I don’t do quagmires.
Enjoy your time in public service. It may well be one of the most interesting and challenging times of your life.
Members of the U.S. House and the U.S. Senate are not there by accident. Each managed to get there for some reason. Learn what it was and you will know something important about them, about our country and about the American people.
The Secretary of Defense is not a super General or Admiral. His task is to exercise civilian control over the Department for the Commander-in-Chief and the country.
With the press there is no ‘off the record’.
Visit with your predecessors from previous Administrations. They know the ropes and can help you see around some corners. Try to make original mistakes, rather than needlessly repeating theirs.
Let your family, staff, and friends know that you’re still the same person, despite all the publicity and notoriety that accompanies your position.
The key to every man is his thought. He can only be reformed by showing him a new idea which commands his own.
The intellectual man requires a fine bait; the sots are easily amused. But everybody is drugged with his own frenzy, and the pageant marches at all hours, with music and banner and badge.
If you are always trying to be normal you will never know how amazing you can be.
Americans adore me and will go on adoring me until I say something nice about them.
It is not enough to conquer; one must learn to seduce.
We learn from experience that men never learn anything from experience.
The arts and inventions of each period are only its costume, and do not invigorate men.
The dice of God are always loaded.
Time will bring to light whatever is hidden; it will cover up and conceal what is now shining in splendor.
In conversation the game is, to say something new with old words. And you shall observe a man of the people picking his way along, step by step, using every time an old boulder, yet never setting his foot on an old place.
To be free minded and cheerfully disposed at hours of meat and sleep and of exercise is one of the best precepts of long lasting.
We gain the strength of the temptation we resist.
Events tend to recur in cycles.
Laws control the lesser man… Right conduct controls the greater one.
Sculpture and painting have the effect of teaching us manners and abolishing hurry.
