Mark Twain Quotes

Anyone entrusted with power will abuse it if not also animated with the love of truth and virtue, no matter whether he be a prince, or one of the people.

There are no good and bad peoples; there are only leaderships that behave responsibly or insanely.

I think we have lost our way when people like the [board of] governors and the CEO of the NYSE fail to realize they have a duty to the rest of us to act as exemplars... You do not want your first-grade school teacher to be fornicating on the floor or drinking booze in the classroom; similarly you do not want your stock exchange to be setting the wrong moral example.

There is no power or authority without responsibility, and he who accepts the one cannot escape or evade the other.

I demand that every Storm Troop Leader, just as every political leader, should be conscious of the fact that his behavior and conduct must be exemplary. . . . I wish every mother to give her son to The Party without fearing that he may be ruined morally. . . . Storm Troop Leaders who behave unworthily in public are to be mercilessly removed.

When leaders are no longer beholden to the people who elected them, corruption results and the recruitment of extremists becomes easier.

You can only govern men by serving them. The rule is without exception.

If a large city can, after intense intellectual efforts, choose for its mayor a man who merely will not steal from it, we consider it a triumph of the suffrage.

If the great servants of the public forget their duty, betray their trust and sell their country, or make war against the most valuable rights and privileges of the people; reason and justice require that they should be discarded, and others appointed in their room, without any regard to formal resignations of their forfeited power.

The only way to get rid of corruption in high places is to get rid of the high places.

We need sensible people in the system, who are honest and passionate about the country and will not fall pray to corruption.

Sometimes I am convinced there is nothing wrong with this country that couldn't be cured by the magical implantation of ethical standards on us all - leaders and followers. Until that becomes doable, the Center for Public Integrity is just about the best thing we have going for us.

This I hope will be the age of experiments in government, and that their basis will be founded in principles of honesty, not of mere force.

Leaders must live by higher standards than their followers.

I never thought I'd have to give you-a former Sunday School teacher-a lecture on ethics." "Former Sunday School teachers don't go around without their underwear." "You show me where it says that in the Bible.

It's a huge responsibility to have influence and to steward it in a way that leads to God-honoring leadership.

I think Africa is slowly learning - and painfully - that importance of insisting on responsible leadership. It will come eventually, and we may be impatient and rightly so, because it is not coming fast enough. But that is the way to go.

Hillary Clinton was personally presiding over the dissolution of moral authority - particularly applied to presidents - because she looked the other way, because she tolerated it.

It is remarkable that among all the preachers there are so few moral teachers. The prophets are employed in excusing the ways of men.

Smart people instinctively understand the dangers of entrusting our future to self-serving leaders who use our institutions, whether in the corporate or social sectors, to advance their own interests.

Since all human governments, like all human individuals, are subject to temptation, especially the temptation to use this God-given role for their own ends, there must be clear and wise critique, and holding to account.

The kingly office is entitled to no respect. It was originally procured by the highwayman's methods. It remains a perpetuated crime, can never be anything but the symbol of a crime. It is no more entitled to respect than is the flag of a pirate.

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

... the self respect of individuals ought to make them demand of their leaders conformity with an agreed-upon code of ethics and moral conduct.

Just because you're in the driver's seat, doesn't mean you have to run people over.