Quotations

In my judgement, home schooling is absolutely necessary for the survival of the Catholic Church in our country. -- Fr. John Hardon, S.J.

The harder you work, the faster life goes. -- George Bogdan

Not to forgive is to be imprisoned by the past. -- Lance Morrow

If you don't know where you're going, any path will take you there. -- Sioux Proverb

If you have a good, simple idea, make it work. Then, when it does work, don't overcomplicate it. -- Greg Johnston

If we have a talent and learn somehow to use all of it, we have gloriously succeeded, and won a satisfaction and a triumph few individuals ever know. -- Thomas Wolfe

Good business leaders create a vision, articulate the vision, passionately own the vision, and relentlessly drive it to completion. -- Jack Welch

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

A baby may be the most dependent creation in the universe, and yet within a few short years, it becomes the most powerful. -- Stephen R. Covey

Write injuries in dust, benefits in marble. -- Benjamin Franklin

You can have brilliant ideas, but if you can't get them across, your ideas won't get you anywhere. -- Lee Iacocca

If you don't lead, you are destined to manage. -- Jon Light

Men and women ... need and want recognition of their value and uniqueness. The goal is not to make women more like men, or men more like women, but for everyone to become most like themselves. -- Eleanor Brantley Schwartz

Climb up on some hill at sunrise. Everybody needs perspective once in a while, and you'll find it there. -- Robb Sagendorph

The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy. -- Martin Luther King Jr.

Races are not won by the fastest athletes. Fights are not won by the strongest men. But the races are won and the fights are won by those who want to win most of all. -- Tommy Lasorda

Truth has no special time of its own. Its hour is now--always. -- Albert Schweitzer

Many of our motives, so obvious to us, are never perceived by the people we talk to. -- Deborah Tannen

If you want to build a ship, don't drum up the men to go to the forest to gather wood, saw it, and nail the planks together. Instead, teach them the desire for the sea. -- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Proactive people ... work on the things they can do something about. -- Stephen R. Covey

All grand strategies eventually deteriorate into work. -- Peter Drucker

Integrity is never painless. -- M. Scott Peck

Yes, risk taking is inherently failure-prone. Otherwise, it would be called sure-thing-taking. -- Tim McMahon

Know your own failings, passions, and prejudices so you can separate them from what you see. -- Bernard Baruch

The first step to being creative is to get rid of your own unwritten rules. -- Mary M. Byers

The real job of empowerment is to bring the power of your employees together with your own power in order to produce the best results for everyone. -- James Autry and Stephen Mitchell

When you're in your nineties and looking back, it's not going to be how much money you made or how many awards you've won. It's really, what did you stand for. Did you make a positive difference for people? -- Elizabeth Dole

A good listener is not only popular everywhere, but after a while he knows something. -- Glenn Van Ekeren

The main requirements of leadership are guts and judgment. To win trust ... you've got to be out there dealing with real problems, on the front line where people can watch you and personally size you up. -- Michael Walsh

Easy listening exists only on the radio. -- David Barkan

He who is slowest in making a promise is most faithful in its performance. -- Jean Jacques Rousseau

Consensus is the negation of leadership. -- Margaret Thatcher

Most ailing organizations have developed a functional blindness to their own defects. They are not suffering because they cannot resolve their problems, but because they cannot see their problems. -- John Gardner

If you've always done it that way, it's probably wrong. -- Charles Kettering

How to Be a Better Reporter: One: See a thing clearly and describe it simply. -- Arthur Brisbane

If your deeds are unsuccessful, seek for the reason in yourself. When your own person is correct, the whole world will turn to you. -- Mencius

One of the biggest things I've learned is I don't always have to be right. -- Jeffrey B. Swartz

If we are strong, our strength will speak for itself. If we are weak, words will be no help. -- John F. Kennedy

Cynicism is not realistic and tough--it's unrealistic and kind of cowardly because it means you don't have to try. -- Peggy Noonan

It's not bravery. It's a question of doing what you have to do. You can go ahead with what you're doing or you can run away. -- Suu Kyi

Taking initiative does not mean being pushy, obnoxious, or aggressive. It does mean recognizing your responsibility to make things happen. -- Stephen R. Covey

In order to enjoy the fruits in life, you must work. The work is hard. Sometimes it is difficult to see progress. But seeds do grow and bear fruit. -- Arun Gandhi

Good communication is as stimulating as black coffee, and just as hard to sleep after. -- Anne Morrow Lindbergh

We all live under the same sky, but we don't have the same horizon. -- Konrad Adenauer

A good leader encourages followers to tell him what he needs to hear, not what he wants to hear. -- John C. Maxwell

If you put good people in bad systems, you get bad results. -- W. Edwards Deming

What is now proved was once only imagined. -- William Blake

When you have decided what you believe, what you feel must be done, have the courage to stand alone and be counted. -- Eleanor Roosevelt

Character is what you are in the dark. -- Dwight L. Moody

The greatest advances in man's understanding of the universe are made by intuitive leaps at the frontiers of knowledge, not by intellectual walks along well-traveled paths. -- Andrew Weil

When you learn to live for others, they will learn to live for you. -- Paramahansa Yogananda

Knowing I need to listen and knowing how to listen is not enough. Unless I want to listen, unless I have the desire, it won't be a habit in my life. -- Stephen R. Covey

It makes me nervous when someone says, I agree with everything you say. Not even I agree with everything I say. -- Jeremy Rifkind

If you want to innovate, to change an enterprise or a society, it takes people willing to do what's not expected. -- Jean Riboud

There's so much to say, but your eyes keep interrupting me. -- Christopher Morley

There's nothing in the middle of the road but yellow stripes and dead armadillos. -- Jim Hightower

It is better to be boldly decisive and risk being wrong than to agonize at length and be right too late. -- Marilyn Moats Kennedy

The things we fear most in organizations--fluctuations, disturbances, imbalances--are the primary sources of creativity. -- Margaret J. Wheatley

Whoever is careless with truth in small matters, cannot be trusted in important affairs. -- Albert Einstein

In some ways, I saw the garden as a metaphor for certain aspects of my life. A leader must also tend his garden; he, too, plants seeds, and then watches, cultivates, and harvests the result. -- Nelson Mandela

Successful coaches instinctively vary their approaches to meet the needs of this person at this time, or that group at that time. -- Tom Peters and Nancy Austin

To lead the people, walk behind them. -- Lao Tzu

If one dream should fall and break into a thousand pieces, never be afraid to pick one of those pieces up and begin again. -- Flavia Weedn

Companies always have to be evolving--change to some extent every two or four years. You have to keep evaluating and assessing. ... It's a continual process. -- Carol Bartz

The Chinese word for crisis consists of two characters: one represents "danger" and the other "hidden opportunity." -- M. Scott Peck

To know and not to do, is really not to know. To learn and not to do is not to learn. -- Stephen R. Covey

For every disciplined effort there is a multiple reward. -- Jim Rohn

What we need is more people who specialize in the impossible. -- Theodore Roethke

Whatever you do, you should want to be the best at it. Every time you approach a task, you should be aiming to do the best job that's ever been done at it and not stop until you've done it. Anyone who does that will be successful--and rich. -- David Ogilvy

Well-managed, innovative organizations give their people the right to be wrong. -- Laurel Cutler

Successful people know fear--but forge ahead anyway. -- Holly Stiel

If you pick the right people and give them the opportunity to spread their wings--and put compensation as a carrier behind it--you almost don't have to manage them. -- Jack Welch

The little things? The little moments? They aren't little. -- Jon Kabat-Zinn

Don't ever confuse the two, your life and your work. The second is only part of the first. -- Anna Quindlen

If we are not responsible for the thoughts that pass our doors, we are at least responsible for those we admit and entertain. -- Charles B. Newcomb

If you ever find happiness by hunting for it, you will find it, as the old woman did her lost spectacles, safe on her nose all the time. -- Josh Billings

The habit of being uniformly considerate toward others will bring increased happiness to you. -- Grenville Kleiser

The trick is in what one emphasizes. We either make ourselves miserable, or we make ourselves happy. The amount of work is the same. -- Carlos Castaneda

We can do anything we want to do if we stick to it long enough. -- Helen Keller

When you rule your mind you rule your world. When you choose your thoughts you choose results. -- Imelda Shanklin

I lived in solitude in the country and noticed how the monotony of a quiet life stimulates the creative mind. -- Albert Einstein

Don't spend time beating on a wall, hoping to transform it into a door. -- Dr. Laura Schlessinger

The greatest gifts my parents gave to me ... were their unconditional love and a set of values. Values that they lived and didn't just lecture about. -- Colin Powell

One man has enthusiasm for 30 minutes, another for 30 days, but it is the man who has it for 30 years who makes a success of his life. -- Edward B. Butler

The man who never alters his opinion is like standing water, and breeds reptiles of the mind. -- William Blake

The more you love, the more you'll find that life is good and friends are kind ... for only what we give away enriches us from day to day. -- Helen Steiner Rice

I ... never believed there was one code of morality for a public [man], and another for a private man. -- Thomas Jefferson

Hope is the feeling you have that the feeling you have isn't permanent. -- Jean Kerr

Success makes us intolerant of failure, and failure makes us intolerant of success. -- William Feather

Human love serves to love those dear to us but to love one's enemies we need divine love. -- Leo Tolstoy

Either control your own destiny, or someone else will! -- John F. Welch Jr.

