Xenophon Quotes
There is small risk a general will be regarded with contempt by those he leads, if, whatever he may have to preach, he shows himself best able to perform.
Xenophon. The Works of Xenophon, Vol. III, Part II. Translated by H. G. Dakyns, Macmillan and Co., 1897, p. 25.
The challenge to the leader of a private corporation is very similar to that of a Governor or a President—a leader of a government.
Xenophon of Athens (/ˈzɛnəfən, -ˌfɒn/; Greek: Ξενοφῶν, Ancient Greek: [ksenopʰɔ̂ːn], Xenophōn; c. 430 – 354 BC) was an Athenian-born military leader, philosopher, and historian. At the age of 30, Xenophon was elected a commander of one of the biggest Greek mercenary armies, the Ten Thousand, that marched on and came close to capturing Babylon in 401 BC. As the military historian Theodore Ayrault Dodge wrote, "the centuries since have devised nothing to surpass the genius of this warrior". Xenophon established precedents for many logistical operations, and was among the first to use flanking maneuvers and feints. Xenophon's Anabasis recounts his adventures with the Ten Thousand while in the service of Cyrus the Younger, Cyrus's failed campaign to claim the Persian throne from Artaxerxes II of Persia, and the return of Greek mercenaries after Cyrus's death in the Battle of Cunaxa. Anabasis is a unique first-hand, humble, and self-reflective account of military leader's experience in antiquity. On the topic of campaigns in Asia Minor and in Babylon, Xenophon wrote Cyropaedia outlining both military and political methods used by Cyrus the Great to conquer the late Assyrian Empire in 539 BC. Anabasis and Cyropaedia inspired Greeks and Alexander the Great to conquer Babylon and the Achaemenid Empire in 331 BC.
