Political Leadership Quotes

The Chinese public is deeply nationalist, which matters to China's unelected political leadership as much as U.S. nationalism does to American politicians. As China becomes the world's largest economy, there is meaningful public pressure for its power status to advance in parallel. Any alternative would be humiliating. ~ Noah Feldman

I think leadership of any kind requires trust and transparency and voters should demand no less from their political leadership in government. ~ Carly Fiorina

The role of political leadership in any society will remain critical to the socio-economic progression of the world. It is however worrying to see the growing number of people, including the youth, getting into politics for economic gain and not for a cause. This, inter alia, is the contaminated seed and eventual root of chronic corruption because such leadership will always be selfishly seeking gain and enrichment from their roles and offices. ~ Archibald Marwizi

In some countries we have had the right to vote for less than 100 years, so the entry of women into political leadership has caused a tsunami. ~ Iveta Radicova

Too often, advances in civil rights or women's rights are undermined by wrong-headed legislation or weak-kneed political leadership. ~ Mike Quigley

Despite the increasingly presidential style of political leadership in our country, teamwork is essential. ~ Bob Ainsworth

What we need is political leadership which can give guidance to the development of global governance. We need business leadership which goes beyond shareholder value to understand the needs and fears of other stakeholders and their communities. ~ Juan Somavia

The nation's chronic weakness is its political system, which is nearing dysfunction. If the U.S. can elect better political leadership, it should be able to manage problems better than most competitors. ~ David Ignatius

Bricks could be used to promote social progress. If we could amass enough bricks to build a prison big enough to cage every citizen, then everybody would be equal. And I think our current political leadership is savvy enough to see this, and is taking steps to implement this as soon as possible. ~ Jarod Kintz

It is new design by architects versus world revolution by political leadership. ~ R. Buckminster Fuller

Detroit's political leadership is a parasite that has outgrown its host. ~ Kevin D. Williamson

There is an undeniable economic and cultural disconnect between many of those who volunteer to serve and those who choose to remain civilians. But what is more concerning to me is the disconnect between our political leadership that applauds our soldiers and veterans, but then won't provide funding to properly armored vehicles or health care when our servicemen and women come home. You can't send men and women to war without being prepared to take care of them abroad and give them the services they need when they return home. ~ Ruben Gallego

Whether for good or evil, it is sadly inevitable that all political leadership requires the artifices of theatrical illusion. In the politics of a democracy, the shortest distance between two points is often a crooked line. ~ Arthur Miller

The result of the revolution in Germany has been to establish a democracy in the best sense of the word. We are steering towards an order of things guaranteeing a process of a natural and reasonable selection in the domain of political leadership, thanks to which that leadership will be entrusted to the most competent, irrespective of their descent, name or fortune. The memorable words of the great Corsican that every soldier carries a Field Marshal's baton in his knapsack, will find its political complement in Germany. ~ Adolf Hitler

We had a military and political leadership at that period which was genuinely deluded. ~ Neil Sheehan

We have moved from an age in which government leaders sought to do what was best for the people to one in which the political leadership is convinced it knows what is best for the people, whether they like it or not. ~ Ralph Peters

We make our own criminals, and their crimes are congruent with the national culture we all share. It has been said that a people get the kind of political leadership they deserve. I think they also get the kinds of crime and criminals they themselves bring into being. ~ Margaret Mead

Having served in the Nixon Administration, I am well aware of how the political leadership of an administration can try to politicize the civil service, including law enforcement. ~ Frank Wolf

Where there is an absence of international political leadership, civil society should step in to fill the gap, providing the energy and vision needed to move the world in a new and better direction. ~ Daisaku Ikeda

My assessment is that we have a crisis in national political leadership. When will America recognize the danger we face? When will the corrosive partisanship of American politics end and allow for a bipartisan solution to arguably the most dangerous threat our nation has faced in over 60 years? ~ Ricardo Sanchez

The fact that the killing came to a halt so abruptly, as if a switch had been flicked, also demonstrates the decisive role of political leadership in creating the conditions for the mass murders of the 1990s. The nationalist leaders who assumed power at the breakup of Yugoslavia were not struggling to contain the murderous impulses of their people. On the contrary, they created circumstances for psychopaths and sadists to kill with impunity. ~ Julian Borger

It is an assumption brought forth countless of times in various contexts that the world would be better, drifting slower towards the ruin, if women had the "power"; if political leadership, decision making, government and economic life was in the hands of women. I think reality, the observation material, supports the assumption. ~ Pentti Linkola

