Nicholas M. Butler Quotes

Authority without wisdom is like a heavy ax without an edge, fitter to bruise than polish.

Golf is a search for perfection, for balance. It's about meditation and concentration. You have to use hand and brain.

It is hard to get things done if you spend all of your time with the choir as opposed to the rest of the congregation.

It doesn't matter how tough you are. It doesn't matter how smart you are or what a great leader you are. None of that stuff matters if you can't put the ball where you have to put it.

To me, trying to achieve the balance is when you become good: when you have enough technique to be able to play what is that you want, but also when you can refine what you want to communicate to people. As a younger person, it wasn't something I thought about so much.

Every civilization depends upon the quality of the individuals it produces.

We all need to get the balance right between action and reflection. With so many distractions, it is easy to forget to pause and take stock.

When I'm the person in front of the microphone, and I'm the person in the light, I want to reflect and refract the light onto places where they need the attention, where I don't need it.

First tell yourself what you want to be, then do what you need to do.

What is civilization? I answer, the power of good women.

The important thing to remember is it's not about balance; it's about integration... to really focus on making sure you're integrating all four aspects of your work, your family, your community and yourself. And it's not about trying to spend equal amounts of time on everything you do each day on each of these things, but making sure you're paying attention to all the things that make it up as a whole human being.

Focus on the impact you make versus the title you have.

The reason I am so popular is that I give others back what they need to find in themselves. You need me not because I tell you what I want you to do but because I articulate and justify what you want to do.

Class is striving hard to be the best at what you do while taking the needs of others into consideration

Strive for perfection - never be content with mediocrity. You don't win until you conquer the little flaws. You don't beat these great ones until your form is perfect. This is true in all of life. A flaw in a product can ruin a business. A personal failing, a little one, can ruin a person's life. Don't be content with mediocrity - strive to live up to the greatest within you.

Statesmen think in terms of history and view society as an organism. Prophets are different since they believe absolute aims can be achieved in the foreseeable future. More people have been killed by crusaders than by statesmen.

God does not judge us by the multitude of works we perform, but how well we do the work that is ours to do. The happiness of too many days is often destroyed by trying to accomplish too much in one day. We would do well to follow a common rule for our daily lives--DO LESS, AND DO IT BETTER.

To know what to leave out and what to put in; just where and just how, ah, that is to have been educated in knowledge of simplicity.

Practical efficiency is common, and lofty idealism not uncommon; it is the combination which is necessary, and the combination is rare

The unmet need that can get met right now is the need to be whole, to be both your magnificent, divine self and your imperfect, human self.

The wise use of leisure, it must be conceded, is a product of civilization and education.

Leaders never outgrow the need to change.

You empower what you fight.You withdraw power from what you release.

Service makes men competent.

As long as we focus on the outside, there will always be that empty, hungry, lost place inside that needs to be filled.