It is far easier to be wise for others than to be so for oneself. -- Duc de La Rochefoucauld

My gift is that I'm not beautiful. My career was never about looks. It's about health and being in good shape. -- Shirley Maclaine

You cannot always control your circumstances, but you can always control your own thoughts. -- Charles E. Popplestone

Every day is my best day; this is my life. I'm not going to have this moment again. -- Bernie Siegel

It is with words as with sunbeams, the more they are condensed, the deeper they burn. -- Robert Southey

Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day of your life. -- Confucius

Our self image and our habits tend to go together. Change one and you will automatically change the other. -- Dr. Maxwell Maltz

The world is a great mirror. It reflects back what you are. -- Thomas Dreier

Sticking to it is the genius. -- Thomas Edison

Our children give us the opportunity to become the parents always wished we'd had. -- Louise Hart

Act as if you were already happy and that will tend to make you happy. -- Dale Carnegie

Problems can become opportunities when the right people come together. -- Robert Redford

It is easy to be brave from a safe distance. -- Aesop

No better relation than a prudent and faithful Friend. -- Benjamin Franklin

My own experience has taught me this: if you wait for the perfect moment when all is safe and assured it may never arrive. -- Maurice Chevalier

The day of fortune is like a harvest day, we must be busy when the corn is ripe. -- Goethe

The income tax has made more liars out of the American people than golf has. -- Will Rogers

You can't make someone else's choices. You shouldn't let someone else make yours. -- Colin Powell

Words are nothing but words; power lies in deeds. Be a person of action. -- Mali Oriot Mamadu Konyate

The man who is forever disturbed about the condition of humanity either has no problems of his own or has refused to face them. -- Henry Miller

In love, one and one are one. -- Jean-Paul Sarte

It's frightening to think that you mark your children merely by being yourself. -- Simone de Beauvoir

The only normal people are the ones you don't know very well. -- Joe Ancis

People become attached to their burdens sometimes more than the burdens are attached to them. -- George Bernard Shaw

Success is a little like wrestling a gorilla. You don't quit when you're tired--you quit when the gorilla is tired. -- Robert Strauss

Men for the sake of getting a living forget to live. -- Margaret Fuller

Knowledge must come through action. -- Trachiniae

Don't waste your time on jealousy. Sometimes you're ahead, sometimes you're behind. The race is long and, in the end, it's only with yourself. -- Mary Schmich

Why not spend some time in determining what is worthwhile for us, and then go after that? -- William Ross

To create you must quiet your mind. You need a quiet mind so that ideas will have the chance of connecting. -- Eric Maisil

There's only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving, and that's your own self. -- Aldous Huxley

Treat your friends as you do your pictures, and place them in their best light. -- Jennie Jerome Churchill

If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything. -- Mark Twain

Nothing succeeds like success. -- Alexandre Dumas

As the rolling stone gathers no moss, so the roving heart gathers no affections. -- Anna Brownell Jameson

There is nothing deep down inside us except what we have put there ourselves. -- Richard Rorty

People would have more leisure time if it weren't for all the leisure-time activities that use it up. -- Peg Bracken

People are capable of doing an awful lot when they have no choice and I had no choice. Courage is when you have choices. -- Terry Anderson

To look backward for a while is to refresh the eye, to restore it, and to render it the more fit for its prime function of looking forward. -- Margaret Fairless Barber

Don't let the good things of life rob you of the best things. -- Maltbie D. Babcock

There's more learning than is taught in books. -- Lady Isabella Augusta Gregory

The heart that gives ... gathers. -- English Proverb

Do not wait for ideal circumstances, nor the best opportunities; they will never come. -- Janet Erskine Stuart

The lesser evil is also evil. -- Naomi Mitchison

No man is wise enough by himself. -- Plautus

An ounce of peace is worth more than a pound of victory. -- St. Robert Bellarmine

Bad habits are easier to abandon today than tomorrow. -- Yiddish Proverb

Great ideas need landing gear as well as wings. -- C. D. Jackson

As the wind blows, you must set your sail. -- Thomas Fuller

In war, resolution; in defeat, defiance; in victory, magnanimity; in peace, good will. -- Winston Churchill

Today is mine, it belongs to me, to live the best I can. To shape, to mold, for eternity a day that is simply grand. -- Gladys Adkins

Virtue is more clearly shown in the performance of fine actions than in the nonperformance of base ones. -- Aristotle

I love the challenge of starting a zero every day and seeing how much I can accomplish. -- Martha Stewart

Nature has given us two ears but only one mouth. -- Benjamin Disraeli

The only reason some people get lost in thought is because it's unfamiliar territory. -- Paul Fix

The more and more you listen, the more and more you will hear. The more you hear, the more and more deeply you will understand. -- Khyentse Rinpoche

Every new day begins with possibilities. It's up to us to fill it with the things that move it toward progress and peace. -- Ronald Reagan

Don't miss out on happiness by looking toward the ground--but keep looking skyward, that's where the rainbow's found. -- Catherine Janssen Irwin

Great things are not something accidental, but must certainly be willed. -- Vincent van Gogh

...elegance is inferior to virtue. -- Mary Wollstonecraft

It wasn't raining when Noah built the ark. -- Howard Ruff

I slept and dreamed that life was beauty; I woke and found that life was duty. -- Ellen S. Hooper

Men are created different; they lose their social freedom and their individual autonomy in seeking to become like each other. -- David Riesman

The more decisions that you are forced to make alone, the more you are aware of your freedom to choose. -- Thornton Wilder

Fear less, hope more; eat less, chew more; whine less, breathe more; talk less, say more; hate less, love more, and all good things will be yours. -- Swedish Proverb

There is a time for departure even when there's no certain place to go. -- Tennessee Williams

Let how you live your life stand for something, no matter how small and incidental it may seem. -- Jodie Foster

The mind is not a storehouse to be filled but an instrument to be used. -- John Gardner

Strength of numbers is the delight of the timid. The valiant in spirit glory in fighting alone. -- Mahatma Gandhi

You cannot be really first rate at your work if your work is all you are. -- Anna Quindlen

The important thing is this: to be able at any moment to sacrifice what we are for what we could become. -- Charles Du Bos

Don't hurry. Don't worry. -- Walter Hagan

Enjoy life--there are no re-runs. -- Shirl Lowery

We have learned that power is a powerful force if it is used for positive purposes. -- Elizabeth Dole

Truth burns up error. -- Sojourner Truth

No man is happy who does not think himself so. -- Publilius Syrus

To be ignorant of what occurred before you were born is to remain always a child. -- Marcus Tullius Cicero

If your happiness depends on what somebody else says (or does), I guess you do have a problem. -- Richard Bach

You can give without loving, but you cannot love without giving. -- Amy Carmichael

I am only one, but I am one. I cannot do everything; but I will not let what I cannot do interfere with what I can do. -- Edward Everette Hale

What you think of yourself is much more important than what others think of you. -- Seneca

Being extremely honest with oneself is a good exercise. -- Sigmund Freud

Handle them carefully, for words have more power than atom bombs. -- Pearl Strachan Hurd

