Quotes About Leadership

A politician divides mankind into two classes: tools and enemies.

The Great Man... is colder, harder, less hesitating, and without fear of 'opinion'; he lacks the virtues that accompany respect and 'respectability,' and altogether everything that is the 'virtue of the herd.' If he cannot lead, he goes alone... He knows he is incommunicable: he finds it tasteless to be familiar... When not speaking to himself, he wears a mask. There is a solitude within him that is inaccessible to praise or blame.

Mankind ought constantly to be striving to produce Great Men --this and nothing else is its duty

Honor to the government, and obedience, and also to the crooked government! So desires good sleep. How can I help it, if power likes to walk on crooked legs?

Knowest thou not who is most needed by all? He who commandeth great things. To execute great things is difficult: but the more difficult task is to command great things.

Detesto seguir alguém assim como detesto conduzir. Obedecer? Não! E governar, nunca! Quem não se mete medo não consegue metê-lo a ninguém, E só aquele que o inspira pode comandar. Já detesto guiar-me a mim próprio! Gosto, como os animais das florestas e dos mares, De me perder durante um grande pedaço, Acocorar-me a sonhar num deserto encantador, E forçar-me a regressar de longe aos meus penates, Atrair-me a mim próprio... para mim.

He who is a firstling is ever sacrificed.

I see many soldiers; could I but see many warriors!

I myself, to be sure - I have as yet seen no great man. That which is great, the acutest eye is at present insensible to it. It is the kingdom of the populace.

Nothing avails: every master has but one disciple, and that one becomes unfaithful to him, for he too is destined for mastership.   [408]

What? You search? You would multiply yourself by ten, by a hundred? You seek followers? Seek zeros!

Verhasst ist mir das Folgen und das Führen. Gehorchen? Nein! Und aber nein - Regieren! Wer sich nicht schrecklich ist, macht Niemand Schrecken: Und nur wer Schrecken macht, kann Andre führen. Verhasst ist mir's schon, selber mich zu führen! Ich liebe es, gleich Wald- und Meeresthieren, Mich für ein gutes Weilchen zu verlieren, In holder Irrniss grüblerisch zu hocken, Von ferne her mich endlich heimzulocken, Mich selber zu mir selber - zu verführen.

What? You seek something? You wish to multiply yourself tenfold, a hundredfold? You seek followers? Seek zeros!

There is no true scholar who has not the instincts of a true soldier in his veins. To be able to command and to be able to obey in a proud fashion; to keep one's place in rank and file, and yet to be ready at any moment to lead; to prefer danger to comfort; not to weigh what is permitted and what is forbidden in a tradesman's balance; to be more hostile to pettiness, slyness, and parasitism than to wickedness. What is is that one learns in a hard school? To obey and to command.

To me, the masses seem to be worth a glance only in three respects: first as blurred copies of great men, presented on bad paper with worn out printing plates, then as the resistance against the great men, and finally as working implements of the great. For the rest, let the devil and statistics carry them off!

They rule, not because they want to, but because they are; they are not at liberty to play second.

apa? kamu mencari? kamu ingin membanyakkan dirimu menjadi sepuluh, seratus kali? kamu mencari pengikut? carilah nol!

A people is nature's roundabout way of getting six or seven great men. – Yes: and then of getting around them.

Human society: it is an experiment, this I teach — a long search: but it searches for the commander! — an experiment, oh my brothers! And not a "contract"!

For the highest man shall also be the highest lord on earth. There is no sorer misfortune in all human destiny, than when the mighty of the earth are not also the first men. Then everything becomes false and distorted and monstrous. And when they are even the last men, and more beast than man, then rises and rises the populace in honour, and at last says even the populace-virtue: 'Behold, I alone am virtue!

When men are to be led it is rarely wise to discuss policy or tactics with them. Most men work best when they know only what is expected of them. Then they can't get confused and they do not get ideas of how to do things better.

Always it had been the same; leaders arose holding before men the illusion of vast, glorious promises while they carefully led them into hells of lost dreams and broken promises.

When Marcus Crassus had constructed a ditch around the forces of Spartacus, the latter at night filled it with the boddies of prisoners and cattle that he had slain, and thus marched across it.

Weak men in high positions surround themselves with little men, in order that they may seem great by comparison.