In some way, people believe that if you are permeable, if you are a good listener, you don't have the quality of somebody with a firm attitude. This is what, fundamentally, I got from my mother.
It gets to be a problem when I decide one position should be the law for everybody. In public life, we [people] have to find a way to live together even though we disagree - and some things we will never agree on. But we've got to leave this I'm-going-to-kill-you-because-you-don't-believe-what-I-believe attitude behind.
I really believe being a good listener is important for anybody, and particularly for somebody who wants to be a leader.
Any of us can be happy and have a good attitude when everything is going our way. But I believe it's the real test of your character and of your faith to say, 'Things are not going our way, but I'm still being good to people; I'm still attending church; I still have a good attitude.'
Any of us can be happy and have a good attitude when everything is going our way. But I believe it's the real test of your character and of your faith to say, things are not going our way, but I'm still being good to people; I'm still attending church; I still have a good attitude. I think that's how you pass those tests.
When I hear people clapping at the wrong times, I think that's great. We have got a listener that's not used to going to - we have got a new listener.
I'm a firm believer in quiet confidence. By that I mean knowing inwardly that you are good, and not exhibiting a boastful attitude outwardly. If an athlete doesn't believe in himself, no one else will.
So some guy may know how to make money in cocoa beans, but I don't so I just let him have that. But it's got to be something I understand. It's got to be a business with fundamentally good economics. It's got to be a management that I like and trust and admire. And it's got to be a price that makes sense.
It may help to understand human affairs to be clear that most of the great triumphs and tragedies of history are caused, not by people being fundamentally good or fundamentally bad, but by people being fundamentally people.
I'm very thankful, hearing impairment or not, that I've brought listening into my life. I will never say that I'm a good listener, however. Thinking that I was a good listener was one thing that kept me from being a good listener. It's a very dangerous thought. I just want to be better.
I suppose my job is to describe spaces that are honest to me. And the goal, I suppose, is that the listener can hear themselves in some way in that song and also, in some way, hear me. And so if the listener is able to identify with my honesty then I'm being the most helpful I can possibly be.
Most of the great triumphs and tragedies of history are caused not by people being fundamentally good or fundamentally evil, but by people being fundamentally people.
I really believe that a good decorator is a good listener. So the inspiration always is the people that are living in that home.
In education, I'm going to try to find what works. One thing I want to do is improve the quality of teachers. There are a lot of people who want to go into teaching; it's fundamentally a very fulfilling profession. But people don't feel they have financial support. We pay starting teachers in particular too little to attract the quality people that we need. I want to make it easier for good people who want to go into teaching to do that.
We have to look at levels of migration. We are in a world that is quite chaotic. Some people are really frightened about it. Some people are quite despairing. They don't believe our country is capable of providing a good quality of life. That feeds into why people voted Ukip and induces a culture of despair.
The compulsion to do good is an innate American trait. Only North Americans seem to believe that they always should, may, and actually can choose somebody with whom to share their blessings. Ultimately this attitude leads to bombing people into the acceptance of gifts.
I know some people believe impartiality is key, and it's necessary in some situations, but in others - if something is so fundamentally wrong, why do we have to make out we're impartial?