Good leaders set vision, missions, and goals. Great leaders inspire every follower at every level to internalize their purpose, and to understand that their purpose goes far beyond the mere details of their job. When everyone is united in purpose, a positive purpose that serves not only the organization but also, hopefully, the world beyond it, you have a winning team.

There is no question about the fact that we had very serious disagreements with my German, French, and Russian colleagues over the Iraq war. But I never stopped talking.

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

In the military, we are also taught to only use one third of the available decision-making time, so that our subordinates have time to go through their own decision processes when they learn what we want them to do.

The commander in the field is always right and the rear echelon is wrong, unless proved otherwise. In my experience, the people closest to the problems are often in the best position to see the solutions. The key here is to empower and not be the bottleneck.

I want to scare the hell out of the rest of the world.

I want to see policies that encourage every American to vote, not make it more difficult to vote.