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Leadership Tips from

Woodrow Wilson
(Virginia Alpha & Maryland Alpha 1879)

Were celebrating the 150th anniversary

of Woodrow Wilsons birth
On Leadership
Surely a man has come to himself only when he
has found the best that is in him, and has
satisfied his heart with the highest achievement
he is fit for.

I not only use all the brains I have but all I can
borrow.

When you come into the presence of a leader

of men, you know that you have come into the
presence of fire

No man that does not see visions will ever

realize any high hope or undertake any high
enterprise.

A man is not as big as his belief in himself; he is

as big as the number of persons who believe in
him.

All the extraordinary men I have known were

extraordinary in their own estimation.

We cannot be separated in interest or divided in

purpose. We stand together until the end.

All things come to him who waits -- provided he

knows what he is waiting for.

If you want to make enemies, try to change

something.

Caution is the confidential agent of selfishness.

"The man who is swimming against the stream

knows the strength of it." (Speech, The New
Freedom, 1913)

"Absolute identity with one's cause is the first

and great condition of successful leadership."

A friend of mine says that every man who takes

office in Washington either grows or swells, and
when I give a man an office, I watch him
carefully to see whether he is growing or
swelling. (Speech, May 15, 1916, National Press
Club, Washington D.C.))

I would rather lose in a cause that will some day

win, than win in a cause that will some day lose.

If you think too much about being re-elected, it

is very difficult to be worth re-electing.

Never attempt to murder a man who is

committing suicide. (Letter to Bernard Baruch,
1916)

One cool judgment is worth a thousand hasty

counsels. The thing to do is to supply light and
not heat. (Speech, Jan. 29, 1916, Pittsburgh, Pa.)

The ear of the leader must ring with the voices

of the people.

Power consists in one's capacity to link his will

with the purpose of others, to lead by reason
and a gift of cooperation.

There are blessed intervals when I forget by

one means or another that I am President of the
United States.

A man who never changes his mind is dead.

There must be, not a balance of power, but a

community of power; not organized rivalries, but
an organized peace.

"Life does not consist in thinking, it consists in

acting."

To do things today exactly the way you did

them yesterday saves thinking.

Wisdom comes with counsel, with the frank and

free conference of untrammeled men united in
the common interest. (Acceptance speech,
Democratic National Convention)

Do not follow people that stand still.

"Experience is the name everyone gives to his

mistakes."

The only use of an obstacle is to be overcome.

All that an obstacle does with brave men is, not
to frighten them, but to challenge them.
(Address to the Italian Parliament, Rome, Jan. 3,
1919)

"Power consists in one's capacity to link his will

with the purpose of others, to lead by reason
and a gift of cooperation." (Letter to Mary A.
Hulbert, Sept. 21, 1913)

The Great Joy of Serving Others & Living the Creed

No man has ever risen to the real stature of
spiritual manhood until he has found that it is
finer to serve somebody else than it is to serve
himself.

If you will think about what you ought to do for

other people, your character will take care of
itself. Character is a by-product, and any man
who devotes himself to its cultivation in his own
case will become a selfish prig.

You are not here merely to make a living. You

are here in order to enable the world to live more
amply, with greater vision, with a finer spirit of
hope and achievement. You are here to enrich
the world, and you impoverish yourself if you
forget the errand.

No thoughtful man ever came to the end of his

life, and had time and a little space of calm from
which to look back upon it, who did not know
and acknowledge that it was what he had done
unselfishly and for others, and nothing else, that
satisfied him in the retrospect, and made him
feel that he had played the man.

Provision for others is a fundamental

responsibility of human life.

There is no question what the roll of honor in

America is. The roll of honor consists of the
names of men who have squared their conduct
by ideals of duty. (Speech, February 27, 1916,
Washington, DC)

We are citizens of the world. The tragedy of our

times is that we do not know this.

Loyalty means nothing unless it has at its heart

the absolute principle of self-sacrifice.

There is no higher religion than human service.

To work for the common good is the greatest
creed.

If you lose your wealth, you have lost nothing, If

you lose your health, you have lost something,
But if you lose your character, you have lost
everything.

No task, rightly done, is truly private. It is part

of the worlds work. (Address at Princeton
University November 1, 1902)

There is something better, if possible, that a

man can give his life. That is his living spirit to a
service that is not easy, to resist counsels that
are hard to resist, to stand against purposes that
are difficult to stand against. (Speech May 30,
1919)

Benevolence doesnt consist in those who are

prosperous pitying and helping those who are
not. Benevolence consists in fellow-feeling that
puts you upon actually the same level with the
fellow who suffers.

Nothing but what you volunteer has the

essence of life, the springs of pleasure in it.
These are the things you do because you want
to do them, the things the spirit has chosen for
its satisfaction. The more you are stimulated to
such action the more clearly does it appear to
you that you are a sovereign spirit, put into the
world, not to wear a harness, but to work eagerly
without it.

It is the object of learning, not only to satisfy the

curiosity and perfect the spirits of ordinary men,
but also to advance civilization. (Mere Literature
and Other Essays, pp. 73-74, Houghton Mifflin, 1896)

I am not sure that it is of the first importance

that you should be happy. Many an unhappy
man has been of deep service to himself and to
the world. (Baccalaureate address, June 7, 1908,

We are not put into the world to sit still and

know; we are put into it to act. (Inaugural
address, October 25, 1902, as president of Princeton
University).

at Princeton University)

On Friendship
Friendship is the only cement that will ever hold
the world together.

You cannot be friends upon any other terms

than upon the terms of equality. (Speech
October 2, 1913)

At every crisis in one's life, it is absolute

salvation to have some sympathetic friend to
whom you can think aloud without restraint or
misgiving.

Only a peace between equals can last.

(Speech to U.S. Senate, January 22, 1917)

On College Students
The most conservative persons I ever met are
college undergraduates. The radicals are the
men past middle life. (Speech, Nov. 19, 1905,
New York City)

No student knows his subject: the most he

knows is where and how to find out the things he
does not know.

If young gentlemen get from their years in

college only manliness, esprit de corps, a
release of their social gifts, a training in give and

take, a catholic taste in men and the standards

of true sportsmen, they have gained much but
they have not gained what a college should give
them. It should give them insight into the things
of the mind and the spirit ... the consciousness
of having taken on them the vows of true
enlighten-ment and of having undergone the
disci-pline, never to be shaken off, of those who
seek wisdom in candor, with faithful labor and
travail of spirit. (Phi Beta Kappa oration, July 1,
1909, at Harvard University)

Other Selected Quotations

On the value of knowing our history (with
application to Phi Psi if you consider it a nation
of its own):
A nation which does not remember what it was
yesterday, does not know what it is today, nor
what it is trying to do. We are trying to do a futile
thing if we do not know where we came from or
what we have been about.

On our co-founders or those who are members

of Chapters being chartered or rechartered:
We grow great by dreams. All big men are
dreamers. They see things in the soft haze of a
spring day or in the red fire of a long winter's
evening. Some of us let these great dreams die,
but others nourish and protect them; nurse them
through bad days till they bring them to the
sunshine and light which comes always to those
who sincerely hope that their dreams will come
true.

Quotations are arranged by and assigned to categories created by Michael H. McCoy, Historian of Phi Kappa Psi. Updated May 31,
2007. These quotations have been compiled from a number of public sources believed to be credible, but some have yet to be
confirmed. A list of sources, where identified, is available upon request. The assistance of readers in identifying authoritative
sources, especially those identifying the original use, would be appreciated. Nominate other Wilson quotations anytime; include
sources. Direct all communications about this list to mikemccoy1852@yahoo.com

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