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"Robespierre, however, was not the type of leader finally destined to emerge from the Revolution."
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"Leave no authority existing not responsible to the people."

"A good leader can engage in a debate frankly and thoroughly, knowing that at the end he and the other side must be closer, and thus emerge stronger. You don't have that idea when you are arrogant, superficial, and uninformed."

"Lead from the front - but don t leave your base behind."

"When the qualities that now confer leadership have become universal, there will no longer be leaders and followers, and democracy will have been realized at last."

"Leadership is, among other things, the ability to inflict pain and get away with it - short-term pain for long-term gain."

"For America's economic future to remain prosperous, we must encourage pro-growth policies so that we continue to be the leader in innovation and entrepreneurship."

"When the people fear the government, there is tyranny. When the government fears the people, there is liberty."

"A wise and frugal Government, which shall retrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned."

"We did not raise armies for glory or for conquest."
Explore more quotes by Irving Babbitt


"If we are to have such a discipline we must have standards, and to get our standards under existing conditions we must have criticism."


"For behind all imperialism is ultimately the imperialistic individual, just as behind all peace is ultimately the peaceful individual."


"The democratic idealist is prone to make light of the whole question of standards and leadership because of his unbounded faith in the plain people."


"A man needs to look, not down, but up to standards set so much above his ordinary self as to make him feel that he is himself spiritually the underdog."


"Inasmuch as society cannot go on without discipline of some kind, men were constrained, in the absence of any other form of discipline, to turn to discipline of the military type."


"We must not, however, be like the leaders of the great romantic revolt who, in their eagerness to get rid of the husk of convention, disregarded also the humane aspiration."


"Since every man desires happiness, it is evidently no small matter whether he conceives of happiness in terms of work or of enjoyment."


"The papacy again, representing the traditional unity of European civilization, has also shown itself unable to limit effectively the push of nationalism."


"Tell him, on the contrary, that he needs, in the interest of his own happiness, to walk in the path of humility and self-control, and he will be indifferent, or even actively resentful."


"A democracy, the realistic observer is forced to conclude, is likely to be idealistic in its feelings about itself, but imperialistic about its practice."
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