“
It was stated by an Australian Army Officer, “Phuoc Tuy offers the perfect terrain for guerrilla warfare. It has a long coastline with complex areas of mangrove swamps, isolated ranges of very rugged mountains and a large area of uninhabited jungle containing all of the most loathsome combinations of thorny bamboos, poisonous snakes, insects, malaria, dense underbrush, swamps and rugged ground conditions that the most dedicated guerrilla warfare expert could ask for.
”
”
Michael G. Kramer (A Gracious Enemy)
“
Respected Teacher,
My son will have to learn that all men are not just, all men are not true.
But teach him also that for ever scoundrel there is a hero; that for every selfish politician, there is a dedicated leader. Teach him that for every enemy there is a friend.
It will take time, I know; but teach him, if you can, that a dollar earned is far more valuable than five found.
”
”
Abraham Lincoln
“
My story—the story of the son of Jainulabdeen, who lived for over a hundred years on Mosque Street in Rameswaram island and died there; the story of a lad who sold newspapers to help his brother; the story of a pupil reared by Sivasubramania Iyer and Iyadurai Solomon; the story of a student taught by teachers like Pandalai; the story of an engineer spotted by MGK Menon and groomed by the legendary Prof. Sarabhai; the story of a scientist tested by failures and setbacks; the story of a leader supported by a large team of brilliant and dedicated professionals. This story will end with me, for I have no belongings in the worldly sense. I have acquired nothing, built nothing, possess nothing—no family, sons, daughters.
”
”
A.P.J. Abdul Kalam (Wings of Fire)
“
Serving my country was a life-changing experience for me. It was during those years that I realized the importance of commitment, dedication, honor, and discipline. I have never laughed so much; nor have I ever prayed so much. I made life-long friends. The leaders and heroes I served with helped shape me into the man I am today. I feel honored to have been a part of such a great tradition and grateful to others who have walked the same path. Thank you!
”
”
Steve Maraboli
“
He really was a very bad leader in that respect—and it was why his Arrows gave him their unswerving dedication. All of them rejects from the world, from their families. No one else had ever come for them, ever would. Silence or not, it mattered that Aden would.
”
”
Nalini Singh (Shards of Hope (Psy-Changeling, #14))
“
This book is cheerfully dedicated to those greatest and most heroic of all human endeavors, WAR and WARFARE; may they never cease to give us the pleasure, excitement and adrenal stimulation that we need, or provide us with the heroes, the presidents and leaders, the monuments and museums which we erect to them in the name of PEACE.
”
”
James Jones (The Thin Red Line)
“
The Highest Reward for men and women 's devotion and dedication to excellence is not what one gets from it but what one he or she becomes through it.
”
”
Bill Britt
“
The only way for the leader of a team to create a safe environment for his team members to be vulnerable is by stepping up and doing something that feels unsafe and uncomfortable first. By getting naked before anyone else, by taking the risk of making himself vulnerable with no guarantee that other members of the team will respond in kind, a leader demonstrates an extraordinary level of selflessness and dedication to the team. And that gives him the right, and the confidence, to ask others to do the same.
”
”
Patrick Lencioni (The Advantage: Why Organizational Health Trumps Everything Else In Business)
“
Vincent gestures toward Gaspard, who steps forward to face us. "We say good-bye to our longtime leader, Jean-Baptiste Alexandre Balthazar Grimod de la Reynière," Gaspard says in a wavering voice. "He died sacrificing his life for another on the battlefield in Borodino, September 7, 1812. Jean-Baptiste was dedicated to the preservation of his kindred, willing to do anything to ensure their survival." Gaspard's face twists with emotion when he says this, but he forces his shoulders back and raises his chin.
He pulls something from his belt, and I recognize Jean-Baptiste's beloved sword-cane topped with its carved wooden falcon's head. Facing the fire, Gaspard says, "My dear Jean-Baptiste. My love. I will mourn your loss until we are reunited in the next life." And he throws the cane onto the fire.
”
”
Amy Plum (If I Should Die (Revenants, #3))
“
A. W. Tozer says, "A true and safe leader is likely one who has no desire to lead, but is forced into a position of leadership by the inward pressure of the Holy Spirit and by the press of the external situation.
