Quotes about Leadership

I reminded myself that every president felt saddled with the previous administration's choices and mistakes, that 90 percent of the job was navigating inherited problems and unanticipated crises. Only if you did that well enough, with discipline and purpose, did you get a real shot at shaping the future.

In other words, if you wanted good government, then expertise mattered. You needed public institutions stocked with people whose job it was to pay attention to important stuff so the rest of us citizens didn't have to.

He told me that I needed to smile more, to remember that this was a great adventure and that voters loved a happy warrior.

Michelle backstage, beautiful in white, squeezing my hand, gazing lovingly into my eyes, and telling me "Just don't screw it up, buddy!

The fuss of being president, the pomp, the press, the physical constraints - all that I could have done without. The actual work, though? The work, I loved. Even when it didn't love me back.

I realized that for all the power inherent in the seat I now occupied, there would always be a chasm between what I knew should be done to achieve a better world and what in a day, week, or year I found myself actually able to accomplish.

He was getting that look he gets, oh boy, like Here comes Moses tromping down off of Mount Syanide with ten fresh ways to wreck your life.

But people desire fair government. You say that constantly." "They want to believe in heroes, also. And villains. Especially when very frightened. It's less taxing than the truth.

Can one who hates right govern?" Job 34:13

Well, why were they dumb enough to vote for Leah anyway, is what I asked Nelson. If they knew it was going to get Tata Kuvudundu so riled up? Nelson said some of them that voted for her were put out with Tata Ndu, and some were put out with Father, so everybody ended up getting what they didn't want, and now had to go along with it. Nobody even cares that much one way or another about Leah, is what Nelson said. Oh, well, I told him. That is what we call Democracy.

If I got to make just one law, it would be that the men who make the decisions to drop bombs would first, every time, have to spend one whole day taking care of a baby. We were not made to do this killing thing. I swear. Back up. It's a big mistake.

Make small commitments and keep them. Be a light, not a judge. Be a model, not a critic. Be part of the solution, not part of the problem.