Quotes on INITIATIVE

"Be willing to make decisions. That's the most important quality in a good leader. Don't fall victim to what I
call the ready-aim-aim-aim-aim syndrome. You must be willing to fire."
— T. Boone Pickens

"The right man is the one who seizes the moment."

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

"Their comes a moment when you have to stop revving up the car and shove it into gear."
— David Mahoney

"I would rather regret the things I have done than the things I have not."
— Lucille Ball

"If you don't make dust, you eat dust."

— Motto of Jack A. MacAllister

"If there is a trait which does characterize leaders it is opportunism. Successful people are very often
those who steadfastly refuse to be daunted by disadvantage and have the ability to turn disadvantage to
good effect. They are people who seize opportunity and take risks. Leadership then seems to be a matter
of personality and character."
— John Viney
Drive

"Most people spend more time planning their grocery shopping than designing their future. The basic
difference between people who live their dreams and those who only dream about how they would live,
are the accuracy of their plans, their ability to generate new ideas, and their ability to take action."
— Unknown

"Luck comes to a man who puts himself in the way of it. You went where something might be found and
you found something, simple as that."
— Louis L'Amour
To the Far Blue Mountains

"Eagles don't flock."

— Ross Perot

"Things may come to those who wait, but only things left by those who hustle."
— attributed to Abraham Lincoln

"Even if you're on the right track you'll get run over if you just sit there."
— Will Rogers

"An idea is worthless unless you use it."

— John Maxwell
Injoy, Inc.

"Destiny is not a matter of chance, it is a matter of choice; it is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to
be achieved."
— William Jennings Bryan

"No idea is so outlandish that it should not be considered with a searching but at the same time a steady
eye."
— Winston Churchill

"If your ship doesn't come in, swim out to meet it."
— Jonathan Winters

"Success comes to the person who does today what you were thinking about doing tomorrow."
— unknown

"Everyone who's ever taken a shower has an idea. It's the person who gets out of the shower, dries off
and does something about it who makes a difference."
— Nolan Bushnell
Founder of Atari
"Don't wait for your ship to come in; swim out to it."
— Unknown

—
"You can't cross a sea by merely staring into the water."
— Rabindranath Tagore
1913 Nobel laureate for literature

"There is a tide in the affairs of men, Which taken at the flood, leads on to fortune. Omitted, all the voyage
of their life is bound in shallows and in miseries. On such a full sea are we now afloat. And we must take
the current when it serves, or lose our ventures."
— William Shakespeare
The Tragedy of Julius Caesar

"Anything worth doing is worth doing now!"

— Ralph Stayer

"Even if you are on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there."
— Will Rogers

"If opportunity doesn't knock - build a door."

— Milton Berle

"You don't drown by falling in the water; you drown by staying there."
— Edwin Louis Cole

"Let's make a dent in the universe."

— Steve Jobs

"You have to recognize that every 'out front' maneuver you make is going to be lonely, but if you feel
entirely comfortable, then you're not far enough ahead to do any good. That warm sense of everything
going well is usually the body temperature at the center of the herd."
— John Masters
"The secret to getting ahead is getting started. The secret of getting started is breaking your complex,
overwhelming tasks into small manageable tasks, and then starting on the first one."
— Mark Twain

"Everything you want is just outside your comfort zone."

— Robert Allen

"If I had to sum up in a word what makes a good manager, I'd say decisiveness. You can use the fanciest
computers to gather the numbers, but in the end you have to set a timetable and act."
— Lee J. Iacocca

"Leaders are problem solvers by talent and temperament, and by choice. For them, the new information
environment—undermining old means of control, opening up old closets of secrecy, reducing the
relevance of ownership, early arrival, and location—should seem less a litany of problems than an
agenda for action. Reaching for a way to describe the entrepreneurial energy of his fabled editor Harold
Ross, James Thurber said" 'He was always leaning forward, pushing something invisible ahead of him.'
That's the appropriate posture for a knowledge executive."
— Harland Cleveland

Quotes on CHARACTER

"Leadership is the capacity and will to rally men and women to a common purpose and the character
which inspires confidence."
— Bernard Montgomery
British Field Marshall

"The respect that leadership must have requires that one's ethics be without question. A leader not only
stays above the line between right and wrong, he stays well clear of the gray areas."
— G. Alan Bernard
President, Mid Park, Inc.
"Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power."
— Abraham Lincoln

"Never, for the sake of peace and quiet, deny your own experience or convictions."
— Dag Hammarskjold
Statesman

"We aim to develop physique, mentality and character in our students; but because the first two are
menaces without the third, the greatest of these is character."
— Joseph Dana Allen, Headmaster
Poly Prep Magazine Fall 1989

"Character is destiny."
— Heraclitus

"Character is power."
— Booker T. Washington

"You can not dream yourself into a character; you must hammer and forge yourself one."
— James A. Froude

"God grant that men of principle shall be our principal men."

