Skip to content
quotesby

About this quote

What does it mean?
Loyalty should not be about serving a single leader's power or success, but rather about higher principles.
In plain terms
True loyalty is not just supporting one person's authority or fame.
What can you take from it?
Do not confuse loyalty to a person with loyalty to a cause.

Where it applies

  • politics
  • organizational culture
  • personal ethics

Putting it to work

  • evaluating leaders
  • making ethical choices
  • building teams

Questions to consider

  • Who or what should you be loyal to?
  • Is blind loyalty ever justified?

Another view

In some contexts, loyalty to a specific leader is necessary for stability.

More from Samuel Adams

  1. He therefore is the truest friend to the liberty of his country who tries most to promote its virtue, and who, so far as his power and influence extend, will n…

    Permalink to quote #2
  2. If you, or Colonel Dalrymple under you, have the power to remove one regiment you have the power to remove both. It is at your peril if you refuse. The meeting…

    Permalink to quote #3
  3. The truth is, all might be free if they valued freedom, and defended it as they ought.

    Permalink to quote #4

Related quotes

  1. The subject who is truly loyal to the Chief Magistrate will neither advise nor submit to arbitrary measures.

    JuniusJunius quote #22
  2. There comes a point when a man must refuse to answer to his leader if he is also to answer to his own conscience.

    Hartley ShawcrossHartley Shawcross quote #1
  3. Mein Fuhrer, mein Fuhrer!

    Ernst RoehmErnst Roehm quote #1