This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
"A study of preschool children in Virginia showed that those who dominated the attention of others also won the most struggles over access to toys. Observers attached the label ‘high-ranking’ to these dominant children. Middle- and low-ranking children focused their attention on those with higher rank than themselves rather than on those whom they could displace at the toy shelf. They also spent much more time glancing at high-ranking classmates than vice versa. Attention focused upward. In addition, the children tended to orient themselves spatially (to find their place) by locating those in their own rank and by staying in close proximity to them." - Ronald A. Heifetz
"As we have seen, an adaptive challenge consists of a gap between the shared values people hold and the reality of their lives, or of a conflict among people in a community over values or strategy. 1. What’s causing the distress? 2. What internal contradictions does the distress represent? 3. What are the histories of these contradictions? 4. What perspectives and interests have I and others come to represent to various segments of the community that are now in conflict? 5. In what ways are we in the organization or working group mirroring the problem dynamics in the community?" - Ronald A. Heifetz
"In October 1962 the world avoided nuclear war in part because John F. Kennedy had the capacity to distinguish role from self during the Cuban missile crisis." - Ronald A. Heifetz
"Leadership is a special sort of educating in which the teacher raises problems, questions, options, interpretations, and perspectives, often without answers, gauging all the while when to push through and when to hold steady." - Ronald A. Heifetz
"The myth of leadership is the myth of the lone warrior; the solitary individual whose heroism and brilliance enable him to lead the way." - Ronald A. Heifetz
"This study examines the usefulness of viewing leadership in terms of adaptive work. Adaptive work consists of the learning required to address conflicts in the values people hold, or to diminish the gap between the values people stand for and the reality they face. Adaptive work requires a change in values, beliefs, or behavior. The exposure and orchestration of conflict – internal contradictions – within individuals and constituencies provide the leverage for mobilizing people to learn new ways." - Ronald A. Heifetz
"Loyalty of your people is a key to most any business success." - S. Truett Cathy
"A school prayer amendment would confer upon public school boards a power the First Amendment now denies to Congress and the states, that is, the power to establish religion." - Sam Ervin, fully Samuel James "Sam" Ervin, Jr.
"Success has always had its price and I learned that lesson the hard way when Forbes names me the so-called ‘richest man in America.’ The next thing we knew all these reporters and photographers arrived, I get to take pictures of me diving into a swimming pool full of money they imagined I had, or to watch me light big fat cigars with hundred-dollar bills while the hootchy-kootchy girls danced by the lake." - Sam Walton, fully Samuel Moore "Sam" Walton
"The highest culture is not obtained from the teacher when at school or college, so much as by our ever diligent self-education when we become men." - Samuel Smiles
"It is in mercy, I am persuaded, that God inflicts punishment." - Gregory Nazianzen, aka Saint Gregory of Nazianzus or Gregory the Theologian
"It is an act as rare as it is precious, to transact business with many people, without ever forgetting God or oneself." - Ignatius Loyola, aka Saint Ignatius of Loyola
"As it is with the soldier, so it is with the civilian. To win success in the business world, to become a first-class mechanic, a successful farmer, an able lawyer or doctor, means that the man has devoted his best energy and power through long years to the achievement of his ends. So it is in the life of the family, upon which in the last analysis the whole welfare of the nation rests. The man or woman who, as bread-winner and home-maker, or as wife and mother, has done all that he or she can do, patiently and uncomplainingly, is to be honored; and is to be envied by all those who have never had the good fortune to feel the need and duty of doing such work." - Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt
