POWER QUOTES

 "Long-range goals keep you from being frustrated by short-term failures."

James Cash Penney, retailer

 "If you don't have time to do it right, when will you have time to do it over?"

John Wooden, basketball coach

"You can have brilliant ideas, but if you can't get them across, your ideas won't get you anywhere."

Lee Iacocca, former chairman, Chrysler Corporation

"It takes less time to do a thing right than to explain why you did it wrong."

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, poet

"A genius is a talented person who does his homework."

Thomas Edison, inventor

"No person has ever been honored for what he received. Honor has been the reward for what he gave."

Calvin Coolidge, 30th US president

"If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader."

John Quincy Adams, 6th US president

"High expectations are the key to everything."

Sam Walton, entrepreneur

"Being busy does not always mean real work. The object of all work is production or accomplishment, and to either of these ends there must be forethought, system, planning, intelligence and honest purpose, as well as perspiration. Seeming to do is not doing."

Thomas Edison, inventor

"The difference between a successful person and others is not a lack of strength, not a lack of knowledge, but rather a lack of will."

Vince Lombardi, football coach

"Most battles are won before they are ever fought."

George Patton, US Army general

"It has been my philosophy of life that difficulties vanish when faced boldly."

Isaac Asimov, author

"The difference between the impossible and the possible lies in a person's determination."

Tommy Lasorda, baseball manager

"Confidence . . . thrives on honesty, on honor, on the sacredness of obligations, on faithful protection and on unselfish performance. Without them it cannot live."

Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 32nd US president

"To understand a man, you must know his memories. The same is true of a nation."

Anthony Quayle, actor

"The road to success is always under construction."

Lily Tomlin, actress

"There is no passion to be found playing small in settling for a life that idles than the one you are capable of living."

Nelson Mandela, civil rights leader

"Success without honor is an unseasoned dish; it will satisfy your hunger, but it won't taste good."

Joe Paterno, football coach

"Always make a total effort, even when the odds are against you."

Arnold Palmer, golfer

"We first make our habits, and then our habits make us."

John Dryden, writer

"I think luck is the sense to recognize an opportunity and the ability to take advantage of it . The man who can smile at his breaks and grabs his chance gets on."

Samuel Goldwyn, film executive

"All things are difficult before they are easy."

Thomas Fuller, physician

"Whenever anyone has offended me, I try to raise my soul so high that the offense cannot reach it."

Rene Descartes, philosopher

"In a time of drastic change, it is the learners who inherit the future."

Eric Hoffer, philosopher

Every leader needs to clearly explain the top three things the organization is working on. If you can't, you are not leading well.

Jeffrey Immelt, General Electric chief executive

"How you see yourself is the way you'll end up being."

Kenneth Cole, clothing designer

"Kindness is a language that the deaf can hear and the blind can read."

Mark Twain, author

"Progress is what happens when impossibility yields to necessity."

Arnold Glasgow, psychologist

"The real measure of success is the number of experiments that can be crowded into 24 hours."

Thomas Edison, inventor

"At first our dreams seem impossible, then they seem improbable, but when we summon the will, they become inevitable."

Christopher Reeve, actor

"Remember always that you have not only the right to be an individual, you have an obligation to be one."

Eleanor Roosevelt, first lady

"In order to be a leader, a man must have followers. And to have followers, a man must have their confidence. Hence, the supreme quality for a leader is unquestionably integrity. Without it, no real success is possible."

Dwight D. Eisenhower, 34th US President

"I am more afraid of an army of 100 sheep led by a lion than an army of 100 lions led by a sheep."

Charles Maurice de Talleyrand, French statesman

"The first method for estimating the intelligence of a rule is to look at the men he has around him."

Niccolo Machiavelli, statesman

"I am a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it."

Thomas Jefferson, 3rd US president

"The rung of a ladder was never meant to rest upon, but only to hold a man's foot long enough to enable him to put the other somewhat higher."

Thomas Huxley, biologist

"Every man's life lies within the present; for the past is spent and done with, and the future is uncertain."

Marcus Aurelius, Roman emperor

"Always dream and shoot higher than you know how to. Don't bother just to be better than your contemporaries or predecessors. Try to be better than yourself."

William Faulkner, writer

"Chance favors only the prepared mind."

Louis Pasteur, biologist

"I know the price of success; dedication, hard work and an unremitting devotion to the things you want to see happen."

