Leadership Merit Quotes

Samuel J. Tilden says we are a nation of thieves and rascals. If that is so he ought to be President.

The leading elite of a country cannot be chosen by the multitude. To try to select this elite is like determining by majority vote who the poets, writers, mechanics, aviators or athletes of a country ought to be.

If I'm plowing the snow and filling in potholes, then I'm a good mayor, and if we fail to do that, I'm not. And it's got almost nothing to do with whether, when I come home, it's to a husband or to a wife.

I say no body of men are fit to make Presidents, judges and generals, unless they themselves supply the best specimens of the same; and that supplying one or two such specimens illuminates the whole body for a thousand years.

There is not a single crowned head in Europe whose talents or merits would entitle him to be elected a vestryman by the people of any parish in America.

The captain of a ship is not chosen from those of the passengers who comes from the best family.

Nobility should be elective, not hereditary.

The right of commanding is no longer an advantage transmitted by nature; like an inheritance, it is the fruit of labors, the price of courage.

There's a million white people better qualified than a black man to be president of America.

Would it be preferable to argue for a fairer system whereby the unremarkable should be considered leadership material? With such an attitude, can we wonder why mediocrity is now a mark of Labour's hierarchy?

Do not ever say to anybody it's time for us to have a woman in the leadership, because that's the least important selling point.

Compare and contrast: Donald Trump is going out thanking the voters who supported him. You look at his cabinet picks. They are not donors. These three military guys are not being chosen because they're being paid back for donating to Trump. He's picking them because they're the best. And what's Hillary Clinton doing? She is thanking the money people. She's not thanking supporters. She's not thanking people who believed in her for her ideas and substance and her personally.

You come here recommended by one of the most respected members of the U. S. Senate, a friend of mine. But other than that fact, I do not know why you should be the head of the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention rather than any one of 215 million other Americans, except maybe they are not as old as you.... Why you? What is there about you that qualifies you to head up this department instead of Mr. Jones and Mr. Smith or Mr. Anybody? [Regnery was confirmed.]

Leaders are judged on merit and not on caste or family names.

While WHO has never had a director from Africa, no one should elect me because I am from Africa.