Leaders Quotes

Some of our finest leaders were not intellectuals at all, and I admire them enormously because they weren't. Harry Truman wasn't. ~ Michael Ignatieff

Christianity is being compared with other religions as never before. Some so-called Christian leaders even advocate the working out of a system of morals, ethics, and religion that would bring together all the religions of the world. It cannot be done. Jesus Christ is unique. ~ Billy Graham

It's time for our business and political leaders to help redefine morality beyond sex, drugs, and rock and roll to include lying, hypocrisy, and callous indifference to those in need. ~ Arianna Huffington

Powers rise and fall. Leaders come and go. History makes a mockery of our best-laid plans, in the end, you aare left with thosecthings you have shared with one another ~ Kirsten Beyer

You know what really makes this embarrassing? The other day the president said the leaders in Iraq are 'ready to take off the training wheels.' That's what he said, 'take off the training wheels.' Then he goes out and falls off his bicycle. And they wonder why the rest of the world doesn't take us seriously. ~ Jay Leno

What too many leaders of organizations fail to appreciate is that it's not the people that are the problem. The people are fine. Rather, it's the environment in which the people operate that is the problem. Get that right and things just go. ~ Simon Sinek

Other animals are exceptionally good at identifying and reacting to predators, rivals and friends. They never act as if they believe that rivers or trees are inhabited by spirits who are watching. In all these ways, other animals continually demonstrate their working knowledge that they live in a world brimming with other minds as well as their knowledge of those minds' boundaries. their understanding seems more acute, pragmatic, and frankly, better than ours at distinguishing real from fake. So, I wonder, do humans really have a better developed Theory of Mind than other animals? ...Children talk to dolls for years, half believing or firmly believing that the doll hears and feels and is a worthy confidante. Many adults pray to statues, fervently believing that they're listening. ...All of this indicates a common human inability to distinguish conscious minds from inanimate objects, and evidence from nonsense. Children often talk to a fully imaginary friends whom they believe listens and has thoughts. Monotheism might be the adult version. ...In the world's most technologically advanced, most informed societies, a majority people take it for granted that disembodied spirits are watching, judging, and acting on them. Most leaders of modern nations trust that a Sky-God can be asked to protect their nation during disasters and conflicts with other nations. All of this is theory of mind gone wild, like an unguided fire hose spraying the whole universe with presumed consciousness. ~ Carl Safina

I don't think leaders are born. Well, they're born; everybody's born, but I think leadership can be enhanced, they can be developed, and I think that it's important we do that, particularly with our youngsters. ~ Pat Williams

Leaders who have integrity possess one of the most respected virtues in all of life. ~ David Cottrell

A lot of the powerful religious leaders, from Jesus to Buddha to Tibetan monks, they're really talking about the same things: love and acceptable, and the value of friendship, and respecting yourself so you can respect others. ~ Jena Malone

The why is what makes journalism an adult game. The why is what makes policy coherent and useful. The why is what transforms bureaucrats and foot soldiers and political leaders into viable instruments of rational and affirmative change. The why is everything and without it, the very suggestion of human progress becomes a cosmic joke. ~ David Simon

Through mutual understanding, sincerity and goodwill, and with great wisdom and broad views, the leaders on both sides should jointly initiate new opportunities for peace, stability, cooperation and mutual benefit. ~ Chen Shui-bian

It seems Christianity's symbol is 'CHURCH,'
for its leaders portrayed Jesus as church:
"You're not Christian if you don't have a church;
you're bad Christian if you don't go to church."

