The Wisdom of leadership

Words of Wisdom

~ MOTIVATION & LEADERSHIP ~

Compiled by Peter Shepherd

“Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear.” —Ambrose Redmoon “It is your decisions not your conditions that truly shape the quality of your life.” —Anthony Robbins
“Life is found in the dance between your deepest desire and your greatest fear.” —Anthony Robbins
“How do we keep our inner fire alive? Two things, at minimum, are needed: an ability to appreciate the positives in our life - and a commitment to action. Every day, it’s important to ask and answer these questions: ‘What’s good in my life?’ and ‘What needs to be done?’” —Nathaniel Branden
“The price of excellence is discipline; the cost of mediocrity is disappointment.” —William Arthur Ward
“If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant; if we did not sometimes taste of adversity, prosperity would not be so welcome.” —Anne Bradstreet

“Sometimes our fate resembles a fruit tree in winter. Who would think that those branches would turn green again and blossom, but we hope it, we know it.” —Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
“Even if you encounter opposition, have conviction and finish what you start. In the end, people will understand.” —Kotaku Wamura (Mayor of Japanese village who built a sea wall, against many protests, which recently saved the town when the tsunami hit NE Japan)
“My grandfather once told me that there were two kinds of people: those who do the work and those who take the credit. He told me to try to be in the first group; there was much less competition.” —Indira Gandhi
“A moment of choice is a moment of truth. It’s the testing point of our character and competence.” —Stephen Covey
“If your ship doesn’t come in, swim out to it!” —Jonathan Winters
“If doubt is challenging you and you do not act, doubts will GROW. Challenge the doubts with action and YOU will grow.” —John Kanary
“Those who turn good organizations into great organizations are motivated by a deep creative urge and an inner compulsion for sheer unadulterated excellence for its own sake.” —Jim Collins
“Compromise: The art of dividing a cake in such a way that everybody believes he got the biggest piece.” —Sherry Rothfield
“We cannot direct the wind but we can adjust the sails.” —anonymous
“Life’s not about waiting for the storms to pass... it’s about learning to dance in the rain.” —B.J. Gallagher
“When you reach the end of your rope, tie a knot in it and hang on.” —Thomas Jefferson

“Power is of two kinds. One is obtained by the fear of punishment and the other by acts of love. Power based on love is a thousand times more effective and permanent than the one derived from fear of punishment.” —Mahatma Gandhi
“Keep your thoughts positive because your thoughts become your words. Keep your words positive because your words become your behaviors. Keep your behaviors positive because your behaviors become your habits. Keep your habits positive because your habits become your values. Keep your values positive because your values become your destiny.” —Gandhi
“A smooth sea never made a skilled mariner.” —English proverb
“Great masters merit emulation, not worship.” —Alan Cohen
“Clear, written goals have a wonderful effect on your thinking. They motivate you and galvanize you into action. They stimulate your creativity, release your energy, and help you to overcome procrastination as much as any other factor.” —Brian Tracy
“Planning is bringing the future into the present so that you can do something about it now.” —Alan Lakein
“Confidence is contagious. So is the lack of confidence.” —Vince Lombardi
“Optimism may sometimes be delusional, but pessimism is always delusional.” —Alan Cohen
“Few things help an individual more than to place responsibility upon them and to let them know that you trust them.” —Booker T. Washington “We are continually faced with great opportunities which are brilliantly disguised as unsolvable problems.” —Margaret Mead
“Long-range goals keep you from being frustrated by short-term failures.” —James Cash Penney
“If you just set out to be liked, you would be prepared to compromise on anything at any time, and you would achieve nothing.” —Margaret Thatcher
“You may be disappointed if you fail, but you are doomed if you don’t try.” —Beverly Sills
“We can do anything we want to as long as we stick to it long enough.” —Helen Keller
“In organizations, real power and energy is generated through relationships. The patterns of relationships and the capacities to form them are more important than tasks, functions, roles, and positions.” —Margaret Wheatley
“It’s not differences that divide us. It’s our judgments about each other that do.” —Margaret Wheatley
“You have within you right now, everything you need to deal with whatever the world can throw at you.” —Brian Tracy
“There will come a time when you believe everything is finished. That will be the beginning.” —Louis L’Amour
“It is understanding that gives us an ability to have peace. When we understand the other fellow’s viewpoint, and he understands ours, then we can sit down and work out our differences.” —Harry S. Truman
“Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.” —Abraham Lincoln
“Freedom is actually a bigger game than power. Power is about what you can control. Freedom is about what you can unleash.” —Harriet Rubin
“Destiny is not a matter of chance, it is a matter of choice; it is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved.” —William Jennings Bryan
The ultimate measure of man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy. —Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
“Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things.” —Peter F. Drucker
“Don’t tell people how to do things, tell them what to do and let them surprise you with their results.” —George S. Patton
“A leader is a dealer in hope.” —Napoleon Bonaparte
“The very essence of leadership is that you have to have vision. You can’t blow an uncertain trumpet.” —Theodore M. Hesburgh