Always do right. This will gratify some people, and astonish the rest. -- Mark Twain

Your living is determined not so much by what life brings you as by the attitude you bring to life; not so much by what happens to you as by the way your mind looks at what happens. -- Lewis L. Dunnington

Seize the moment before it's gone, for another day begins at dawn. -- Clay Harrison

Life is like a ten-speed bike. Most of us have gears we never use. -- Charles Schulz

If you do not tell the truth about yourself you cannot tell it about other people. -- Virginia Woolf

Troubles come in every shape, and tend to make one frown--but just cheer up, and never let your troubles get you down. -- Miriam Barker

There is only one morality ... just as there is only one geometry. -- Voltaire

A pint can't hold a quart--if it holds a pint it is doing all that can be expected of it. -- Margaret Deland

The practice of violence, like all action, changes the world, but the most probable change is to a more violent world. -- Hannah Arendt

Reflection is the beginning of reform. -- Mark Twain

A good laugh is sunshine in a house.-- William Makepeace Thackeray

Thanks ... Small word ... Big meaning. -- Barbara Bartocci

Love our principle, order our foundation, progress our goal. -- Auguste Comte

We seldom regret talking too little, but very often talking too much. This is a well-known maxim which everybody knows and nobody practices. -- La Bruyére

Nothing changes more constantly than the past; for the past that influences our lives does not consist of what actually happened, but of what men believe happened. -- Gerald W. Johnson

Celebrate what you want to see more of. -- Tom Peters

Responsibility is the price of freedom. -- Elbert Hubbard

A society can be no better than the men and women who compose it. -- Adlai E. Stevenson

Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity. -- Horace Mann

The happiness of a man in this life does not consist in the absence but in the mastery of his passions. -- Alfred Lord Tennyson

Remember that time is money. -- Benjamin Franklin

Let us, then, be up and doing, With a heart for any fate; Still achieving, still pursuing, Learn to labor and to wait. -- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

The soul becomes dyed with the color of its thoughts. -- Marcus Aurelius

I know only that what is moral is what you feel good after and what is immoral is what you feel bad after. -- Ernest Hemingway

What a delight it is to make friends with someone you have despised! -- Colette

By working faithfully eight hours a day, you may eventually get to be a boss and work twelve hours a day. -- Robert Frost

Three may keep a secret if two of them are dead. -- Benjamin Franklin

Honor has not to be won; it must only not be lost. -- Arthur Schopenhauer

A little word in kindness spoken, A motion, or a tear, Has often healed the heart that's broken, And made a friend sincere. -- John Greenleaf Whittier

This is the best day the world has ever seen. Tomorrow will be better. -- R. A. Campbell

By your thoughts you are daily, even hourly, building your life; you are carving your destiny. -- Ruth Barrick Golden

But today is ours to live Its treasures now to use, And it can be our best day We alone can choose. -- Helen Gleason

The place to improve the world is first in one's own heart and head and hands, and then work outward from there. -- Robert M. Pirsig

Just one great idea can completely revolutionize your life. -- Earl Nightingale

Prosperity proves the fortunate; adversity, the great. -- Pliny the Younger

Do not let time pass without accomplishing something. Otherwise you will regret it when your hair turns gray. -- Yue Fei

If you can't be a good example, then you'll just have to be a horrible warning. -- Catherine Aird

The only gift is giving to the poor; All else is exchange. -- Thiruvalluvar

Who are the learned? [Those] who practice what they know. -- Muhammad

Most of us have trouble juggling. The woman who says she doesn't is someone whom I admire but have never met. -- Barbara Walters

One for all, or all for one. -- William Shakespeare

Two men look out through the same bars; one sees the mud and one the stars. -- Frederick Langbridge

Unless both sides win, no agreement can be permanent. -- Jimmy Carter

The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance--it is the illusion of knowledge. -- Daniel J. Boorstin

Where the old tracks are lost, new country is revealed with its wonders. -- Rabindranath Tagore

We love our habits more than our income, often more than our life. -- Bertrand Russell

As a family, we had a code, which was to do the right thing, do it the best we could, never complain, and never take advantage. -- Margaret Truman

We find a delight in the beauty and happiness of children which makes the heart too big for the body. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson

He that hath no rule over his own spirit is like a city that is broken down and without walls. -- Taylor Caldwell

The grass is greener somewhere else. Our thoughts persuade, and we comply. And when we get to somewhere else, we find the grass is often dry. -- Dolores Dahl

Man is, at one and the same time, a solitary being and a social being. -- Albert Einstein

To be satisfied with little is hard, to be satisfied with a lot is impossible. -- Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach

You cannot make yourself feel something you do not feel, but you can make yourself do right in spite of your feelings. -- Pearl S. Buck

We don't know who we are until we see what we can do. -- Martha Grimes

If you are what you do, then when you don't you aren't. -- Dr. Wayne Dyer

The fist requisite of a good citizen in this republic of ours is that he shall be able and willing to pull his weight. -- Theodore Roosevelt

Get a life. A real life, not a maniac pursuit of the next promotion, the bigger paycheck, the larger house. -- Anna Quindlen

After all, it's what we do that makes us what we are. -- Jim Croce

What's the use of worrying? It never was worthwhile, So, pack up your troubles in your kit-bag And smile, smile, smile. -- George Asaf

Continuity gives us roots; change gives us branches, letting us stretch and grow and reach new heights. -- Pauline R. Kezer

The very spring and root of honesty and virtue lie in good education. -- Plutarch

Don't be reckless with other people's hearts. Don't put up with people who are reckless with yours. -- Mary Schmich

The mind doth shape itself to its own wants and can bear all things. -- Joanna Baillie

If you think a complimentary thought about someone, don't just think it. Dare to compliment people and pass on compliments to them from others. -- Catherine Ponder

The world is so full of a number of things, I'm sure we should all be as happy as kings. -- Robert Louis Stevenson

...inspiration never arrived when you were searching for it. -- Lisa Alther

This is the only chance you will ever have on earth with this exciting adventure called life. So why not plan it, and try to live it as richly, as happily as possible? -- Dale Carnegie

An "intellectual" is a man who takes more words than he needs to say more than he knows. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower

Choose your rut carefully; you'll be in it for the next ten miles. -- Road sign in upstate New York

If time be of all things most precious, wasting time must be the greatest prodigality, since lost time is never found again. -- Benjamin Franklin

The future is much like the present, only longer. -- Don Quisenberry

I read my eyes out and can't read half enough ... The more one reads the more one sees we have to read. -- John Adams

Parents learn a lot from their children about coping with life. -- Muriel Spark

If we win, nobody will care. If we lose, there will be nobody to care -- Winston Churchill

Often you get the best insights by considering extremes--by thinking of the opposite of that with which you are directly concerned. -- C. Wright Mills

The four political virtues: wisdom, temperance, courage, and justice. -- Plato

Everybody is ignorant, only on different subjects. -- Will Rogers

In the pursuit of learning, every day something is acquired. -- Lao Tzu

Love is an act of endless forgiveness, a tender look which becomes a habit. -- Peter Ustinov

Talk happiness. The world is sad enough without your woe. No path is wholly rough. -- Ella Wheeler Wilcox

It's the most unhappy people who most fear change. -- Mignon McLaughlin

There will be enough sleeping in the grave. -- Benjamin Franklin

I will write of him who fights and vanquishes his sins, who struggles on through weary years against himself ... and wins. -- Caroline Begelow LeRow

Fame is what you have taken, Character's what you give; When to this truth you waken, Then you begin to live. -- Bayard Taylor

Courage is found in action. It has to be learned--and earned. -- Doug Hall

We don't remember days; we remember moments. -- Cesare Pavese

A man must not deny his manifest abilities, for that is to evade his obligations. -- Robert Louis Stevenson

I have to be wrong a certain number of times in order to be right a certain number of times. However, in order to be either, I must first make a decision. -- Frank N. Giampietro

It is possible to own too much. A man with one watch knows what time it is; a man with two watches is never quite sure. -- Lee Segall

Life is not easy for any of us. But what of that? We must have perseverance and, above all, confidence in ourselves. We must believe that we are gifted for something, and that this thing ... must be attained. -- Marie Curie

Live as you will have wished to have lived when you are dying. -- Charles F. Gellert

Effort is only effort when it begins to hurt. -- José Ortega y Gasset

Life isn't a matter of milestones, but of moments. -- Rose Kennedy

The first half of life consists of the capacity to enjoy without the chance; the last half consists of the chance without the capacity. -- Mark Twain

There is as much dignity in tilling a field as in writing a poem. -- Booker T. Washington

Vanity asks the question--is it popular? Conscience asks the question--is it right? -- Martin Luther King Jr.

