Good Quotes 2013

"As Sun Tzu said, 'Every battle is won before it's ever fought.'  It starts in the mind."
Jon Gordon in Training Camp

"Leadership is solving problems. The day soldiers stop bringing you their problems is the day you have stopped leading them. They have either lost confidence that you can help or concluded you do not care. Either case is a failure of leadership."
Colin Powell

"I hated every minute of training, but I said, 'Don't quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion."
Muhammad Ali

"The world is not in your books and maps. It's out there."
Gandalf in The Hobbit.

"There did not seem to be brains enough in the entire group to bait a fishhook with."
Mark Twain, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court

"A King may move a man, a father may claim a son, but remember that even when those who move you be Kings, or men of power, your soul is in your keeping alone. When you stand before God, you cannot say, "But I was told by others to do thus." Or that, "Virtue was not convenient at the time." This will not suffice. Remember that."
From the movie "Kingdom of Heaven (2005) by Ridley Scott (IMDB link:  http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0320661/)

Leadership: Angus King, Independent Senator

There are numerous great leaders involved in the political arena as independents and "third party candidates."      In the recent election, Jill Stein of the Green Party and Gary Johnson of the Libertarian Party both ran solid national campaigns, showed leadership abilities, and stood for their principles.

In Maine, former governor Angus King won the senatorial election.  After the election, he had an interview on National Public Radio that highlighted several leadership philosophies.  Here are a couple excerpts.

My whole reason for going down there is to try to build bridges and get people talking to one another, and caucusing may be part of the process in order to participate fully in, you know, in committees and things like that, but I really think we got to get beyond this partisan stuff and we've got solve some problems.

. . . . . . . . . 

I don't want to sound corny about this, but I'm concerned about the country, and this fierce partisanship that we've seen is not serving public. And I worked in the Senate as a young staffer in the '70s and saw it actually work. I saw senators of both parties sit around the table, argue, disagree, agree, but finally reached consensus and passed important legislation. So it can happen.