leadership ethics Quotes

Let princes choose ministers … rather upon conscience than upon bravery.

I learned that public service is a privilege that must be based on moral foundations.

The President was a responsibility beyond that of managing the government. He has a responsibility as a moral leader.

I would never want to trade a vote for a gavel.

Leadership is much less about what you do, and much more about who you are. If you view leadership as a bag of manipulative tricks or charismatic behaviors to advance your own personal interest, then people have every right to be cynical. But if your leadership flows first and foremost from inner character and integrity of ambition, then you can justly ask people to lend themselves to your organization and its mission.

Leadership is not manifested by coercion, even against the resented. Greatness is not manifested by unlimited pragmatism, which places such a high premium on the end justifying any means and any methods.

No leader will fight for values, for principles, if their government is a value-free vacuum. Moral relativism is morally wrong.

The Presidency is not an office to be either solicited or declined.

Leaders in all realms and activities of life knew that the power they had come to hold existed because they were responsible to serve the many, thus power was position of service.

It's one thing if a politician in a small country says a little bit of torturing is good to do. There is a qualitative difference... when it's a candidate to run a superpower.

Leaders must live by higher standards than their followers.

Donald Trump is way worse than George W. Bush. George W. Bush is a fundamentally decent man of limited intelligence who surrounded himself with awful people who dragged him in terrible directions. He was a bad president. But he was not actively malign, in the sense that he did what he thought was right. I don't think this guy cares what's right. I think he's in it for self-aggrandizement, for profit, and for power.

Elected officials have always been held to a higher standard, as we should be.

Because power corrupts, society's demands for moral authority and character increase as the importance of the position increases.

Leadership is not a right-it is a responsibility.

I could not remove myself from this debate about Trump. I could not abide his indecency. I could not live with the way he treated other people.

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

I don't want ever to be a president who is comfortable and at ease with killing people.

If people want to get into leadership through corrupt practices, through corrupt means, I think that's detestable; we have to take action.

I cannot imagine any other country in the world where the opposition would seek, and the chief executive would allow, the dissemination of his most private and personal conversations with his staff, which, to be honest, do not exactly confer sainthood on anyone concerned.

Power is most safe with those who are not in love with it!

A leader should never compare his technical skills with his employee's.

A ruler makes use of the majority and neglects the minority, and so he does not devote himself to virtue but to law.

When you have a president who in my opinion has cheated on his wife, he will cheat on the American people.

I want to be mayor of the world. Don't give me too much money or too much power.