What is a weed? A plant whose virtues have not yet been discovered. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson

The deepest rivers flow with the least sound. -- Quintus Curtius Rufus

Do not delay; the golden moments fly! -- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Please subdue the anguish of your soul. Nobody is destined only to happiness or to pain. The wheel of life takes one up and down by turn. -- Kalidasa

Everything is nothing 'Til you make it something more ... For everything is special If you only make it so! -- Beverly Enderby Kimzey

Vigor is contagious, and whatever makes us either think or feel strongly adds to our power and enlarges our field of action. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson

I walk slowly, but I never walk backward. -- Abraham Lincoln

We must sail sometimes with the wind and sometimes against it,--but we must sail, and not drift, nor lie at anchor. -- Oliver Wendell Holmes

As concentration and attention increase, the mind becomes clear and balanced. -- Jack Kornfield

To do anything in this world worth doing, we must not stand back shivering and thinking of the cold and danger, but jump in, and scramble through as well as we can. -- Sydney Smith

All great change in America begins at the dinner table. -- Ronald Reagan

The happiness we give to others Makes us happier too, we find, Just as friendship returns to the friendly, And kindness comes back to the kind! -- Keith Bennett

We read to train the mind, to fill the mind, to rest the mind, to recreate the mind, or to escape the mind. -- Holbrook Jackson

The thrill, believe me, is as much in the battle as in the victory. -- David Sarnoff

The most important thing I learned from big companies is that creativity gets stifled when everyone's got to follow the rules. -- David Kelley

We must protect our own basic rights by protecting the rights of others. -- Faye Wattleton

The final forming of a person's character lies in their own hands. -- Anne Frank

People want to be on a team. They want to be part of something bigger than themselves. They want to be in a situation where they feel that they are doing something for the greater good. -- Mike Krzyzewski

Be a role model of the degree of organization, discipline, follow-through, and perseverance you ask from your people. -- David Armistead

Learning to trust our intuition is an art form, and like all other art forms, it takes practice to perfect. -- Shakti Gawain

Change is not about understanding new things or having new ideas; it's about seeing old things with new eyes--from different perspectives. -- Dee Hock

Vision without execution is daydreaming. -- Bill Gates

Nothing is so simple that it cannot be misunderstood. -- Junior Teague

At first people refuse to believe that a strange new thing can be done, then they begin to hope it can be done, then they see it can be done--then it is done and all the world wonders why it was not done centuries ago. - Frances Hodgson Burnett

Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves. -- Carl Jung

When our goal is to try to do our best, when our focus is on preparation and sacrifice and effort--instead of numbers on the scoreboard--we will never lose. -- Mike Krzyzewski

Preoccupation is the most common form of failure. - Harry Emerson Fosdick

Life changes when you least expect it to. The future is uncertain. So, seize this day, seize this moment, and make the most of it. -- Jim Valvano

It's a toss-up as to which are finally the most exasperating--the dull people who never talk, or the bright people who never listen. -- Sydney J. Harris

Success based on anything but internal fulfillment is bound to be empty. -- Martha Friedman

I listen to critics because often they're a good source of information for what you have to do differently. -- John Chambers

Don't fear failure so much that you refuse to try new things. The saddest summary of a life contains three descriptions: could have, might have, and should have. -- Louis E. Boone

Wisdom is the reward you get for a lifetime of listening when you'd have preferred to talk. -- Doug Larson

I don't think success is a place or a definition, I think it's a direction. -- Charles Wang

It takes two flints to make a fire. -- Louisa May Alcott

Sometimes the most proactive thing we can do is to just genuinely smile. Happiness, like unhappiness, is a proactive choice. -- Stephen R. Covey

We possess such immense resources of power that pessimism is a laughable absurdity. -- Colin Wilson

People should think less about what they ought to do and more about what they ought to be. If only their living were good, their work would shine through brilliantly. -- Meister Eckhart

Just as there are no little people or unimportant lives, there is no insignificant work. -- Elena Bonner

I can't imagine a person becoming a success who doesn't give this game of life everything he's got. -- Walter Cronkite

Adversity causes some men to break; others to break records. -- William A. Ward

High expectations are the key to everything. -- Sam Walton

A leader who doesn't hesitate before he sends his nation into battle is not fit to be a leader. -- Golda Meir

Visionary companies ... don't see it as a choice between living to their values or being pragmatic; they see it as a challenge to find pragmatic solutions and behave consistent with their core values. -- James C. Collins and Jerry I. Porras

You do not have to be a superhuman to do what you believe in. -- Debbi Fields

One man interacting creatively with others can move the world. -- John W. Gardner

The moment avoiding failure becomes your motivator, you're down the path of inactivity. You stumble only if you're moving. -- Roberto Goizueta

A person who is severely impaired never knows his hidden sources of strength until he is treated like a normal human being and encouraged to try to shape his own life. -- Helen Keller

The danger in communication is the illusion that it has been accomplished. -- George Bernard Shaw

The best vision is insight. -- Malcolm Forbes

Change is constant, complex, and often rapid. We can't control it. When we try, it becomes frightening, threatening. But we can learn to understand it, to work in harmony with it, to influence it, even to cultivate it. -- Stephen R. Covey and A. Roger Merrill

Without good communication, a relationship is merely a hollow vessel carrying you along on a frustrating journey fraught with the perils of confusion, projection, and misunderstanding. -- Chérie Carter-Scott

Standing in the middle of the road is very dangerous; you get knocked down by the traffic from both sides. -- Margaret Thatcher

As I grow older, I pay less attention to what people say. I just watch what they do. -- Andrew Carnegie

Morale is one of the most elusive concepts that a manager has to deal with, and it is one that can easily lead the manager astray. It is usually mixed up with the debate as to the better way to run a company ... as a "taut" ship or as a "happy" ship. My experience and observation tell me that the taut ship, with high standards fairly administrated, is always the happiest. -- Louis B. Lundborg

There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work, learning from failure. -- Colin L. Powell

Often people attempt to live their lives backwards; they try to have more things, or more money, in order to do more of what they want, so they will be happier. The way it actually works is in reverse. -- Margaret Young

Character is power. -- Booker T. Washington

To be elated at success and disappointed at failure is to be the child of circumstances; how can such a one be called master of himself? -- Chinese Proverb

No matter how high or excellent technology may be ... unless the group of human beings which comprise the enterprise works together toward one unified goal, the enterprise is sure to go down the path of decline. -- Takashi Ishihara

The first secret to success in business is to say only things that are true and to say them with total consistency. -- Gay Hendricks and Kate Ludeman

Motivation will almost always beat mere talent. -- Norman R. Augustine

When there is trouble, [optimists] do not stand idly by, wringing their hands. Instead they wade in and get to work on some part of the problem, even if a full solution is not yet apparent. -- Alan Loy McGinnis

There are people who, instead of listening to what is being said to them, are already listening to what they are going to say themselves. -- Albert Guinon

Life ... is a splendid torch which I have got hold of for the moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations. -- George Bernard Shaw

Don't be quick to want to get on the air and anchor. Learn to write. If you write well, you can do anything in this business. -- Connie Chung

I have very set and consistent principles, but I am flexible on tactics. I like to get the job done. -- Madeleine Albright

I have concentrated all along on building the finest retailing company that we possibly could. Period. Creating a huge personal fortune was never particularly a goal of mine. -- Sam Walton

Perhaps imagination is only intelligence having fun. -- George Scialabba

The horizon is not where the sky comes down. We set our own boundaries. We have the making of our own horizons. We do not have to live in walled-in spaces. -- Grove Patterson

Discovery consists of seeing what everybody has seen and thinking what nobody has thought. -- Alvert von Szent-Gyorgyi

