James Hilton Quotes

Woe betide the man who refuses to conform.

It's true that every leader needs followers. We can't all be nonconformists at every moment, but conformity is dangerous - especially for an entity in formation.

I don't mind following good leaders.

I think I'm a natural-born leader. I know how to bow down to authority if it's authority that I respect.

I am a collaborator with everyone who agrees that I need to be in control. I happily collaborate with my loyalists.

Ladies and gentlemen, even my own staff challenges me. When I issue edicts, commands, orders, ideas, you would think that there would be overwhelming blanket acquiescence, approval, and support.

When you make your peace with authority you become authority.

Men like children move but as they're led…

The path of freedom is blocked much more by those who wish to obey than by those who wish to command.

We don’t have a problem of leadership. We have a problem of followership.

Accept where I am going or I will not lead you.

There are .. two choices: obedience to institutional authority or radical dissent from it.

Remember that the essence of authority is that people willingly follow your lead.

When I was captain, John Wright was making all the decisions and I followed like an obedient student.

When we find ourselves in groups or with charismatic individuals, we might do things we wouldn't ordinarily do.

The man who says to one, go, and he goeth, and to another, come, and he cometh, has, in most cases, more sense of restraint and difficulty than the man who obeys him.

I will be in my coffin before I will fight again under your command.

As the world leads we follow.

Resistance - that is the distinction of the slave. Let your distinction be obedience. Let your commanding itself be obeying!

What people want, mainly, is to be told by some plausible authority that what they are already doing is right. I don't know know of a quicker way to become unpopular than to disagree.

Learn obedience first. Among these Western nations, with such a high spirit of independence, the spirit of obedience is equally strong. We are all of us self-important, which never produces any work. Great enterprise, boundless courage, tremendous energy, and, above all, perfect obedience; these are the only traits that lead to individual and national regeneration. These traits are altogether lacking in us.

What whip lashed them to their knees in shame and submission? The worship of the word "We.

Men live in glad obedience to the masters they believe in, or they live in a frictional opposition to the master they wish to undermine.

We cannot all be masters, nor all masters Cannot be truly followed.

Respect for leaders by followers can't be mandated; it must be earned. It has to be given to leaders by their followers.