Warren G. Bennis
The leader has a clear idea of what he wants to do -- professionally and personally -- and the strength to persist in the face of setbacks, even failures.
Every leader needs to have experienced and grown through following -- learning to be dedicated, observant, capable of working with and learning from others, never servile, always truthful. Having located these qualities in himself, he can encourage them in others.
To become a leader, then, you must become yourself, become the maker of your own life.
The leader wonders about everything, wants to learn as much as he can, is willing to take risks, experiment, try new things. He does not worry about failure, but embraces errors, knowing he will learn from them.
Discover More Quotes From Your Favorite Authors
I love you, I am at rest with you, I have come home.
Two souls with but a single thought, two hearts that beat as one.
Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity.
Analyzing humor is like dissecting a frog. Few people are interested and the frog dies of it.
Strength is life, weakness is death. Expansion is life, contraction is death. Love is life, hatred is death.
We didn't need dialogue. We had faces.
A wise man will not leave the right to the mercy of chance, nor wish it to prevail through the power of the majority. There is but little virtue in the action of masses of men.
Practice makes perfect.
Growth in personality occurs as a consequence of meeting conflicts and impasses head on, and reconciling them. Interpersonal conflicts and impasses constitute problems which require solutions so that a satisfying relationship may be maintained. Whenever a person encounters a problem in his everyday living, he is obliged to vary his behavior until he discovers some mode of responding which is successful in achieving a solution.
It was a high counsel that I once heard given to a young person, Always do what you are afraid to do.
Nothing happens unless first we dream.
Happiness resides not in possessions and not in gold , the feeling of happiness dwells in the soul.
Little minds are tamed and subdued by misfortune, but great minds rise above them.
You see, in life, lots of people know what to do, but few people actually do what they know. Knowing is not enough ! You must take action.
The bonds of matrimony are like any other bonds, they mature slowly.
Knowing is not enough, we must apply. Willing is not enough, we must do.
Our life is what it is as a result of how we think.
The true way to soften one's troubles is to solace those of others.
In my case, self-absorption is completely justified. I have never discovered any other subject so worthy of my attention.
Wherever there's a fight so hungry people can eat, I'll be there.
Rather than focusing on things and time, focus on preserving and enhancing relationships and on accomplishing results.
If not us, who, if not now, when ?
It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge.
Expect the best, plan for the worst, and prepare to be surprised.
In any situation, the best thing you can do is the right thing, the next best thing you can do is the wrong thing, the worst thing you can do is nothing.
Knowledge of what is possible is the beginning of happiness.
Feel the fear and do it anyway.
In Heaven the economy is run by the Germans, the French do the cooking, and the police are English. In Hell the economy is run by the French, the English do the cooking, and the police are German.
That which does not kill you makes you stronger.
Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal ; nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong mental attitude.
I always try to turn my personal struggles into something helpful for others.
Kindness is always fashionable.
The search for someone to blame is always successful.
Not many people are willing to give failure a second opportunity. They fail once and it is all over. The bitter pill of failure is often more than most people can handle. If you are willing to accept failure and learn from it, if you are willing to consider failure as a blessing in disguise and bounce back, you have got the essential of harnessing one of the most powerful success forces.
You are today where your thoughts have brought
Strength and growth come only through continuous effort and struggle.
There is a law that man should love his neighbor as himself. In a few hundred years it should be as natural to mankind as breathing or the upright gait, but if he does not learn it, he must perish.
Count it all joy, my brethren, when you meet various trials, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.
How many legs does a dog have if you call the tail a leg ? Four. Calling a tail a leg doesn't make it a leg.
Failure is a detour, not a dead-end street.
Among the things you can give and still keep are your word, a smile, and a grateful heart.
No one is so poor as an ignorant person.
Within us all there are wells of thought and dynamos of energy which are not suspected until emergencies arise. Then oftentimes we find that it is comparatively simple to double or treble our former capacities and to amaze ourselves by the results achieved. Quotas, when set up for us by others, are challenges which goad us on to surpass ourselves. The outstanding leaders of every age are those who set up their own quotas and constantly achieve them.
