Lynn Whitfield Quotes

Power must be used, but it must be tempered by soul-searching and the recognition of our human capacity for error. That is the maxim that should inform our approach to every challenge, from reforming state government to engaging in foreign affairs.

The leader who exercises power with honor will work from the inside out, starting with himself.

In politics, the people I most despise are those who have no values.

Civilizations do not collapse because the citizenry are corrupt or lazy or anti-intellectual. These people do not have the power and influence to either lead or destroy. Civilizations collapse when those who have power fail to do their jobs.

If you want to test a man's character, give him power.

My power for good, whatever it may, would be gone if I didn’t try to live up to the doctrines I have tried to preach.

Politics and the fate of mankind are shaped by men without ideals and without greatness. Men who have greatness within them don’t go far in politics.

There are actually very few US politicians who have integrity and vision.

Divorced from ethics, leadership is reduced to management and politics to mere technique.

I think the greater responsibility, in terms of morality, is where leadership begins.

We're taught Lord Acton's axiom: all power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely. I believed that when I started these books, but I don't believe it's always true any more. Power doesn't always corrupt. Power can cleanse. What I believe is always true about power is that power always reveals.

Well, purity - there's no purity in politics.

Washington is a very easy city for you to forget where you came from and why you got there in the first place.

Every one, more or less, loves Power, yet those who most wish for it are seldom the fittest to be trusted with it.

Administrators are there because of the fans and the cricketers to run this game, so credibility of a game, or a board, or even a government for that matter, is important irrespective of what you do. If you are in public life, it is important.

Government, in the last analysis, is organized opinion. Where there is little or no public opinion, there is likely to be bad government.

Governments need to have both shepherds and butchers.

By definition, a government has no conscience. Sometimes it has a policy, but nothing more.

Power without principle is barren, but principle without power is futile. This is a party of government, and I will lead it as a party of government.

Thus, neither my government nor myself, personally, are without ideals and responsibilities.

If principles don't determine what you are going to pass or do, then power will.

Where there is politics or economics, there is no morality

We must have a clean role model at the top. Clearly this has not been the case.

Each age must … contend anew with the question of power and accountability.

All power is a trust; that we are accountable for its exercise.