Antisthenes Quotes

There are no honorable rulers.

President Lincoln is timid, vacillating, and inefficient.

… essentially lacking in the quality of leadership.

Corruption is a cancer that steals from the poor, eats away at governance and moral fibre and destroys trust.

Every decision that affects our lives will be made by the person who has the power to make that decision, not the 'right' person or the 'smartest' person or the 'best' person. Make peace with this fact.

Precedents are dangerous things; let the rein of government then be braced and held with a steady hand.

Heaven has appointed me to rule all the nations, for hitherto there has been no order upon the steppes.

Political action means taking on responsibility. This cannot happen without power. Power is to serve responsibility.

Every cook must learn to rule the State.

Consensus is a poor substitute for leadership.

Who so taketh in hand to frame any state or government ought to presuppose that all men are evil, and at occasions will show themselves so to be.

[On power:] Some people really have almost a disdain for that word. They feel it is alien to conscience. Power for power's sake, no. But the positive use of power for positive purposes is very important. You have to understand that. You've got to have a seat at the policy table if you want to make a difference.

A country is in a bad state, which is governed only by laws; because a thousand things occur for which laws cannot provide, and where authority ought to interpose.

The culminating point of administration is to know well how much power, great or small, we ought to use in all circumstances.

How many kings are governed by their ministers, how many ministers by their secretaries? Who, in such cases, is really the chief?

Somebody can be the captain of the ship, which allows you to make big mistakes.

That state is best ordered when the wicked have no command, and the good have.

When a leader encourages the culture of impunity, the society is lost and it makes the work harder for the rest of us.

Today we have a modern Belshazzar and a modern Pharaoh sitting in Washington D.C.

Just remember that the only question in a house is who is to rule. The rest is only dancing around that, trying not to look it in the eye.

Phronimos, possessing practical wisdom . But the only virtue special to a ruler is practical wisdom; all the others must be possessed, so it seems, both by rulers and ruled. The virtue of a person being ruled is not practical wisdom but correct opinion; he is rather like a person who makes the pipes, while the ruler is the one who can play them.

If you sit in judgment, investigate, if you sit in supreme power, sit in command.

If absolute sovereignty be not necessary in a State, how comes it to be so in a family?

Advisers advise, and ministers decide.

The tendency everywhere in America to concentrate power and responsibility in one man is unmistakable.