There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work, and learning from failure.

If you are going to achieve excellence in big things, you develop the habit in little matters. Excellence is not an exception, it is a prevailing attitude.

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

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.

Success is the result of perfection, hard work, learning from failure, loyalty, and persistence.

Perpetual optimism is a force multiplier.

Get mad, then get over it.

Great leaders are almost always great simplifiers, who can cut through argument, debate and doubt, to offer a solution everybody can understand.

I think whether you're having setbacks or not, the role of a leader is to always display a winning attitude.

The commander in the field is always right and the rear echelon is wrong, unless proved otherwise.

You don't know what you can get away with until you try.

It ain't as bad as you think. It will look better in the morning.

Bad news isn't wine. It doesn't improve with age.

Never let your ego get so close to your position that when your position goes, your ego goes with it.

Avoid having your ego so close to your position that when your position falls, your ego goes with it.

Don't let your ego get too close to your position, so that if your position gets shot down, your ego doesn't go with it.

Surround yourself with people who take their work seriously, but not themselves, those who work hard and play hard.

Never neglect details. When everyone's mind is dulled or distracted the leader must be doubly vigilant.

Experts often possess more data than judgment.

Fit no stereotypes. Don't chase the latest management fads. The situation dictates which approach best accomplishes the team's mission.

The healthiest competition occurs when average people win by putting above average effort.

Don't be afraid to challenge the pros, even in their own backyard.

Organization charts and fancy titles count for next to nothing.

Diplomacy is listening to what the other guy needs. Preserving your own position, but listening to the other guy. You have to develop relationships with other people so when the tough times come, you can work together.

90 percent of my time is spent on 10 percent of the world.

As I have done in every election since I started voting so many years ago, I always like to take my time and examine the two candidates, see not only the two candidates but the policies they will bring in, the people they will bring in, who they might appoint to the Supreme Court, and look at the whole range of issues before making a decision.

No battle plan survives contact with the enemy.

Don't bother people for help without first trying to solve the problem yourself.

You're not just voting for an individual, in my judgment, you're voting for an agenda. You're voting for a platform. You're voting for a political philosophy.

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.

Have fun in your command. Don't always run at a breakneck pace. Take leave when you've earned it, spend time with your families.

Children need to get a high-quality education, avoid violence and the criminal-justice system, and gain jobs. But they deserve more. We want them to learn not only reading and math but fairness, caring, self-respect, family commitment, and civic duty.

The United States is not stingy. We are the greatest contributor to international relief efforts in the world.

Throughout my career, I learned plenty about war on the battlefield, but I learned even more about the importance of finding peace. And that is what the State Department and U.S.A.I.D. do: prevent the wars that we can avoid so that we fight only the ones we must.

But just as they did in Philadelphia when they were writing the constitution, sooner or later, you've got to compromise. You've got to start making the compromises that arrive at a consensus and move the country forward.

Trump is a national disgrace and an international pariah.

Indeed, we're strongest when the face of America isn't only a soldier carrying a gun but also a diplomat negotiating peace, a Peace Corps volunteer bringing clean water to a village, or a relief worker stepping off a cargo plane as floodwaters rise.

Many interviewers when they come to talk to me, think they're being progressive by not mentioning in their stories any longer that I'm black. I tell them, 'Don't stop now. If I shot somebody you'd mention it.'

My own experience is use the tools that are out there. Use the digital world. But never lose sight of the need to reach out and talk to other people who don't share your view. Listen to them and see if you can find a way to compromise.

Too often we act - ask our schools to be truant officers, our teachers to be truant officers, because we're giving them children who have, you know, they're not ready to learn. And if they're not ready to learn by the third grade, they know they're behind.

War should be the politics of last resort. And when we go to war, we should have a purpose that our people understand and support.

Our diplomacy and development budget is not just about reducing spending and finding efficiencies. We need a frank conversation about what we stand for as that 'shining city on a hill.' And that conversation begins by acknowledging that we can't do it on the cheap.

Giving back involves a certain amount of giving up.

It's nice to say let's be bipartisan. But we're a partisan nation. We were raised as a partisan nation.

I don't want to spend the rest of my life giving speeches.

Drones are just another weapon, and they turn out to be a very effective weapon that puts no American troops at risk, and I don't see why we shouldn't use them against identified enemy targets.

The purposes of the United States should not be doubted. The Security Council resolutions will be enforced - the just demands of peace and security will be met - or action will be unavoidable. And a regime that has lost its legitimacy will also lose its power.

Economy's got to get moving, we've got to get the unemployment rate down. That may be the defining issue of the campaign.

There's not going to be a World War III, because there is no one to have World War III with.

People have asked me, 'What would you have done if you hadn't gone into the Army?' I'd say I'd probably be a bus driver. I don't know.