Quotes About Leadership

One day an army of gray-haired women may quietly take over the Earth!

The direction in which the culture of an age develops is, humanly speaking, chosen by a few exceptionally intelligent men. The popular authors then pick up some of the main ideas, usually distorting and diluting them considerably, and finally fifty years or a century later the general viewpoint has seeped down to the whole populace.

You didn't argue with Griffin when there was a plan involved. In this town, Griffin Bing was The Man With The Plan.

And now I'm supposed to believe that the leader of the three, Alpha Rat, is a good guy because he fell on his head.

When you're on top, you've got the confidence. The confidence gives you the attitude. And the attitude is what keeps you on top.

All I can think of is that this makes me the greatest seventh-grade president in the history of student government.

A public man, though he is necessarily available at many times, must learn to hide. If he is always available, he is not worth enough when he is available.

Occasionally we hear the story of an organizational leader who, having given powerful leadership to an institution, comes toward the end of his working life and keeps holding on to leadership long after he should have let it pass into the hands of someone in a younger generation. Or he ensures that the leadership passes into the hands of a son or a daughter so that he can maintain his influence.

Don't underestimate the significance of this principle. Today in our media-fashioned world many good and talented leaders face the constant temptation to begin believing the text of their own publicity releases. And if they do, a messianic fantasy gradually infects their personalities and leadership styles. Forgetting who they are not, they begin to make dangerous assumptions about who they are.

As William Plumer of New Hampshire complained, "It is impossible to censure measures without condemning men.

Traitors who prevail are patriots; usurpers who succeed are divine emperors.

By the time a man gets to be presidential material, he's been bought ten times over.

I say, they [those at the top] don't have to conspire, because they all think alike. The president of General Motors and the president of Chase Manhattan Bank really are not going to disagree much on anything, nor would the editor of the New York Times disagree with them. They all tend to think quite alike, otherwise they would not be in those jobs.

Any American who is prepared to run for president should automatically, by definition, be disqualified from ever doing so.

The public is always relieved to find that once the chief officers of state are elected they do not sincerely want change.

I think there should be a constitutional amendment making it impossible for anyone to be president who believes in an afterlife.

presidents, when not outright telling lies, feel obliged to shade the truth most of the time. This is called politics; when a president lies successfully, he is called a statesman.

In the end, only Washington's majestic presence kept the army together. He was also lucky in his British counterparts: mediocrities to a man. (One British observer noted, "Any general in the world other than General Howe would have beaten General Washington; and any general in the world other than General Washington would have beaten General Howe.")

Halleck smiled. "Good. So do I. But then I am an enemy of the people, and regard the ship of state like any other ship: for the captain to sail it safely he must never ever consult the crew. That is why I am for a king, any king, the more tyrannical the better.

No one ever likes any president's appointments, including those appointed.

I suspect Cromwell was right: the man who does not know where he's going goes farthest.

History of the United States of America During the Administrations of Thomas Jefferson and James Madison

We are in danger of government by professional office-holders Ã¢â'¬Â¦

I plainly lacked Wilkinson's doggedness in pursuing those commanders who might help me up in the world.