Quotes About Leadership

When incumbents step down, voters rarely opt for a replica of what they have, even when that outgoing leader is popular. They almost always choose change over the status quo. They want successors whose strengths address the perceived weaknesses in the departing leader.

in January 2003, Barack Obama was just a small speedboat trying to launch before some battleship came along and capsized his ambitions.

In November 2004, the last person on the planet who expected Barack Obama to run for president in 2008 was Barack Obama.

Local government is where the rubber hits the road. While state legislators and members of Congress are more remote, local officials are present and visible. They are the first responders of politics.

The trouble with people like Tony Blair is they get confused, they think intelligence is education when they're two different things.

You know what kind of person it takes to run for President? Not normal. They could start out okay, but by the time they reach that level they've sold their soul to the devil so many times and stomped the guts out of enough people that they are definitely not like you and me, not even close.

Reagan was an incredible coward. Somebody who could believe that an air base in Grenada could be used to attack the United States does not even reach the level of a laughingstock.

In fact the entire political leadership should face the death penalty under U.S. law for these actions. They're all eligible for the death penalty, according to the War Crimes Act passed by the 1996 Republican congress.

Democratic President Grover Cleveland removed Frederick Douglass from office but Republican President Benjamin Harrison reappointed him.

Oglethorpe University,

The most dangerous enemy to Israels security is the intellectual inertia of those who are responsible for security.

THOSE WHO STUDY the rise and fall of civilizations learn that no shortcoming has been as surely fatal to republics as a dearth of public virtue, the unwillingness of those who govern to place the value of their society above personal interest.

the sine qua non of a leader has lain not in his chesslike grasp of issues and the options they portend, not in his style of management, not in his skill at processing information, but in his having the character, the heart, to deal spontaneously, honorably, and candidly with people, perplexities, and principles.

We have knowledge. We have to do something." His first punched the hair. "Who is with me!" Noone of the moved so much as a muscle.

An election is a bet on the future, not a popularity test of the past.

How Kennedy knew the precise drop in milk consumption in 1960, the percentage rise in textile imports from 1957 to 1960 and the number of speeches cleared by the Defense Department is not quite clear, but anyway, he did. He either overwhelmed you with decimal points or disarmed you with a smile and a wisecrack.

I regretted I was not the head of a clan; however, though not possessed of such an hereditary advantage, I would always endeavour to make my tenants follow me.

Attention Deficit Democracy produces the attitudes, ignorance and arrogance that pave the way to political collapse.

For scores of millions of Americans, Clinton's "caring" was more important than his lying.

The principle of government supremacy is Clinton's clearest legacy.

The Flyboy who got away became president of the United States. What might have been for Warren Earl, Dick, Marve, Glenn, Floyd, Jimmy, the unidentified airman, and all the Others who had lost their lives?...And what might have been for those millions of doomed Japanese boys, abused and abandoned by their leaders? War is the tragedy of what might have been.

A rife platoon's] members must care for one another. Its leaders must cherish the men in very fire team and squad. For a rifleman, a leader's misjudgment, ignorance or inexperience can be fatal - no second chances. No rerunning the exercise until you get it right. When the word 'go' is given, there is no turning back from the consequences. It is the monstrous burden of command..." -Bernard "Mick" Trainor

Europeans often ask, and Americans do not always explain, how it happens that this great office [the presidency], the greatest in the world, unless we except the Papacy, to which any man can rise by his own merits, is not more frequently filled by great and striking men.

Were there peace and justice in the Middle East, the Arabs would no more need their tinhorn dictators than they would their corpulent princes.