Leadership quotes

Words about guiding others and carrying responsibility.

• ...let us not be unmindful that liberty is power; that the nation blessed with the largest portion of liberty must in proportion to its numbers be the most powerful nation upon earth, and that the tenure of power by man is, in the moral purposes of his Creator, upon condition that it shall be exercised to ends of beneficence, to improve the condition of himself and his fellow men.

• The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.

• It is a crisis of confidence. It is a crisis that strikes at the very heart and soul and spirit of our national will.

• Progress does not compel us to settle centuries-long debates about the role of government for all time, but it does require us to act in our time.

• After a period of confrontation, we are entering an era of negotiation.

• The lesson of past agony is that without the people we can do nothing--with the people we can do everything.

• To a crisis of the spirit, we need an answer of the spirit.

• The greatest honor history can bestow is the title of peacemaker.

• We cannot learn from one another until we stop shouting at one another--until we speak quietly enough so that our words can be heard as well as our voices.

• In the end, all the world's wealth and a thousand armies are no match for the strength and decency of the human spirit.

• Each generation of Americans must define what it means to be an American.

• There is nothing wrong with America that cannot be cured by what is right with America.

• But even if we pass this bill, the battle will not be over.

• If you do this, then you will find, as others have found before you, that the vote is the most powerful instrument ever devised by man for breaking down injustice and destroying the terrible walls which imprison men because they are different from other men.

• Yesterday is not ours to recover, but tomorrow is ours to win or to lose.

• We are a nation that has a government—not the other way around.

• In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.

• It is to make kinder the face of the Nation and gentler the face of the world.

• I have spoken of a Thousand Points of Light, of all the community organizations that are spread like stars throughout the Nation, doing good.

• I am acutely aware that you have not elected me as your President by your ballots, and so I ask you to confirm me as your President with your prayers.

• I do not want a honeymoon with you. I want a good marriage.

• My fellow Americans, our long national nightmare is over.

• War should never be entered upon until every agency of peace has failed; peace is preferable to war in almost every contingency.

• The period of exclusiveness is past.

• Gentlemen, let us ever remember that our interest is in concord, not conflict, and that our real eminence rests in the victories of peace, not those of war.

• I am not liked as a President by the politicians in office, in the press, or in Congress. But I am content to abide the judgment — the sober second thought — of the people.

• My policy is trust, peace, and to put aside the bayonet.

• The President of the United States of necessity owes his election to office to the suffrage and zealous labors of a political party, the members of which cherish with ardor and regard as of essential importance the principles of their party organization; but he should strive to be always mindful of the fact that he serves his party best who serves the country best.

• We owe it, therefore, to candor and to the amicable relations existing between the United States and those powers to declare that we should consider any attempt on their part to extend their system to any portion of this hemisphere as dangerous to our peace and safety.

• ...that the American continents, by the free and independent condition which they have assumed and maintain, are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future colonization by any European powers.

• The right of self defense never ceases. It is among the most sacred, and alike necessary to nations and to individuals, and whether the attack be made by Spain herself or by those who abuse her power, its obligation is not the less strong.

• Anyone who has taken the oath I have just taken must feel a heavy weight of responsibility.

• The true view of the Executive functions is, as I conceive it, that the President can exercise no power which cannot be fairly and reasonably traced to some specific grant of power or justly implied and included within such express grant as proper and necessary to its exercise.

• The world is not going to be saved by legislation, and it is not going to be injured by an occasional two years of respite from the panacea and magic that many modern schools of politicians seem to think are to be found in the words: "Be it enacted."

• Victory would mean peace forced upon the loser, a victor's terms imposed upon the vanquished.

• Our work is a work of restoration.

• The firm basis of government is justice, not pity.

• The world must be made safe for democracy.

• I believe that it must be the policy of the United States to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures.

• The President--whoever he is--has to decide. He can't pass the buck to anybody.

• There is no right to strike against the public safety by anybody, anywhere, any time.

• …now, more than ever before, the people are responsible for the character of their Congress. If that body be ignorant, reckless, and corrupt, it is because the people tolerate ignorance, recklessness, and corruption.

• It is the high privilege and sacred duty of those now living to educate their successors, and fit them, by intelligence and virtue, for the inheritance which awaits them.

• When an election to office shall be the selection by the voters of one of their number to assume for a time a public trust instead of his dedication to the profession of politics; when the holders of the ballot, quickened by a sense of duty, shall avenge truth betrayed and pledges broken, and when the suffrage shall be altogether free and uncorrupted, the full realization of a government by the people will be at hand.

