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

Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into a friend.

It doesn't matter how smart you are unless you stop and think.

Appearances to the mind are of four kinds. Things either are what they appear to be; or they neither are, nor appear to be; or they are, and do not appear to be; or they are not, and yet appear to be. Rightly to aim in all these cases is the wise man’s task.

To criticize is to appreciate, to appropriate, to take intellectual possession, to establish in fine a relation with the criticized thing and to make it one's own.

It is not reason which is the guide of life, but custom.

Men have called me mad; but the question is not yet settled, whether madness is or is not the loftiest intelligence.

Intelligent people tend to have less friends than the average person. The smarter you are, the more selective you become.

What a distressing contrast there is between the radiant intelligence of the child and the feeble mentality of the average adult.

I have always regarded that Constitution as the most remarkable work known to me in modern times to have been produced by the human intellect, at a single stroke (so to speak), in its application to political affairs.

I had long since taught myself to follow the inner voice. I delighted in submitting to it. To act against it would be difficult and painful to me.

Good business leaders create a vision, articulate the vision, passionately own the vision, and relentlessly drive it to completion.

Films, football, beer, and above all, gambling filled up the horizon of their minds. To keep them in control was not difficult.

There has never been a shortage of people eager to draw up blueprints for running other people’s lives.

...the individual ceases to be himself; he adopts entirely the kind of personality offered to him by cultural patterns; and he therefore becomes exactly as all others are and as they expect him to be...The person who gives up his individual self and becomes an automaton, identical with millions of other automatons around him, need not feel alone and anxious any more. But the price he pays, however, is high; it is the loss of his self.

As leaders we are not only responsible for harvesting our own success, but for cultivating the success of the next generation.

Thinking too well of people often allows them to be better than they otherwise would.

If the highest aim of a captain were to preserve his ship, he would keep it in port forever.

The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men.

Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.

You cannot have a proud and chivalrous spirit if your conduct is mean and paltry; for whatever a man’s actions are, such must be his spirit.

He whose honor depends on the opinion of the mob must day by day strive with the greatest anxiety, act and scheme in order to retain his reputation. For the mob is varied and inconsistent, and therefore if a reputation is not carefully preserved it dies quickly.

Glass, china, and reputation are easily cracked, and never mended well.

No man will ever bring out the Presidency the reputation which carries him into it.