It is not a sensible or intelligent response for us in Europe to ridicule American argument or parody their political leadership. ~ Tony Blair

For statesmanship is a science and an art; one must have lived for it and been long prepared. Only a philosopher-king is fit to guide a nation. "Until philosophers are kings, or the kings and princes of this world have the spirit and power of philosophy, and wisdom and political leadership meet in the same man, ... cities will never cease from ill, nor the human race" (473). This is the key-stone of the arch of Plato's thought. ~ Will Durant

They were following me because I was ahead of them, which is no way to choose a leader. Following someone simply because they're out in front is never a good idea, but it happens all the time. ~ Alan Huffman

When I was born, humanity was 95 per cent illiterate. Since I've been born, the population has doubled and that total population is now 65 per cent literate. That's a gain of 130-fold of the literacy. When humanity is primarily illiterate, it needs leaders to understand and get the information and deal with it. When we are at the point where the majority of humans them-selves are literate, able to get the information, we're in an entirely new relationship to Universe. We are at the point where the integrity of the individual counts and not what the political leadership or the religious leadership says to do. ~ R. Buckminster Fuller

It had been on my mind ever since allowing myself to call President Trump a "draft-dodging chickenhawk" during on of the DNC forums. While true, that statement was not in keeping which how I publicly speak about political figures, or anyone else, and afterward I reflected that this president was inspiring a loss of decency not just in his supporters but also in those of us who opposed him. It was another way of looking at the moral stakes of politics as it filters through to millions of lives: that we might all be growing into harder and perhaps worse people, as a consequence of political leadership that has failed to call us to our highest values. ~ Pete Buttigieg

For, in a democracy, every citizen, regardless of his interest in politics, 'holds office'; every one of us is in a position of responsibility; and, in the final analysis, the kind of government we get depends upon how we fulfill those responsibilities. We, the people, are the boss, and we will get the kind of political leadership, be it good or bad, that we demand and deserve. ~ John F. Kennedy

In this work I have received the opposition of a number of men who only advocate the unobtainable because the immediately possible is beyond their moral courage, administrative ability, and their political prescience. ~ John Burns

What I do not want to write is didactic political tracts. ~ Joan D. Vinge

Collective leadership effectiveness drives business performance. ~ William A. Adams

hubris syndrome. This syndrome is characterized by recklessness, an inattention to detail, overwhelming self-confidence and contempt for others; all of which, he observes, "can result in disastrous leadership and cause damage on a large scale." The syndrome, he continues, "is a disorder of the possession of power, particularly power which has been associated with overwhelming success, held for a period of years and with minimal constraint on the leader. ~ John M. Coates

We need to remember that politics is all about people, not programs. We shouldn't want to take the humanness out of the political arena. ~ J. C. Watts

Know when to push, pull or hold your followers, lest you push them while they are on the edge of a cliff ~ Lazarus Takawira

The United States cannot reshape other countries in its own image and that, with a few exceptions, its efforts to police the world are neither in its interests nor within the scope of its resources. This whole tendency to see ourselves as the center of political enlightenment and as teachers to a great part of the rest of the world strikes me as unthought-through, vainglorious and undesirable. ~ George F. Kennan

I do think there is something to be said for those who have significant experience at state level and have run campaigns or have been deeply involved in grass roots political campaigns and who have actual hands-on experience. ~ Roy Romer

I have a huge political problem with the role. It was essentially accepting a form of racial profiling. I think it's repulsive. But it was the first time I had. ~ Kal Penn

Indeed, Miss Manners has come to believe that the basic political division in this country is not between liberals and conservatives but between those who believe that they should have a say in the love lives of strangers and those who do not. ~ Judith Martin

Almost everything in leadership comes back to relationships. ~ Mike Krzyzewski

What most new entrepreneurs don't realize is that before you can lead a business, or a family, or a ministry, or even just another person, you have to be the leader of yourself, first. ~ Kevin J. Donaldson

Lord Bolingbroke, who was an eighteenth-century political philosopher, called history "philosophy taught with examples. ~ David McCullough

The colonized, underdeveloped man is a political creature in the most global sense of the term. Frantz Fanon: The Wretched of the Earth ~ Frantz Fanon

Many will call me an adventurer, and that I am ... only one of a different sort: one who risks his skin to prove his truths. ~ Ernesto Che Guevara

For man, when perfected, is the best of animals, but, when separated from law and justice, he is the worst of all; since armed injustice is the more dangerous, and he is equipped at birth with the arms of intelligence and with moral qualities which he may use for the worst ends. Wherefore, if he have not virtue, he is the most unholy and the most savage of animals, and the most full of lust and gluttony. But justice is the bond of men in states, and the administration of justice, which is the determination of what is just, is the principle of order in political society. ~ Aristotle.

