Quotes About Leadership

Nice guys finish last.

First-rate people hire first-rate people; second-rate people hire third-rate people.

Kings are the slaves of history.

What is the cause of historical events? Power. What is power? Power is the sum total of wills transferred to one person. On what condition are the willso fo the masses transferred to one person? On condition that the person express the will of the whole people. That is, power is power. That is, power is a word the meaning of which we do not understand.

Writing laws is easy, but governing is difficult.

Necesito el gerente.

speak with the man in charge," he said, a smile spreading across his face. Billy popped his head inside. The mayor, Francis Delaney, was sitting upright against the bed, a sheet wrapped around

For the first time it was up to me to do some real hunting instead of waiting and reacting to what other people chose to do.

Religions become corrupted when leaders are assigned to explain God's will to the people instead of showing them how to find this direction within themselves

On Lincoln: A profound common sense is the best genius for statesmanship.

under the influence of a political framework like our own. We

There are men who seem destined to always go first, to lead the way. They are confident in life, they are the first to go beyond it. Whatever there is to know, they learn before others. Their very existence gives strength and drives one onward. Love and jealousy were mingled there in the darkness, love and despair.

I am not going to lose Vietnam, he said. I am not going to be the President who saw Southeast Asia go the way China went.2 For many Americans then and later the struggle in Vietnam was simply Johnson's War.3

All this is to offer the heresy that the role of presidential leadership, yet another shadow cast by the Roosevelt years, is often exaggerated. Presidents of course can take executive actions, especially in foreign affairs, that have dramatic effects. But only sometimes, for many snags—bureaucratic inertia, the capriciousness of public opinion, partisan opposition, interest group pressures, Congress—hem in presidential designs.

Notwithstanding these feelings of insecurity, which were especially obvious in the immediate aftermath of the war, the leaders of America's postwar foreign policy—a group that came to be known as the Establishment—developed a self-confidence that occasionally bordered on self-righteousness.

The 1950s witnessed especially rapid expansion of electronic and electrical firms, of tobacco, soft drink, and food-processing companies, and of the chemical, plastics, and pharmaceutical industries. IBM blossomed as a leader in the computer business, soon to become a guiding star of the American economy.

For political matters Kennedy relied heavily on able strategists—critics called them the Irish Mafia—such as Kenneth O'Donnell and Lawrence O'Brien.

The three decades following the Second World War were prolific breeders of myth. The two great military victories on opposite sides of the globe, followed by unparalleled prosperity at home and world leadership abroad, bred a national euphoria, even hubris in some, capable of the boast that America could do anything: The impossible takes a little longer.

On Ho Chi Minh's desk in Hanoi on the day he died lay a biography of John Brown.

In the final round of the game, if your company has admitted women to the play, I do not recommend that you vote for your paramour, or for the member of the company who has taken your fancy. In my experience it rarely leads to success; and your fellows will notice and make fun of your noble gesture for weeks.

He who thinks he is leading and has no one following him is only taking a walk. ~ Malawian Proverb

Caesar and Augustus both have months named after them (July for Julius Caesar and August for Augustus).

I will welcome this day with optimism and excitement. I will approach this day with the intelligence, wisdom, and talent that I know I possess, even when doubt creeps into my mind. I will seize this day with all the energy I have within me, and I will radiate enthusiasm to light the path of those who follow me.

We shall never surrender," Churchill had said.