Great necessities call forth great leaders.
~ Abigail Adams
If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.
~ John Quincy Adams
The leadership instinct you are born with is the backbone. You develop the funny bone and the wishbone that go with it.
~ Elaine Agather
Cautious, careful people, always casting about to preserve their reputation and social standing, never can bring about a reform. Those who are really in earnest must be willing to be anything or nothing in the world’s estimation, and publicly and privately, in season and out, avow their sympathy with despised and persecuted ideas and their advocates, and bear the consequences.
~ Susan B. Anthony
We still think of a powerful man as a born leader and a powerful woman as an anomaly.
~ Margaret Atwood
I would rather regret the things I have done than the things I have not.
~ Lucille Ball
When trouble arises and things look bad, there is always one individual who perceives a solution and is willing to take command. Very often, that person is crazy.
~ Dave Barry
At the heart of America is a vacuum into which self-appointed saviors have rushed. They pretend to be leaders, and we–half out of envy, half out of longing–pretend to think of them as leaders.
~ Warren Bennis
Good leaders make people feel that they’re at the very heart of things, not at the periphery. Everyone feels that he or she makes a difference to the success of the organization. When that happens people feel centered and that gives their work meaning.
~ Warren G. Bennis
Managers are people who do things right, while leaders are people who do the right thing.
~ Warren Bennis, in On Becoming A Leader
The art of leadership is saying no, not yes. It is very easy to say yes.
~ Tony Blair
The task of leadership is not to put greatness into people, but to elicit it, for the greatness is there already.
~ John Buchan
A leader has to appear consistent. That doesn’t mean he has to be consistent.
~ James Callahan, English Prime Minister, in Harvard Business Review, November/December 1986
A leader takes people where they want to go. A great leader takes people where they don’t necessarily want to go, but ought to be.
~ Rosalyn Carter
Effective leadership is putting first things first. Effective management is discipline, carrying it out.
~ Stephen Covey
Management is efficiency in climbing the ladder of success; leadership determines whether the ladder is leaning against the right wall.
~ Stephen R. Covey
A true leader always keeps an element of surprise up his sleeve, which others cannot grasp but which keeps his public excited and breathless.
~ Charles de Gaulle
Nothing great will ever be achieved without great men, and men are great only if they are determined to be so.
~ Charles de Gaulle
The first responsibility of a leader is to define reality. The last is to say thank you. In between the two, the leader must become a servant and a debtor. That sums up the progress of an artful leader.
~ Max DePree, in Leadership Is An Art
Never try to teach a pig to sing: it wastes your time and it annoys the pig.
~ Paul Dickson
I must follow the people. Am I not their leader?
~ Benjamin Disraeli
The leaders who work most effectively, it seems to me, never say “I.” And that’s not because they have trained themselves not to say “I.” They don’t think “I.” They think “we”; they think “team.” They understand their job to be to make the team function. They accept responsibility and don’t sidestep it, but “we” gets the credit. This is what creates trust, what enables you to get the task done.
~ Peter Drucker
Leadership is not magnetic personality, that can just as well be a glib tongue. It is not “making friends and influencing people”, that is flattery. Leadership is lifting a person’s vision to higher sights, the raising of a person’s performance to a higher standard, the building of a personality beyond its normal limitations.
~ Peter F. Drucker
Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things.
~ Peter F. Drucker
A fish always rots from the head down.
~ Michael Dukakis
Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it.
~ Dwight Eisenhower
You do not lead by hitting people over the head – that’s assault, not leadership.
~ Dwight D. Eisenhower
A sense of humor is part of the art of leadership, of getting along with people, of getting things done.
~ Dwight D. Eisenhower
Our chief want is someone who will inspire us to be what we know we could be.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
Quem metuunt oderunt, quem quisque odit periise expetit. [Whom men fear, they hate; whom a man hates he wishes dead.
~ Quintus Ennius, in Ex fabulis incertis
The growth and development of people is the highest calling of leadership.
