Selected leadership quotes

1. If there is not the war, you don't get the great general; if there is not a great occasion, you don't get a great statesman; if Lincoln had lived in a time of peace, no one would have known his name.

2. Do not wait for leaders; do it alone, person to person.

3. Great minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, small minds discuss people.

4. Don't compare me with Jesus. He is a great master, a great master...

5. Maybe the Dalai Lama is the only person who is totally honest, and even with him, he's skillful not to hurt anybody. He's skillful.

6. This is The Rock's show! This is SmackDown!

7. I have always said that if Great Britain were defeated in war I hoped we should find a Hitler to lead us back to our rightful position among the nations. I am sorry, however, that he has not been mellowed by the great success that has attended him. The whole world would rejoice to see the Hitler of peace and tolerance, and nothing would adorn his name in world history so much as acts of magnanimity and of mercy and of pity to the forlorn and friendless, to the weak and poor. ... Let this great man search his own heart and conscience before he accuses anyone of being a warmonger.

8. The whole Constitution has been erected upon the assumption that the King not only is capable of doing wrong but is more likely to do wrong than other men if he is given the chance.

9. Tender-handed stroke a nettle, And it stings you for your pains; Grasp it like a man of mettle, And it soft as silk remains. 'Tis the same with common natures: Use 'em kindly, they rebel; But be rough as nutmeg-graters, And the rogues obey you well.

10. Well, I wish some of you would tell me the brand of whiskey that Grant drinks. I would like to send a barrel of it to my other generals.

11. Did Stanton say I was a damned fool? Then I dare say I must be one, for Stanton is generally right and he always says what he means.

12. I claim not to have controlled events, but confess plainly that events have controlled me. Now, at the end of three years struggle the nation's condition is not what either party, or any man devised, or expected. God alone can claim it. Whither it is tending seems plain. If God now wills the removal of a great wrong, and wills also that we of the North as well as you of the South, shall pay fairly for our complicity in that wrong, impartial history will find therein new cause to attest and revere the justice and goodness of God.

13. Beware of rashness, but with energy and sleepless vigilance go forward and give us victories.

14. I am a firm believer in the people. If given the truth, they can be depended upon to meet any national crisis. The great point is to bring them the real facts.

15. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us.

16. Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power.

17. Remain strong in your faith, as you were in former years. In this faith, in its close-knit unity our people to-day goes straight forward on its way and no power on earth will avail to stop it.

18. I have not come into this world to make men better, but to make use of their weaknesses.

19. What luck for rulers that men do not think.

20. Don't have good ideas if you aren't willing to be responsible for them.

21. Politics and the fate of mankind are formed by men without ideals and without greatness. Those who have greatness within them do not go in for politics.

22. An autocratic system of coercion, in my opinion, soon degenerates. For force always attracts men of low morality, and I believe it to be an invariable rule that tyrants of genius are succeeded by scoundrels. For this reason I have always been passionately opposed to systems such as we see in Italy and Russia to-day.

23. Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth.

24. A military leader often faces a situation he has to deal with, but because it is his duty, no court can try him.

25. It would have been easier to fight alone with inadequate forces than to have to accept...responsibility for our ally's lack of fighting qualities and dubious loyalty.

26. As soon as you put men together, they somehow sink, corporatively, below the level of the worst of the individuals composing it. Collect scholars on a club committee, or men of science on a jury; all their virtues vanish, and their vices pop out, reinforced by the self-confidence which the power of numbers is bound to bestow.

27. How right politicians are to look upon their constituents as cattle! Anyone who has any experience of dealing with any class as such knows the futility of appealing to intelligence, indeed to any other qualities than those of brutes.

28. A man who knew his job as he spent a long time commanding a regiment and who earned great respect from everybody.

29. Holy shadows of the dead, I'm not to blame for your cruel and bitter fate, but the accursed rivalry which brought sister nations and brother people, to fight one another. I do not feel happy for this victory of mine. On the contrary, I would be glad, brothers, if I had all of you standing here next to me, since we are united by the same language, the same blood and the same visions.

30. Are you still to learn that the end and perfection of our victories is to avoid the vices and infirmities of those whom we subdue?

31. There will be certain things in a man that have to be won, not forced; inspired, not compelled.

32. The more I see of the representatives of the people, the more I admire my dogs.

33. Do they think that I am such a damned fool as to think myself fit for President of the United States? No, sir; I know what I am fit for. I can command a body of men in a rough way, but I am not fit to be President.

34. Take time to deliberate; but when the time for action arrives, stop thinking and go in.

35. You are uneasy; you never sailed with me before, I see.

36. Any president can start a war, and use the chaos of disorder that such a war creates as an indefinite argument for prolonging it. It's a war that keeps on giving. Failure means it's even more necessary to keep failing.