Remember when you see a man at the top of a mountain, he didn't fall there.
If they move, kill ' em.
Mr. Allen, this may come as a shock to you, but there are some men who don't end every sentence with a proposition.
People rarely succeed unless they have fun in what they are doing.
Our minds are as different as our faces we are all traveling to one destination, happiness, but few are going by the same road.
When a resolute young fellow steps up to the great bully, the world, and takes him boldly by the beard, he is often surprised to find it comes off in his hand, and that it was only tied on to scare away the timid adventurers.
If you don't like something, change it , if you can't change it, change the way you think about it.
Your world is a living expression of how you are using and have used your mind
My mama always said, life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get.
The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.
Follow your dreams.
If you think you can, or you think you can't, you're probably right.
This is the West, sir. When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.
You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view, until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it.
That's what I love about these high school girls, man. I keep getting older, they stay the same age.
The dingo took my baby !
Why hesitate? Upon the plains of hesitation are the bleached bones of countless millions, who on the threshold of victory sat down to wait, and in waiting they died.
There is no cure for birth and death save to enjoy the interval.
Give me a whisky, ginger ale on the side. And don't be stingy, baby.
Your children will become what you are, so be what you want them to be.
It is the very essence of good leadership to give away all credit for positive achievement, to identify only team goals and always to refer to them as such.
In real love you want the other person's good. In romantic love you want the other person.
Regret for the things we did can be tempered by time, it is regret for the things we did not do that is inconsolable.
Anything in life worth having is worth working for.
I want everyone to be the way I strive to become -- to be himself in his truth. Do not follow me, follow yourself ! is the existential challenge. Self-being awakens self-being but does not force itself on it.
I know for sure that what we dwell on is who we become.
Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people who have kept on trying when there seemed to be no help at all.
The only time I really become discouraged is when I think of all the things I would like to do and the little time I have in which to do them.
The most common cause of fear of old age is associated with the possibility of poverty.
Friendship is not born of words alone.
You miss 100% of the shots you don't take.
Learning is definitely not mere imitation or the ability to accumulate and conform to fixed knowledge. Learning is a constant process of discovery and never a concluding one. In JKD we begin not by accumulation but by discovering the cause of our ignorance, and oftentimes this involves a shedding process. Truth will not come until we have come to understand personally the whole process of the working of our being. After all, ultimately, knowledge in martial art simply means self-knowledge, and JKD can become intelligible only in the vigorous and constant process of self-inquiry and self-discovery.
Unfortunately, there seems to be far more opportunity out there than ability... . We should remember that good fortune often happens when opportunity meets with preparation.
There are many who's tongues might govern multitudes, if they could govern their tongues.
It is not length of life, but depth of life.
Absence diminishes small loves and increases great ones, as the wind blows out the candle and blows up the bonfire.
It is better to bind your children to you by a feeling of respect and by gentleness, than by fear.
Love is the expansion of two natures in such fashion that each include the other, each is enriched by the other.
Your voice makes me tremble inside and your smile is an invitation for my imagination to go wild.
Happiness is not a matter of events, it depends upon the tides of the mind.
Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream.
Everything you want is on the other side of fear.
In the midst of winter, I found there was within me an invincible summer.
Lovers who love truly do not write down their happiness.
How can you tell the difference between a run-over snake and a run-over lawyer? There are skid marks in front of the snake.
Practice does not make perfect, perfect practice makes perfect.
There is a real magic in enthusiasm. It spells the difference between mediocrity and accomplishment.
The battle is all over except the "shouting" when one knows what is wanted and has made up his mind to get it, whatever the price may be.
The successful man is the average man, focused.
Stopping at third base adds no more runs than striking out.
I ain't so tough.
Love is a great beautifier.
Only after you challenge your biases and stereotypes-- what Francis Bacon called the 'idols which beset men's minds'--can you help others do the same.
It is what you learn after you know it all that counts.
You affect your subconscious mind by verbal repetition.
A man should have any number of little aims about which he should be conscious and for which he should have names, but he should have neither name for, nor consciousness concerning, the main aim of his life.
Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.