Be willing to make decisions. That's the most important quality in a good leader. Don't fall victim to what I call the "ready-aim-aim-aim" syndrome." You must be willing to fire. -- T. Boone Pickens

You can look for the good in others and utilize that good, as different as it may be, to improve your point of view, and to enlarge your perspective. -- Stephen R. Covey

Be bold in what you stand for and careful what you fall for. -- Ruth Boorstin

The leader who would create a vision sufficiently compelling to motivate associates to superior performances must draw on the intuitive mind. -- John Naisbitt and Patricia Aburdene

Those who enjoy responsibility usually get it; those who merely enjoy exercising authority usually lose it. -- Malcolm Forbes

If you're going to be able to look back on something and laugh about it, you might as well laugh about it now. -- Marie Osmond

We know who we are and what we do. -- Michael Dell

In a word, each man is questioned by life; and he can only answer to life by answering for his own life; to life he can only respond by being responsible. -- Viktor Frankl

Making commitments generates hope. Keeping commitments generates trust. -- Blaine Lee

Time and money are the language of value. Where we spend our time and money ... communicates what's important to us. -- A. Roger and Rebecca Merrill

Integrity allows you to make an authentic connection with people, especially those you want to be close to. Without integrity, there is no relationship, only entanglement. -- Gay Hendricks and Kate Ludeman

The best work we can all do is create the highest vision possible for our lives and be led by that vision to the greatest good. -- Oprah Winfrey

Communication is the soul of management: analysis and solid decisions translated into clear messages that influence people to act and feel good about their performance. -- Chérie Carter-Scott

If you will open up to being a source of integrity, vision, and intuition in your organization, you step into leadership regardless of what niche you occupy. -- Gay Hendricks and Kate Ludeman

I have an absolute rule. I refuse to make a decision that somebody else can make. The first rule of leadership is to save yourself for the big decision. Don't allow your mind to become cluttered with the trivia. Don't let yourself become the issue. -- Richard Nixon

Again, the key word is authenticity. No artificial flavors. No added sweeteners. Just 100 percent genuine authenticity. -- James C. Collins and Jerry I. Porras

The issue is to have the heart and the courage to move ahead, to have the courage to take one step forward and know that it will open up doors to new levels of well-being. -- Greg Anderson

Nothing is more effective than sincere, accurate praise, and nothing is more lame than a cookie-cutter compliment. -- Bill Walsh

As we make and keep commitments, ... we begin to establish an inner integrity that gives us the awareness of self-control and the courage and strength to accept more of the responsibility for our own lives. -- Stephen R. Covey

A person who trusts no one can't be trusted. -- Jerome Blattner

I am more afraid of an army of one hundred sheep led by a lion than an army of one hundred lions led by a sheep. -- Charles, Count Talleyrand

The greatest motivational act one person can do for another is listen. -- Roy E. Moody

A leadership skill that inspires confidence and trust can be expressed in a variety of ways. It doesn't have to be charismatic. It can be pretty low key. But it has to be there. -- Ray Gilmartin

Strategies are intellectually simple; their execution is not. -- Lawrence Bossidy

The most damaging phrase in the language is: "It's always been done that way." -- Grace Hopper

Everyone who's ever taken a shower has an idea. It's the person who gets out of the shower, dries off, and does something about it who makes a difference. -- Nolan Bushness

If you want to make minor, incremental changes and improvements, work on practices, behavior or attitude. But if you want to make significant, quantum improvement, work on paradigms. -- Stephen R. Covey

The intuitive mind will tell the thinking mind where to look next. -- Dr. Jonas Salk

An indication of success is your sense of integrity, which relates to the fitness and soundness of you as a person. -- David Armistead

I've never seen a company that was able to satisfy its customers which did not also satisfy its employees. Your employees will treat your customers no better than you treat your employees. -- Larry Bossidy

Don't just stand there, make it happen. -- Lee Iacocca

One thought driven home is better than three left on base. -- James Liter

I've often thought that when something is hard for you ... that's probably what you should do. -- Hillary Rodham Clinton

Enthusiasm ... spells the difference between mediocrity and accomplishment. -- Norman Vincent Peale

Innovation depends on freedom to move constantly from one frontier to the next. -- Bill Gates

Find out what you love. Do it because you love it. Stick with it. Start now. -- Barbara Sher

The best way to get to your goal is not always a straight-line approach. Sometimes success depends on your ability to alter your approach slightly to accommodate some of the realities with which you must deal. -- Admiral James O. Ellis

Let go of your attachment to being right, and suddenly the mind is more open. You're able to benefit from the unique viewpoints of others, without being crippled by your own judgment. -- Ralph Marston

It's what you learn after you know it all that counts. -- John Wooden

Seeking to understand takes consideration; seeking to be understood takes courage. Effectiveness lies in balancing the two. -- Stephen R. Covey

It's impossible to walk a mile in someone else's shoes until you take your own shoes off first. -- Debra Harris

Look at your past. Your past has determined where you are at this moment. What you do today will determine where you are tomorrow. Are you moving forward or standing still? -- Tom Hopkins

Self-confidence is important. Confidence in others is essential. -- William Schreyer

Studies show that happiness is not a function of money and things ... in truth, "the best things in life are not things." -- A. Roger and Rebecca Merrill

The greatest discovery of my generation is that human beings can alter their lives by altering their attitudes of mind. -- William James

A leader has the vision and conviction that a dream can be achieved. He inspires the power and energy to get it done. -- Ralph Lauren

I'll take a smart person with passion over someone with years of experience any day. People with intelligence and passion will get the problem solved, no matter what. -- Carol Bartz

What I wanted was to be allowed to do the thing in the world that I did best, which I believed then and believe now, is the greatest privilege there is. When I did that success found me. -- Debbi Fields

Our belief in one another is what unites us and encourages us to be our best. -- Sarah McLachlan

If you put a plant in a jar, it will take the shape of the jar. But if you allow the plant to grow freely, twenty jars might not be able to hold it. -- Mike Krzyzewski

There are low spots in our lives, but there are also high spots, and most of them have come through encouragement from someone else. -- George M. Adams

The essence of being human is being able to direct your own life. -- Stephen R. Covey

Before you can create what you want to create, you must know what you are after, what you want to bring into being. -- Robert Fritz

Leadership is the capacity to translate vision into reality. -- Warren Bennis

Get it first, but first get it right. -- Seymour Berkson

Before a man can accomplish anything of an enduring nature in the world, he must first of all acquire some measure of success in the management of his own mind. -- James Allen

Goals are dreams with deadlines. --Diana Scharf Hunt

You need to believe that what you're doing is right, and you need to stay focused. Without a clear course in mind, it's very easy to be swayed by everybody's opinions. -- Jane E. Shaw

Creative leaders find ways of stepping into the shoes of other people and asking, "How would I feel and what would I want if I were this person?" -- Gay Hendricks and Kate Ludeman

Leadership is about change. It's about taking people from where they are now to where they need to be. The best way to get people to venture into the unknown terrain is to make it desirable by taking them there in their imaginations. -- Noel Tichy

If any one idea about leadership has inspired organizations for thousands of years, it's the capacity to hold a shared picture of the future we seek to create. -- Peter Senge

Once you label me, you negate me. -- Søren Kierkegaard

You must gain control over the patterns that govern your mind: your worldview, your beliefs about what you deserve and about what's possible. That's the zone of fundamental change, strength, and energy--and the true meaning of courage. -- Peter Koestenbaum

Of all the things I've done, the most vital is coordinating the talents of those who work for us and pointing them toward a certain goal. -- Walt Disney

All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke

I dream for a living. -- Stephen Spielberg

Today's leaders have what I call the power to "empower" others.... In practical business terms, "empowering" others means that today's leaders like to delegate, to urge others to share the vision and get involved.... Even more important, you raise the individual level of aspiration; you strengthen self-confidence. -- Lloyd E. Reuss

You are centered when you are open to discovery, no matter what the circumstances, and when you are willing to learn and to change based on what you learn. -- Judith S. Warner

I firmly believe that any man's finest hour is that moment when he has worked his heart out in a good cause and lies exhausted on the field of battle, victorious. -- Vince Lombardi

Few of us can do great things, but all of us can do small things with great love. -- Mother Teresa

