Quotes About Leadership

I have not permitted myself, gentlemen, to conclude that I am the best man in the country; but I am reminded, in this connection, of a story of an old Dutch farmer, who remarked to a companion once that "it was not best to swap horses when crossing streams."

Can you inform me, gentlemen, where General Grant procures his whisky? . . . Because if I can find out, I'll send a barrel of it to every General in the field!

If General McClellan did not want to use the army, he would like to borrow it.

Politicians [are] a set of men who have interests aside from the interests of the people, and who, to say the most of them, are, taken as a mass, at least one long step removed from honest men. I say this with the greater freedom because, being a politician myself, none can regard it as personal.

They have seen in his [Senator Stephen A. Douglas's] round, jolly, fruitful face, post offices, land offices, marshalships, and cabinet appointments, chargeships and foreign missions, bursting and sprouting out in wonderful exuberance ready to be laid hold of by their greedy hands. . . . Nobody has ever expected me to be President. In my poor, lean, lank face nobody has ever seen that any cabbages were sprouting out.

To give the victory to the right, not bloody bullets, but peaceful ballots only, are necessary.

If you once forfeit the confidence of your fellow citizens, you can never regain their respect and esteem. It is true that you may fool all of the people some of the time; you can even fool some of the people all of the time; but you can't fool all of the people all of the time. -Speech at Clinton, Illinois, September 8, 1854.

If once you forfeit the confidence of your fellow-citizens, you can never regain their respect and esteem.

I can make more generals, but horses cost money.

As President, I have no eyes but constitutional eyes; I cannot see you.

The time comes upon every public man when it is best for him to keep his lips closed.

Government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the Earth.

I hope to stand firm enough to not go backward, and yet not go forward fast enough to wreck the country's cause.

Find out what whiskey he drinks and send all of my generals a case, if it will get the same results. - in reply to comments about General Grant's drinking problems

The growing tip is a small proportion of mankind. They will carry on. As a matter of fact, that is what is happening with the whole humanistic synthesis now; the groundbreaking is done by a few people, and most of the stuff is just routine or mediocr

This craggy political landscape was the kind of terrain in which Kissinger moved with the deftness of an Indian scout.

Being the first born gives you great patience.

If Helen had the face that launched a thousand ships, Kelly would have made those guys invent aircraft carriers.

Whole bodies of men are sometimes infected with an epidemical weakness of the head, or corruption of heart, by which they become unfit for the stations they occupy, and threaten the states they compose, however flourishing, with the prospect of decay, and ruin.

A]s military history reveals, a bad plan is often better than no plan, especially if the people on the other side think it's a good plan.

An employee made a mistake that cost the company $10 million, he walked into the office of Tom Watson, the C.E.O., expecting to get fired. "Fire you?" Mr. Watson asked. "I just spent $10 million educating you.

As Chris Granger, executive vice president at the NBA, explains, "Talented people are attracted to those who care about them. When you help someone get promoted out of your team, it's a short-term loss, but it's a clear long-term gain. It's easier to attract people, because word gets around that your philosophy is to help people.

If we communicate the vision behind our ideas, the purpose guiding our products, people will flock to us.

Our companies, communities, and countries don't necessarily suffer from a shortage of novel ideas. They're constrained by a shortage of people who excel at choosing the right novel ideas.