Frank Lloyd Wright, architect

"One worthwhile task carried to a successful conclusion is worth half-a-hundred half-finished tasks."

Malcolm S. Forbes, publisher

"Whenever you see a successful business, someone once made a courageous decision."

Peter F. Drucker, business strategist

"There is at least one point in the history of any company when you have to change dramatically to rise to the next level of performance. Miss that moment, and you start to decline."

Andy Grove, Intel Corp. chairman

"Never confuse a single defeat with a final defeat."

F. Scott Fitzgerald, writer

"You just don't luck into things as much as you'd like to think you do. You build step by step, whether it's friendships or opportunities."

Barbara Bush, first lady

"An idea that is developed and put into action is more important than an idea that exists only as an idea."

Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha

"Nothing will ever be attempted if all possible objections must first be overcome."

Samuel Johnson, essayist, critic, lexicographer

"As is our confidence, so is our capacity."

William Hazlitt, essayist

"We should never allow ourselves to be bullied by an either-or. There is often the possibility of something better than either of those two alternatives."

Mary Parker Follett, management coach

"Be kind and merciful. Let no one ever come to you without coming away better and happier."

Mother Teresa of Calcutta, humanitarian

"The secret of 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, writer

"We must be willing to let go of the life we have planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us."

E. M. Forster, writer

"The will to win is important, but the will to prepare is vital."

Joe Paterno, football coach

"Well done is better than well said."

Benjamin Franklin, statesman, inventor

"Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new."

Albert Einstein, physicist

"The majority of men meet with failure because of their lack of persistence in creating new plans to take the place of those that fail.

Napoleon Hill, author

"The moment you let avoiding failure become your motivator, you're down the path of inactivity."

Roberto Goizueta, Coca-Cola CEO

"It is not fair to ask of others what you are unwilling to do yourself."

Eleanor Roosevelt, diplomat, activist

"You can't use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have."

Maya Angelou, poet

"I do not believe in a fate that will fall on us no matter what we do. I do believe in a fate that will fall on us if we do nothing."

Ronald Reagan, 40th US president

"I learned about the strength you can get from a close family life. I learned to keep going, even in bad times. I learned not to despair, even when my world was falling apart. I learned that there are no free lunches. And I learned the value of hard work."

Lee Iacocca, executive

"Far and away the best prize that life has to offer is the chance to work hard at work worth doing."

Theodore Roosevelt, 26th US president

"I always remember an epitaph which is in the cemetery at Tombstone, Arizona. It says: "Here lies Jack Williams. He done his damnedest." I think that is the greatest epitaph a man can have When he gives everything that is in him to do the job he has before him. That is all you can ask of him and that is what I have tried to do."

Harry Truman, 33rd US president

"Opportunities are usually disguised as hard work, so most people don't recognize them."

Ann Landers, columnist

"Plans are only good intentions unless they immediately degenerate into hard work."

Peter Drucker, management consultant

"It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare; it is because we do not dare that they are difficult."

Seneca, statesman, dramatist, philosopher

"Progress always involves risk. You can't steal second base and keep your foot on first."

Frederick B. Wilcox

"All labor that uplifts humanity has dignity and importance and should be undertaken with painstaking excellence."

Martin Luther King Jr., civil rights leader

"What gets measured gets done."

Peter Drucker, educator

"To sit back and let fate play its hand out, and never influence it, is not the way man was meant to operate."

John Glenn, astronaut, U.S. senator

"Concentrate all your thoughts upon the work at hand. The sun's rays do not burn until brought to a focus."

Alexander Graham Bell, inventor

"If anything terrifies me, I must try to conquer it."

Francis Charles Chichester, yachtsman, aviator

"The time to repair the roof is when the sun is shining."

John F. Kennedy, 35th U. S. president

"The only thing that will stop you from fulfilling your dreams is you."

Tom Bradley, former Los Angeles mayor

"A winner is someone who recognizes his God-given talents, works his tail off to develop them into skills, and uses those skills to accomplish his goals."

Larry Bird, basketball player

"After climbing a great hill, one finds many more hills to climb."

Nelson Mandela, president of South Africa

"If the rate of change on the outside (of the firm) exceeds the rate of change on the inside, the end is near."

Jack Welch, executive

"There is no point at which you can say, "Well, I'm successful now. I might as well take a nap.""

Carrie Fisher, actress, writer

"When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent left, and could say, "I used everything you gave me.""