Nothing fails like success. -- Arnold Toynbee

Leaders value other people's worth and opinions and take the time to let them know they are important. -- Connie Podesta and Jean Gatz

Management asks "What time is it?" Leadership asks "Where in time are we?" -- Dwight King

Empower people to comply with your wishes by being kind to them, listening to them, acknowledging their feelings, addressing their needs, admitting your blame. -- Sam Deep and Lyle Sussman

Failure is just another way to learn how to do something right. -- Marian Wright Edelman

The greatest need we have in this permanent whitewater world is ... a changeless core of values and principles. It then gives people the capacity to deal with the dynamic change that surrounds them. Then leadership has permanent strength and viability. -- Stephen R. Covey

Life is a great big canvas, and you should throw all the paint on it you can. -- Danny Kaye

Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak, courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen. -- Winston Churchill

Our opinion of people depends less upon what we see in them than upon what they make us see in ourselves. -- Sarah Grand

Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric. -- Bertrand Russell

There is no scientific answer for success. You can't define it. You've simply got to live it and do it. -- Anita Roddick

Focus on what you are moving toward rather than what you are leaving behind. -- Alan Cohen

Be more concerned with your character than your reputation, because your character is what you really are, while your reputation is merely what others think you are. -- John Wooden

To empower others is ultimately to empower oneself. -- Mary Elizabeth Schlayer

None of us can be truly human in isolation. The qualities that make us human emerge only in the ways we relate to other people. -- Harold Kushner

I am going to change the world with this. I'm making a difference. -- Patricia Sueltz

Our company has, indeed, stumble onto some of its new products. But never forget that you can only stumble if you're moving. -- Richard P. Carlton

If you do things well, do them better. Be daring, be first, be different, be just. -- Anita Roddick

Making personal leadership (influence) a choice is like having the freedom to play the piano. It is a freedom that has to be earned--only then can leadership become a choice. -- Stephen R. Covey

I am only one but still, I am one. I cannot do everything but still, I can do something. I will not refuse to do the something I can do. -- Helen Keller

While you're struggling with the fear that it can't be done, somebody else is doing it. -- Holly Stiel

The most important thing to remember is that you can't give all of yourself to anything.... The only way you stay detached enough to face up to the pressures and deal in a controlled and positive manner with the source of your worries is to make sure you have a life away from your work, and for me that has always been my family. -- Roy Ash

Being powerful is like being a lady; if you have to tell people you are, you aren't. -- Margaret Thatcher

You can easily judge the character of others by how they treat those who can do nothing for them. -- Malcolm Forbes

Mincing your words makes it easier if you have to eat them later. -- Franklin P. Jones

You can do what you have to do, and sometimes you can do it even better than you think you can. -- Jimmy Carter

To build credibility, motivate others, and unleash greater creativity, you must master the skills of communication before you can make meaningful changes. -- Debra Harris

To fulfill a dream ... to be given a chance to create, is the meat and potatoes of life. The money is the gravy. -- Bette Davis

First we must understand that there can be no life without risk--and when our center is strong, everything else is secondary, even the risks. -- Elie Wiesel

Listening, not imitation, may be the sincerest form of flattery. -- Dr. Joyce Brothers

Every time we were beginning to form up into teams, we would be reorganized. I was to learn later in life that we tend to meet any new situation by reorganization ... and a wonderful method it can be for creating the illusion of progress while producing confusion, inefficiency, and demoralization. -- Petronius Arbiter

A piece of us is in every person we can ever meet. -- Stephen R. Covey

The best leaders have a very high view of the dignity of the individual. -- Alan Loy McGinnis

Integrity has no need of rules. -- Albert Camus

Instead of feeling sorry for yourself and using [adversity] as an excuse, accept the situation and try to make the most of it. That's how a team develops resilience and character. -- Mike Krzyzewski

A leader is someone who can take a group of people to a place they don't think they can go. -- Bob Eaton

How do you demonstrate respect? Through the integrity of the message you communicate. It sounds simplistic, but we found that the easiest way of getting things done was by being straight. -- Bob Galvin

I suppose leadership at one time meant muscles; but today it means getting along with people. -- Indira Gandhi

Rank does not confer privilege or give power. It imposes responsibility. -- Peter F. Drucker

Courage gives a leader the ability to stand straight and not sway no matter which way the wind blows. -- Mike Krzyzewski

[People] want you to really listen to them and to get to the point where they know you understand what they're talking about. -- John Noel

If you think you are leading a team, department or organization and no one is following ... you are just out for a walk. -- John C. Maxwell

The mind, when it is quiet, delivers up phenomenal intuition which can then be focused to design a next-generation product or to understand what's driving particular customers. -- Ed McCracken

Trust yourself. Create the kind of self that you will be happy to live with all your life. Make the most of yourself by fanning the tiny, inner sparks of possibility into flames of achievement. -- Foster C. McClellan

In conversation ask questions oftener than you express opinion; and when you speak offer data and information rather than beliefs and judgments. -- Will Durant

A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices. -- William James

What would you attempt to do if you knew you could not fail? -- Dr. Robert Schuller

Asserting yourself while respecting others is a very good way to win respect yourself. -- Janice La Rouche

Once you discover that there is more than one "right answer" in life and in leadership ... you realize that good ideas can come from anywhere, and that everyone has something to contribute. -- Stephen R. Covey and A. Roger Merrill

Democracy, like any noncoercive relationship, rests on a shared understanding of limits. -- Elizabeth Drew

It is no use saying "We are doing our best." You have got to succeed in doing what is necessary. -- Winston Churchill

As soon as you're open and listening and willing to dialogue, people are remarkably receptive and changes speed up rapidly. -- Mort Topfer

Toughness alone is not enough. The corps commander must know his division commanders, he must thoroughly understand their problems, respect their judgment, and be tolerant of their limitations.... Success comes ... from a well-balanced combination of good judgment, self-confidence, leadership, and boldness. -- Omar N. Bradley

If you believe, it means you've got imagination, you don't need stuff thrown out for you in a blueprint, you don't face facts--what can stop you? If I don't make it today, I'll come in tomorrow. -- Ruth Gordon

It's important that people should know what you stand for. It's equally important that they know what you won't stand for. -- Mary H. Waldrip

The greatest way to live with honor in this world is to be what we pretend to be. - Socrates

The idea is not to distance ourselves from others but to let them be themselves while we continue to be ourselves. -- Michael P. Nichols

The essence of genius is knowing what to overlook. -- William James

Make your judgment trustworthy by trusting it. -- Greenville Kleiser

If you adopt a pattern of life that focuses on golden eggs and neglects the goose, you will soon be without the asset that produces the golden eggs. -- Stephen R. Covey

When science discovers the center of the universe, a lot of people will be disappointed to find they are not it. -- Bernard Baily

Leadership is going where nobody else has gone. -- Bob Galvin

Don't recite other people's opinions.... Tell me what you know. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson

If you're never scared or embarrassed or hurt, it means you never take any chances. -- Julia Sorel

Moral courage is a more rare commodity than bravery in battle or great intelligence. -- Robert F. Kennedy

Happiness lies not in the mere possession of money. It lies in the joy of achievement, in the thrill of creative effort. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt

I don't expect anyone to be perfect. It's not human nature. What I do expect is that they will take risks, correct mistakes, and learn from both. -- Mike Armstrong

The world asks that we focus less on how we can coerce something to make it conform to our designs and focus more on how we can engage with one another.... It asks that we participate more than plan. -- Margaret J. Wheatley and Myron Kellner-Rogers

Trust yourself. You know more than you think. -- Benjamin Spock

A thousand words will not leave so deep an impression as one deed. -- Henrik Ibsen

It is a rare person who wants to hear what he doesn't want to hear. -- Dick Cavett

I am looking for a lot of men who have an infinite capacity to not know what can't be done. -- Henry Ford

I've always tried to go a step past wherever people expected me to end up. -- Beverly Sills

It is not so easy to do good as those who have never attempted it may imagine. -- Maria Edgeworth

I have met many wanna-bes. I distinguish the wannas from the gonnas because the wanna-bes all think someone else is to blame for their problems--By contrast, gonna-bes say: "What? There's no door here? I'll build one." -- K. Callan

