Quotes About Leadership

just a decent resolve to do a government's first duty: to protect its people, whatever the cost.

For a country run by a woman, Britain was still a nation in awe of its men.

One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship.

No one believes more firmly than Comrade Napoleon that all animals are equal. He would be only too happy to let you make your decisions for yourselves. But sometimes you might make the wrong decisions, comrades, and then where should we be?

We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it.

It had become usual to give Napoleon the Credit for every Successful achievement and every stroke of good fortune. You would often hear one hen remark to another, "Under the guidance of our leader, Comrade Napoleon, I have laid five eggs in six days" or two cows, enjoying a drink at the pool, would exclaim, "thanks to the leadership of Comrade Napoleon, how excellent this water tastes!"...

Surely, comrades, you don't want Jones back?

I trust that every animal here appreciates the sacrifice that Comrade Napoleon has made in taking this extra labour upon himself. Do not imagine, comrades, that leadership is a pleasure! On the contrary, it is a deep and heavy responsibility. No one believes more firmly than Comrade Napoleon that all animals are equal. He would be only too happy to let you make your decisions for yourselves. But sometimes you might make the wrong decisions, comrades, and then where should we be?

The ruling power is always faced with the question, 'In such and such circumstances, what would you do?', whereas the opposition is not obliged to take responsibility or make any real decisions.

The secret of rulership is to combine a belief in one's own infallibility with a power to learn from past mistakes.

the consciousness of being at war, and therefore in danger, makes the handing-over of all power to a small caste seem the natural, unavoidable condition of survival.

Somehow it seemed as though the farm had grown richer without making the animals themselves any richer—except, of course, for the pigs and the dogs.

The essence of oligarchical rule is not father-to-son inheritance, but the persistence of a certain world-view and a certain way of life ... A ruling group is a ruling group so long as it can nominate its successors ... Who wields power is not important, provided that the hierarchical structure remains always the same.

Between pigs and human beings there was not and there need not be any clash of interest whatsoever.

Surely, comrades, you do not want Jones back? Once again this argument was unanswerable. Certainly the animals did not want Jones back; if the holding of debates on Sunday mornings was liable to bring him back, then the debates must stop. Boxer, who had now had time to think things over, voiced the general feeling by saying: If Comrade Napoleon says it, it must be right. And from then on he adopted the maxim, Napoleon is always right, in addition to his private motto of I will work harder.

Day and night we are watching over your welfare. It is for YOUR sake that we drink that milk and eat those apples. Do you know what would happen if we pigs failed in our duty? Jones would come back! Yes, Jones would come back! Surely, comrades, cried Squealer almost pleadingly

An army of unemployed led by millionaires quoting the Sermon on the Mount—that is our danger.

I meant the moral to be that revolutions only effect a radical improvement when the masses are alert and know how to chuck out their leaders as soon as the latter have done their job.

The animals listened first to Napoleon, then to Snowball, and could not make up their minds which was right; indeed, they always found themselves in agreement with the one who was speaking at the moment.

We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means, it is an end.

If one is to rule, and to continue ruling, one must be able to dislocate the sense of reality. For the secret of rulership is to combine a belief in one's own infallibility with the Power to learn from past mistakes.

For it is the condition of his rule that he shall spend his life trying to impress the 'natives,' and so in every crisis he has got to do what the 'natives' expect of him... A sahib has got to act like a sahib; he has got to appear resolute, to know his own mind and do definite things.

Animal Farm is not a book about how pigs—animals—when bestowed with power start to behave like men. It is a book about how men, when given power over other men, start to behave like pigs.

how men, when given power over other men, start to behave like pigs.