Erma Bombeck, writer

"You can't build a reputation on what you are going to do."

Henry Ford, automaker

"The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet."
Aristotle, philosopher

"The greatest use of life is to spend it for something that will outlast it."
William James, psychologist

"The secret of a good memory is attention, and attention to a subject depends upon our interest in it. We rarely forget that which has made a deep impression on our minds."
Tyron Edwards, theologian

"My motto was always to keep swinging. Whether I was in a slump or feeling badly or having trouble off the field, the only thing to do was keep swinging."

Hank Aaron, baseball player

"Old age isn't so bad when you consider the alternative."

Cato, Roman orator

"How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world."

Anne Frank, diarist

"In every man's life there lies latent energy. There is, however, a spark that, if kindled, will set the whole being afire, and he will become a human dynamo, capable of accomplishing almost anything to which he aspires."

James Cash Penney, retailer

"Difficulties mastered are opportunities won."

Winston Churchill, British statesman

"Rowing harder doesn't help if the boat is headed in the wrong direction."

Kenichi Ohmae, management consultant

"It is only our deeds that reveal who we are."

Carl Jung, psychiatrist

"Motivation is everything. You can do the work of two people, but you can't be two people. Instead, you have to inspire the next guy down the line and get him to inspire his people."

Lee Iacocca, Chrysler chairman

"Posterity: you will never know how much it has cost my generation to preserve your freedom. I hope you will make good use of it."

John Quincy Adams, 6th U. S. president

"Aerodynamically, the bumblebee shouldn't be able to fly, but the bumblebee doesn't know it so it goes on flying anyway."

Mary Kay Ash, entrepreneur

"Destiny is no 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, secretary of state

"My future starts when I wake up every morning . . . Every day I find something creative to do with my life."

Miles Davis, musician

"No great performance ever came from holding back."

Don Greene, motivational coach, former Green Beret

"Work is an extension of personality. It is achievement. It is one of the ways in which a person defines himself, measures his worth and his humanity."

Peter Drucker, author

"Democracy is based on the conviction that man has the moral and intellectual capacity . . . to govern himself with reason and justice."

Harry Truman, 33rd U.S. president

"I love the man who can smile in trouble, who can gather strength from distress and grow brave by reflection."

Thomas Paine, statesman

"People of mediocre ability sometimes achieve outstanding success because they don't know when to quit. Most men succeed because they are determined to."

George Allen, U.S. senator

"When one door closes another door opens; but we do often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door, that we do not see the ones which open for us."

Alexander Graham Bell, inventor

"And while the law of competition may be sometimes hard for the individual, it is best for the race, because it ensures the survival of the fittest in every department."

Andrew Carnegie, entrepreneur

"We succeed in enterprises (that) demand the positive qualities we possess, but we excel in those (that) can also make use of our defects."

Alexis de Tocqueville, statesman, author

"If I have ever made any valuable discoveries, it has been owing more to patient attention than to any other talent."

Isaac Newton, mathematician, physicist

"The work of the individual still remains the spark that moves mankind forward."

Igor Sikorsky, aeronautical engineer

"Our vision controls the way we think and, therefore, the way we act . . . The vision we have of our jobs determines what we do and the opportunities we see or don't see."

Charles Koch, executive

"A successful man is one who can lay a firm foundation with the bricks others have thrown at him."

David Brinkley, newsman

"The majority of men meet with failure because of their lack of persistence in creating new plans to take the place of those that fail."

Napoleon Hill, author

"Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it."

Dwight Eisenhower, 34th US president

"Long-range goals keep you from being frustrated by short-term failures."

James Cash Penney, retailer

"Few things can help an individual more than to place responsibility on him, and to let him know that you trust him."

Booker T. Washington, educator

"If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality."

Desmond Tutu, activist

"Success is the child of audacity."

Benjamin Disraeli, British statesman

"There's only one way to succeed in anything, and that is to give everything."

Vince Lombardi, football coach

"The shifts of fortune test the reliability of friends."

Marcus Tullius Cicero, Roman statesman

"Perhaps the most valuable result of all education is the ability to make yourself do the thing you have to do, when it ought to be done, whether you like it or not; it is the first lesson that ought to be learned; and however early a man's training begins, it is probably the last lesson that he learns thoroughly."

Thomas H. Huxley, scientist, educator

"When your values are clear to you, making decisions becomes easier."