Never fail to know that if you are doing all the talking, you are boring somebody. -- Helen Gurley Brown

I challenge you to make your life a masterpiece. I challenge you to join the ranks of those people who live what they teach, who walk their talk. -- Anthony Robbins

Most people live in a very restricted circle of their potential being. We all have reservoirs of energy and genius to draw upon of which we do not dream. -- William James

He who cannot change the very fabric of his thought will never be able to change reality, and will never, therefore, make any progress. -- Anwar Sadat

Apathy can be overcome by enthusiasm, and enthusiasm can be roused by two things: first, an idea which takes the imagination by storm; and second, a definite, intelligible plan for carrying that idea into action. -- Arnold Toynbee

When testing your own personal vision first ask yourself: Does the vision tap into my voice, my energy, my unique talent? Does it give me a sense of "calling," a cause worthy of my commitment? -- Stephen R. Covey

To lead in the twenty-first century ... you will be required to have both character and competence. -- H. Norman Scwarzkopf

I don't say never to anything. -- Richard M. Bressler

Excellence and competitiveness are totally compatible with honesty and integrity.... People who cheat are simply weak. -- Jack Welch

Like the winds of the sea are the ways of fate; As we voyage along through life, 'Tis the set of a soul That decides its goal, And not the calm, or the strife. -- Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Perhaps wisdom is to be found in people who have suffered greatly but have surmounted it. -- Louis Jolyon West

No longer forward nor behind I look in hope or fear; But, grateful, take the good I find, The best of now and here. -- John Greenleaf Whittier

The game of life is not so much in holding a good hand as playing a poor hand well. -- H. T. Leslie

There is no limit to what a man can do or where he can go if he doesn't mind who gets the credit. -- Robert W. Woodruff

There is a lesson that lies in the foundation of my business--there is no such thing as an insignificant human being. To treat people that way is a kind of sin, and there's no reason for it, none. -- Debbi Fields

If we're going to get anywhere, we're going to have to risk venturing into the unknown. Life is about adventure, not maintenance. -- John C. Maxwell

The quality of your attention determines the quality of other people's thinking. -- Nancy Kline

There are half hours that dilate to the importance of centuries. -- Mary Catherwood

One machine can do the work of fifty ordinary men. No machine can do the work of one extraordinary man. -- Elbert Hubbard

It is ours to win with--if we can shift gears from decades of controlling things to a decade of liberty--turning people loose to dream, dare, and win. -- Jack Welch

It is the paradox of life that the way to miss pleasure is to seek it first. The very first condition of lasting happiness is that a life should be full of purpose, aiming at something outside self. -- Hugh Black

When your values are clear to you, making decisions becomes easier. -- Roy Disney

Standing in the middle of the road is very dangerous; you get knocked down by the traffic from both sides. -- Margaret Thatcher

There are all kinds of ways to learn to be a leader. The foolish way is to think that there is a type of ideal leader, and try to become that. The smart way is to ... find out where and how you can be effective in making changes in the world. -- Bruce L. Payne

Have you learned lessons only of those who admired you, and were tender with you, and stood aside for you? Have you not learned great lessons from those who rejected you, and braced themselves against you, or disputed the passage with you? -- Walt Whitman

Leadership derives naturally from a commitment to service. You know that you're practicing servant leadership if your followers become wiser, healthier, more autonomous--and more likely to become servant leaders themselves. -- Jim Stuart

Make one person happy each day and in forty years you will have made 14,600 human beings happy for a little time, at least. -- Charley Willey

Leadership is learning. Whatever else leaders do, their primary role is to keep learning and to facilitate the learning of those around them. –- John Storey

Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absence of fear. -- Mark Twain

The wise man will want to be ever with him who is better than himself. -- Plato

We have this authoritarian notion of what leadership means.... But, fundamentally, leaders are visionaries. They speak for and evoke action on behalf of a compelling future. That vision of the future could be of anything--a closer family relationship, a violence-free school or a successful company. -- Rayona Sharpnack

The human being who lives only for himself finally reaps nothing but unhappiness. Selfishness corrodes. Unselfishness ennobles, satisfies. Don't put off the joy derivable from doing helpful, kindly things for others. -- B. C. Forbes

You may be disappointed if you fail, but you are doomed if you don't try. -- Beverly Sills

One man can be a crucial ingredient on a team, but one man cannot make a team. -- Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

The names of most corporate CEO's fade from the collective memory, almost on the day they retire. We remember only the leaders. -- James O'Toole

Somebody one said that in looking for people to hire, you look for three qualities: integrity, intelligence, and energy. And if they don't have the first, the other two will kill you. -- Warren Buffet

A team that has eleven leaders on the field, all taking it upon themselves to get the job done, is a team that's tough to beat. -- Mia Hamm

He that gives good advice builds with one hand; he that gives good counsel and example builds with both; but he that gives good admonition and bad example builds with one hand and pulls down with the other. -- Francis Bacon

Strong motivation is the most important factor in getting you to the top. -- Edmund Hillary

The only way in which one human being can properly attempt to influence another is by encouraging him to think for himself, instead of endeavoring to instill ready-made opinions into his head. -- Leslie Stephen

Being defeated is often a temporary condition. Giving up is what makes it permanent. -- Marilyn vos Savant

Where much is expected from an individual, he may rise to the level of events and make the dream come true. -- Elbert Hubbard

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

Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around. It's overwhelming to consider the continuous opportunities there are to make our love felt. -- Leo Buscaglia

Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or your self-confidence. -- Robert Frost

If your efforts are sometimes greeted with indifference, don't lose heart. The sun puts on a wonderful show at daybreak, yet most of the people in the audience go on sleeping. -- Ada Teixeira

Every human being is intended to have a character of his own; to be what no others are, and to do what no other can do. -- William Ellery Channing

I believe in the sacredness of a promise, that a man's word should be as good as his bond; that character--not wealth or power or position--is of supreme worth. -- John D. Rockefeller Jr.

The leader ... is rarely the brightest person in the group. Rather, they have extraordinary taste, which makes them more curators than creators. They are appreciators of talent and nurturers of talent and they have the ability to recognize valuable ideas. -- Warren Bennis

The barriers are not yet erected which shall say to aspiring talent, "Thus far and no farther." -- Ludwig van Beethoven

Use missteps as stepping stones to deeper understanding and greater achievement. -- Susan L. Taylor

Leadership, of course, is the ability to inspire other people to work together as a team, following your lead, in order to attain a common objective, whether in business, in politics, in war, or on the football field. No one can do it alone. -- Harold. S. Geneen

Applause is the spur of noble minds, the end and aim of weak ones. -- Charles Caleb Colton

The most important ingredient we put into any relationship is not what we say or what we do, but what we are. -- Stephen R. Covey

It is not enough to rely on outside authority to enforce moral or legal behavior. The compass of values has to be within a person. -- An Wang

Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty. Anyone who keeps learning stays young. The greatest thing in life is to keep your mind young. -- Henry Ford

One of leadership's key roles is to bring out the best in people. Since attitude is so crucial to performance, it is essential for leaders to understand what keeps people from choosing and maintaining an attitude that would best serve them and their organizations. More and more evidence points to self-image, or self-expression, as the key factor in this issue. -- Ed Oakley and Doug Krug

There are two kinds of discontent in this world: the discontent that works and the discontent which wrings its hands. The first gets what it wants and the second loses what it has. -- Gordon Graham

You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself in any direction you choose. -- Dr. Seuss

If organizations and societies are to make progress, leaders must be able to detect when routines are becoming dysfunctional. They must be able to see when routines are smothering creative planning and blocking necessary advancement. -- James M. Kouzes and Barry Z. Posner

The best index to a person's character is (a) how he treats people who can't do him any good, and (b) how he treats people who can't fight back. -- Abigail Van Buren

People have a way of becoming what you encourage them to be--not what you nag them to be. -- S. N. Parker

We sleep, but the loom of life never stops and the pattern which was weaving when the sun went down is weaving when it comes up tomorrow. -- Henry Ward Beecher

In unity there is strength. Consider the fragile snowflake that flutters slowly to the earth and disintegrates; however, if enough of them stick together they can paralyze an entire city. -- William Rosenberg