”
”
Charles R. Swindoll (Moses: A Man of Selfless Dedication (Great Lives from God's Word, Volume 4))
“
Myth: Feeding the banking sector gobs of welfare cash will bring about a recovery. Fact: Our leaders are only dedicated to preserving power
”
”
Ziad K. Abdelnour (Economic Warfare: Secrets of Wealth Creation in the Age of Welfare Politics)
“
Almost as an article of faith, some individuals believe that conspiracies are either kooky fantasies or unimportant aberrations. To be sure, wacko conspiracy theories do exist. There are people who believe that the United States has been invaded by a secret United Nations army equipped with black helicopters, or that the country is secretly controlled by Jews or gays or feminists or black nationalists or communists or extraterrestrial aliens. But it does not logically follow that all conspiracies are imaginary.
Conspiracy is a legitimate concept in law: the collusion of two or more people pursuing illegal means to effect some illegal or immoral end. People go to jail for committing conspiratorial acts. Conspiracies are a matter of public record, and some are of real political significance. The Watergate break-in was a conspiracy, as was the Watergate cover-up, which led to Nixon’s downfall. Iran-contra was a conspiracy of immense scope, much of it still uncovered. The savings and loan scandal was described by the Justice Department as “a thousand conspiracies of fraud, theft, and bribery,” the greatest financial crime in history.
Often the term “conspiracy” is applied dismissively whenever one suggests that people who occupy positions of political and economic power are consciously dedicated to advancing their elite interests. Even when they openly profess their designs, there are those who deny that intent is involved. In 1994, the officers of the Federal Reserve announced they would pursue monetary policies designed to maintain a high level of unemployment in order to safeguard against “overheating” the economy. Like any creditor class, they preferred a deflationary course. When an acquaintance of mine mentioned this to friends, he was greeted skeptically, “Do you think the Fed bankers are deliberately trying to keep people unemployed?” In fact, not only did he think it, it was announced on the financial pages of the press. Still, his friends assumed he was imagining a conspiracy because he ascribed self-interested collusion to powerful people.
At a World Affairs Council meeting in San Francisco, I remarked to a participant that U.S. leaders were pushing hard for the reinstatement of capitalism in the former communist countries. He said, “Do you really think they carry it to that level of conscious intent?” I pointed out it was not a conjecture on my part. They have repeatedly announced their commitment to seeing that “free-market reforms” are introduced in Eastern Europe. Their economic aid is channeled almost exclusively into the private sector. The same policy holds for the monies intended for other countries. Thus, as of the end of 1995, “more than $4.5 million U.S. aid to Haiti has been put on hold because the Aristide government has failed to make progress on a program to privatize state-owned companies” (New York Times 11/25/95).
Those who suffer from conspiracy phobia are fond of saying: “Do you actually think there’s a group of people sitting around in a room plotting things?” For some reason that image is assumed to be so patently absurd as to invite only disclaimers. But where else would people of power get together – on park benches or carousels? Indeed, they meet in rooms: corporate boardrooms, Pentagon command rooms, at the Bohemian Grove, in the choice dining rooms at the best restaurants, resorts, hotels, and estates, in the many conference rooms at the White House, the NSA, the CIA, or wherever. And, yes, they consciously plot – though they call it “planning” and “strategizing” – and they do so in great secrecy, often resisting all efforts at public disclosure. No one confabulates and plans more than political and corporate elites and their hired specialists. To make the world safe for those who own it, politically active elements of the owning class have created a national security state that expends billions of dollars and enlists the efforts of vast numbers of people.
”
”
Michael Parenti (Dirty Truths)
“
For example, if overwork is due to (in)stability of the production systems, it’s your job as the manager to slow down the product roadmap in order to focus on stability for a while. Make clear measures of alerts, downtime, and incidents, and strive to reduce them. My advice is to dedicate 20% of your time in every planning session to system sustainability work (“sustainability” instead of the more common “technical debt”).
”
”
Camille Fournier (The Manager's Path: A Guide for Tech Leaders Navigating Growth and Change)
“
I believe the United States government is being
systematically taken over by a revolutionary network. They call themselves
Progressives, but we know they are really leftist radicals,
dedicated to the demise of the free-market capitalist system. They have
co-opted and bought off leaders of both the Republican and Democratic
parties, established a dominant role in all three branches of
government and thoroughly co-opted the mainstream media.
”
”
Ziad K. Abdelnour (Economic Warfare: Secrets of Wealth Creation in the Age of Welfare Politics)
“
The first precondition of being called a spiritual leader is to perceive and feel the falsehood that is prevailing in society, and then to dedicate one’s life to a struggle against that falsehood. If one tolerates the falsehood and resigns oneself to it, one can never become a prophet. If one cannot rise above material life, one cannot even become a citizen in the Kingdom of the Spirit, far less a leader of others. —Vladimir Solovyov in his eulogy of Fyodor Dostoevsky, 1881
”
”
Brian Zahnd (Postcards from Babylon: The Church In American Exile)
“
Cult (totalistic type): a group or movement exhibiting a great or excessive devotion or dedication to some person, idea, or thing and employing unethically manipulative techniques of persuasion and control (e.g., isolation from former friends and family, debilitation, use of special methods to heighten suggestibility and subservience, powerful group pressure, information management, suspension of individuality or critical judgement, promotion of total dependency on the group and fear of leaving it, etc) designed to advance the goals of the group's leaders, to the actual or possible detriment of members, their families, or the community.
