Quotes About Leadership

I think that people want peace so much that one of these days government had better get out of the way and let them have it.

The time has passed for dilly-dallying. We must demand satisfactory performance.

Wars are stupid and they can start stupidly.

Statesmanship is developed in the hard knocks of general experience, private and public.

If any blame or fault attaches to the attempt, it is mine alone.

Our form of government has no sense unless it is founded in a deeply felt religious faith, and I don't care what it is.

True delegation implies the courage and readiness to back up a subordinate to the full; it is not to be confused with the slovenly practice of merely ignoring an unpleasant situation in the hope that someone else will handle it.

No battle was ever won according to plan, but no battle was ever won without one.. Plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.

I voiced to him my grave misgivings, first on the basis of my belief that Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary, and secondly because I thought that our country should avoid shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon whose employment was, I thought, no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives.

I have always found plans usless, but planning indispensible

History does not long entrust the care of freedom to the weak or timid.

great men burn bridges before they come to them

if Clinton's answers come off as well-intended lectures, Obama is offering soaring sermons and generational opportunity. In 1960, the articulate Adlai Stevenson compared his own oratory unfavorably with John F. Kennedy's. Do you remember, Stevenson said, that in classical times when Cicero had finished speaking, the people said, 'How well he spoke,' but when Demosthenes had finished speaking, the people said, 'Let us march.' At this hour, Obama is the Democrats' Demosthenes.

Communists have no respect for people, only for positions.

Power over others is weakness disguised as strength. True power is within (...)

If the master is not present in the house, all kinds of shady characters will take up residence there.

That's leadership: lead by example, lead from the front, inspire people to follow your lead.

The one on whom all responsibility rests is apt to endure the most.

We all loved him, and our slaves fairly worshipped the ground he trod.

Flattery corrupts both the receiver and the giver, and adulation is not of more service to the people than to kings.

Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but judgment; and he betrays, instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion.

Many of the greatest tyrants on the records of history have begun their reigns in the fairest manner. But the truth is, this unnatural power corrupts both the heart and the understanding. And to prevent the least hope of amendment, a king is ever surrounded by a crowd of infamous flatterers, who find their account in keeping him from the least light of reason, till all ideas of rectitude and justice are utterly erased from his mind.

A representative owes not just his industry but his judgement

It is an obvious truth, that no constitution can defend itself: it must be defended by the wisdom and fortitude of men.