Warren Bennis Quotes

I know that you don't know, but you don't know that you don't know! By that I mean there are three reasons why individuals and businesses fail: 1. Arrogance 2. Arrogance 3. Arrogance.

The minute you start believing your own success, you're on the road to ruin.

I was an arrogant man. I not only thought I could manage my life without help, I wanted it that way. I had best-selling books and a TV show and movie contracts; I felt invincible, secure in the thought that everything was my doing. And then, like all arrogant men, I came to stumble.

Beware of being blinded by your own success.

What is a sophisticate? He is a man who thinks he can swim better than he can and sometimes he drowns.

Success tempts many to their ruin.

We've seen a lot of people self-destruct because of a small taste of success.

Be careful of success; it has a dark side.

The minute I get a big head and start acting like the big man on campus, it's all downhill from there.

I believe that people start to get into trouble when they start to believe their own hype.

Nothing fails like success.

Bonfire of the Vanities: The lesson of that book is, never start believing your own press.

Success is a lousy teacher. It seduces smart people into thinking they can't lose.

Nothing wilts faster than laurels that have been rested upon.

Whenever I've had success, I never learn from it. Success usually breeds a degree of hubris. When you fail, that's when you learn.

Stupidity combined with arrogance and a huge ego will get you a long way.

When you have success, people think you know what you're doing, and you start to agree with them, you think you can conquer the world. But you go from grandiosity to panic.

But when someone is on a winning horse, and everything looks wonderful, it's very hard as an outsider to persuade them something is wrong.

Nothing recedes like success.

Success can set the table for tragedy if the victors are not careful.

Success can breed all kinds of other behavior and cause companies to behave a certain way that isn't necessarily the ingredients for achieving more success. For instance, with success comes arrogance, and that's typically the death of success.

Sometimes, you can get too big when you feel too good.

The biggest victories can lead to the greatest foolishness.

In fashion, the minute you say, 'I am successful,' is the minute you are going down.

When as smart as you think you are is as wrong as you turn out to be, your life can fall out from under you.