Christianity's symbol ought to be 'LIFE,'
for Jesus came to bring fullness of life.
"Where there's no life, he is there to give life."
"Where there's life, he's there to celebrate life. ~ Rodolfo Martin Vitangcol

Transcending class distinctions, the speaker [Stalin] portrays the relation between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat as a mere division of labor. The workers and soldiers achieve the revolution, Guchkov and Miliukov "fortify" it.[ ... ] This superintendent's approach to the historical process is exactly characteristic of the leaders of Menshevism, this handing out of instructions to various classes and then patronizingly criticizing their fulfillment. ~ Leon Trotsky

In these our cowardly times, we deny the grandeur of the Universal, and assert and glorify our local Bigotries, and so we cannot agree on much. In these our degenerate times, men bent on nothing but vainglory and personal gain- hollow, bombastic men for whom nothing is off-limits if it advances their petty cause- will claim to be great leaders and benefactors, acting in the common good, and calling all who oppose them liars, envious, little people, stupid people, stiff, and, in a precise reversal of the truth, dishonest and corrupt. ~ Salman Rushdie

The world's leaders should be forced to take a reader's license. Only when they have read five thousand - no, make that ten thousand - books will they be anywhere near qualified to understand humans and how they behave. ~ Nina George

Don't beg for treasure; create it for yourself. Don't beg for positions; build one for yourself. ~ Israelmore Ayivor

A leader's most important job is creating and constantly adjusting this strategic bridge between goals and objectives. ~ Richard P. Rumelt

Our job is not to amuse our readers. Our mission is to stir them, inform and inflame them. Our task is to continually hold up our government and our leaders to clear-eyed analysis, unaffected by professional spinmeisters and agenda-pushers. In these times, when those of us who are members of the 'reality-based community' are under relentless attack from both the right and the left, we must encourage, and our work must reflect, independent and non-ideological thinking. ~ Tony Auth

Our nation and those of the developed world must offer our own resistance to despot leaders who seek to commit murder on the basis of religion or race. ~ Tim Bishop

Insecure leaders trumpet their authority and use fear to motivate. ~ Barry Banther

Followers often hesitate to act, out of fear that they'll do the wrong thing. Leaders aren't afraid to make a call, even when they're not sure if it's the right one. They'd rather make a decision and be wrong than suffer from the paralysis of indecision. ~ Anonymous

When you accept a leadership role, you take on extra responsibility for your actions toward others. ~ Kelley Armstrong

Social media requires that business leaders start thinking like small-town shop owners. This means taking the long view and avoiding short-term benchmarks to gauge progress. It means allowing the personality, heart and soul of the people who run all levels of the business to show. ~ Gary Vaynerchuk

Hollywood has a history of raising expectations beyond Washington's reach, of appealing to the very American desire to mythologize political leaders, particularly the president. ~ Ron Fournier

The modern Middle East was largely created by the British. It was they who carried the Allied war effort in the region during World War I and who, at its close, principally fashioned its peace. It was a peace presaged by the nickname given the region by covetous British leaders in wartime: 'The Great Loot.' ~ Scott Anderson

Blessed are the people whose leaders can look destiny in the eye without flinching but also without attempting to play God ~ Henry Kissinger

When women got into positions of power, they calibrated and recalibrated tenderness and strength, modulating and correcting. Power and love didn't often live side by side. If one came in, the other might go. ~ Meg Wolitzer

Lots of countries have great constitutions, but their leaders have a practice of ignoring the rules whenever they feel like it. ~ Adam Davidson

In 90% of cases, you can start with one of the two most effective ways to open a speech: ask a question or start with a story.

Our brain doesn't remember what we hear. It remembers only what we "see" or imagine while we listen.

You can remember stories. Everything else is quickly forgotten.

Smell is the most powerful sense out of 4 to immerse audience members into a scene.

Every sentence either helps to drive your point home, or it detracts from clarity. There is no middle point.

If you don't have a foundational phrase in your speech, it means that your message is not clear enough to you, and if it's not clear to you, there is no way it will be clear to your audience.

Share your failures first. Show your audience members that you are not any better, smarter or more talented than they are.

You are not an actor, you are a speaker. The main skill of an actor is to play a role; to be someone else. Your main skill as a speaker is to be yourself.

People will forgive you for anything except for being boring. Speaking without passion is boring. If you are not excited about what you are talking about, how can you expect your audience to be excited?

Never hide behind a lectern or a table. Your audience needs to see 100% of your body.

Speak slowly and people will consider you to be a thoughtful and clever person.