~ Harvey S. Firestone
Who has not served cannot command.
~ John Florio
Today a reader–tomorrow a leader.
~ W. Fusselman
All of the great leaders have had one characteristic in common: it was the willingness to confront unequivocally the major anxiety of their people in their time. This, and not much else, is the essence of leadership.
~ John Kenneth Galbraith, in The Age of Uncertainty
Leaders come in many forms, with many styles and diverse qualities. There are quiet leaders and leaders one can hear in the next county. Some find strength in eloquence, some in judgment, some in courage.
~ John W. Gardner
As we look ahead into the next century, leaders will be those who empower others.
~ Bill Gates
A leader’s role is to raise people’s aspirations for what they can become and to release their energies so they will try to get there.
~ David Gergen
There are many qualities that make a great leader. But having strong beliefs, being able to stick with them through popular and unpopular times, is the most important characteristic of a great leader.
~ Rudy Giuliani
Look over your shoulder now and then to be sure someone’s following you.
~ Henry Gilmer
Treat a man as he is and he will remain as he is. Treat a man as he can be and should be, and he will become as he can and should be.
~ Johanne Wolfgang von Goethe
The only test of leadership is that somebody follows.
~ Robert K. Greenleaf
There is something that is much more scarce, something rarer than ability. It is the ability to recognize ability.
~ Robert Half
The very essence of leadership is that you have to have vision. You can’t blow an uncertain trumpet.
~ Theodore M. Hesburgh
Just as every conviction begins as a whim so does every emancipator serve his apprenticeship as a crank. A fanatic is a great leader who is just entering the room.
~ Matthew Heywood
Strong lives are motivated by dynamic purposes.
~ Kenneth Hildebrand
Control is not leadership; management is not leadership; leadership is leadership. If you seek to lead, invest at least 50% of your time in leading yourself—your own purpose, ethics, principles, motivation, conduct. Invest at least 20% leading those with authority over you and 15% leading your peers.
~ Dee Hock
The leader has to be practical and a realist, yet must talk the language of the visionary and the idealist.
~ Eric Hoffer
If it’s a good idea, go ahead and do it. It is much easier to apologize than it is to get permission.
~ Admiral Grace Hopper
He who influences the thought of his times influences the times that follow.
~ Elbert Hubbard
Motivation is everything. You can do the work of two people, but you can’t be two people. Instead, you have to inspire the next guy down the line and get him to inspire his people.
~ Lee Iacocca
If the blind lead the blind, both shall fall in the ditch.
~ Jesus Christ
The task of the leader is to get his people from where they are to where they have not been.
~ Henry Kissinger
Leadership is getting someone to do what they don’t want to do, to achieve what they want to achieve.
~ Tom Landry
The ability to summon positive emotions during periods of intense stress lies at the heart of effective leadership.
~ Jim Loehr
To lead people, walk beside them … As for the best leaders, the people do not notice their existence. The next best, the people honor and praise. The next, the people fear; and the next, the people hate … When the best leader’s work is done the people say, “We did it ourselves!”
~ Lao Tzu
Be gentle and you can be bold; be frugal and you can be liberal; avoid putting yourself before others and you can become a leader among men.
~ Lao Tzu
To lead the people, walk behind them.
~ Lao Tzu
Leaders don’t force people to follow—they invite them on a journey.
~ Charles S. Lauer
A desk is a dangerous place from which to view the world.
~ John Le Care’
There go my people. I must find out where they are going so that I can lead them.
~ Alexandre Ledru-Rollin
There is no such thing as a perfect leader either in the past or present, in China or elsewhere. If there is one, he is only pretending, like a pig inserting scallions into its nose in an effort to look like an elephant.
~ Liu Shao-chi
No man is good enough to govern another man without that other’s consent.
~ Abraham Lincoln
The final test of a leader is that he leaves behind him in other men the conviction and the will to carry on.
