Steve Schmidt Quotes

I wasn’t hired to do well in the polls. I was hired to do a good job.

It doesn't matter whose banner I work for. If it is good, then I do it if I want to do it.

A politician ought to be born a foundling and remain a bachelor.

I just feel like if I do good work, then people should respect me for the work I do.

A leader does not deserve the name unless he is willing occasionally to stand alone.

I was thinking of resigning since I did not want to be perceived as a man who did the president's bidding to save my job. I have had some time to think about it since. I think I did the right thing.

I take every job on its merits.

I've had to be a man since I was 12 or 13. I had a job. And I was playing the piano for people twice my age. Handling responsibility is what makes a man a man.

I don't work for money any longer. I'm fortunate enough not to need to work for money, but I work for pride; I work because I love to work, and so the idea that one could lose control of one's own name and that things could be produced with your name on that you were not proud of scared me.

America needs some honest men who dare to say what they think, not what they think people want them to think.

I'm paid well and am demanding of the people I work with, and therefore, I feel I should bring a lot.

I want people on the front line to be proud of what they're doing and give themselves permission to finish things in ways that they can be proud of.

People entrust me with the responsibility of actualizing our shared values and, that said, I'm not in the business of going to try to convert people and getting their buy-in. I just do the work.

My job isn't to win popularity contests.

I've always said that I'm an employee and I respect that status but I'm the type of guy who walks in the front door and I'll walk out the front door if it's not right.

I know that a lot of times when a guy is making a lot of money and he's not playing up to that caliber, it's like he's just getting his paycheck. That's never been me. That's never, ever been me.

I don't read polls to decide what I'm going to do.

I'm not ambitious and I don't need to work for The Man.

If you are guided by opinion polls, you are not practicing leadership -- you are practicing followership.

For a man to act himself, he must be perfectly free; otherwise he is in danger of losing all sense of responsibility or of self- respect.

Your goal as a leader isn't to be indispensable to the people you lead; it is to leave your people something that is indispensable to them.

I always knew I had to be 100 percent in charge, even when I was a middle manager. I used to say to my boss, "Just give me enough rope and then fire me."

Being responsible sometimes means pissing people off.

I just take this job very seriously. It's almost like you play a kid's game for a king's ransom. And if you don't take it serious enough, eventually, one day, you're going to say, 'Oh, I could have done this, I could have done that.'

This is very true: For my words are my own, and my actions are my ministers.