Leaders don't talk much, but each word holds a lot of m ~ Andrii Sedniev

Unlike many graduate fellowships, the Rhodes seeks leaders who will 'fight the world's fight.' They must be more than mere bookworms. We are looking for students who wonder, students who are reading widely, students of passion who are driven to make a difference in the lives of those around them and in the broader world. ~ Heather Wilson

The reason why nothing happens is because nothing was done. Something will happen when something is done. Leaders take actions! ~ Israelmore Ayivor

It is now, more than ever, necessary that political leaders be outstanding for honesty, integrity and commitment to the common good. ~ Pope Francis

The 2016 presidential election is ripe for the emergence of a game-changing political leader who either dramatically reforms one of the existing parties or mounts an independent bid. ~ Ron Fournier

The original mistake, which was responsible for all this misery, was committed when our scientists began to create a new world of steel and iron and chemistry and electricity and forgot that the human mind is slower than the proverbial turtle, is lazier than the well-known sloth, and marches from one hundred to three hundred years behind the small group of courageous leaders. ~ Hendrik Willem Van Loon

I remember my mother saying to me on one occasion, 'Mel, I know that I can count on you.' I resolved that she would always be able to count on me. I would not let her down. I loved her too much. Her confidence in me meant everything. Today I still feel that way. I feel that way about the Brethren. I don't ever want to let President Hinckley or any of the other leaders of the Church down. But, even more important, I never want to let the Savior down, because I love Him more than anything else. ~ F. Melvin Hammond

It makes it very hard for us to warn people about the wolves when the leaders of the sheep are associating with the wolves. ~ Justin Peters

Either man is obsolete or war is. War is the ultimate tool of politics. Political leaders look out only for their own side. Politicians are always realistically maneuvering for the next election. They are obsolete as fundamental problem-solvers. ~ R. Buckminster Fuller

Fantastic accomplishments seem like something unattainable and everyone doing the extraordinary seems to be unlike you until YOU do something amazing. Then you realize those talented, heroic leaders are not different from you in any important way." Clara Branon, Ph.D., "This Is/Is Not the Way I Thought Things Would Change," Volume III, "The Spanners Series ~ Sally Ember

Always, in every human action, there are leaders. ~ Vicente Fox

No other youth group like the Scouts has trained so many future leaders while at the same time being a nature organization with its outdoor focus. ~ Richard Louv

The genes supply the motivation for warfare, [E. O.] Wilson is saying, in humans as they do in chimps, but people, blessed with the power of language, look for some objective cause of war. A society psychs itself up to go to war by agreeing that their neighbors have wronged them, whether by seizing property or failing to deliver on some promise. Religious leaders confirm that the local deity favors their cause and off go the troops. ~ Nicholas Wade

I grew up in a society where everything you did was eavesdropped on, recorded, snitched on. I had friends when we were kids getting into trouble for telling anecdotes about Communist leaders. ~ Jan Koum

The leaders have the responsibility to protect and hold in high esteem the law and virtues of the land. ~ Sunday Adelaja

When religious leaders get involved in elections, it is usually with a reactionary social agenda. ~ Elizabeth Joan Smith

Leaders fight for freedom of action. Managers struggle to understand the rules and staying in their parameters. ~ Elena D. Calin

We would do much better as leaders in the Church to learn at the feet of the farmer rather than study with the CEO of a corporation. ~ Neil Cole

One of the landmines that church planters never dodge is the landmine
of leadership development. I will never forget the day when I realized
that there are no such things as 'ready-made leaders'. ~ Gary Rohrmayer

But when fascism comes it will not be in the form of an anti-American movement or pro-Hitler bund, practicing disloyalty. Nor will it come in the form of a crusade against war. It will appear rather in the luminous robes of flaming patriotism; it will take some genuinely indigenous shape and color, and it will spread only because its leaders, who are not yet visible, will know how to locate the great springs of public opinion and desire and the streams of thought that flow from them and will know how to attract to their banners leaders who can command the support of the controlling minorities in American public life. The danger lies not so much in the would-be Fuhrers who may arise, but in the presence in our midst of certainly deeply running currents of hope and appetite and opinion. The war upon fascism must be begun there. ~ John T. Flynn