— Thomas Jefferson

"The force of character is cummulative."

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Character is the indelible mark that determines the only true value of all people and all their work."
— Orison Sweet Marden

"Character is power; it makes friends, draws patronage and support and opens the way to wealth, honor
and happiness."
— J. Howe

"Successful leadership is not about being tough or soft, sensitive or assertive, but about a set of
attributes. First and foremost is character"
— Warren Bennis

"Dreams are the touchstones of our character"

— Henry David Thoreau

"Character is the firm foundation stone upon which one must build to win respect. Just as no worthy
building can be erected on a weak foundation, so no lasting reputation worthy of respect can be built on a
weak character."
— R. C. Samsel

"No man can climb out beyond the limitations of his own character."
— John Morley

"Good character is more to be praised than outstanding talent. Most talents are to some extent a gift.
Good character, by contrast, is not given to us. We have to build it piece by piece—by thought, choice,
courage and determination."
— John Luther

"While you, the leader, can teach many things, character is not taught easily to adults who arrive at your
desk lacking it. Be cautious about taking on reclamation projects regardless of the talent they may
possess. Have the courage to make character count among the qualities you seek in others."
— John Wooden

"It is easier to fight for one's principles than to live up to them."

— Alfred Adler

"Every man has three characters—that which he exhibits, that which he has, and that which he thinks he
has."
— Alphonse Karr

"In the last analysis, what we are communicates far more eloquently than anything we say or do."
— Stephen Covey

"The forbearing use of power does not only form a touchstone; but the manner in which an individual
enjoys certain advantages over others is a test of a true gentleman. The power which the strong have
over the weak, the magistrate over the employed, the educated over the unlettered, the experienced over
the confiding, even the clever over the silly; the forbearing and inoffensive use of all this power and
authority, or the total abstinence from it, when the case admits it, will show the gentleman in a plain light.
The gentleman does not needlessly and unnecessarily remind an offender of a wrong he may have
committed against him. He can only forgive; he can forget; and he strives for that nobleness of self and
mildness of character which imparts sufficient strength to let the past be put the past."
— General Robert E. Lee

Quotes on VISION

"The empires of the future are empires of the mind."

— Winston Churchill

"No one is less ready for tomorrow than the person who holds the most rigid beliefs about what tomorrow
will contain."
— Watts Wacker, Jim Taylor and Howard Means
The Visionary's Handbook: Ten Paradoxes That Will Shape the Future of Your Business (1999)

“To the person who does not know where he wants to go there is no favorable wind.”

— Seneca

“A leader has the vision and conviction that a dream can be achieved. He inspires the power and energy
to get it done.”

— Ralph Lauren
“A leader's role is to raise people's aspirations for what they can become and to release their energies so
they will try to get there.”

— David Gergen

“A philosophy of life: I'm an adventurer, looking for treasure.”

— Paulo Coelho, 21st century Brazilian writer

The Alchemist: A Fable About Following Your Dream

“All human situations have their inconveniences. We feel those of the present but neither see nor feel
those of the future; and hence we often make troublesome changes without amendment, and frequently
for the worse.”

— Benjamin Franklin

“Destiny is not a matter of chance, but of choice. Not something to wish for, but to attain.”

— William Jennings Bryan

“Dream lofty dreams, and as you dream, so shall you become. Your Vision is the promise of what you
shall one day be. Your Ideal is the prophecy of what you shall at last unveil.”

— James Allen

"Big thinking precedes great achievement."

— Wilferd Peterson

"Dissatisfaction and discouragement are not caused by the absence of things but the absence of vision."
— Anonymous

"The future belongs to those who see possibilities before they become obvious."
— John Scully
"If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has
imagined, he will meet with success unexpected in common hours."

“Create your future from your future, not your past.”

— Werner Erhard

“Keep your eyes on the stars and your feet on the ground.”

