Leo Tolstoy Quotes
A leader is the wave pushed ahead by the ship.
Tolstoy, Leo. War and Peace. Translated by Aylmer and Louise Maude, Oxford University Press, 1933.
The speaker had negotiated a wonderful budget with President Barak Obama, but he had many extreme Republican Tea Party Conservatives who would not support the compromise. The speaker could have passed the bill anyway with the votes of the Democrats and the more rational and centrist Republicans, but he chose not do do so and renegged on his fairly public agreement with the President rather than have a large part of his caucus repudiate him. Talk show host Jay Leno had asked him why de did that. This was his profound answer. Ironically, the dissidents turned on him anyway, and he lost many of his followers. So he resigned as the speaker and also from the House itself
Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy, 9 September, 1828 – 20 November, 1910), usually referred to in English as Leo Tolstoy, was a Russian writer who is regarded as one of the greatest authors of all time. He received nominations for the Nobel Prize in Literature every year from 1902 to 1906 and for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1901, 1902, and 1909. That he never won is a major controversy.