In short, Arab leaders committed to the destruction of Israel invented the concept "Palestinian people" in order to justify their interminable war against Israel. ~ Meir Levi, David

Good leaders come together to solve problems in order to make a peaceful coexistence, but just a single soul can become the leathery meat in the soup. ~ Michael Bassey Johnson

The lack of free, child-directed play time for our kids today will have dire consequences for these future leaders, making them less prepared to solve complex challenges and problems. ~ Darell Hammond

But there was a sense of something tipping out of balance. The times seemed out of joint. There was too much decadence. Too much intensity. Too much change. Too much happiness juxtaposed with too much misery. Too much wealth next to too much poverty. The world was becoming faster and louder, and the social systems were becoming as chaotic and fragmented as jazz scores. So there was a craving, in some places, for simplicity, for order, for scapegoats and for bully-boy leaders, for nations to become like religions or cults. It happened every now and then.
It seemed, in the 1930s, that the whole course of humanity was at stake. As it very often does today. Too many people wanted to find an easy answer to complicated questions. It was a dangerous time to be human. To feel or to think or to care. ~ Matt Haig

In today's world, we look at our presidents, our prime ministers, our princes and our potentates,and we describe them as our leaders. But they're not. They're merely our rulers.The leaders are the people who change the minds and stimulate the imaginations of the public,whether children or adults. That means the moviemakers, the people who make TV shows, the entertainment people in the business. ~ Douglas Gresham

Whatever the final outcome in Iraq, our men and women in uniform should stand tall with pride for a job well done. It was our political leaders - of both parties and both presidencies - who failed us. ~ Kathleen Troia McFarland

The stream will not permanently rise higher than the main source; and the main source of national power and national greatness is found in the average citizenship of the nation. Therefore it behooves us to do our best to see that the standard of the average citizen is kept high; and the average cannot be kept high unless the standard of the leaders is very much higher. ~ Theodore Roosevelt

The fundamental weakness in the Tea Party machine is the stark difference between what the leaders of the Tea Party elite - plutocrats like the Koch Brothers -want and what the average grassroots Tea Party follower wants. ~ Chuck Schumer

Obviously the extremists want to provoke sectarian warfare, and I am struck by the fact that over a three-year period, leaders of the (Iraqi) communities have been quite resistant to this. The test is whether the political process continues. ~ Peter Rodman

The pact creating a North American free-trade zone was President Bill Clinton's signature accomplishment; but NAFTA is also the bugaboo of union leaders, grassroots activists and Midwesterners who blame free trade for the factory closings they see in their hometowns. ~ Nina Easton

The exposed nature of life in the public square affects leaders' attitudes toward risk - and failure. ~ Dee Dee Myers

It doesn't take a majority to make a rebellion; it takes only a few determined leaders and a sound cause. ~ H.L. Mencken

Managers are a dime a dozen, but leaders are priceless ~ H. Wayne Huizenga

The ability to connect and influence people, that's the job of a leader. And we're all leaders at some level. ~ Tony Robbins

Authenticity requires us to slow down. Fast times require us to slow down. To be effective, we need to slow down our pace of thought and action and focus on managing our attention. To be authentic leaders we need to act from intention and choice rather than from habit and impulse. ~ Henna Inam

My civil rights will not be trampled, and I say this not for me but for my children, and all those who yearn to breathe free. Those who make your Apple products at Foxxcon, those who languish in prisons in Cuba, North Korea and Venezuela. Those homosexuals who are stoned to death in the streets of Egypt or Iran, while our so-called civil rights leaders hold coffee klatches with third graders in the White House. ~ Glenn Beck

Celebrity gets you access to world leaders. ~ Michael Douglas

A person with passion will not look somewhere to see who is not doing it; they will focus and do what they can. ~ Israelmore Ayivor

Your heart of devotion and obedience is not in vain. Who knows but God how many people have come near to you and were forever changed simply by the fragrance of his love in you? Who knows but God if he will put you before kings and leaders to speak the truth, redirecting the future of nations? Who knows when that small crack in the dam of our enemy's plans will give way and God's glory will truly cover the earth as the sea? Do not become distracted or discouraged by the death around you. Death must always give way when the life of Christ enters the picture. ~ Amy Layne Litzelman