”
”
Louis Jolyon West
“
Dear God,
Never has the entire world lived with so much uncertainty, and fear. We asked that you cleanse our planet dear God of this awful virus. We ask our leaders see, with your blessing, that working together, and being dedicated to each other peacefully, for the common good is the only way to set us on the path of global healing, physically and emotionally. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.
”
”
Ron Baratono
“
The qualities of a Servant Leader (LEADERSHIP):
L – Listening
E – Empathizing
A – Acting with awareness
D – Dedicating time for others
E – Empowering others
R – Removing doubts
S – Serving others
H – Helping others with humility
I – Interacting with others with integrity
P – Persevering
”
”
Farshad Asl
“
Jesus is, and always has been, a person we can expect to be doing things we don't expect him to do, in the places where we don't think he'd be, with the people we didn't think he'd be with. His enemies were those who dedicated themselves to obeying every rule in the Bible. His best friends were sex workers, social misfits, and everyone else the religious leaders had declared were "out." I believe our spiritual journey gets much richer the moment we accept this, and accept that Jesus seems to have not just opted out of our boundary systems entirely, but is actually busy walking behind us and erasing the lines we've drawn.
”
”
Benjamin L. Corey (Unafraid: Moving Beyond Fear-Based Faith)
“
Americans tend to prefer their presidents on horseback: heroes who dream big and sound trumpets. There is, however, another kind of leader – quieter and less glamorous but no less significant – whose virtues repay our attention. There is greatness in political lives dedicated more to steadiness than to boldness, more to reform than to revolution, more to management of complexity than to the making of mass movements.
”
”
Jon Meacham (Destiny and Power: The American Odyssey of George Herbert Walker Bush)
“
Great leaders have good people skills, and they can get people to compromise and work together. But they also take a stand when needed. Courage deals with principle, not perception. If you don't have the ability to see when to stand up and the conviction to do it, you'll never be an effective leader. Your dedication to potential mus remain stronger than your desire to appease others.
”
”
John C. Maxwell
“
A leader is responsible for those under his authority. That is the first rule of command. He is responsible for their safety, their provisions, their knowledge, and, ultimately, their lives.
Those whom he commands are in turn responsible for their behavior and their dedication to duty. Any who violates his trust must be disciplined for the good of others.
But such discipline is not always easy or straightforward. There are many factors, some of them beyond the commander's control. Sometimes those complications involve personal relationships. Other times it isn't the circumstances themselves that are difficult. There can also be politics and outside intervention.
Faliure to act always brings consequences. But sometimes, those consequences can be turned to one's advantage.
”
”
Timothy Zahn
“
Look at last week’s schedule. How much of your time did you devote to regular, disciplined activities? Did you do anything to grow and improve yourself professionally? Did you engage in activities promoting good health? Did you dedicate part of your income to savings or investments? If you’ve been putting off those things, telling yourself that you’ll do them later, you may need to work on your self-discipline.
”
”
John C. Maxwell (Leadership 101: What Every Leader Needs to Know (John C. Maxwell’s 101 Series))
“
Though it is obligatory to hail our leaders for their sincere dedication to bringing democracy to a suffering world, perhaps in an excess of idealism, the more serious scholar/advocates of the mission of “democracy promotion” recognize that there is a “strong line of continuity” running through all administrations: the United States supports democracy if and only if it conforms to U.S. strategic and economic interests.
”
”
Noam Chomsky (Gaza in Crisis: Reflections on the U.S.-Israeli War on the Palestinians)
“
dedication is not necessarily demonstrated by an excessive number of hours worked, or by the amount of blood, sweat, and tears poured into the development of an idea or a product. Employees are, first and foremost, people. They have individual personalities and interests, as well as widely variable styles of work and time management. Most importantly, they have lives outside the office, and that personal life is just as important to their success as their working conditions.