~ Walter Lippmann
Leadership rests not only upon ability, not only upon capacity; having the capacity to lead is not enough. The leader must be willing to use it. His leadership is then based on truth and character. There must be truth in the purpose and willpower in the character.
~ Vince Lombardi
The leader can never close the gap between himself and the group. If he does, he is no longer what he must be. He must walk a tightrope between the consent he must win and the control he must exert.
~ Vince Lombardi
In this world a man must either be an anvil or hammer.
~ Henry W. Longfellow
You don’t have to be brilliant to be a good leader. But you do have to understand other people – how they feel, what makes them tick, and the best way to influence them. There are a lot of brilliant people in this world who are, and will remain, ineffective leaders. Why? Because they are so interested in themselves and their own accomplishments that they never get around to appreciating and understanding the feelings of the other people who are sharing this world with them. Sometimes, usually later in life, these talented, egocentric individuals suffer painful hardships. They understand, often for the first time, the kind of problems less talented or less fortunate people have suffered all their lives. They suddenly discover a new and important dimension: sensitivity to the feelings, emotions, and experiences of other people. Effective leaders don’t wait for life to bring them to their knees before they appreciate the kind of problems others are facing. Instead they constantly try to put themselves in others’ shoes – try to imagine how they would feel in the same circumstances. They are constantly aware of what makes others tick, and try to be helpful at the same time they ask others to help them.
~ John Luther
There comes a moment when you have to stop revving up the car and shove it into gear.
~ David Mahoney
The ultimate leader is one who is willing to develop people to the point that they surpass him or her in knowledge and ability.
~ Fred A. Manske, Jr.
Only one man in a thousand is a leader of men — the other 999 follow women.
~ Groucho Marx
Command doth make actors of us all.
~ John Masters, in The Road Past Mandalay
The pessimist complains about the wind. The optimist expects it to change. The leader adjusts the sails.
~ John Maxwell
People buy into the leader before they buy into the vision.
~ John Maxwell
A good leader is a person who takes a little more than his share of the blame and a little less than his share of the credit.
~ John Maxwell
All Leadership is influence.
~ John C. Maxwell
The single biggest way to impact an organization is to focus on leadership development. There is almost no limit to the potential of an organization that recruits good people, raises them up as leaders and continually develops them.
~ John C Maxwell, in The 17 Irrefutable Laws of Teamwork
Do not follow where the path may lead.
Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.
~ Harold R. McAlindon
Great leaders instill a surging sense of purpose, articulate a clear vision, engage talent, purposefully plan, diligently execute and abundantly communicate. At its essence, leadersip is about optimizing people and their potential to advance a cause.
~ Kelly McDermott
The typical American of today has lost all the love of liberty, that his forefathers had, and all their disgust of emotion, and pride in self- reliance. He is led no longer by Davy Crocketts; he is led by cheer leaders, press agents, word mongers, uplifters.
~ H.L. Mencken
Leadership, like swimming, cannot be learned by reading about it.
~ Henry Mintzberg, in The Nature of Managerial Work
No prophet has been raised up who has not performed the work of a shepherd.
~ Mohammed
My own definition of leadership is this: The capacity and the will to rally men and women to a common purpose and the character which inspires confidence.
~ General Montgomery
A leader is a man who makes decisions. Sometimes they turn out right and sometimes then turn out wrong; but either way, he makes them.
~ Mutual Benefit Life Insurance Co., in Leaders are Made . . . Not Born, Leadership in the Office
I start with the premise that the function of leadership is to produce more leaders, not more followers
~ Ralph Nader
A leader is a dealer in hope.
~ Napoleon Bonaparte
The good teacher … discovers the natural gifts of his pupils and liberates them by the stimulating influence of the inspiration that he can impart. The true leader makes his followers twice the men they were before.
~ Stephen Neill
To do great things is difficult; but to command great things is more difficult.
