— Richard M. Nixon
When you soar like an eagle, you attract the hunters.
— Milton S. Gould
To do great things is difficult, but to command great things is more difficult.
— Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
We can’t all be heroes because somebody has to sit on the curb and clap as they go by.
— Will Rogers
‘Tis skill, not strength that governs a ship.
— Thomas Fuller
When a leader is in the Democratic party he’s a boss; when he’s in the Republican party he’s a leader.
— Harry S. Truman
A leader is a dealer in hope.
— Napoleon Bonaparte
The leader must know, must know that he knows, and must be able to make it abundantly clear to those about him that he knows.
— Clarence B. Randall
They be blind leaders of the blind. And if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch.
— Matthew 15:14
Be willing to make decisions. That’s the most important quality in a good leader. Don’t fall victim to what I call the “ready-aim-aim-aim-aim syndrome.” You must be willing to fire.
— T. Boone Pickens
You do not lead by hitting people over the head — that’s assault, not leadership.
— Dwight D. Eisenhower
The art of leadership...consists in consolidating the attention of the people against a single adversary and taking care that nothing will split up that attention.
— Adolf Hitler
No man is fit to command another that cannot command himself.
— William Penn
In time of peril, like the needle to the lodestone, obedience, irrespective of rank, generally flies to him who is best fitted to command.
— Herman Melville
I must follow them. I am their leader.
— Andrew Bonar Law
I never give them hell. I just tell the truth and they think it’s hell.
— Harry S. Truman
It is an interesting question how far men would retain their relative rank if they were divested of their clothes.
— Henry David Thoreau
A decision is the action an executive must take when he has information so incomplete that the answer does not suggest itself.
— Arthur W. Radford
Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hid. Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it give the light unto all that are in the house. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.
— Matthew 5:14-16
Only one man in a thousand is a leader of men — the other 999 follow women.
— Groucho Marx
Either lead, follow, or get out of the way.
— Sign on desk of broadcasting executive Ted Turner
I will do my best. That is all I can do. I ask for your help — and God’s.
— Lyndon B. Johnson, on arriving in Washington, D.C., on the evening of John F. Kennedy’s assassination, November 22, 1963
People ask the difference between a leader and a boss...The leader works in the open and the boss in covert. The leader leads, and the boss drives.
— Theodore Roosevelt
General Dwight D. Eisenhower used a simple devise to illustrate the art of leadership. Laying an ordinary piece of string on a table, he’d illustrate how you could easily pull it in any direction. “Try and push it, though,” he cautioned, “and it won’t go anywhere. It’s just that way when it comes to leading people.”
Now I don’t want you to consider me as just your commanding officer. I want you to look on me like I was ...well...God.
— Bull, in The Great Santini, screenplay by Lewis John Carlino
