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Quotes about leadership

138 quotes from 99 people

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No one would have doubted his ability to reign had he never been emperor.
Tacitus55–120
Reason and judgment are the qualities of a leader.
Tacitus55–120
Don’t tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and let them surprise you with their results.
George S. Patton1885–1945War As I Knew It (1947) “Reflections and Suggestions”
If you can’t get them to salute when they should salute and wear the clothes you tell them to wear, how are you going to get them to die for their country?
George S. Patton1885–1945
Every great decision creates ripples⁠—like a huge boulder dropped in a lake. The ripples merge, rebound off the banks in unforseeable ways. The heavier the decision, the larger the waves, the more uncertain the consequences.
Benjamin Disraeli1804–1881
- Decisions
A leader is a man who can adapt principles to circumstances.
George S. Patton1885–1945
It is always thus, impelled by a state of mind which is destined not to last, that we make our irrevocable decisions.
Marcel Proust1871–1922Remembrance of Things Past (1913-1927), Vol II: Within a Budding Grove (1919), Ch. I: “Madame Swann at Home”
- Decisions
More glorious to merit a sceptre than to possess one.
Napoleon1769–1821Memoirs of Napoleon (1829-1831)
- Power
Example is always more efficacious than precept.
Samuel Johnson1709–1784The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia (1759), Ch. XXX
- Education
There is a great man who makes every man feel small. But the real great man is the man who makes every man feel great.
G. K. Chesterton1874–1936Charles Dickens (1906)
- Character
Leadership is the art of accomplishing more than the science of management says is possible.
Colin Powell1937–2021The Powell Principles (2003)
Management of many is the same as management of few. It is a matter of organization.
Sun Tzu544–496 BCThe Art of War, Chapter V · Forces, Paragraph 1
- Business
A leader is one who, out of madness or goodness, volunteers to take upon himself the woe of the people. There are few men so foolish, hence the erratic quality of leadership in the world.
John Updike1932–2009“They Thought They Were Better” in TIME magazine (21 July 1980)
They say princes learn no art truly, but the art of horsemanship. The reason is, the brave beast is no flatterer. He will throw a prince as soon as his groom.
Ben Jonson1572–1637Timber: or Discoveries
There is no mistake; there has been no mistake; and there shall be no mistake.
Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington1769–1852Reply to William Huskisson, who said his letter offering to resign had been a mistake
- Decisions