The new leader is a facilitator, not an order giver.

A businessman's judgement is no better than his information.

There is no man more dangerous, in a position of power, than he who refuses to accept as a working truth the idea that all a man does should make for rightness and soundness, that even the fixing of a tariff rate must be moral.

A leader must have the courage to act against an expert's advice.

I got fed up with all the sex and sleaze and backhandlers of rock 'n' roll, so I went into politics.

Men make history and not the other way 'round. In periods where there is no leadership, society stands still. Progress occurs when courageous, skillful leaders seize the opportunity to change things for the better.

Practical experience is not merely the ultimate test of ideas; it is also the ultimate source. At their beginnings, most ideas are dimly perceived.

Ideas are most clearly viewed when presented as abstractions, hence the common assumption that academics — who are proficient at presenting and discussing abstractions — are the source of most ideas.

One of the dangers in our system of formal education, however, is that a student can go all the way through to an advanced degree in many fields without ever having seen an idea in the rough. An academic with this kind of background may even have trouble recognizing a new idea when he has one.

Bear markets of sufficient size appear to bring about a desire to slaughter groups of successful people. In 1793-1794, radical Frenchmen guillotined countless members of high society. In the 1930s, Stalin slaughtered Ukrainians. In the 1940s, Nazis slaughtered Jews. In the 1970s, Communists in Cambodia and China slaughtered the affluent. In 1998, after their country's financial collapse, Indonesians went on a rampage and slaughtered Chinese merchants.

What lies beneath us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.

People will accept your ideas much more readily if you tell them Benjamin Franklin said it first.

There is no failure except in no longer trying.

Experience has no text books nor proxies. She demands that her pupils answer her roll-call personally.

Everything comes to us that belongs to us if we create the capacity to receive it.

While the general public may not be totally knowledgeable on the intricacies of high finance, the financiers themselves were in over their heads as well.

The term “GS”, now entering the popular lexicon as a verb, meaning to lie AND make money from doing so, as opposed to “BS” — which is just to lie without the benefit of compensation.

The ultimate responsibility of a leader is to facilitate other people's development as well as his own.

Leadership consists not in degrees of technique but in traits of character; it requires moral rather than athletic or intellectual effort, and it imposes on both the leader and follower alike the burdens of self-restraint.

There is no royal flower-strewn path to success. And if there is, I have not found it, for if I have accomplished anything in life it is because I have been willing to work hard.

Vision without execution is daydreaming.

The man who does not work for the love of work but only for money is not likely to make money nor find much fun in life.

Only one thing makes a dream impossible: the fear of failure.

Size, we are told, is not a crime. But size may, at least, become noxious by reason of the means through which it was attained or the uses to which it is put.

Choose your own direction — rather than climb on the bandwagon.

Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius — and a lot of courage — to move in the opposite direction.

It is unwise to pay too much, but it is unwise to pay too little.

When you pay too much, you lose a little money; that is all.

When you pay too little you sometimes lose everything.

Because the thing you bought was incapable of doing the thing you bought it to do.

The common law of business balance prohibits paying a little and getting a lot.

It cannot be done.

If you deal with the lowest bidder, it is well to add something for the risk you run and if you do that, you will have enough to pay for something better.