Tom McClintock Quotes

I was obliged to take tough, painful and bold decisions to ensure a manageable tomorrow.

When you're President you have to make a lot of tough decisions. You have to keep lining them up and making them.

In great crises, a man who has to act or speak stands bare and stripped of choice.

Being the leader means you have to make life or death decisions sometimes.

I made policy decisions based on what I thought was right that keep Americans safe and to protect U.S. interests abroad. No wild political attacks by Donald Trump is going to change that.

I am not going to make decisions based on barricades and blockades, nor am I going to make decisions based on the short-term volatility of the oil price.

Leadership is tested not by one's capacity to survive politically but by the ability to make tough decisions in trying times.

Politicians have to make unpopular decisions. Schwarzenegger is going to understand the nature of his job. I wish him good luck, he's going to need it. It's going to be difficult for him.

To me, character in a person is judged by the decisions that are made under pressure.

The kids would be thrown into the middle, to choose sides.

I understand why political leaders in the beginning want to be cheerleaders to generate optimism. But to admit that they didn't understand the depths of the problem afterwards, I found a little bit surprising.

We already know enough to begin to cope with all the major problems that are now threatening human life and much of the rest of life on earth. Our crisis is not a crisis of information; it is a crisis of decision of policy and action.

The definition of strong leadership is not about making decisions that are popular. Making popular decisions is easy - you don't need to be a leader to do that. The definition of strong leadership is to make decisions that are unpopular, but are nevertheless sound.

It really ups your production value when you have one person that you can use as your avatar through a story, but I think everyone gets their moment in time. That other couple definitely has their moment too, and they have to make some tough decisions.

A friend tweeted me with 'The Big Freeze.' I don't know about that one. I've got to go home, play around with the kids and figure something out. I'll have one.

I wanted to come to Washington, D.C. and help be a transformative President. And I think history, when they look back, will say this is a fellow who knew how to make decisions, and made some tough ones, stood by them, wasn't driven by the latest opinion poll, but was driven by some core principles from which he would not deviate.

When you're president, you can't vote present. You have to make a decision. Sometimes it's a split second decision. You don't have time to think about it. You've got to actually decide.

We discover our character through decisions under pressure.

I just was non-political and didn't see myself as a person who could push people around, make their decision, you know, and tell them how lousy their work was.

One mark of a good officer, he remembered, was the ability to make quick decisions. If they happen to be right, so much the better.

An American leader would be derelict of duty if he did not seek to understand all his options in such unprecedented circumstances. Presidents Lincoln during the Civil War and Roosevelt in the lead-up to World War II sought legal advice about the outer bounds of their power - even if they did not always use it. Our leaders should ask legal questions first, before setting policy or making decisions in a fog of uncertainty.

Leaders trust their guts. "Intuition" is one of those good words that has gotten a bad rap. For some reason, intuition has become a "soft" notion. Garbage! Intuition is the new physics. It's an Einsteinian, seven-sense, practical way to make tough decisions. Bottom line, circa 2001 to 2010: The crazier the times are, the more important it is for leaders to develop and to trust their intuition.

Sometimes in this world you make unpopular decisions because you think they're right.

I've made tough calls and tough times and been held accountability. I think that is the kind of leadership that the American people need now to produce results.

Economic policy and decision making do not function in a political vacuum.