~ Friedrich Nietzsche
High sentiments always win in the end, The leaders who offer blood, toil, tears and sweat always get more out of their followers than those who offer safety and a good time. When it comes to the pinch, human beings are heroic.
~ George Orwell
Don’t tell people how to do things, tell them what to do and let them surprise you with their results.
~ General George S. Patton
Be willing to make decisions. That’s the most important quality in a good leader.
~ General George S. Patton Jr.
Leadership skills can be developed, but the right to lead is earned.
~ Earl Peck
People cannot be managed. Inventories can be managed, but people must be led.
~ H. Ross Perot
Eagles don’t flock.
~ Ross Perot
A good general not only sees the way to victory; he also knows when victory is impossible.
~ Polybius
Great leaders are almost always great simplifiers, who can cut through argument, debate, and doubt to offer a solution everybody can understand.
~ General Colin Powell
The day soldiers stop bringing you their problems is the day you have stopped leading them. They have either lost confidence that you can help them or concluded that you do not care. Either case is a failure of leadership.
~ Colin Powell
The view only changes for the lead dog.
~ Sergeant Preston of the Yukon
Where there is no vision, the people perish.
~ Proverbs 29:18
An army of a thousand is easy to find, but, ah, how difficult to find a general.
~ Chinese proverb
Rough waters are truer tests of leadership. In calm water every ship has a good captain.
~ Swedish proverb
The leader must know, must know that he knows, and must be able to make it abundantly clear to those around him that he knows.
~ Clarence Randall
Surround yourself with the best people you can find, delegate authority, and don’t interfere as long as the policy you’ve decided upon is being carried out.
~ Ronald Reagan
Good ideas are not adopted automatically. They must be driven into practice with courageous patience.
~ Admiral Hyman Rickover
The challenge of leadership is to be strong, but not rude; be kind, but not weak; be bold, but not bully; be thoughtful, but not lazy; be humble, but not timid; be proud, but not arrogant; have humor, but without folly.
~ Jim Rohn
A good objective of leadership is to help those who are doing poorly to do well and to help those who are doing well do even better.
~ Jim Rohn
It is a terrible thing to look over your shoulder when you are trying to lead — and find on one there.
~ Franklin Delano Roosevelt
Speak Softly and carry a big stick; you will go far.
~ Theodore Roosevelt
The best executive is the one who has sense enough to pick good men to do what he wants done, and self-restraint to keep from meddling with them while they do it.
~ Theodore Roosevelt
If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up people together to collect wood and don’t assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.
~ Antoine de Saint-Exupery
I have yet to find a man, however exalted his station, who did not do better work and put forth greater effort under a spirit of approval than under a spirit of criticism.
~ Charles Schwab
Leadership is a combination of strategy and character. If you must be without one, be without the strategy.
~ Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf
Example is not the main thing in influencing others; it is the only thing.
~ Albert Schweitzer
Leadership is not so much about technique and methods as it is about opening the heart. Leadership is about inspiration—of oneself and of others. Great leadership is about human experiences, not processes. Leadership is not a formula or a program, it is a human activity that comes from the heart and considers the hearts of others. It is an attitude, not a routine.
~ Lance Secretan, in Industry Week, 10/12/98
It is impossible to imagine anything which better becomes a ruler than mercy.
~ Seneca
What you cannot enforce
Do not command.
~ Sophocles
Ill can he rule the great that cannot reach the small.
~ Edmund Spenser
An ill life will effectually drown the voice of the most eloquent ministry.
~ Charles Spurgeon
The key to being a good manager is keeping the people who hate me away from those who are still undecided.
~ Casey Stengel
Keep your fears to yourself, but share your inspiration with others.
~ Robert Louis Stevenson
The greater a man is in power above others, the more he ought to excel them in virtue. None ought to govern who is not better than the governed.
~ Publius Syrus
I am more afraid of an army of 100 sheep led by a lion than an army of 100 lions led by a sheep.
~ Charles Maurice de Talleyrand
Being powerful is like being a lady. If you have to tell people you are, you aren’t.
~ Margaret Thatcher
The man who goes alone can start today, but he who travels with another must wait till that other is ready.
~ Henry David Thoreau
The bravest are surely those who have the clearest vision of what is before them, glory and danger alike, and yet notwithstanding, go out and meet it.
~ Thucydides
Become the kind of person that people would follow voluntarily, even if you had no title or position.
~ Brian Tracy
How far would Moses have gone if he had taken a poll in Egypt?
~ Harry S. Truman
Lead, follow, or get out of the way.
~ Plaque on Ted Turner’s desk
There is nothing so annoying as a good example!!
~ Mark Twain
Communicate everything to your associates. The more they know, the more they care. Once they care, there is no stopping them.
~ Sam Walton
Be easy and condescending in your deportment to your officers, but not too familiar, lest you subject yourself to a want of respect, which is necessary to support a proper command.
~ George Washington, in a letter to Colonel William Woodford, November 10, 1775
Nothing so conclusively proves a man’s ability to lead others as what he does from day to day to lead himself.
~ Thomas J. Watson Sr.
One word of command from me is obeyed by millions but I cannot get my three daughters, Pamela, Felicity, and Joan, to come down to breakfast on time.
~ Field Marshal Archibald Wavell, Viceroy of India
Before you are a leader, success is all about growing yourself. When you become a leader, success is all about growing others.
~ Jack Welch
A pat on the back is only a few vertebrae removed from a kick in the pants, but is miles ahead in results.
~ W. Wilcox
Those who try to lead the people can only do so by following the mob.
~ Oscar Wilde
The ear of the leader must ring with the voices of the people.
~ Woodrow Wilson
__________
Mary’s Lamb
by Sarah Josepha Hale
Mary had a little lamb,
Its fleece was white as snow,
And every where that Mary went
The lamb was sure to go;
He followed her to school one day —
That was against the rule,
It made the children laugh and play
To see a lamb at school.
And so the Teacher turned him out,
But still he lingered near,
And waited patiently about,
Till Mary did appear.
And then he ran to her and laid
His head upon her arm,
As if he said — “I’m not afraid —
You’ll shield me from all harm.”
“What makes the lamb love Mary so,”
The little children cry;
“O, Mary loves the lamb you know,
The Teacher did reply,
“And you each gentle animal
In confidence may bind,
And make them follow at your call,
If you are always kind.”
__________
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“What shall I do with my books?” was the question; and the answer “Read them” sobered the questioner. “But if you cannot read them, at any rate handle them and, as it were, fondle them. Peer into them. Let them fall open where they will. Read on from the very first sentence that arrests the eye. Then turn to another. Make a voyage of discovery, taking soundings of uncharted seas. . . . Arrange them on your own plan, so that if you do not know what is in them, you at least know where they are. If they cannot be your friends, let them at any rate be your acquaintances. If they cannot enter the circle of your life, do not deny them at least a nod of recognition.”
A baboon in a forest is a matter of legitimate speculation; a baboon in a zoo is an object of public curiosity; but a baboon in your wife’s bed is a cause of the gravest concern.
~ in regard to the growing German threat
Battles are won by slaughter and manoeuvre. The greater the general, the more he contributes in manoeuvre, the less he demands in slaughter.
~ Winston Churchill, The World Crisis, vol. 2
I would make them all learn English: and then I would let the clever ones learn Latin as an honor, and Greek as a treat.
~ in Roving Commission: My Early Life
Never believe any war will be smooth and easy or that anyone who embarks on that strange voyage can measure the tides and hurricanes he will encounter. The statesman who yields to war fever must realize that once the signal is given, he is no longer the master of policy but the slave of unforeseeable and uncontrollable events… incompetent or arrogant commanders, untrustworthy allies, hostile neutrals, malignant fortune, ugly surprise, awful miscalculations. … Always remember, however sure you are that you could easily win, that there would not be a war if the other man did not think he also had a chance.
