I think that for me, personally, a lot of my choices have been to do with my own issues of not feeling safe as a child and feeling a sense of stability.

I've got more in common with a three-toed sloth than I have with Winston Churchill. There is no easy comparison with any modern politician. The more you read about him, the more completely amazed you are about what he did - his energy, his literary fecundity, his ability to work - just unbelievable energy.

Underestimate the ability of the Chinese people to develop their own technology.

I said to myself: what if I woke up, and every single day I did everything within my ability during that day to change my life. What could happen in just a month? A year?

An idea isn't worth much until a man is found who has the energy and ability to make it work.

Executive ability is deciding quickly and getting somebody else to do the work.

The difference between people who believe they have books inside of them and those who actually write books is sheer cussed persistence - the ability to make yourself work at your craft every day - the belief even in the face of obstacles that you've got something worth saying.

The average person puts only 25% of his energy and ability into his work. The world takes off its hat to those who put in more than 50% of their capacity and stands on its head for those few and far between souls who devote 100%.

Middle-aged women have greater stability they are more loyal and their capacity for steady work is greater than that of younger women.

If a country doesn't recognize minority rights and human rights including women's rights you will not have the kind of stability and prosperity that is possible.

And it is no less true that personal security and private property rest entirely upon the wisdom the stability and the integrity of the courts of justice.

The thing that we possess that machines don't is the ability to exhibit wisdom.

Wisdom is not attained by years but by ability.

Lord bless me with the ability to achieve all that I can and the wisdom to realize it doesn't all have to be by tomorrow!

Every nation whose affairs betray a want of wisdom and stability may calculate on every loss which can be sustained from the more systematic policy of its wiser neighbors.

There are evils that have the ability to survive identification and go on for ever... money for instance or war.

The ability to get to the verge without getting into the war is the necessary art. If you try to run away from it if you are scared to go to the brink you are lost.

Operations in Iraq and Afghanistan and the war on terrorism have reduced the pace of military transformation and have revealed our lack of preparation for defensive and stability operations. This Administration has overextended our military.

From principles is derived probability but truth or certainty is obtained only from facts.

All fixed set patterns are incapable of adaptability or pliability. The truth is outside of all fixed patterns.

Teachability and trust always leads to total obedience.

The Obama administration believes in experts and blue-ribbon panels. They believe in creating new agencies and boards. They believe in all that but they just don't trust the entrepreneur's ability to grow her own business and to create jobs.

We have to have a way of dealing with this that engenders confidence trust gives us every chance of getting the right outcome and boosts both sustainability and economic return at the same time.

As a historian what I trust is my ability to take a mass of information and tell a story shaped around it.