Leadership quotes
3.4K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
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Browse quotes that often appear alongside leadership — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
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"People in any organization, including bureaucrats and politicians, are always attached to the obsolete; the obsolescent; the things that should have worked but didn't; the things that once were productive and no longer are."
"Rank does not confer privilege or give power. It imposes responsibility."
"When you meet someone better than yourself, turn your thoughts to becoming his equal. When you meet someone not as good as you are, look within and examine your own self."
"Become the kind of leader that people would follow voluntarily; even if you had no title or position."
"People who let events and circumstances dictate their lives are living reactively. That means that they don't act on life, they only react to it."
"You can't be successful with other people if you haven't paid the price of success with yourself."
"We've got to make the small things unforgettable."
"The greatest artists like Dylan, Picasso and Newton risked failure. And if we want to be great, we've got to risk it, too."
"A leader, once convinced that a particular course of action is the right one, must....be undaunted when the going gets tough."
"It is a curious thing, Harry, but perhaps those who are best suited to power are those who have never sought it. Those who, like you, have leadership thrust upon them, and take up the mantle because they must, and find to their own surprise that they wear it well."
"Leadership is your ability to hide your panic from others."
"If you have a different mindset, you will have a different outcome: if you make different choices from your peers, your life will then be different from your peers."
"The opportunities that everyone cannot see are the real opportunities."
"The right man is the one who seizes the moment."
"The art of leadership is a serious matter. One must not lag behind a movement, because to do so is to become isolated from the masses. But one must not rush ahead, for to rush ahead is to lose contact with the masses. He who wished to lead a movement must conduct a fight on two fronts--against those who lag behind and those who rush ahead."
"If they don't have a winning attitude, I don't want them."
"We associate leadership with decisiveness. That perception of leadership pushes people to make decisions fairly quickly, lest they be seen as dithering and indecisive."
"If you want to be great and successful, choose people who are great and successful and walk side by side with them."
"A 'No' uttered from the deepest conviction is better than a 'Yes' merely uttered to please, or worse, to avoid trouble."
"Unlike some politicians, I can admit to a mistake."