~ as quoted in This Time It’s Our War by Leonard Fein
I think a curse should rest on me — because I love this war. I know it’s smashing and shattering the lives of thousands every moment — and yet — I can’t help it — I enjoy every second of it.
~ in a letter to a friend, 1916
It is a good thing for an uneducated man to read books of quotations. Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations is an admirable work, and I studied it intently. The quotations when engraved upon the memory give you good thoughts. They also make you anxious to read the authors and look for more.
~ in Roving Commission: My Early Life, chapter 9
I now began for the first time to envy those young cubs at the university who had fine scholars to tell them what was what; professors who had devoted their lives to mastering and focusing ideas in every branch of learning; who were eager to distribute the treasures they had gathered before they were overtaken by the night. But now I pity undergraduates, when I see what frivolous lives many of them lead in the midst of precious fleeting opportunity. After all, a man’s Life must be nailed to a cross either of Thought or Action. Without work there is no play.
~ in Roving Commission: My Early Life
It is better to be making the news than taking it; to be an actor rather than a critic.
~ in The Story of the Malakand Field Force
How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. The effects are apparent in many countries. Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live. A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property, either as a child, a wife, or a concubine, must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men. Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities — but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science, the science against which it had vainly struggled, the civilisation of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilisation of ancient Rome.
~ in The River War, volume II pp. 248–50
The late M. Venizelos observed that in all her wars England—he should have said Britain, of course—always wins one battle – - the last.
~ Winston Churchill, in a speech at the Lord Mayor’s Luncheon in London, on November 10, 1942
What is the use of living, if it be not to strive for noble causes and to make this muddled world a better place for those who will live in it after we are gone? How else can we put ourselves in harmonious relation with the great verities and consolations of the infinite and the eternal? And I avow my faith that we are marching towards better days. Humanity will not be cast down. We are going on swinging bravely forward along the grand high road and already behind the distant mountains is the promise of the sun.
~ in a speech in Dundee, Scotland, 10 October 1908
The truth is incontrovertible. Panic may resent it, ignorance may deride it, malice may distort it, but there it is.
~ in a speech in the House of Commons, May 17, 1916
One may dislike Hitler’s system and yet admire his patriotic achievement. If our country were defeated, I hope we should find a champion as indomitable to restore our courage and lead us back to our place among the nations.
~ in “Hitler and His Choice”, The Strand Magazine, November 1935
Britain and France had to choose between war and dishonour. They chose dishonour. They will have war.
~ to Neville Chamberlain in the House of Commons, after the Munich accords, 1938
I cannot forecast to you the action of Russia. It is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma: but perhaps there is a key. That key is Russian national interest.
~ in a speech broadcast on October 1, 1939
I would say to the House, as I said to those who have joined this Government: ‘I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears, and sweat.’ We have before us an ordeal of the most grievous kind. We have before us many, many long months of struggle and suffering. You ask, what is our policy? I can say: It is to wage war, by sea, land and air, with all our might and with all the strength that God can give us: to wage war against a monstrous tyranny, never surpassed in the dark, lamentable catalogue of human crime. That is our policy. You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word: It is victory, victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory, however long and hard the road may be; for without victory, there is no survival.
~in a speech in the House of Commons, after taking office as Prime Minister, May 13, 1940
Nothing is more exhilarating than to be shot at without result.
~ Winston Churchill, in The Malakand Field Force
The Navy can lose us the war, but only the Air Force can win it.
~ Winston Churchill, to the War Cabinet, September 3, 1940
We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender, and even if, which I do not for a moment believe, this Island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, would carry on the struggle, until, in God’s good time, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the Old.
~ in a speech in the House of Commons, June 4,1940
We shall show mercy, but we shall not ask for it.
