Leadership Quotes - Page 79

After watching the State of the Union address the other night [1994], I'm reminded of the old adage that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Only in this case, it's not flattery, but grand larceny: the intellectual theft of ideas that you and I recognize as our own. Speech delivery counts for little on the world stage unless you have convictions, and, yes, the vision to see beyond the front row seats.

To grasp and hold a vision, that is the very essence of successful leadership-not only on the movie set where I learned it, but everywhere.

With gridlock the norm, Congress's approval rating is below 10 percent and the public has lost faith in its national leadership.

One longs for the presence of a leader like Lincoln, who openly admitted his doubts and as openly preserved his commitment.

When I was in the batter's box, I felt sorry for the pitcher.

the moment you stop learning, you stop leading.

A general never shows despair. He instills confidence in his troops. He leads them forward, even into the mouth of death.

You shouldn’t blindly accept a leader’s advice. You’ve got to question leaders on occasion.

What matters is working with a few close friends, people you respect, knowing that if times did turn bad these people would hold together.

They stood there, King of the Hill, Top of the Heap, Ruler of All They Surveyed, Unimpeachable Monarchs and Presidents, trying to understand what it meant to own a world and how big a world really was.

Where is he who seeing a thousand men useless and unhappy, and making the whole region forlorn by their inaction, and conscious himself of possessing the faculty they want, does not hear his call to go and be their king?

If the king is in the palace, nobody looks at the walls. It is when he is gone, and the house is filled with grooms and gazers, that we turn from the people, to find relief in the majestic men that are suggested by the pictures and the architecture.

I don't think we expect enough of students. They just need someone to show them the way.

To force a lawyer on a defendant can only lead him to believe that the law contrives against him.

But 85 percent of the mosques have extremist leadership in this country. Most Muslims, the overwhelming majority of Muslims, are loyal Americans.

But the people of the disaster area fundamentally needed to understand that the rest of Australia had noticed their misery and their stoicism and their intense sense of community and determination to arise from the sodden wreckage of their homes, and that Australians would dig deep to help. I helped to describe the community ethos which quickly triumphed over incipient despair. It is this mobilisation of the unifying spirit that thrills us all, even as we mourn.

There's a very big gulf between the black civil rights leadership in America and the black middle class in America. The black middle class are conservative. Many of those minorities can be persuaded to be members of the Republican Party.

In this nation, leadership is dollars.

Be a life long student, read as many books as possible.

The message of the free world to any potential Palestinian leadership should be a simple one: Embrace democratic reform and we will embrace you.

Leaders have to be dealers in hope.

The inevitable end of multiple chiefs is that they fade and disappear for lack of unity.

Leadership is inherent in our nature and is fundamental to our origins, our human makeup -and our destiny.

You have to choose to manifest your leadership nature.

Most of us are not leaders today because, in our hearts we don't believe that is who we are.