Excellence is not an exception, it is a prevailing attitude

When you help the poorest in the world, you start to move them up an economic and social ladder, and they're not going to be moving toward violence or terrorism of the kind that we worry about.

Even though the numbers are down with respect to favorability ratings, at every embassy and consular office tomorrow morning that we have, people will be lined up, and they'll all say the same thing, "We want to go to America." So we're still the leader of the world that wants to be free. We are still the inspiration of the rest of the world. And we can come back.

America has a terrible educational problem in the sense that we have too many youngsters not finishing school. A third of our kids don't finish high school, 50 percent of minorities don't finish high school.

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

Keep looking below surface appearances. Don't shrink from doing so just because you might not like what you find.

I think leadership is both a trained thing and a natural gift.