37. When Bush says that Abu Ghraib was the work of a few, he forgot to mention that he was one of them.

38. The man responsible for keeping Americans safe from another terrorist attack on American soil for nearly seven years now will go down in history as one of America's greatest presidents.

39. All I did was sit on the riverbank handing out river water. After I'm gone, I trust you will notice the river.

40. There were rules in the monastery, but the Master always warned against the tyranny of the law. 'Obedience keeps the rules,' he would say. 'Love knows when to break them.'

41. [He] is probably the most intelligent officer I ever served with. [He has] great integrity, sound judgment and great kindness in dealing with people. He is a public servant of exceptional character and skill.

42. He is unquestionably one in a million. A professional whose perceptions are correct, whose plans are thorough and complete, whose executions are artistic, and whose success is inevitable....I have never been more impressed with an officer's talent and dedication. He should rank with men like Douglas MacArthur, Maxwell Taylor, Creighton Abrams...

43. Wes Clark has been a superb battalion commander and will be a superb brigade commander. He is an officer of the rarest potential and will clearly rise to senior general officer rank. He will be one of the Army's leaders in the 1990's.

44. The mark of leadership is not to stand up when everybody is standing, but rather to actually stand up when no one else is standing.

45. I asked a whole lot of my friends who were generals and colonels and majors, who served over General Clark and under General Clark and every last one of them said to me that this is a good man, and if he were leading our nation they would be proud. [He is a] son of the South capable of making a dangerous world a safer place for everybody. A man we are going to make the next president of the United States.

46. As the friendly force maneuvered through the treacherous region, it was suddenly subjected to an intense small arms fire from a well-concealed insurgent element. Although painfully wounded in the initial volley, Captain Clark immediately directed his men on a counter-assault of the enemy positions. With complete disregard for his personal safety, Captain Clark remained with his unit until the reactionary force arrived and the situation was well-in-hand. His courageous initiative and exemplary professionalism significantly contributed to the successful outcome of the engagement. Captain Clark's unquestionable valor in close combat against a hostile force is in keeping with the finest traditions of the military service and reflects great credit upon himself, the 1st Infantry Division, and the United States Army.

47. The desire not to destroy the palace but to move into it oneself has always been the occupational curse of revolutionaries.

48. Canaris hated not only Hitler and Himmler, but the entire Nazi system as a political phenomenon .. He was everywhere and nowhere at once. Everywhere he traveled, at home and abroad and to the front, he always left a whirl of confusion behind him .. In reality this small, frail, and somewhat timid man was a vibrating bundle of nerves. Extremely well read, oversensitive, Canaris was an outsider in every respect. In bearing and manner of work he was the most unmilitary of persons.

49. If you want my own plain opinion about Keitel's orders, I will tell you. They were the orders of a stupid follower of Hitler. I myself paid very little attention to them and I think any attempt to justify his orders would be a mistake on the part of those of us who are steeped in military tradition and good conduct. I trust you will not quote me on these observations. I knew Keitel fairly well and I think that he is a decent person. It was simply that Hitler wanted a weak general in that powerful position in order to be able to have complete control of him. If I had held Keitel's position under Hitler, I wouldn't have lasted two weeks.

50. Keitel, the weak and willing tool, delivered the armed forces, the instrument of aggression, over to the party and directed them in executing its felonious designs.

51. Every physician, shoemaker, mechanic or educator must know his shortcomings if he is to do his work and make his living. For some decades, you have begun to play a governing role on this earth. It is on your thinking and your actions that the future of humanity depends. But your teachers and masters do not tell you how you really think and are; nobody dares to voice the one criticism of you which could make you capable of governing your own fate. You are 'free' only in one sense: free from education in governing your life yourself, free from self-criticism.

52. My intellect tells me: 'Tell the truth at any cost.' The Little Man in me says: 'It is stupid to expose oneself to the little man, to put oneself at his mercy. The Little Man does not want to hear the truth about himself. He does not want the great responsibility which is his. He wants to remain a Little Man. He wants to remain a Little Man, or wants to become a little great man. He wants to become rich, or a party leader, or commander of a legion, or secretary of the society for the abolition of vice. But he does not want to assume responsibility for his work...'

53. You wouldn't hire a clown to fix a leak in the John. So why do you let these hooligans tear down the biz?? Yeeeaaahh!

54. I began my editorial career with the presidency of Mr. Adams, and my principal object was to render his administration all the assistance in my power. I flattered myself with the hope of accompanying him through [his] voyage, and of partaking in a trifling degree, of the glory of the enterprise; but he suddenly tacked about, and I could follow him no longer. I therefore waited for the first opportunity to haul down my sails.