"Personally, I do not believe that our civilization will fall. I think that on the whole we have grown better and not worse. I think that on the whole the future holds more for us than even the great past has held. But, assuredly, the dreams of golden glory in the future will not come true unless, high of heart and strong of hand, by our own mighty deeds we make them come true. We cannot afford to develop any one set of qualities, any one set of activities, at the cost of seeing others, equally necessary, atrophied. Neither the military efficiency of the Mongol, the extraordinary business ability of the Phoenician, nor the subtle and polished intellect of the Greek availed to avert destruction." - Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt
"Great teachers give us a sense not only of who they are, but more important, of who we are, and who we might become. They unlock our energies, our imaginations, and our minds. Effective teachers pose compelling questions, explain options, teach us to reason, suggest possible directions, and urge us on. The best teachers, like the best leaders, have an uncanny ability to step outside themselves and become liberating forces in our lives." - Thomas Cronin, fully Thomas Edward Cronin
"The [genuine] leader will face the painful task of loving people and at the same time of not becoming bound to them the usual way; to know their weaknesses and not to despise them or to fear them. He will, first of all, face loneliness, living in vast spaces alone with only a few friends. And even these friends may turn out to be a bother or nuisance, since all want salvation. Everyone wants something from him, anyhow. He will slowly realize with amazement how infinite are the desires to get things on the part of people. It does not matter what they want. It is the wanting and the getting that matters. And he will be well aware of the price paid to him for the getting: empty admiration." - Wilhelm Reich
"The absolute and static were even taken over by such dynamically oriented psychological schools as the Freudian in the form of the permanent unconscious ideas. In Jung, the unconscious psychic life was enlarged to the static "racial unconscious" and to the static "collective unconscious". Along with the static viewpoint, these psychologies took over the idea of guilt, even after their separation from philosophy. In so doing, they fell into a cul de sac from which there was no way out." - Wilhelm Reich
"Work democracy does not wish to prevent or prohibit anything. Its only intention is the fulfilment of the biological life functions, of love, work and knowledge." - Wilhelm Reich
"The first principle of a civilized state is that the power is legitimate only when it is under contract." - Walter Lippmann
"The great blooming, buzzing confusion of the outer world we pick out what our culture has already defined for us, and we tend to perceive that which we have picked out in the form stereotyped for us by our culture." - Walter Lippmann
"Becoming a leader is synonymous with becoming yourself. It is precisely that simple, and it is also that difficult." - Warren Bennis, fully Warren Gamaliel Bennis
"Companies which get misled by their own success are sure to be blind-sided." - Warren Bennis, fully Warren Gamaliel Bennis
"I am reminded how hollow the label of leadership sometimes is and how heroic followership can be." - Warren Bennis, fully Warren Gamaliel Bennis
"Once you recognize, or admit, that your primary goal is to fully express yourself, you will find the means to achieve the rest of your goals." - Warren Bennis, fully Warren Gamaliel Bennis
"The manager administers; the leader innovates. The manager has a short-range view; the leader has a long-range perspective. The manager asks how and when; the leader asks what and why. The manager has his eye on the bottom line; the leader has his eye on the horizon. The manager accepts the status quo; the leader challenges it." - Warren Bennis, fully Warren Gamaliel Bennis
"The manager asks how and when; the leader asks what and why." - Warren Bennis, fully Warren Gamaliel Bennis
"The manager has a short-range view; the leader has a long-range perspective." - Warren Bennis, fully Warren Gamaliel Bennis
"The manager has his eye on the bottom line; the leader has his eye on the horizon." - Warren Bennis, fully Warren Gamaliel Bennis
"The most dangerous leadership myth is that leaders are born -- that there is a genetic factor to leadership. This myth asserts that people simply either have certain charismatic qualities or not. That's nonsense; in fact, the opposite is true. Leaders are made rather than born." - Warren Bennis, fully Warren Gamaliel Bennis
"There are two ways of being creative. One can sing and dance. Or one can create an environment in which singers and dancers flourish." - Warren Bennis, fully Warren Gamaliel Bennis
"You need people who can walk their companies into the future rather than back them into the future." - Warren Bennis, fully Warren Gamaliel Bennis
"He that would revenge heavily on his foe let him conduct himself uprightly." - Welsh Proverbs