Ariel Sharon Quotes

If you are going to be a wartime president, you have to have the characteristic of being able to be very, very hard.

General Petraeus is not a miracle worker. He can not be successful unless the president creates greater confidence within his own team about the decisions which the president has himself made.

We need an adult in the White House. When making life-or-death, war-or-peace decisions, a president can't just pop off or lash out irrationally.

In tumultuous times, it's important to have a very mature leader.

I've had many managers, and learned a lot from them, the good ones always stayed even-keeled, never rode the waves.

Pellegrini is always calm; if you have problems, he will try to resolve it.

War room

A candidate’s command of foreign policy acts as a proxy for assessing broader leadership abilities.

I believe the greatest asset a head of state can have is the ability to get a good night’s sleep.

The President has full responsibility, which cannot be shared, for military decisions in a world in which the difference between safety and cataclysm can be a matter of hours or even minutes.

The problem with foreign policy constraints is that once they are accepted they are seldom questioned again. In the maelstrom of politics, as one limps from crisis to crisis, it is always comforting to have a set of apparently immutable parameters. They remove the need for much agonizing indecision.

Analysts can choose the problems that they want to study whereas the statesman’s problems are imposed on him.

When you are Commander in Chief, you should keep all your options on the table.

Trump doesn't have a plan. There's a screw loose, and he's got a really short fuse. Do you really want the leader of the free world with his finger on the button to have a short fuse?

There's this intense media spotlight; there's a need to be transparent, and, 'Oh, by the way, I'm also trying to fight a war at the same time.' It's a challenge, but it goes with the job.

Foreign policy exactly suits Obama's strong points as a leader, which turn out not to be giving the masses a clear sense of direction and hope, but instead exercising good judgment on a case-by-case basis while thinking many steps ahead of the present moment.

Always remember that your calmness under fire is your best defense in any argument or discussion.

A typical leader has - a natural tendency is to be defensive in the face of a crisis. The first reaction is to blame someone - or something - else. Often, the blame is aimed at something abstract or non-controllable, which often has nothing to do with the crisis but is adjacent to whatever is going on, so it's an easy target.

Reacting in anger or annoyance will not advance one's ability to persuade.

I work with the president and speak with him multiple times a week. This is a man, he didn't become the president by accident. And as much as everyone wants to talk about stability, was he unstable when he passed the tax reform? Was he unstable when we finally hit back at Syria and said no more chemical weapons?

I've got to control my emotions. When I fight out of emotions, it doesn't end up so well.

Voters should absolutely know that a future president has the instincts to react to real-life and unrehearsed situations.

If there is one rule I have, it is you have to remain level-headed.

I've always been calm, and I'm very good in a crisis.

I am very angry, and you don't need angry politicians. You need politicians with great balance.