”
”
Can Akdeniz (Cool Boss: Master 11 Qualities of Today's Greatest Leaders)
“
Farmers in the South, West, and Midwest, however, were still building a major movement to escape from the control of banks and merchants lending them supplies at usurious rates; agricultural cooperatives—cooperative buying of supplies and machinery and marketing of produce—as well as cooperative stores, were the remedy to these conditions of virtual serfdom. While the movement was not dedicated to the formation of worker co-ops, in its own way it was at least as ambitious as the Knights of Labor had been. In the late 1880s and early 1890s it swept through southern and western states like a brushfire, even, in some places, bringing black and white farmers together in a unity of interest. Eventually this Farmers’ Alliance decided it had to enter politics in order to break the power of the banks; it formed a third party, the People’s Party, in 1892. The great depression of 1893 only spurred the movement on, and it won governorships in Kansas and Colorado. But in 1896 its leaders made a terrible strategic blunder in allying themselves with William Jennings Bryan of the Democratic party in his campaign for president. Bryan lost the election, and Populism lost its independent identity. The party fell apart; the Farmers’ Alliance collapsed; the movement died, and many of its cooperative associations disappeared. Thus, once again, the capitalists had managed to stomp out a threat to their rule.171 They were unable to get rid of all agricultural cooperatives, however, even with the help of the Sherman “Anti-Trust” Act of 1890.172 Nor, in fact, did big business desire to combat many of them, for instance the independent co-ops that coordinated buying and selling. Small farmers needed cooperatives in order to survive, whether their co-ops were independent or were affiliated with a movement like the Farmers’ Alliance or the Grange. The independent co-ops, moreover, were not necessarily opposed to the capitalist system, fitting into it quite well by cooperatively buying and selling, marketing, and reducing production costs. By 1921 there were 7374 agricultural co-ops, most of them in regional federations. According to the census of 1919, over 600,000 farmers were engaged in cooperative marketing or purchasing—and these figures did not include the many farmers who obtained insurance, irrigation, telephone, or other business services from cooperatives.173
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”
Chris Wright (Worker Cooperatives and Revolution: History and Possibilities in the United States)
“
In 2010, the Priesthood quorums and Relief Society used the same manual (Gospel Principles)… Most lessons consist of a few pages of exposition on various themes… studded with scriptural citations and quotations from leaders of the church. These are followed by points of discussion like “Think about what you can do to keep the purpose of the Sabbath in mind as you prepare for the day each week.” Gospel Principles instructs teachers not to substitute outside materials, however interesting they may be. In practice this ensures that a common set of ideas are taught in all Mormon chapels every Sunday. That these ideas are the basic principles of the faith mean that Mormon Sunday schools and other church lessons function quite intentionally as devotional exercises rather than instruction in new concepts. The curriculum encourages teachers to ask questions that encourage catechistic reaffirmation of core beliefs. Further, lessons focus to a great extent on the importance of basic practices like prayer, paying tithing, and reading scripture rather than on doctrinal content… Correlated materials are designed not to promote theological reflection, but to produce Mormons dedicated to living the tenants of their faith.
”
”
Matthew Bowman (The Mormon People: The Making of an American Faith)
“
The Flag Code then quotes Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, India’s second president, who explained: The saffron color denotes renunciation or disinterestedness. Our leaders must be indifferent to material gains and dedicate themselves to their work. The white in the center is light, the path of truth to guide our conduct. The green shows our relation to the soil, our relation to the plant life here on which all other life depends. The Ashoka wheel in the center of the white is the wheel of the law of dharma. Truth or Satya, dharma or virtue ought to be the controlling principles of all those who work under this flag.
”
”
Yuval Noah Harari (21 Lessons for the 21st Century)
“
Becoming accomplished at what you do is no easy task, nor is the goal reached in a day. The process is time consuming, requires dedication, innovative ideas, meticulous strategizing and can be quite tedious at times. For many, the ultimate objective is to challenge the status quo, change the game, chart unexplored territory, and set a new standard of excellence. Sometimes hitting those marks is its own reward. Seeing others apply your blueprint to construct their own path to success is even more fulfilling. Leaders are motivated by believers! Bask in the imitation of others. After all, it is the highest form of flattery!
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”
Carlos Wallace
“
When I started this book, I worried that my strong sense that we’d arrived at a historic crossroads equivalent to the 1770s or 1860s or 1930s, America’s Fourth Testing, might seem like a stretch. By the end, I was no longer concerned about overstatement, particularly after the pandemic arrived—a new virus requiring new behaviors and policies, work and life suddenly more than ever dependent on the Internet, government failure by leaders ideologically dedicated to undermining government, maximizing corporate profit at all costs, and an American hyperindividualism whipped up by the right that makes a huge common problem harder to solve.
