Leader Quotes

500+ Sourced quotes

In the nurturing family... parents see themselves as empowering leaders not as authoritative bosses. They see their job primarily as one of teaching their children how to be truly human in all situations.

Does the commandment 'Thou Shalt Not Kill' mean nothing to us? Are we to interpret it as meaning 'Thou shalt not kill except on the grand scale,' or 'Thou shalt not kill except when the national leaders say to do so'?

Just remember that there's thirty-five Assembly districts in New York County, and thirty-six district leaders reachin' out for the Tammany dough-bag for somethin' to keep up the patriotism of ten thousand workers, and you wouldn't wonder that the cry for more, more, is goin' up from every district organization now and forevermore. Amen.

George Washington Plunkitt

Secure from observation
A Bookworm made his home
And pursued his occupation
In a dry and dusty tome,
Made by some wise old sages
That lesser minds might learn.
The Bookworm turned the pages
(For even a worm will turn).
He said, 'What prosy leaders! And, judging by its look,
This book has bored its readers,
Now I will bore the book.'

Leaders identify, articulate, and summarize concepts that motivate others. Most important, they boil concepts down to an understandable idea.

Laurie Beth Jones

Palestinian and Israeli leaders finally recover the Road Map to Peace, only to discover that, while they were looking for it, the Lug Nuts of Mutual Interest came off the Front Left Wheel of Accommodation, causing the Sport Utility Vehicle of Progress to crash into the Ditch of Despair.

If a bull had intelligence he would not allow himself to be led to the shambles. If the Trade Unions had intelligence they would not allow their paid leaders to lead them to the altar.

We must try again to be alive to what the people of our country really long for in our national life: forgiveness and grace, maturity and wisdom....Our political leaders will know our priorities only if we tell them, again and again, and if those priorities begin to show up in the polls.

Organization is not only directly linked to unity, but a natural development of that unity. Accordingly, the leaders' pursuit of that unity is also an attempt to organize the people, requiring witness to the fact that the struggle for liberation is a common task.

We may be for or against the South. But there is no doubt that Jefferson Davis and other leaders of the South have made an Army; they are making, it appears, a Navy; and they have made — what is more than either — they have made a Nation... We may anticipate with certainty the success of the Southern States so far as regards their separation from the North.

William Ewart Gladstone

Managers assert drive and control to get things done; leaders pause to discover new ways of being and achieving.

It's going to be like herding stray cats, and the political leaders who can do it will be remembered as the same kind of geniuses who pulled off the American Revolution.

William H. Calvin

We are now prepared to obliterate more rapidly and completely every productive enterprise the Japanese have above ground in any city. We shall destroy their docks, their factories, and their communications. Let there be no mistake; we shall completely destroy Japan's power to make war.
It was to spare the Japanese people from utter destruction that the ultimatum of July 26 was issued at Potsdam. Their leaders promptly rejected that ultimatum. If they do not now accept our terms they may expect a rain of ruin from the air, the like of which has never been seen on this earth.

Harry S. Truman

Religious leaders and men of science have the same ideals; they want to understand and explain the universe of which they are part; they both earnestly desire to solve, if a solution be ever possible, that great riddle: Why are we here?

In our preoccupations with sex, our submission to gods and leaders, our sometimes suicidal commitment to ideas, religions, and trivial details of cultural style, we become the unconscious creators of the social organism's exploits.

There are so many false starts, unexpected obstacles, and surprising turns along the path to change. Daily work often drains energy needed for change. Leaders must pick causes they won't abandon easily, remain committed despite setbacks, and communicate their big ideas over and over again in every encounter.

Rosabeth Moss Kanter

There was no other alternative [to the disappearances]... [Military leaders] were in agreement that it was the price that must be paid to win the war against subversion and we needed that it not be obvious so society would not realize it. It was necessary to eliminate a large group of people who could not be brought to justice nor [openly] shot either.

Jorge Rafael Videla

Labor is like motherhood to most of our political leaders: a calling so fine and noble that it would be sullied by talk of vulgar, mundane things like pay.

Barbara Ehrenreich

Only when the masses are reassured, can the country be at peace. Only when the country is at peace, can the leaders be relieved.

Great leaders and great organizations are good at seeing what most of us can't see. They are good at giving us things we would never think of asking for.

Leaders evoke emotional connections in followers only to the extent that the followers are emotionally needy.

Judith M. Bardwick

If the religious leaders have influence, they will not permit girls and boys to wrestle together, as recently happened in Shiraz.

Ruhollah Khomeini

As of rioting, the old Roman way of dealing with that is always the right one; flog the rank and file, and fling the ring-leaders from the Tarpeian rock.

The Communist leaders seem to have misunderstood the universal lesson of life that man's greatest enemy is inertia and that the mainspring of action to combat inertia is not force but the opportunity for self- improvement. Marx and Engels insisted that such an attitude is selfish and "non-social," but the plain fact is that a worker finds it difficult to work harder in order to fill the stomachs of "society" when the fruits of his labor do not first take care of himself and his family.

W. Cleon Skousen

Alas, criticism has always been what human beings, especially leaders, most hate to hear.