Inventors and geniuses have almost always been looked on as no better than fools at the beginning of their career, and very frequently at the end of it also.
The great creators-the thinkers, the artists, the scientists, the inventors-stood alone against the men of their time.
I cannot escape from the conclusion that the great ages of progress have depended upon a small number of individuals of transcendent ability.
3rd Earl Russell of Kingston
Always, at every period, the few were the banner bearers of a great idea, of liberating effort. Not so the mass, the leaden weight of which does not let it move.
The great successful men of the world have used their imaginations.
Leaders of the future will have to be visionary and be able to bring people in - real communicators. These are things that women bring to leadership and executive positions, and it's going to be incredibly valuable and incredibly in demand.
I think South Africa would be in a lot worse position had you not had visionaries like the Mandelas or the Oliver Tambos or the people there who came together after... both during apartheid and afterwards to create and structure their society.
You ought to dream. All our biggest businessmen have been dreamers.
Men of passion and vision are often seen as mad.
Good leaders make sense of change in the world... then imparts that insight to the team.
A good leader for instance is somebody like Nelson Mandela. I do not have seen such people coming every generation, maybe every ten generations, every hundred generations. People who are miracle workers.
Societies in decline have no use for visionaries.
After reading the Elon Musk book and getting a Tesla - he is at the top of my list of inspiring founders.
Again and again in history some people wake up. They have no ground in the crowd and move to broader deeper laws. They carry strange customs with them and demand room for bold and audacious action. The future speaks ruthlessly through them. They change the world.
Ideally, the ITU must be made up of truly visionary leaders - those willing to do the hard work to get critical spectrum bands realigned and put to their highest use.
I think effective leaders typically are able to see the future to a certain degree and then try to take actions to shape it in some way.
You need mentors, people with that desire to support women and the vision to have more. We have that in Anglo American in a big way.
I do believe there are leaders who are like lightning and they come along and they lead. The Lincolns of the world, the Alexander the Greats, they do exist. They have existed.
Today, people idolize athletes and celebrities - and yes, highly successful and visionary business people like Bill Gates or Steve Jobs, but not the innovators who perhaps have not seen such high-flying levels of success. Can anyone name the inventors of GPS, which has such a huge impact on our lives today?
Pythagoras, Locke, Socrates - but pages might be filled up, as vainly as before, with the sad usage of all sorts of sages, who in his life-time, each was deemed a bore! The loftiest minds outrun their tardy ages.
In 2010 - after raising capital to launch Forerunner Ventures - we aimed to invest in companies targeting digitally savvy customers looking to be delighted by experiences and founded by visionary leaders committed to leveraging data and quantifying the results.
Imagine if Steve Jobs or Thomas Edison or Albert Einstein were all alive 10, 20, 30 years before we know them to be alive; it would have advanced the world that much sooner.
Dreams are where we visit the many lands and landscapes of human possibility and discover the one where we feel at home. The great religious leaders were all dreamers.
You see, Mr. President - real leaders don't follow polls. Real leaders change polls.
A great company in the media business needs visionary leaders, not a conglomerate structure headquartered in Columbus Circle that second guesses.