Resistance, which is the function of conservatism, is essential to orderly advance. ~ Agnes Repplier

I'm not a politician. I'm not a policy wonk. I was a political reporter, but that's not really what turns me on. What turns me on is how people perceive the issue and how people see people like me. ~ Jose Antonio Vargas

Violence, of course, is generally associated with frankly totalitarian forms of anti-political utopianism like Communism, but the Second World War shows that liberal universalists are as capable of violence as Communists. They are just less capable of honesty. ~ Greg Johnson

Your right of religious freedom ends where my right of religious abstinence begins ... ~ T. Rafael Cimino

The killer bees have gone, like rats deserting the Titanic. ~ Geraldo Rivera

There certainly is a lot of political pressure for states to adopt the new federal tax codes. But there is no law that requires them to do so. ~ John Barry

While the popular understanding of anarchism is of a violent, anti-State movement, anarchism is a much more subtle and nuanced tradition then a simple opposition to government power. Anarchists oppose the idea that power and domination are necessary for society, and instead advocate more co-operative, anti-hierarchical forms of social, political and economic organisation. ~ L. Susan Brown

If somebody's gonna stab me in the back, I wanna be there. ~ Allan A. Lamport

As we become civilized we are governed less by persons and more by principles ... The best of all leaders is the man who teaches people to lead themselves. ~ Robert Green Ingersoll

This is a very special Greek kind of socialist, all the social democratic parties in Europe are against this idea and I think that the dividing line today in the Greek political system is not the centre right or socialist, the real dividing line is between those parties and those political forces who really believe that Greece should stay in the Eurozone and make the efforts and change, and make the reforms and change the old and Mr Tsipras who is really resisting any kind of change in Greece. ~ Dora Bakoyannis

I'm pretty political when it comes to human rights and things like that. ~ Peter Krause

Obviously, some part of us loves feeling 1) right and 2) wronged. But outrage is like a lot of other things that feel good but, over time, devour us from the inside out. Except it's even more insidious than most vices because we don't even consciously acknowledge it's a pleasure. We prefer to think of it as a disagreeable but fundamentally healthy reaction to negative stimuli, like pain or nausea, rather than admit that it's a shameful kick we eagerly indulge again and again, like compulsive masturbation. ~ Tim Kreider

Conservatism therefore looks upon the enhancement of man's spiritual nature as the primary concern of political philosophy. Liberals, on the other hand, - in the name of a concern for "human beings" - regard the satisfaction of economic wants as the dominant mission of society. ~ Barry Goldwater

Most of you know from studying your Bibles that Satan will build a false superchurch: the whore of Revelation, chapters 6, 13, 17 and 18. According to Bible prophecy, she will have great political, economic, military, and educational power, and she will persecute and murder the true believers in Christ. ~ Jack T. Chick

Pride makes us artificial and humility makes us real. ~ Thomas Merton

There are so many classic Big Brother warning books: the Internet is a horrible, controlling thing, as if it has a consciousness or political agenda. ~ Joshua Cohen

Surely anyone who has ever been elected to public office understands that one commodity above all others, namely the trust and confidence of the people, is fundamental in maintaining a free and open political system. ~ Hubert H. Humphrey

The relational leader operates not by being known by everyone, but by authentically creating positive relationships with people around her. ~ Scott K. Edinger

What we are looking for is the appearance of political units persisting in time and fixed in space, the development of permanent, impersonal institutions, agreement on the need for authority which can give final judgments and acceptance of the idea that this authority should receive the basic loyalty of its subjects. ~ Joseph Reese Strayer

Fuzzy and ideological definitions of terrorism just make it easier to kill people. When you know your actions will kill innocent noncombatants, that's terrorism. And it must be clearly named as unacceptable - no matter who does it (individuals, groups, or states), whatever the weapons, the expressed intentions, or political justifications. ~ Jim Wallis

We must not lose our faculty to dare, particularly in dark days. ~ Winston Churchill