“The best executive is the one who has sense enough to pick good men to do what he wants done, and self-restraint to keep from meddling with them while they do it.” —Theodore Roosevelt
“A leader is one who sees more than others see, who sees farther than others see, and who sees before others see.” —Leroy Eimes
“The task of the leader is to get his people from where they are to where they have not been.” —Henry Kissinger
“Great leaders are almost always great simplifiers, who can cut through argument, debate, and doubt to offer a solution everybody can understand.” —General Colin Powell
“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 Truman
“The leader is one who mobilizes others toward a goal shared by leader and followers.” —Gary Wills “Leadership is lifting a person’s vision to higher sights, the raising of a person’s performance to a higher standard, the building of a personality beyond its normal limitations.” —Peter F. Drucker
“Leadership is getting people to work for you when they are not obligated.” —Fred Smith
“My own definition of leadership is this: The capacity and the will to rally men and women to a common purpose and the character which inspires confidence.”” —General Montgomery
“I think leadership comes from integrity - that you do whatever you ask others to do. I think there are non-obvious ways to lead. Just by providing a good example as a parent, a friend, a neighbor makes it possible for other people to see better ways to do things. Leadership does not need to be a dramatic, fist in the air and trumpets blaring, activity.” —Scott Berkun
“Before you are a leader, success is all about growing yourself. When you become a leader, success is all about growing others.” —Jack Welch
“The leader has to be practical and a realist, yet must talk the language of the visionary and the idealist.” —Eric Hoffer
“Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.” —Abraham Lincoln
“Am I not destroying my enemies when I make friends of them?” —Abraham Lincoln
“Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.” —Albert Einstein
“Any fool can criticize, condemn, and complain, and most fools do.” —Benjamin Franklin
“Beware of little expenses. A small leak will sink a big ship.” —Benjamin Franklin
“He that is of the opinion money will do everything may well be suspected of doing everything for money.” —Benjamin Franklin
“First ask yourself: What is the worst that can happen? Then prepare to accept it. Then proceed to improve on the worst.” —Dale Carnegie
“If you want to gather honey, don’t kick over the beehive.” —Dale Carnegie
“You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you.” —Dale Carnegie
“Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people who have kept on trying when there seemed to be no hope at all.” —Dale Carnegie
“An intellectual is a man who takes more words than necessary to tell more than he knows.” —Dwight D. Eisenhower
“Farming looks mighty easy when your plow is a pencil and you’re a thousand miles from the corn field.” —Dwight D. Eisenhower

“To be prepared for war is one of the most effective means of preserving peace.” —George Washington
“Few men have virtue to withstand the highest bidder.” —George Washington
“If you once forfeit the confidence of your fellow citizens, you can never regain their respect and esteem. You may fool all of the people some of the time; you can even fool some of the people all the time; but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time.” —Abraham Lincoln
“Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it.” —Dwight D. Eisenhower
“You cannot shake hands with a clenched fist.” —Golda Meir
“I can honestly say that I was never affected by the question of the success of an undertaking. If I felt it was the right thing to do, I was for it regardless of the possible outcome.” —Golda Meir
“Failure is only the opportunity to begin again more intelligently.” —Henry Ford
“Associate yourself with men of good quality if you esteem your own reputation, for ’tis better to be alone than in bad company.” —George Washington
“The price of greatness is responsibility.” —Winston Churchill
“The greatest lesson in life is to know that even fools are right sometimes.” —Winston Churchill
“It is a mistake to look too far ahead. Only one link in the chain of destiny can be handled at a time.” —Winston Churchill
“If you want to get somewhere you have to know where you want to go and how to get there. Then never, never, never give up.” —Norman Vincent Peale
“We must find time to stop and thank the people who have made a difference in our lives.” —Dan Zadra
“To lead people, walk beside them... As for the best leaders, the people do not notice their existence. The next best, the people honor and praise. The next, the people fear; and the next, the people hate. When the best leader’s work is done the people say, ‘We did it ourselves’.” —Lao Tzu

