When we make these decisions that we're going to commit ourselves to making a difference in the life of one person every single day, what happens is we actually build a whole generation of citizen leaders.

Every generation of Americans who has fought, every generation of Americans who has served, has suffered.

What happens for a lot of veterans when they come home, especially when they get back to their community is that they can go to a very tough and hard place and they start to wonder, 'What's next for me?' and they ask themselves, 'Why did this happen to me?'

Part of the attraction of the SEAL teams was the incredible tests that it offered.

I was at this dinner for Rhodes Scholars. And we were in the Rhodes mansion, which is this fancy mansion on the Oxford campus. And I remember I looked up in the rotunda, and I saw that etched into the marble were the names of Rhodes Scholars who had left Oxford, and had fought and died in World War II.

It's oftentimes the case that relief workers, people who've been involved in development projects and foreign assistance, have a real understanding of foreign cultures that the military desperately needs if we're going to be able to work effectively.

I'm not after anything, I don't want to be part of politics, I don't want to be a part of anything.

We've already seen other candidates set up these secretive super PACs where they don't take any responsibility for what they're funding... because that's how the game has always been played. I've been very proud to tell people, 'I'm stepping forward, and you can see every single one of our donors.'

The people who believe in voter intimidation believe that the minute you make a political donation, that you immediately need to turn all your information over to the government.

I had a great time at Oxford, got a wonderful, wonderful education there.

I'd finished a dissertation, writing about how international humanitarian organizations worked with kids in war zones and then I made this transition from the academic world to officer candidate school and to the SEAL teams. It was one of the best decisions I ever made in my life.

I did a lot of humanitarian work before I joined the military.

In any leadership, whenever you're facing a tough challenge, find ways to bring people together and get them to serve together.

It's really important to have role models, and a lot of the ancients always talked about this. Seneca talked about this, Aristotle talked about this, and in fact, this was my boxing coach's philosophy in college, was that you have to have role models.

It's only in the act of pushing yourself, challenging yourself to make a contribution to your community, to your family, to your country, that you actually realize your full self, you know?

I first started doing service, actually, as a kid, doing service projects. Later in college, I started doing international humanitarian work that brought me to places like Bosnia, Rwanda.

Since Bin Laden's death, many Americans have decided that our job in Afghanistan is done. They see a victory in the counterterrorism campaign, and are tired of the corruption, confusion and dysfunction of the nation-building campaign.

Defeating a terrorist organization is like fighting a forest fire; there's never a clear moment of victory, and even after you've won, you have to watch carefully.

Success means eliminating Al Qaeda's ability to launch terrorist attacks against the United States and our allies.

I became a conservative because I believe that caring for people means more than just spending taxpayer money; it means delivering results. It means respecting and challenging our citizens, telling them what they need to hear, not simply what they want to hear.

I am a conservative Republican, but I didn't start out that way. I was raised as a Democrat.

If you care about people, then you're willing to act not just with compassion, but you're also willing to act with courage.

My parents were both Democrats and I grew up as a Democrat. Basically I was told that the Democrats were the party that cared about people. I liked people and I cared about them, so I was a Democrat.

I read Mitch Daniels's book, 'Keeping the Republic,' several times.