~ in a speech in the House of Commons, July 14, 1940
Upon this battle depends the survival of Christian civilisation. Upon it depends our own British life and the long continuity of our institutions and our Empire. The whole fury and might of the enemy must very soon be turned on us now. Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this island or lose the war. If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be free and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands. But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age, made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science. Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that, if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, ‘This was their finest hour.’
~ in a speech in the House of Commons, June 18, 1940
The gratitude of every home in our Island, in our Empire, and indeed throughout the world, except in the abodes of the guilty, goes out to the British airmen who, undaunted by odds, unwearied in their constant challenge and mortal danger, are turning the tide of the World War by their prowess and by their devotion. Never in the field of human conflict have so many owed so much to so few. All hearts go out to the fighter pilots, whose brilliant actions we see with our own eyes day after day; but we must never forget that all the time, night after night, month after month, our bomber squadrons travel far into Germany, find their targets in the darkness by the highest navigational skill, aim their attacks, often under the heaviest fire, often with serious loss, with deliberate careful discrimination, and inflict shattering blows upon the whole of the technical and war-making structure of the Nazi power.
~ in a speech in the House of Commons complimenting the pilots in the Royal Air Force during the Battle of Britain, August 20, 1940
If Hitler invaded Hell, I would make at least a favourable reference to the devil in the House of Commons.
~ in a speech after the German invasion of the Soviet Union, June 1941
Never give in — never, never, never, never, in nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.
~ in a speech given at Harrow School, October 29, 1941
Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.
~ in a speech given after the British victory over the German Afrika Korps at the Second Battle of El Alamein in Egypt, November 10, 1942
I hate nobody except Hitler — and that is professional.
~ to John Colville during WWII, quoted by Colville in his book The Churchillians
From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic an iron curtain has descended across the Continent.
~ in a speech at Fulton, Missouri, March 5, 1946, regarding Soviet communism and the Cold War
Many forms of Government have been tried and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.
~ in a speech before the House of Commons, November 11, 1947
No American will think it wrong of me if I proclaim that to have the United States at our side was to me the greatest joy. I could not fortell the course of events. I do not pretend to have measured accurately the martial might of Japan, but now at this very moment I knew the United States was in the war, up to the neck and in to the death. So we had won after all! … Hitler’s fate was sealed. Mussolini’s fate was sealed. As for the Japanese, they would be ground to powder.
~ in The Second World War, Volume III : The Grand Alliance, chapter 12
He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire.
~ referring to Sir Stafford Cripps
There’s less to him than meets the eye.
~ referring to Clement Attlee
History will be kind to me, for I intend to write it.
I have always felt that a politician is to be judged by the animosities he excites among his opponents.
I like a man who grins when he fights.
If you are going through hell, keep going.
We shape our buildings. Thereafter, they shape us.
You can always count on the U.S. to do the right thing–once it has exhausted the alternatives.
Success is never final; failure is never fatal.
We shall draw from the heart of suffering itself the means of inspiration and survival.
Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing happened.
The inherent vice of Capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent vice of Socialism is the equal sharing of miseries.
A fanatic is one who can’t change his mind and won’t change the subject.
Plans are of little importance, but planning is essential
I like pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us. Pigs treat us as equals.
In time of war, when truth is so precious, it must be attended by a bodyguard of lies.
In war it does not matter who is right, but who is left.
Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm.
The biggest argument against democracy is a five minute discussion with the average voter.
The further back I look, the further forward I can see.
The nose of the bulldog is slanted backwards so he can continue to breathe without letting go.
There are a terrible lot of lies going around the world, and the worst of it is half of them are true.
This paper by its very length defends itself against the risk of being read.
War is mainly a catalogue of blunders.
We didn’t come this far because we are made of sugar candy.
When I am abroad, I always make it a rule never to criticise or attack the government of my own country. I make up for lost time when I come home.
When you have to kill a man it costs nothing to be polite.
It’s not enough that we do our best; sometimes we have to do what’s required.
A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.
We make a living by what we get. We make a life by what we give.