55. He would not, with a peremptory tone, Assert the nose upon his face his own.

56. Now let us sing - Long live the king, And Gilpin, long live he; And, when he next doth ride abroad, May I be there to see!

57. His head, Not yet by time completely silvered o'er, Bespoke him past the bounds of freakish youth, But strong for service still, and unimpaired.

58. As he [Disraeli] lived, so he died - all display, without reality or genuineness.

59. Who equals him in earnestness? Who equals him in eloquence? Who equals him in courage and fidelity to his convictions? If these gentlemen who say they will not follow him have anyone who is equal, let them show him. If they can point out any statesman who can add dignity and grandeur to the stature of Mr. Gladstone, let them produce him!

60. If there were no Tories, I am afraid he would invent them.

61. Gladstone will soon have it all his own way and whenever he gets my place we shall have strange doings.

62. The defects of his strength grow on him. All black is very black, all white very white.

63. He was the first Chancellor of the Exchequer who ever made the Budget interesting. 'He talked shop,' it was said, 'like a tenth muse.' He could apply all the resources of a glowing rhetoric to the most prosaic questions of cost and profit; could make beer romantic and sugar serious. He could sweep the widest horizon of the financial future, and yet stoop to bestow the minutest attention on the microcosm of penny stamps and the monetary merits of half-farthings.

64. I don't object to Gladstone always having the ace of trumps up his sleeve, but merely to his belief that the Almighty put it there.

65. The greatest Chancellor of all time.

66. Ralph waved the conch. 'Shut up! Wait! Listen!' He went on in the silence, borne on in his triumph. 'There's another thing. We can help them to find us. If a ship comes near the island they may not notice us. So we must make smoke on top of the mountain. We must make a fire.' 'A fire! Make a fire!' At once half the boys were on their feet. Jack clamored among them, the conch forgotten. 'Come on! Follow me!' The space under the palm trees was full of noise and movement. Ralph was on his feet too, shouting for quiet, but no one heard him. All at once the crowd swayed toward the island and was gone- following Jack. Even the tiny children went and did their best among the leaves and broken branches. Ralph was left, holding the conch, with no one but Piggy.

67. Ralph lay flat and looked up at the palm trees and the sky. 'Meetings. Don't we love meetings? Every day. Twice a day. We talk.' He got on one elbow. 'I bet if I blew the conch this minute, they'd come running. Then we'd be, you know, very solemn, and someone would say we ought to build a jet, or a submarine, or a TV set. When the meeting was over they'd work for five minutes, then wander off or go hunting.'

68. What was the sensible thing to do? There was no Piggy to talk sense. There was no solemn assembly for debate nor dignity of the conch.

69. Alexander's career was piracy pure and simple, nothing but an orgy of power and plunder, made romantic by the character of the hero. There was no rational purpose in it, and the moment he died his generals and governors attacked one another.

70. A lot of people feel that because of racism, it is unrealistic to get groups of different racial backgrounds to work together iri an effective coalition. I argue that it depends on leadership.

71. Affirmative action has to be combined with a broader program of social reform that would emphasize social rights: the right to employment, the right to education, the right to good health.

72. We had no shape Because he never took sides; And no sides Because he never allowed them to take shape.

73. William Lyon Mackenzie King Sat in a corner and played with string, Loved his mother like anything, William Lyon Mackenzie King.

74. The whole, though larger than any of its parts, does not necessarily obscure their separate identities.

75. Beware the leader who bangs the drums of war in order to whip the citizenry into a patriotic fervor, for patriotism is indeed a double-edged sword. It both emboldens the blood, just as it narrows the mind. And when the drums of war have reached a fever pitch and the blood boils with hate and the mind has closed, the leader will have no need in seizing the rights of the citizenry. Rather, the citizenry, infused with fear and blinded by patriotism, will offer up all of their rights unto the leader and gladly so. How do I know? For this is what I have done. And I am Caesar.

76. It is alarming and also nauseating to see Mr. Gandhi, a seditious Middle Temple lawyer of the type well-known in the East, now posing as a fakir, striding half naked up the steps of the Viceregal palace to parley on equal terms with the representative of the King-Emperor.

77. Mr. Gandhi has gone very high in my esteem since he stood up for the untouchables: I do not care whether you are more or less loyal to Great Britain: Tell Mr. Gandhi to use the powers that are offered and make the thing a success.

