“We are not going to dwell on those things that divide us. We are going to rejoice in those things that keep us together to make this a better country – to reach down and back to touch every young person in need!”

The most important thing I learned is that soldiers watch what their leaders do. You can give them classes and lecture them forever, but it is your personal example they will follow.

First you train the followers to accomplish the mission. Second, you resource them: Make sure that they have the tools to do the job. Third, you reward them: You give them medals or bonuses.

Look for intelligence and judgment and, most critically, a capacity to anticipate, to see around corners. Also look for loyalty, integrity, a high energy drive, a balanced ego and the drive to get things done.

A dream doesn’t become reality through magic; it takes sweat, determination and hard work.

It is good if your enemy underestimates you. The dumber they think you are the more surprised they are when you kill them.

Preferring members of any one group for no reason other than race or ethnic origin is discrimination for its own sake. This the Constitution forbids.

The chief condition on which, life, health and vigor depend on, is action. It is by action that an organism develops its faculties, increases its energy, and attains the fulfillment of its destiny.

Give me the right people and I don’t much care what organization you give me. Good things will happen. Give me the wrong people and it doesn’t matter what you do with the organization. Bad things will happen.

Failure is a part of life and you have to learn to deal with it. Failure is something that is part of life’s cycle and it’s from failure that you gain life experience.

I have never seen a good organization where the standards weren’t high.

Always focus on the front windshield and not the review mirror.

Respect for leaders by followers can’t be mandated; it must be earned. It has to be given to leaders by their followers.

Perpetual optimism is a force multiplier.

It takes more courage to send men into battle than to fight the battle yourself.

Pissing people off doesn’t mean you’re doing the right things, but doing the right things will almost inevitably piss people off.

Always be looking for that which you do well and that which you love doing, and when you find those two things together — man, you got it.

Life after 50 or 60 is itself another country, as different as adolescence is from childhood, or as adulthood is from adolescence – and just as adventurous.

I had no idea Canada could be so much fun.

It was only toward the middle of the twentieth century that the inhabitants of many European countries came, in general unpleasantly, to the realization that their fate could be influenced directly by intricate and abstruse books of philosophy.

Bring the brothers home, and sisters home now. Legalize marijuana and take all that money and invest it in teachers and in education. You will see a transformation in America.

Violence – look, we live in a violent world, man. This country was founded on violence. Who’s kidding who?

Every nation has the right to demand proper treatment and no country should violate the territory of any other country.

Love transcends oceans and I love you in every country we are both made of.

For a country without a past is nothing, a word That, hardly spoken, loses its meaning, A perishable wall destroyed by flame, An echo of animal emotions.