— Franklin D. Roosevelt

“Looking up gives light, although at first it makes you dizzy.”

— Mevlana Rumi, 13th century sufi poet and mystic

Rumi Daylight: A Daybook of Spiritual Guidance

“No matter how dark things seem to be or actually are, raise your sights and see the possibilities – always
see them, for they're always there.”

— Norman Vincent Peale

“Nothing stops an organization faster than people who believe that the way you worked yesterday is the
best way to work tomorrow.”

— Jon Madonna

“Some believe there is nothing one man or one woman can do against the enormous array of the world's
ills -- against misery, against ignorance, or injustice and violence. Yet many of the world's great
movements, of thought and action, have flowed from the work of a single man. A young monk began the
Protestant reformation, a young general extended an empire from Macedonia to the borders of the earth,
and a young woman reclaimed the territory of France. It was a young Italian explorer who discovered the
New World, and 32 year old Thomas Jefferson who proclaimed that all men are created equal. ‘Give me a
place to stand,’ said Archimedes, ‘and I will move the world.’ These men moved the world, and so can we
all.”

— Robert F. Kennedy

“To grasp and hold a vision, that is the very essence of successful leadership—not only on the movie set
where I learned it, but everywhere.”

— Ronald Reagan

“I can teach anybody how to get what they want out of life. The problem is that I can't find anybody who
can tell me what they want.”

— Mark Twain

"You've got to think about big things while you're doing small things, so that all the small things go in the
right direction."
— Alvin Toffler

"The future belongs to those who see possibilities before they become obvious."
— John Sculley
Former CEO of Pepsi and Apple Computer

"Leadership is the capacity to translate vision into reality."

— Warren Bennis

"The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time,
and still retain the ability to function. One should, for example, be able to see that things are hopeless and
yet be determined to make them otherwise."
— F. Scott Fitzgerald

"Where you come from is not nearly as important as where you are going."
— Unknown

"You want to set a goal that is big enough that in the process of achieveing it you become someone worth
becoming."
— Jim Rohn

"Where there is no vision the people perish."

— Proverbs 29:18

"We can chart our future clearly and wisely only when we know the path which has led to the present."
— Adlai E. Stevenson

"Common sense is the knack of seeing things as they are, and doing things as they ought to be done."
— Harriet Beecher Stowe

"Vision is the art of seeing the invisible."

— Jonathan Swift

"When you have vision it affects your attitude. Your attitude is optimistic rather than pessimistic."
— Charles R. Swindoll

"The paradox of the prophet: his very success is his failure. The prophet whose time has come no longer
shocks; he entertains."
— Peter Drucker

"To be a successful entrepreneur one needs a vision of greatness for one's work. If we dream
extravagantly we will be inspired to forge a reality beyond the straight jacket of practicalities. There is a
profound connection between art and enterprise which allows businesses to overcome the limitations of
their existing visions."
— Sir Ernest Hall

"The greatest danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that it is too low and
we reach it."
— Michelangelo

"If you want to be happy, set a goal that commands your thoughts, liberates your energy, and inspires
your hopes."
— Andrew Carnegie
"If you are bored with life, if you don't get up every morning with a burning desire to do things—you don't
have enough goals."
— Lou Holtz

Quotes on RESPONSIBILITY

"Success on any major scale requires you to accept responsibility . . . . In the final analysis, the one
quality that all successful people have is the ability to take on responsibility."
— Michael Korda
Editor-in-Cheif, Simon & Schuster

"The price of greatness is responsibility."

— Winston Churchill

"The man who complains about the way the ball bounces is likely to be the one who dropped it."
— Lou Holtz

"Being responsible sometimes means pissing people off."

— General Colin Powell

"You must take personal responsibility. You cannot change the circumstances, the seasons, or the wind,
but you can change yourself."
— Jim Rohn

"The reason people blame things on the previous generation is that there's only one other choice."
— Doug Larson

"In the old days, words like sin and Satan had a moral certitude. Today, they're replaced with self-help
jargon, words like dysfunction and antisocial behavior, discouraging any responsibility for one's actions.."
— Don Henley
Singer/Songwriter
"Ninety-nine percent of all failures come from people who have a habit of making excuses."
— George Washington Carver

"All blame is a waste of time. No matter how much fault you find with another, and regardless of how
much you blame him, it will not change you."
— Wayne Dyer