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

The harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly; it is dearness only that gives everything its value. I love the man that can smile in trouble, that can gather strength from distress and grow brave. -- Thomas Paine

People will support that which they help to create. -- Mary Kay Ash

We have to recognize a new paradigm: not great leaders alone, but great leaders who exist in fertile relationship with a Great Group. In these creative alliances, the leader and the team are able to achieve something together that neither could achieve alone. The leader finds greatness in the group. And he or she helps the members find it themselves. -- Warren Bennis and Patricia Ward Biederman

Courage is rightly esteemed the first of human qualities because it is the quality which guarantees all others. -- Winston Churchill

Keep a grateful journal. Every night, list five things that you are grateful for. What it will begin to do is change your perspective of your day and your life. -- Oprah Winfrey

Thomas Edison developed thousands of filaments that didn't work before he discovered the correct one for the incandescent lamp. Abraham Lincoln lost more than a dozen elections before he finally got voted into office. Leaders do not view mistakes as failures, but rather as opportunities to learn something new. -- Lorraine R. Matusak

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit. -- Will Durant

We are responsible for actions performed in response to circumstances for which we are not responsible. -- Allan Massie

How you start is important, but it is how you finish that counts. In the race for success, speed is less important than stamina. The sticker outlasts the sprinter. -- B. C. Forbes

I can only make so many decisions and gather so much information.... I want to make the best strategic decisions, but after that, if I have disseminated the decision-making process down to the people who are closest to the action ... then I have a thousand decision-makers working for me, and there is a better chance that we won't miss the market. -- John Chambers

Every time a resolve or fine glow of feeling evaporates without bearing fruit, it is worse than a chance lost; it works to hinder future emotions from taking the normal path of discharge. -- William James

Lead the life that will make you kindly and friendly to everyone about you, and you will be surprised what a happy life you will live. -- Charles M. Schwab

Cultivate only the habits that you are willing should master you. -- Elbert Hubbard

No one can persuade another to change. Each of us guards a gate of change that can only be opened from the inside. We cannot open the gate of another, either by argument or emotional appeal. -- Marilyn Ferguson

Real difficulties can be overcome; it is only the imaginary ones that are unconquerable. -- Theodore N. Vail

People always say that I didn't give up my seat because I was tired, but that isn't true. I wasn't tired physically, or no more tired than I usually was at the end of a working day. No, the only tired I was, was tired of giving in. -- Rosa Parks

Deliberation is the work of many men. Action, of one alone. -- Charles de Gaulle

We often discover what will do, by finding out what will not do; and probably he who never made a mistake never made a discovery. -- Samuel Smiles

The leader is a team builder who empowers individuals in the organization and passionately "lives the vision," thereby serving as a mentor and example for those whose efforts are necessary to make the vision become reality. -- Burt Nanus

Tell me to what you pay attention and I will tell you who you are. -- José Ortega y Gasset

The instrument of leadership is the self, and mastery of the art of leadership comes from mastery of the self. -- James M. Kouzes and Barry Z. Posner

It is the disposition of the thought that altereth the nature of the thing. -- John Lyly

I don't know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody. -- Bill Cosby

Communicate everything you possibly can to your partners. The more they understand, the more they'll care. Once they care, there's no stopping them. -- Sam Walton

Adversity is the first path to truth. -- Lord Byron

The way to learn to do things is to do things. The way to learn a trade is to work at it. Success teaches how to succeed. Begin with the determination to succeed, and the work is half done already. -- Mark Twain

Happiness consists more in small conveniences or pleasures that occur every day, than in great pieces of good fortune that happen but seldom. -- Benjamin Franklin

Why would you follow somebody around a corner? Or up a hill? Or into a dark room? The reason is trust. -- Colin Powell

The leader is not just a scorekeeper. He is responsible for creating something new and better. -- Bill Creech

It is good that we should set aside a day in each year for Thanksgiving, but it would be better if we gave thanks every day. For the absence of thankfulness does not mean that we are merely ungrateful--it means that we are missing the thrill of appreciation and pleasure. -- Channing Pollock

Not in the clamor of the crowded street, Not in the shouts and plaudits of the throng, But in ourselves, are triumph and defeat. -- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Without training, they lacked knowledge. Without knowledge, they lacked confidence. Without confidence, they lacked victory. -- Julius Caesar

Ethics is about character and courage and how we meet the challenge when doing the right thing will cost us more than we want to pay. -- Michael Josephson

The dream begins with a teacher who believes in you, who tugs and pushes and leads you to the next plateau, sometimes poking you with a sharp stick called "truth." -- Dan Rather

Sunshine is delicious, rain is refreshing, wind braces us up, snow is exhilarating; there is really no such thing as bad weather, only different kinds of good weather. -- John Ruskin

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. -- Ronald Reagan

Heroes take journeys, confront dragons, and discover the treasure of their true selves. -- Carol Pearson

Many of our innovations were born more of the earnest desire to foster this spirit of content, and to give our workers freer opportunity to express themselves, than of the mere wish to improve their finances. -- William Cooper Procter

No one can defeat us unless we first defeat ourselves. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower

Creativity can solve almost any problem. The creative act, the defeat of habit by originality, overcomes everything. -- George Lois

I owe whatever success I have achieved, by and large, to my ability to surround myself with people who are smarter than I am. -- Andrew Carnegie

A person who doubts himself is like a man who would enlist in the ranks of his enemies and bear arms against himself. He makes his failure certain by himself being the first person to be convinced of it. -- Alexandre Dumas

The deepest hunger of the human heart is to be understood, for understanding implicity affirms, validates, recognizes, and appreciates the intrinsic worth of another. When you really listen to another person, you acknowledge and respond to that most insistent need. -- Stephen R. Covey

When we accept tough jobs as a challenge to our ability and wade into them with joy and enthusiasm, miracles can happen. When we do our work with a dynamic, conquering spirit, we get things done. -- Arland Gilbert

Never esteem anything as of advantage to you that will make you break your word or lose your self-respect. -- Marcus Aurelius

Champions aren't made in gyms. Champions are made from something they have deep inside them--a desire, a dream, a vision. They have to have the skill, and the will. But the will must be stronger than the skill. -- Muhammad Ali

I expect to pass through life but once. If, therefore, there be any kindness I can show, or any good thing I can do to any fellow being, let me do it now, and not defer or neglect it, as I shall not pass this way again. -- William Penn

The art of living lies less in eliminating our troubles than in growing with them. -- Bernard Baruch

He who is slowest in making a promise is most faithful in its performance. -- Jean Jacques Rousseau

The best things are nearest.... Then do not grasp at the stars, but do life's plain, common work as it comes, certain that daily duties and daily bread are the sweetest things of life. -- Robert Louis Stevenson

The true greatness of nations is in those qualities which constitute the greatness of the individual. -- Charles Sumner

All altruism springs from putting yourself in the other person's place. -- Harry Emerson Fosdick

In the realm of ideas, everything depends on enthusiasm; in the real world, all rests on perseverance. -- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Times of general calamity and confusion have ever been productive of the greatest minds. The purest ore is produced from the hottest furnace, and the brightest thunderbolt is elicited from the darkest storm. -- Charles Caleb Colton

Leadership can be felt throughout an organization. It gives pace and energy to the work and empowers the workforce. -- Warren Bennis

We learn courageous action by going forward whenever fear urges us back. A little boy was asked how he learned to skate. "By getting up every time I fell down," he answered. -- David Seabury

I don't know what your destiny will be, but one thing I know: The only ones among you who will be really happy are those who will have sought and found how to serve. -- Albert Schweitzer

Seldom can the heart be lonely, If it seeks a lonelier still; Self-forgetting, seeking only Emptier cups of love to fill. -- Frances Ridley Havergal

Do thy duty, even if it be humble, rather than another's, even if it be great. To die in one's duty is life; to live in another's is death. -- The Bhagavad Gita

Praise does wonders for our sense of hearing. -- Arnold Glasgow

Leadership isn't about titles, positions, or flowcharts. It's about one life influencing another. -- John C. Maxwell

The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires. -- William A. Ward

Trust comes back to the character, behaviour, and values of the company. You only achieve trust and retain it if you behave in a way which inspires trust. -- Dominic Cadbury

I have noticed that each time you have a birthday, you are further from the next.