A leader's fundamental choice is whether to approve the use of force. If he decides to do so, his only vindication is to succeed. His doubts provide no justification for failure; restraint in execution is a boon to the other side; there are no awards for those who lose with moderation.

At Harvard it took me 10 years to develop a relationship of total hostility to my environment. I want you to know that here I have done it in 18 months. (about Washington, DC)

Each success only buys an admission ticket to a more difficult problem.

Hiring assassins ... is not something Americans are very good at.

Intelligence is not all that important in the exercise of power, and is often, in point of fact, useless.

No one will ever win the battle of the sexes; there's too much fraternizing with the enemy.

People think responsibility is hard to bear. It's not. I think that sometimes it is the absence of responsibility that is harder to bear. You have a great feeling of impotence.

The conventional army loses if it does not win. The guerrilla wins if he does not lose.

The longer I am out of office, the more infallible I appear to myself.

The nice thing about being a celebrity is that if you bore people they think it's their fault.