“The consequence of living our lives at warp speed is that we rarely take time to reflect on what we value most deeply or to keep these priorities front and center. Most of us spend more time reacting to immediate crises and responding to expectations from others than we do making considered choices guided by what matters most to us.” —Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz, The Power Of Full Engagement
“Conviction is worthless unless it is converted into conduct.” —Thomas Carlye
“Courage is doing what you are afraid to do. There can be no courage without fear.” —P. Hayes
“Entrepreneurship is a state of mind, a can-do attitude, a capacity to focus on a vision and work toward it.” —Barry Rogstad
“Many of our fears are tissue paper thin, and a single courageous step would carry us clear through them.” —Brendan Francis
“Nothing in life is to be feared. It is only to be understood.” —Marie Curie
“If your actions inspire others to do more, to learn more, to dream more or to become more, you are a leader.” —John Quincy Adams
“When we accept tough jobs as a challenge to our ability and wade into them with joy and enthusiasm, miracles can happen.” —Arland Gilbert
“It takes as much energy to wish as it does to plan.” —Eleanor Roosevelt
“The wise man bridges the gap by laying out the path by means of which he can get from where he is to where he wants to go.” —John Pierpont Morgan
“A smooth sea never made a skilled mariner.” —English proverb
“The question in life is not whether you get knocked down. You will. The question is, are you ready to get back up... and fight for what you believe in?” —Dan Quayle
“Out of clutter, find simplicity. From discord, find harmony. In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.” —Albert Einstein
“You will never change your life until you change something you do daily.” —Mike Murdock
“Real difficulties can be overcome. It’s the imaginary ones that are unconquerable.” —Theodore Vail
“Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgement that something else is more important than fear.” —Ambrose Redmoon
“Luck favors the well prepared.” —anonymous
“Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.” —T.S. Eliot
“If we can only accept what we currently believe, we have already reached our full potential. Be willing to experiment, to take risks. While skepticism can be healthy, too much skepticism can be deadly... deadly to one’s spirit, to one’s sense of well-being and to one’s dreams.” —Blair Warren
“People will do anything for those who encourage their dreams, justify their failures, allay their fears, confirm their suspicions and help them throw rocks at their enemies.” —Blair Warren
“Your past is not your potential. In any hour you can choose to liberate the future.” —Marilyn Ferguson
“The minute you settle for less than you deserve, you get even less than you settled for.” —Maureen Dowd
“Adversity is like a strong wind. It tears away from us all but the things that cannot be torn, so that we see ourselves as we really are.” —Arthur Golden, Memoirs of a Geisha
“Real obstacles don’t take you in circles. They can be overcome. Invented ones are like a maze.” —Barbara Sher
“If you do not change direction, you may end up where you’re heading.” —Lao Tzu
“The cave you most fear to enter contains the greatest treasure.” —Joseph Campbell
Your fears are not walls, but hurdles. Courage is not the absence of fear, but the conquering of it. –Dan Millman
Every man has a coward and hero in his soul. –Thomas Carlyle
Each day comes bearing its gifts. Untie the ribbons. –Ann Ruth Schabaker
The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams. –Eleanor Roosevelt
If your ship doesn’t come in, swim out to it! –Jonathan Winters
Live your life each day as you would climb a mountain. An occasional glance towards the summit keeps the goal in mind, but many beautiful scenes are to be observed from each new vantage point. –Harold B. Melchart
“The tragedy of life is not found in failure but complacency. Not in you doing too much, but doing too little. Not in you living above your means, but below your capacity. It’s not failure but aiming too low, that is life’s greatest tragedy.” –Benjamin E. Mayes
Courage does not always roar. Sometimes, it is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying, “I will try again tomorrow.”
“Calm self-confidence is as far from conceit as the desire to earn a decent living is remote from greed.” —Channing Pollock
“Class is an aura of confidence that is being sure without being cocky. Class has nothing to do with money. Class never runs scared. It is self-discipline and self-knowledge. It’s the sure footedness that comes with having proved you can meet life.” —Ann Lander
“Courage is the greatest of all the virtues. Because if you haven’t courage, you may not have an opportunity to use any of the others.” —Samuel Johnson
“Fear is the opportunity for courage, not proof of cowardice.” —John McCain
“Many of our fears are tissue paper thin, and a single courageous step would carry us clear through them.” —Brendan Francis
“Ships are safe within the harbor, but is that what ships are for?”
“Do not be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment.” —Ralph Waldo Emerson
“One’s action ought to come out of an achieved stillness: not to be a mere rushing on.” —D.H. Lawrence
“It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare, it is because we do not dare that things are difficult.” —Seneca
“While one person hesitates because he feels inferior, the other is busy making mistakes and becoming superior.” —Henry C. Link
“You can’t help someone get up a hill without getting closer to the top yourself.” —H. Norman Schwarzkopf
“Though no one can go back and make a brand new start, anyone can start from now and make a brand new ending.” —Carl Bard
“I don’t know if you’ll succeed or fail, but I know this: you will fail if you don’t try!”
“Better to fail at doing the right thing than to succeed at doing the wrong thing.” —Guy Kawasaki
“People rarely succeed unless they enjoy what they are doing.” —Dale Carnegie
“Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement. Nothing can be done without hope and confidence.” —Helen Keller
“Optimism is a strategy for making a better future. Because unless you believe that the future can be better, it’s unlikely you will step up and take responsibility for making it so. If you assume that there’s no hope, you guarantee that there will be no hope. If you assume that there is an instinct for freedom, that there are opportunities to change things, there is a chance you may contribute to making a better world. The choice is yours.” —Noam Chomsky
“It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.” —Charles Darwin

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