78. Hitler is a monster of wickedness, insatiable in his lust for blood and plunder. Not content with having all Europe under his heel, or else terrorised into various forms of abject submission, he must now carry his work of butchery and desolation among the vast multitudes of Russia and of Asia. The terrible military machine - which we and the rest of the civilised world so foolishly, so supinely, so insensately allowed the Nazi gangsters to build up year by year from almost nothing - cannot stand idle lest it rust or fall to pieces. ... So now this bloodthirsty guttersnipe must launch his mechanized armies upon new fields of slaughter, pillage and devastation.

79. I hate nobody except Hitler - and that is professional.

80. Without any coherent national organisation to repel from the land on which they had settled the ever-unknowable descents from the seas, the Saxons, now for four centuries entitled to be deemed the owners of the soil, very nearly succumbed completely to the Danish inroads. That they did not was due--as almost every critical turn of historic fortune has been due--to the sudden apparition in an era of confusion and decay of one of the great figures of history.

81. Civilisation had been restored to the Island. But now the political fabric which nurtured it was about to be overthrown. Hitherto strong men armed had kept the house. Now a child, a weakling, a vacillator, a faithless, feckless creature, succeeded to the warriour throne.

82. I think I can save the British Empire from anything - except the British.

83. A modest man, who has much to be modest about.

84. There should be on great occasions a sense of crowd and urgency. There should be a sense of the importance of much that is said, and a sense that great matters are being decided, there and then by the House... It has a collective personality which enjoys the regard of the public, and which imposes itself upon the conduct not only of individual Members but of parties.

85. You will make all kinds of mistakes; but as long as you are generous and true and also fierce you cannot hurt the world or even seriously distress her.

86. The era of procrastination, of half-measures, of soothing and baffling expedients, of delays, is coming to a close. In its place we are entering a period of consequences.

87. It's not enough that we do our best; sometimes we have to do what's required.

88. Unknown MP sitting behind Churchill on the back benches during his twilight years, to adjacent colleague, sotto voce: He's not what he used to be. They say he's gone senile. Churchill, turning around to face them: And they say he has gone deaf as well!

89. An empty taxi arrived and out of it stepped Attlee.

90. People often forget that in 1940 there was no guarantee that we were going to win.

91. It is only for those to employ force who possess strength without judgment; but the well advised will have recourse to other means. Besides, he who pretends to carry his point by force hath need of many associates; but the man who can persuade knows that he is himself sufficient for the purpose; neither can such a one be supposed forward to shed blood; for, who is there would choose to destroy a fellow citizen rather than make a friend of him by mildness and persuasion?

92. If the campaign is in summer the general must show himself greedy for his share of the sun and the heat, and in winter for the cold and the frost, and in all labours for toil and fatigue. This will help to make him beloved of his followers.

93. Every one of you is the leader.

94. On making prisoners of our generals, they expected that we should perish from want of direction and order. It is incumbent, therefore, on our present commanders to be far more vigilant than our former ones, and on those under command to be far more orderly, and more obedient to their officers, at present than they were before:On the very day that such resolution is passed, they will see before them ten thousand Clearchuses instead of one.

95. What I mean by the 'pursuit of learning' is not the ability to read classical texts and study ancient history, but to be fully acquainted with conditions all over the world and to have a keen awareness of what is going on abroad and around us. Now from what I can see world trends and conditions are still unsettled, and as long as they remain unsettled there is still a chance that something can be done. First, therefore, we must rectify conditions in our own domain, after which conditions in other domains can be rectified. This having been done, conditions at court can be rectified and finally conditions throughout the whole world can be rectified. First one must set an example oneself and then it can be extended progressively to others. This is what I mean by the 'pursuit of learning.'

96. If the plan [to intercept the shogunate emissary to the Kyoto court] is to be carried out, it can only be done with men from the grass roots. To wear silk brocades, eat dainty food, hug beautiful women, and fondle darling children are the only things hereditary officials care about. To revere the emperor and expel the barbarian is no concern of theirs. If this time it should be my misfortune to die, may my death inspire at least one or two men of steadfast will to rise up and uphold this principle after my death.

97. It's awesome. Out of all the teams he's had, it's an honor to play in the game where he gets the record.

98. Great truths do not take hold of the hearts of the masses. And now, as all the world is in error, how shall I, though I know the true path, how shall I guide? If I know that I cannot succeed and yet try to force success, this would be but another source of error. Better then to desist and strive no more. But if I do not strive, who will?

99. Resolve your mental energy into abstraction, your physical energy into action. Allow yourself to fall in with the natural order of phenomena, without admitting the element of self, and the empire will be governed.

100. Give a soldier an anvil, just a hunk of metal, and drive him out into the desert and leave him. In two weeks - when you go to get him, the anvil will be broken.