I don't think about the press or the crowds or the other leaders of the race. The focus is only on myself. As soon as I see the targets, I tune them out. ~ Magdalena Neuner

The Internet rewards scale; by trading higher up-front costs for lower marginal cost, market leaders can invest in better technology and service. As a result, there is nothing online that is both great in quality and small in scale. Amazon wasn't originally a better bookstore than the small shops we mourn, but it is now. ~ John Katzman

When we see a lack of leadership coming from the White House, that's what brings leaders in Turkey to attack Israel the way they do. When we see a lack of leadership coming from the White House, that's why we see the leader of Iran ... continuing to build the nuclear reactors. ~ Danny Danon

Teller contended, not implausibly, that hydrogen bombs keep the peace, or at least prevent thermonuclear war, because the consequences of warfare between nuclear powers are now too dangerous. We haven't had a nuclear war yet, have we? But all such arguments assume that the nuclear-armed nations are and always will be, without exception, rational actors, and that bouts of anger and revenge and madness will never overtake their leaders (or military and secret police officers in charge of nuclear weapons). In the century of Hitler and Stalin, this seems ingenuous. ~ Carl Sagan

One could imagine such technology outsmarting financial markets, out-inventing human researchers, out-manipulating human leaders, and developing weapons we cannot even understand. ~ Stephen Hawking

Every leader will hit a series of plateaus in their lives. The key is not to say there, because settling on a plateau can easily lead to an elongated season of comfort. Being comfortable is one of the leader's worst enemies ~ Gary Rohrmayer

So what were Europeans telling their leaders? The general message was perfectly summed up by the cartoonist Chappatte, who drew a group of protesters holding up a placard shouting "Unhappy"
and one of their number shouting through a megaphone into the ballot box. There are 28 member states and 28 varieties of Unhappy. ~ Timothy Garton Ash

Peter the Great was probably the equal, in dedication, power and ruthlessness, of many of the most successful revolutionary or nationalist leaders. Yet he failed in his chief purpose, which was to turn Russia into a Western nation. And the reason he failed was that he did not infuse the Russian masses with some soul-stirring enthusiasm. He either did not think it necessary or did not know how to make of his purpose a holy cause. It is not strange that the Bolshevik revolutionaries who wiped out the last of the Czars and Romanovs should have a sense of kinship with Peter - a Czar and a Romanov. For his purpose is now theirs, and they hope to succeed where he failed. The Bolshevik revolution may figure in history as much an attempt to modernize a sixth of the world's surface as an attempt to build a Communist economy. The ~ Eric Hoffer

A leader's words matter, but actions ultimately do more to reinforce or undermine the implementation of a team of teams. Instead of exploiting technology to monitor employee performance at levels that would have warmed Frederick Taylor's heart, the leader must allow team members to monitor him. More than directing, leaders must exhibit personal transparency. This is the new ideal. ~ Stanley McChrystal

One of the best ways to influence people is to make them feel important. ~ Roy T. Bennett

For the political leader the religious doctrines and institutions of his people must always remain inviolable; or else has no right to be in politics, but should become a reformer, if he has what it takes! ~ Adolf Hitler

When the world is in the midst of change, when adversity and opportunity are almost indistinguishable, this is the time for visionary leadership and when leaders need to look beyond the survival needs of those they're serving. ~ Chip Conley

We need leaders who can meet and adapt to new challenges, build strategic partnerships, build and sustain human capital organizations, and have the courage to act and react to the challenges ~ Thomas Narofsky

The North American Church is at a critical juncture. The gospel of grace is being confused and compromised by silence, seduction, and outright subversion. The vitality of the faith is being jeopardized. The lying slogans of the fixers who carry religion like a sword of judgment pile up with impunity. Let ragamuffins everywhere gather as a confessing Church to cry out in protest. Revoke the licenses of religious leaders who falsify the idea of God. Sentence them to three years in solitude with the Bible as their only companion. ~ Brennan Manning

