Leadership Quotes

Lead the ideas of your time and they will accompany and support you; fall behind them and they drag you along with them; oppose them and they will overwhelm you.

It is often in the audacity, in the steadfastness, of the general that the safety and the conservation of his men is found.

A commander in chief ought to say to himself several times a day: If the enemy should appear on my front, on my right, on my left, what would I do? And if the question finds him uncertain, he is not well placed, he is not as he should be, and he should remedy it.

If you build an army of 100 lions and their leader is a dog, in any fight, the lions will die like a dog. But if you build an army of 100 dogs and their leader is a lion, all dogs will fight as a lion.

I made all my generals out of mud.

More glorious to merit a sceptre than to possess one.

If I am often seen at the theatre, people will cease to notice me.

If I always appear prepared, it is because before entering an undertaking, I have meditated long and have foreseen what might occur. It is not genius which reveals to me suddenly and secretly what I should do in circumstances unexpected by others; it is thought and preparation.

Never awake me when you have good news to announce, because with good news nothing presses; but when you have bad news, arouse me immediately, for then there is not an instant to be lost.

Nothing is so important in war as an undivided command.

The art of choosing men is not nearly so difficult as the art of enabling those chosen to attain their full worth.

A leader has the right to be beaten, but never the right to be surprised.

The best generals are those who have served in the artillery.

It is not enough to give orders they must be obeyed.

The effect of discussions, making a show of talent, and calling councils of war will be what the effect of these things has been in every age: they will end in the adoption of the most pusillanimous or (if the expression be preferred) the most prudent measures, which in war are almost uniformly the worst that can be adopted.True wisdom, so far as a general is concerned, consists in energetic determination.

There are certain things in war of which the commander alone comprehends the importance. Nothing but his superior firmness and ability can subdue and surmount all difficulties.

Let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself-nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.

It's a terrible thing to look over your shoulder when you are trying to lead-and find no one there.

I'm not the smartest fellow in the world, but I can sure pick smart colleagues.

A good leader can't get too far ahead of his followers.