Responsible Leadership Quotes

Anyone entrusted with power will abuse it if not also animated with the love of truth and virtue, no matter whether he be a prince, or one of the people.

Power ought to serve as a check to power.

When I became governor, I vowed to restore the public's trust.

Leadership involves not so much marching gloriously at the head of a parade as paying quietly for the parade permit and the cleanup afterward. Leading the world means acting not as its Commander-In-Chief but as its concierge.

The ethical rule is from Samuel Johnson who believed that maintenance of easily removable ignorance by a responsible office holder was treacherous malfeasance in meeting moral obligation. The prudential rule is that underlying the old Warner & Swasey advertisement for machine tools: "The man who needs a new machine tool, and hasn't bought it, is already paying for it". The Warner & Swasey rule also applies, I believe, to thinking tools. If you don't have the right thinking tools, you, and the people you seek to help, are already suffering from your easily removable ignorance.

I have nothing but contempt for the kind of governor who is afraid, for whatever reason, to follow the course that he knows is best for the State; and as for the man who sets private friendship above the public welfare - I have no use for him, either.

I want to lead a government humble enough to know its place.

I think we can get respect for Parliament back providing governments and oppositions are frank.

I believe good governments have nothing to hide. We want to ensure we maintain confidence in our public institutions.

Washington faces many challenges these days, and today's United States Senate needs more trusted conservatives going there to make decisions and choices that put the people first and not the business-as-usual crowd.

Instead of passing on choppy waters to the next generation, we should endeavor to leave them a calmer sea.

If the great servants of the public forget their duty, betray their trust and sell their country, or make war against the most valuable rights and privileges of the people; reason and justice require that they should be discarded, and others appointed in their room, without any regard to formal resignations of their forfeited power.

A good government remains the greatest of human blessings and no nation has ever enjoyed it.

I believe in professionalism, less in politicians.

Ordinary people want good government.

As president, I'm committed to making Washington work better and rebuilding the trust of the people who sent us here.

I discovered a long time ago that if I focus on doing the right thing for the long term to improve the lives of consumers and customers all over the world, the business results will come.

When an enlightened ruler controls his ministers, he makes it so that ministers cannot get credit for achievements gained by overstepping the bounds of their offices or make proposals and then fail to match them with actual achievements.

The citizens of New Hampshire expect and deserve a government as clean as our mountain streams and as open as our blue skies. Today let us pledge together to make this government - the people's government - clean, open and honest.

When we like our new rulers we call them public servants. When we are mad at them we call them bureaucrats; but it is the business of self-government to see that they remain servants of the public instead of becoming its masters.

A chief does not hurry.

I want to live … where the people who make the rules have to live by them.

Trust: Our system of government does not function without it.

It's crucial to democracy and good government to scrutinize our public officials.

Transparency will be at the heart of everything I do - it's what parliament expects, and it's what the public deserves.