History never looks like history when you are living through it. It always looks confusing and messy, and it always feels uncomfortable.

A prime function of a leader is to keep hope alive.

One generalization that is supported both by research and experience is that effective two-way communication is essential to proper functioning of the leader-follower relationship.

Renewal is not just innovation and change. It is also the process of bringing the results of change into line with our purposes.

Some people have greatness thrust upon them. Very few have excellence thrust upon them.

Perhaps the most promising trend in our thinking about leadership is the growing conviction that the purposes of the group are best served when the leader helps followers develop their own initiative, strengthens them in the use of their own judgment, enables them to grow, and to become better contributors.

At home we have lost the capacity to see what is before us. Travel shakes us out of our apathy, and we regain an attentiveness that heightens every experience. The exhilaration of travel has many sources, but surely one of them is that we recapture in some measure the unspoiled awareness of children.