest of the planet, it is my responsibility to care for and protect, to the best of my ability, the young.

One of the roles of the Presidency is to lead a political party. Having a President in office is usually a huge advantage to a party because it gives the party a mouthpiece and an advocate at the highest level.

The time has come for all evangelists to practice full financial disclosure. The world is watching how we walk and how we talk. We must have the highest standards of morality, ethics and integrity if we are to continue to have influence.

The great thing about having a bunch of kids is they just remind you that you’re the person who takes them to go poop!

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

We also can’t try to take over and rebuild every country that falls into crisis. That’s not leadership; that’s a recipe for quagmire, spilling American blood and treasure that ultimately weakens us. It’s the lesson of Vietnam, of Iraq – and we should have learned it by now.

A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way, and shows the way.

When you’re in a leadership role, you can never please all of the people all of the time. There’s also a lot of responsibility that goes along with it that others may not realize.

Yeah, I wasn’t chosen to be first. I was just chosen to command that flight. Circumstance put me in that particular role. That wasn’t planned by anyone.

I am often asked if, when I was secretary, I had problems with foreign men. That is not who I had problems with, because I arrived in a very large plane that said United States of America. I had more problems with the men in our own government.

We can’t drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times… and then just expect that other countries are going to say OK. That’s not leadership. That’s not going to happen.

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.

People make a big fuss over you when you’re President. But I’m very serious about doing everything I can to make sure that it doesn’t go to my head.

What I admire most about Hillary is that she never buckles under pressure. She never takes the easy way out. And Hillary Clinton has never quit on anything in her life.

Perhaps it is better to be irresponsible and right, than to be responsible and wrong.

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

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.

Example is leadership.

One word sums up probably the responsibility of any vice-president, and that one word is ‚to be prepared‘.

Public opinion is the thermometer a monarch should constantly consult.

To lead people walk behind them.

When you’re not engaged in the day-to-day struggles that everybody feels, you slowly start losing touch. And I think it’s important for the people in the White House to have a finger on the pulse.

The spirit of America has nurtured responsibility and community unlike any other country.