Roy Disney, executive

"Don't waste your effort on a thing that results in a petty triumph unless you are satisfied with a life of petty issues."

John D. Rockefeller, industrialist

"The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science."

Albert Einstein, scientist

"Never look down to test the ground before taking your next step; only he who keeps his eye fixed on the far horizon will find his right road."

Dag Hammarskjold, UN secretary-general

"He who has begun has half done. Dare to be wise begin!"

Horace, poet, satirist

"In a time of drastic change, it is the learners who inherit the future."

Eric Hoffer, philosopher

"Nothing so conclusively proves a man's ability to lead others as what he does from day to day to lead himself."

Thomas J. Watson, IBM founder

"Do not wait; the time will never be just right."

Napoleon Hill, author

"Life is a promise; fulfill it."

Mother Teresa, humanitarian

"How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives."

Annie Dillard, essayist Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail. 
                                    Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Just as iron rusts from disuse, even so does inaction spoil the intellect."

Leonardo da Vinci, architect, artist

"The true idealist pursues what his heart says is right in a way that his head says will work."

Richard Nixon, 37th US president

"Most human beings have an almost infinite capacity for taking things for granted."

Aldous Huxley, writer

"Believe one who has tried it."

Virgil, Roman poet

"When you play, play hard; when you work, don't play at all."

Theodore Roosevelt, 26th US president

"No amount of business school training or work experience can teach what is ultimately a matter of personal character."

Truett Cathy, Chick-fil-A Inc. founder

"Man is born to live, not to prepare for life."

Boris Pasternak, writer

"People of mediocre ability sometimes achieve outstanding success because they don't know when to quit."

George Allen, U.S. senator

"God gives talent; work transforms talent into genius."

Anna Pavlova, ballerina

"If I'm selecting a group, the first thing I look for is a record of achievement . . . If (candidates achieve) in small things, there's a very good chance they'll perform well in big things."

Edmund Hillary, explorer

"Don't judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant."

Robert Louis Stephenson, writer

"I do the best I know how, the very best I can, and I mean to keep doing so until the end."

Abraham Lincoln, 16th US president

"The truth is not for all men, but only for those who seek it."

Ayn Rand, writer

"Those who are blessed with the most talent don't necessarily outperform everyone else. It's the people with follow-through who excel."

Mary Kay Ash, Mary Kay Cosmetics founder

"Courage is the ladder on which all the other virtues mount."

Claire Boothe Luce, diplomat, writer

"Success is the ability to go from failure to failure without losing your enthusiasm."

Winston Churchill, British prime minister

"Advice is like snow the softer it falls, the longer it dwells upon and the deeper it sinks into the mind."

Samuel Taylor Coleridge, poet

"You don't have to see the top of the staircase to take the first step."

Martin Luther King, civil rights leader

"Do not stop thinking of life as an adventure. You have no security unless you can live bravely, excitingly, imaginatively, unless you can choose a challenge instead of a competence."

Eleanor Roosevelt, first lady

"Nothing ever built arose to touch the skies unless some man dreamed that it should, some man believed that it could, and some man willed that it must."

Charles Kettering, inventor

"Life is not a brief candle.' It is a splendid torch that I want to make burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations."

Bernard Shaw, journalist

"Success is more a function of consistent common sense than it is of genius."

An Wang, industrialist

"Do what you feel in your heart to be right for you'll be criticized anyway. You'll be damned if you do and damned if you don't."

Eleanor Roosevelt, first lady

"Executives who get there and stay suggest solutions when they present the problems."

Malcolm Forbes, business executive

"It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change."

Charles Darwin, biologist

"Failure is the opportunity to begin again, more intelligently."

Henry Ford, automobile manufacturer

"I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause. I shall try to correct errors when shown to be errors and I shall adopt new views so fast as they shall appear to be true views."

Abraham Lincoln, 16th US president

"When we do the best we can, we never know what miracle is wrought in our life or in the life of another."

Helen Keller, lecturer, author

"Do not let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do."

John Wooden, basketball coach

"We work to become, not to acquire."

Elbert Hubbard, editor

"Never let the fear of striking out get in your way."

Babe Ruth, basketball player 

"Try not to become a man of success, but rather try to become a man of value." Albert Einstein, physicist


"I can't imagine a person becoming a success who doesn't give this game of life everything he's got. -Walter Cronkite, journalist