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Get all the fools on your side and you can be elected to anything.
~ Frank Dane
I have come to the conclusion that politics are too serious a matter to be left to the politicians.
~ Charles De Gaulle
He brings disaster upon is nation who never sows a seed, or lays a brick, or weaves a garment, but makes politics his occupation.
~ Kahlil Gibran
Sooner or later politics will be faced with the task of finding a new postmodern face. A politician must become a person again, someone who trusts not only scientific representation and analysis of the world, but also the world itself. He must believe not only in sociological statistics but also in real people. He must trust not only an objective interpretation of reality, but also his own soul; no only an adopted ideology, but also his own thoughts; not only the summary reports he receives each morning, but also his own feelings.
~ Vaclav Havel, in a speech at the World Economic Forum in 1995
Let us never sacrifice our principles for anybody’s politics – not now, not ever.
~ Mike Huckabee
If you truly wished to find out what is best for the country you would listen more to those who oppose you than those who try to please you.
~ Isocrates
The ballot is stronger than the bullet.
~ Abraham Lincoln
We learned once and for all that compromise makes a good umbrella but a por roof; that it is a temporary expedient, often wise in party politics, almost sure to be unwise in statesmanship.
~ James Russell Lowell
Being in politics is like being a football coach; you have to be smart enought to understand the game, and dumb enough to think it’s important.
~ Eugene McCarthy
A good politician is quite as unthinkable as an honest burglar.
~ H. L. Mencken
All politics is local.
~ Tip O’Neill
In politics, if you want anything said, ask a man; if you want anything done, ask a woman.
~ Margaret Thatcher
After two years in Washington, I often long for the realism and sincerity of Hollywood.
~ Fred Thompson
Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of congress. But I repeat myself.
~ Mark Twain
There is a tragic flaw in our precious Constitution, and I don’t know what can be done to fix it. This is it: Only nut cases want to be president.
~ Kurt Vonnegut
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The Manhattan Declaration has made quite a stir. If you have not yet read it you can do so at this link.
The statement is a direct response to the anti-Christian policies coming from the current administration and those jokers on Capitol Hill. A movement such as this was inevitable, but I was presently surprised by (1) it coming early enough to be effective, and (2) by the Christian diversity that is reflected among the signers.
One of the paradoxes of Christianity is that we bear responsibility to work to influence our government positively, but we need not succumb to anxiety when we are not successful in our attempts. For, when our government deteriorates and becomes more hostile to the Christian worldview, when it becomes more corrupt and intrusive, legitimate Christian faith and practice tends to be strengthened, more pure and more active.
While it is certainly not their intent, I think that those holding civil power at the moment may be doing more to catalyze Christian co-belligerency than those who have in some sense tried to rule consistently with a Christian worldview.
God is good all the time, all the time God is good.
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If the power to do hard work is not a skill, it’s the best possible substitute for it.
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If two men agree on everything, you may be sure that one of them is doing the thinking.
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Let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education of minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.
~ George Washington
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Any fellow who will cheat for you will cheat against you.
~ Sam Rayburn
When two men agree on everything, one of them is doing all the thinking.
~ Sam Rayburn
Damn the man who is always looking for credit. If a man does his job, and does it well, he will get more credit than he is really entitled to.
~ Sam Rayburn
Legislation should never be designed to punish anyone.
~ Sam Rayburn
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What a man knows at 50 that he did not know at 20 is, for the most part incommunicable. The knowledge he has acquired with age is not the knowledge of formulas, or forms of words, but of people, places, actions—a knowledge gained not by words but by touch, sight, sound, victories, failures, sleeplessness, devotion, love—the human experiences and emotions of this earth and of oneself and other men; and perhaps, too, a little faith, a little reverence for things one cannot see.
~ Adlai Stevenson
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There is such a Connection between Licentiousness and Liberty, that it is not easy to correct the one, without dangerously wounding the other.
~ Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield
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