We need far too many leaders to depend only on the naturals. ~ Peter F. Drucker

We're in danger of breaking our army and preventing our national leaders from having the flexibility to confront not just Iraq and Afghanistan, but crises around the globe. ~ Jack Reed

Managers tell you where you are, leaders tell you where you're going. ~ Rands

I constantly signal to the Iraqi leaders that our patience, or the patience of the American people, is running out ~ Zalmay Khalilzad

A leader is someone you are not disappointed in placing trust in. When that person makes suggestions, you are inclined to trust [them]. Often it is people who have been there [in a similar situation to the people he or she is leading]. They would generally be people who are ready to take the risks themselves. Most leaders would be people who don't ever give commands and remain at home and let the foot soldiers be the ones who bear the brunt. ~ Desmond Tutu

Know your limit and circle of influence; you are not called to meet the needs of everyone ~ Bernard Kelvin Clive

Too many Californians are struggling to make ends meet, pay the bills, and send their kids to college. They are looking for progressive leaders in Washington who will fight for them, like Senator Boxer has done for over 20 years. ~ Antonio Villaraigosa

The leader's main job is to make themselves obsolete. ~ Laozi

(P58) It is curious how, with his stark Darwinian outlook, his elevation of war to the central place in human history, and his racism, as well as his fixation on "great leaders," Churchill's worldview resembled that of his antagonist, Hitler. ~ Ralph Raico

Somehow this madness must cease. We must stop now. I speak as a child of God and brother to the suffering poor of Vietnam. I speak for those whose land is being laid waste, whose homes are being destroyed, whose culture is being subverted. I speak for the poor in America who are paying the double price of smashed hopes at home and death and corruption in Vietnam. I speak as a citizen of the world, for the world as it stands aghast at the path we have taken. I speak as an American to the leaders of my own nation. The great initiative in this war is ours. The initiative to stop it must be ours. ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

Leaders should not just talk about - but walk the walk of - fiscal conservatism. ~ Michael Enzi

Labour leaders lead us all, though we know they bleed us all. Cheer our new Decline and Fall, Gibbon might have dreamed it all. ~ Noel Coward

The failure of world leaders to act on the critical issue of global warming is often blamed on economic considerations. ~ David Suzuki

I am convinced that hundreds of religious leaders throughout the world today are servants not of God, but of the Antichrist. They are wolves in sheep's clothing; they are tares instead of wheat. ~ Billy Graham

Others did not fare so well. A German man in St. Louis who was believed to have spoken ill of his adopted country was set upon by a mob, dragged through the streets tied up in an American flag, and hanged. A jury subsequently found the mob leaders not guilty on the grounds that it had been a patriotic murder. ~ Bill Bryson

All religious leaders and spiritual teachers emphasize finding a place within us that is true. People who obsessively follow these leaders instead of their own purpose attach to the spiritual leader and become fanatical and controlling. That's why Jesus tried to tell his followers not to get attached to outward form. ~ Martha Beck

Republican leaders have made clear they have no plans to use the power of government to stimulate the economy, invest in job creation and spur job growth. The Fed's plan is to give banks more money to finance the private sector job creation. But banks have ample cash now; they aren't lending, and the private sector is not creating the jobs. That is why we have 15 million people unemployed. ~ Dennis Kucinich

We have a crisis of leadership in America because our overwhelming power and wealth, earned under earlier generations of leaders, made us complacent, and for too long we have been training leaders who only know how to keep the routine going. Who can answer questions, but don't know how to ask them. Who can fulfill goals, but don't know how to set them. Who think about how to get things done, but not whether they're worth doing in the first place. What we have now are the greatest technocrats the world has ever seen, people who have been trained to be incredibly good at one specific thing, but who have no interest in anything beyond their area of exper­tise. What we don't have are leaders. What we don't have, in other words, are thinkers. People who can think for themselves. People who can formulate a new direction: for the country, for a corporation or a college, for the Army - a new way of doing things, a new way of looking at things. People, in other words, with vision. ~ William Deresiewicz