• Under our scheme of government the waste of public money is a crime against the citizen, and the contempt of our people for economy and frugality in their personal affairs deplorably saps the strength and sturdiness of our national character.

• ...though the people support the Government the Government should not support the people.

• And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you--ask what you can do for your country.

• In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex.

• We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men and women are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights governments are instituted, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.

• I have learned, in some degree at least, to disregard the old maxim which says, “Do not get others to do that which you can do yourself.” My motto, on the other hand, is, “Do not do that which others can do as well.”

• Few things help an individual more than to place responsibility upon him, and to let him know that you trust him.

• …the judiciary, from the nature of its functions, will always be the least dangerous to the political rights of the constitution; because it will be least in a capacity to annoy or injure them.

• Energy in the executive is a leading character in the definition of good government.

• Why has government been instituted at all? Because the passions of men will not conform to the dictates of reason and justice, without constraint.

• Safety from external danger is the most powerful director of national conduct.

• It has been frequently remarked, that it seems to have been reserved to the people of this country, by their conduct and example, to decide the important question, whether societies of men are really capable or not, of establishing good government from reflection and choice, or whether they are forever destined to depend, for their political constitutions, on accident and force.

• Our democratic-republican government is based on the idea of the natural right of every individual member thereof to a voice and a vote in making and executing the laws.

• It was we, the people, not we, the white male citizens, nor yet we, the male citizens; but we, the whole people, who formed this Union.

• Citizens by birth or choice, of a common country, that country has a right to concentrate your affections.

• The basis of our political systems is the right of the people to make and to alter their Constitutions of Government.

• ’Tis our true policy to steer clear of permanent Alliances, with any portion of the foreign world—So far, I mean, as we are now at liberty to do it—for let me not be understood as capable of patronising infidility to existing engagements.

• The name of AMERICAN, which belongs to you, in your national capacity, must always exalt the just pride of Patriotism, more than any appellation derived from local discriminations.

• The accumulation of all powers legislative, executive and judiciary in the same hands, whether of one, a few or many, and whether hereditary, self appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.

• Ambition must be made to counteract ambition.

• If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controuls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: You must first enable the government to controul the governed; and in the next place, oblige it to controul itself.

• At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.

• If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that.

• My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery.

• I believe this government cannot endure, permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved—I do not expect the house to fall—but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing, or all the other.

• In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. The government will not assail you.

• We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, streching from every battle-field, and patriot grave, to every living heart and hearthstone, all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.

• Upon this point all speculative politicians will agree, that the happiness of society is the end of government, as all Divines and moral Philosophers will agree that the happiness of the individual is the end of man.

• Fear is the foundation of most governments; but is so sordid and brutal a passion, and renders men, in whose breasts it predominates, so stupid, and miserable, that Americans will not be likely to approve of any political institution which is founded on it.

• …the foundations of our national policy, will be laid in the pure and immutable principles of private morality; and the pre-eminence of free Government, be exemplified by all the attributes which can win the affections of its Citizens, and command the respect of the world.

• But let there be no change by usurpation; for though this, in one instance, may be the instrument of good, it is the customary weapon by which free governments are destroyed. The precedent must always greatly overbalance in permanent evil any partial or transient benefit which the use can at any time yield.

• As a very important source of strength & security cherish public credit. One method of preserving it is to use it as sparingly as possible: avoiding occasions of expence by cultivating peace, but remembering also that timely disbursements to prepare for danger frequently prevent much greater disbursements to repel it—avoiding likewise the accumulation of debt, not only by shunning occasions of expence, but by vigorous exertions in time of Peace to discharge the Debts which unavoidable wars may have occasioned, not ungenerously throwing upon posterity the burthen which we ourselves ought to bear.

• …there hardly ever existed such a thing as a bad Peace—or a good War.

• The people are the only censors of their governors: and even their errors will tend to keep these to the true principles of their institution.

• …And since the preservation of the sacred fire of liberty, and the destiny of the Republican model of Government, are justly considered as deeply, perhaps as finally staked, on the experiment entrusted to the hands of the American people.

• Observe good faith & justice towds all Nations cultivate peace & harmony with all—Religion & morality enjoin this conduct; and can it be that good policy does not equally enjoin it?

• With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan—to do all which may achieve and cherish a just, and a lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations.