Achieve Your Full Potential: 1800 Inspirational Quotes That Will Change Your Life (13 page)

"The most dangerous leadership myth is that leaders are born-that there is a genetic factor to leadership. This myth asserts that people simply either have certain charismatic qualities or not. That's nonsense; in fact, the opposite is true. Leaders are made rather than born."
Warren G. Bennis

"The key to successful leadership today is influence, not authority."
Kenneth Blanchard

"No man will make a great leader who wants to do it all himself, or to get all the credit for doing it."
Andrew Carnegie

"In handling men, there are three feelings that a man must not possess - fear, dislike and contempt. If he is afraid of men he cannot handle them. Neither can he influence them in his favor if he dislikes or scorns them. He must neither cringe nor sneer. He must have both self-respect and respect for others."
Herbert N. Casson

"There are three essentials to leadership: humility, clarity and courage."
Chan Master Fuchan Yuan

"I am certainly not one of those who need to be prodded. In fact, if anything, I am the prod."
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill

"The nation will find it very hard to look up to the leaders who are keeping their ears to the ground."
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill

"There is no worse mistake in public leadership than to hold out false hope soon to be swept away."
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill

"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 high sights, the raising of a person's performance to a higher standard, the building of a personality beyond its normal limitations."
Peter F. Drucker

"The first responsibility of a leader is to define reality. The last is to say thank you. In between, the leader is a servant."
Max DuPree

"Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it."
General Dwight David Eisenhower

"You do not lead by hitting people over the head, that's assault, not leadership."
General David Dwight Eisenhower

"Big jobs usually go to the men who prove their ability to outgrow small ones."
Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail."
Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Trust men and they will be true to you; treat them greatly, and they will show themselves great."
Ralph Waldo Emerson

"The common characteristics of people make a community possible, but it is their uncommon qualities that make it better."
John H. Fischer

"Leadership cannot really be taught. It can only be learned."
Harold S. Green

"The human mind is as driven to understand as the body is driven to survive."
Hugh Gilmore

"A salesman, like the storage battery in your car, is constantly discharging energy. Unless he is recharged at frequent intervals he soon runs dry. This is one of the greatest responsibilities of sales leadership."
R. H. Grant

"What is a committee? A group of the unwilling, picked from the unfit, to do the unnecessary."
Richard Harkness

"The very essence of leadership is that you have to have a vision. It's got to be a vision you articulate clearly and forcefully on every occasion. You can't blow an uncertain trumpet."
Reverend Theodore M. Hesburgh

"The leader has to be practical and a realist, yet must talk the language of the visionary and the idealist."
Eric Hoffer

"Respect a man, he will do the more."
James Howell

"Leadership has a harder job to do than just choose sides. It must bring sides together."
Jesse Jackson

"The only real training for leadership is leadership."
Anthony Jay

"No two men can be half an hour together, but one shall acquire an evident superiority over the other."
Dr. Samuel Johnson

"You can send a message around the world in one-fifth of a second, yet it may take years for it to get from the outside of a man's head to the inside."
Charles Franklin Kettering

"Lift, Lead and Love."

Spencer W. Kimball

"A leader is best
When
people barely know he exists.
Not so good
When people obey and acclaim him.
Worse when they despise him.
But of a good leader
Who talks little
When his work is done,
His aim fulfilled, They will say "We did it ourselves."
Lao Tse

"Rule a kingdom as though you were cooking a small fish,
don't
overdo it."
Lao Tse

"There are no dumb questions, only dumb answers."
Marshall Loeb

"A man who wants to lead the orchestra must turn his back on the crowd."
Max Lucado

"To command is to serve, nothing more and nothing less."
Andre Malraux

"Leadership is influence."
John C. Maxwell

"Leadership is an action, not a position."
Donald H. McGannon

"A leader is a dealer in hope."
Napolean I

"Confidence is contagious. So is lack of confidence."
Michael O'Brien

"The spirited horse, which will try to win the race of its own accord, will run ever faster if encouraged."
Publius Ovidius Naso Ovid

"Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity."
General George Smith Patton, Jr.

"One measure of leadership is the caliber of people who choose to follow you."
Dennis A. Peer

"No man is fit to command another that cannot command himself."
William Penn

"The same ambition can destroy or save,
And makes a patriot as it makes a knave."
Alexander Pope

"Leadership is the ability of a single individual through his or her actions to motivate others to higher levels of achievement."
F. G. Buck Rodgers

"People ask the difference between a leader and a boss. The leader leads, and the boss drives."
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 enough to keep from meddling with them while they do it."
Theodore Roosevelt

"Leadership is a potent combination of strategy and character. But if you must be without one, be without the strategy."
General H. Norman Schwarzkopf

"To lead in the 21st century-to take soldiers, sailors, and airmen into battle, you will be required to have both character and competence."
General H. Norman Schwarzkopf

"He who reads is never alone."
Helder Simone

"Learn to obey before you command."
Solon

"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--Perigord

"Certainly a leader needs a clear vision of the organization and where it is going, but a vision is of little value unless it is shared in a way so as to generate enthusiasm and commitment. Leadership and communication are inseparable."
Claude I. Taylor

"Consensus is the negation of leadership."
Margaret Thatcher

"It is much safer to obey, than to govern."
Thomas
 
Kempis

"A President either is constantly on top of events or, if he hesitates, events will soon be on top of him. I never felt that I could let up for a single moment."
Harry S. Truman

"Men make history, and not the other way around. In periods where there is no leadership, society stands still. Progress occurs when courageous, skillful leaders seize the opportunity to change things for the better."
Harry S. Truman

"Education is the mother of leadership."
Wendell Lewis Wilkie

"Every man who takes office . . . either grows or swells, and when I give a man an office, I watch him carefully to see whether he is swelling or growing."
Thomas Woodrow Wilson

63 Inspirational Quotes

"Never letting the competition define you. Instead, you have to define yourself based on a point of view you care deeply about."
Tom Chappel

"Have patience with all things, but chiefly have patience with yourself. Do not lose courage in considering your own imperfections but instantly set about remedying them every day begin the task anew."
Saint Francis de Sales

"I count him braver who overcomes his desires than him who conquers his enemies; for the hardest victory is over self."

Aristotle

"Winning is everything, to win is all there is. Only those poor souls buried beneath the battlefield understand this."

SEAL Team Saying

"All right Mister, let me tell you what winning means - you're willing to go longer, work harder, give more than anyone else."

Vince Lombardi

"Winning is not everything, but the effort to win is."
Zig Ziglar

"The reason most people never reach their goals is that they don't define them, learn about them, or even seriously consider them as believable or achievable. Winners can tell you where they are going, what they plan to do along the way, and who will be sharing the adventure with them."
Denis Waitley

"History has demonstrated that the most notable winners usually encountered heartbreaking obstacles before they triumphed. They won because they refused to become discouraged by their defeats."

Bertie C. Forbes

"The man who can drive himself further once the effort gets painful is the man who will win."
Roger Bannister

"You can't be a winner and be afraid to lose."

Charles Lynch

"Those that know how to win are much more numerous than those who know how to make proper use of their victories."

Polybius

"The harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph."

Thomas Paine

"Guts are a combination of confidence, courage, conviction, strength of character, stick-to-itiveness, pugnaciousness, backbone, and intestinal fortitude. They are mandatory for anyone who wants to get to and stay at the top."

D.A. Benton

"Only a man who knows what it is like to be defeated can reach down to the bottom of his soul and come up with extra ounce of power it takes to win when the match is even."

Muhammad Ali

"The first man gets the oyster, the second man gets the shell."

Andrew Carnegie

"I am not bound to win, but I am bound to be true. I am not bound to succeed, but I am bound to live by the light that I have. I must stand with anybody that stands right, and stand with him while he is right, and part with him when he goes wrong."

Abraham Lincoln

"Never let defeat have the last word."

Tibetan Proverb

"There is no victory at bargain basement prices."

Dwight David Eisenhower

"There are many victories worse than a defeat."

George Eliot

"Your ability to be a winner 100 percent of the time is based upon giving up the notion that losing at anything is equivalent to being a loser."

Dr. Wayne W. Dyer

"The man who wins may have been counted out several times, but he didn't hear the referee."
H. E. Jansen

"Nobody remembers who came in second."

Charles Schulz

"That's what learning is, after all; not whether we lose the game, but how we lose and how we've changed because of it and what we take away from it that we never had before, to apply to other games. Losing, in a curious way, is winning."

Richard David Bach

"If any thing goes bad, I did it. If anything goes semi-good, we did it. If anything goes really good, then you did it. That's all it takes to get people to win football games for you."

Paul "Bear" Bryant

"If winning isn't important, why do we spend all that money on scoreboards?"

Chuck Coonradt

"If winning isn't important, why keep score?"

Star Trek: The Next Generation

"Everybody is born with an equal chance to become just as unequal as he or she possibly can."

Anonymous

"The most momentous thing in human life is the art of winning the soul to good or to evil."

Pythagoras

"There are only two places in this league: first place and no place."

Tom Seaver

"We are not interested in the possibilities of defeat."

Queen
Victoria

"You carry on no matter what are the obstacles. You simply refuse to give up - and, when the going gets tough, you get tougher. And, you win."
Vince Lombardi

"You don't win once in a while; you don't do things right once in a while; you do them right all the time."

Vince Lombardi

"If you'll not settle for anything less than your best, you'll be amazed at what you can accomplish in your lives."