With Benghazi, I don’t see anyone saying, ‚Hey look, I am overall responsible for this and therefore, I take responsibility for what happened. It’s my fault.‘ I haven’t heard that yet. Meanwhile, the other side of the coin, the Osama bin Laden raid, it seems everyone made that decision, and that’s just unbelievable to me.

How can we help President Obama?

The more extensive a man’s knowledge of what has been done, the greater will be his power of knowing what to do.

I love that we can trust Barack to do what he says he’s going to do, even when it’s hard – especially when it’s hard.

Train up a child in the way that he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.

I’m glad I’m not Brezhnev. Being the Russian leader in the Kremlin. You never know if someone’s tape recording what you say.

In doubtful cases the more liberal interpretation must always be preferred.

Never allow a person to tell you no who doesn’t have the power to say yes.

It is a paradox that every dictator has climbed to power on the ladder of free speech. Immediately on attaining power each dictator has suppressed all free speech except his own.

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.

I don’t envy or much respect people who are completely politicised.

My fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.

No party has a monopoly on wisdom. No democracy works without compromise. But when Governor Romney and his allies in Congress tell us we can somehow lower our deficit by spending trillions more on new tax breaks for the wealthy – well, you do the math. I refuse to go along with that. And as long as I’m President, I never will.

When I came to Johannesburg from the countryside, I knew nobody, but many strangers were very kind to me. I then was dragged into politics, and then, subsequently, I became a lawyer.

I believe that every right implies a responsibility; every opportunity, an obligation; every possession, a duty.

And now, of course this is another thing I didn’t count on, that now as the governor of the state of California, I am selling California worldwide. You see that? Selling.

Free government is the most difficult of all government. But it is everlastingly true that the plain people will make fewer mistakes than any other group of men, no matter how powerful.

Israel is a pretty crazy state.

The topic of leadership is a touchy one. A lot of leaders fail because they don’t have the bravery to touch that nerve or strike that chord. Throughout my years, I haven’t had that fear.

Every time I hear a politician mention the word ‚stimulus,‘ my mind flashes back to high school biology class, when I touched battery wires to a dead frog to make it twitch.

I am such a political person.

Everybody has a little bit of Watergate in him.

Hillary doesn’t play. She has more experience and exposure to the presidency than any candidate in our lifetime – yes, more than Barack, more than Bill. So she is absolutely ready to be Commander-in-Chief on day one. And, yes, she happens to be a woman.

In politics, nothing happens by accident. If it happens, you can bet it was planned that way.

You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today.

One must steer, not talk.

If you’re a quarterback, you want everything on your shoulders. You want to be the one to make the decisions.

I am always wary of decisions made hastily. I am always wary of the first decision, that is, the first thing that comes to my mind if I have to make a decision. This is usually the wrong thing. I have to wait and assess, looking deep into myself, taking the necessary time.

If you can ask a young man to give his life for his country, you can lead people.

The responsibility of tolerance lies with those who have the wider vision.

Language is a weapon of politicians, but language is a weapon in much of human affairs.

When a stupid man is doing something he is ashamed of, he always declares that it is his duty.

Accept the terrible responsibility of life with eyes wide open.

The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity. The fears are paper tigers. You can do anything you decide to do. You can act to change and control your life; and the procedure, the process is its own reward.

The 21st century is going to be the American century. Because we lead not only by the example of our power, but by the power of our example. That is the history of the journey of America.

Leadership is solving problems. The day soldiers stop bringing you their problems is the day you have stopped leading them. They have either lost confidence that you can help or concluded you do not care. Either case is a failure of leadership.

A piece of spaghetti or a military unit can only be led from the front end.

The Scoutmaster teaches boys to play the game by doing so himself.

If you have a family mission statement that clarifies what your purpose is, then you use that as the criterion by which you make the decisions.

We came into a broken world. And we’re the cleanup crew.

If you are the kind of person who is waiting for the ‚right‘ thing to happen, you might wait for a long time. It’s like waiting for all the traffic lights to be green for five miles before starting the trip.

Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.

If people lose faith in their government, the result is the same whether or not the loss of confidence is justified.

I don’t really get into a big intellectual analysis of why I am going to do a certain script or not.

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

Understand, when you eat meat, that something did die. You have an obligation to value it – not just the sirloin but also all those wonderful tough little bits.

If you ask the CEO of some major corporation what he does, he will say, in all honesty, that he is slaving 20 hours a day to provide his customers with the best goods or services he can and creating the best possible working conditions for his employees.

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.

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

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

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 people respect and believe in men who fulfill their duty.

Faced with what is right, to leave it undone shows a lack of courage.

I have been very happy in the House of Representatives.

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.

It was the Congress that imposed ‚Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,‘ it was certainly my position, my recommendation to get us out of an even worse outcome that could have occurred.

Politics ought to be the part-time profession of every citizen who would protect the rights and privileges of free people and who would preserve what is good and fruitful in our national heritage.

A President’s hardest task is not to do what is right, but to know what is right.

If it wasn’t for the fun and money, I really don’t know why I’d bother.

Ninety percent of the politicians give the other ten percent a bad reputation.

The essence of Government is power; and power, lodged as it must be in human hands, will ever be liable to abuse.