”
”
Kurt Andersen (Evil Geniuses: The Unmaking of America)
“
As for the world beyond my family—well, what they would see for most of my teenage years was not a budding leader but rather a lackadaisical student, a passionate basketball player of limited talent, and an incessant, dedicated partyer. No student government for me; no Eagle Scouts or interning at the local congressman’s office. Through high school, my friends and I didn’t discuss much beyond sports, girls, music, and plans for getting loaded. Three of these guys—Bobby Titcomb, Greg Orme, and Mike Ramos—remain some of my closest friends. To this day, we can laugh for hours over stories of our misspent youth. In later years, they would throw themselves into my campaigns with a loyalty for which I will always be grateful, becoming as skilled at defending my record as anyone on MSNBC. But there were also times during my presidency—after they had watched me speak to a big crowd, say, or receive a series of crisp salutes from young Marines during a base tour—when their faces would betray a certain bafflement, as if they were trying to reconcile the graying man in a suit and tie with the ill-defined man-child they’d once known. That guy? they must have said to themselves. How the hell did that happen? And if my friends had ever asked me directly, I’m not sure I’d have had a good answer.
”
”
Barack Obama (A Promised Land)
“
ministers were at Waterloo Station, already in the train for Southampton, the news came through that Reynaud had resigned. The French government had rejected the proposed union, and the war was decided. Pétain had been appointed premier. ‘It’s all over,’ de Gaulle told Monnet on the phone. ‘There is no sense in pressing further. I am coming back.’ Churchill got off the train and went home. On that same night, 120 German bombers attacked England for the first time. Nine British civilians were killed, the first. Paul Reynaud could have been the same kind of leader as Churchill. He regarded Hitler as the Genghis Khan of the modern age, he demanded total dedication and promised that his government would ‘summon together and lead all the forces of France’ in continuing the
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”
Geert Mak (In Europe: Travels Through the Twentieth Century)
“
Washington is a city of spectacles. Every four years, imposing Presidential inaugurations attract the great and the mighty. Kings, prime ministers, heroes and celebrities of every description have been feted there for more than 150 years. But in its entire glittering history, Washington had never seen a spectacle of the size and grandeur that assembled there on August 28, 1963. Among the nearly 250,000 people who journeyed that day to the capital, there were many dignitaries and many celebrities, but the stirring emotion came from the mass of ordinary people who stood in majestic dignity as witnesses to their single-minded determination to achieve democracy in their time.
They came from almost every state in the union; they came in every form of transportation; they gave up from one to three days' pay plus the cost of transportation, which for many was a heavy financial sacrifice. They were good-humored and relaxed, yet disciplined and thoughtful. They applauded their leaders generously, but the leaders, in their own hearts, applauded their audience. Many a Negro speaker that day had his respect for his own people deepened as he felt the strength of their dedication. The enormous multitude was the living, beating heart of an infinitely noble movement. It was an army without guns, but not without strength. It was an army into which no one had to be drafted. It was white and Negro, and of all ages. It had adherents of every faith, members of every class, every profession, every political party, united by a single ideal. It was a fighting army, but no one could mistake that its most powerful weapon was love.
”
”
Martin Luther King Jr. (Why We Can't Wait)
“
Peter the Great was probably the equal, in dedication, power and ruthlessness, of many of the most successful revolutionary or nationalist leaders. Yet he failed in his chief purpose, which was to turn Russia into a Western nation. And the reason he failed was that he did not infuse the Russian masses with some soul-stirring enthusiasm. He either did not think it necessary or did not know how to make of his purpose a holy cause. It is not strange that the Bolshevik revolutionaries who wiped out the last of the Czars and Romanovs should have a sense of kinship with Peter—a Czar and a Romanov. For his purpose is now theirs, and they hope to succeed where he failed. The Bolshevik revolution may figure in history as much an attempt to modernize a sixth of the world’s surface as an attempt to build a Communist economy. The
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”
Eric Hoffer (The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements)
“
The downside of attending to the emotional life of groups is that it can swamp the ability to get anything done; a group can become more concerned with satisfying its members than with achieving its goals. Bion identified several ways that groups can slide into pure emotion - they can become "groups for pairing off," in which members are mainly interested in forming romantic couples or discussing those who form them; they can become dedicated to venerating something, continually praising the object of their affection (fan groups often have this characteristic, be they Harry Potter readers or followers of the Arsenal soccer team), or they can focus too much on real or perceived external threats. Bion trenchantly observed that because external enemies are such spurs to group solidarity, some groups will anoint paranoid leaders because such people are expert at identifying external threats, thus generating pleasurable group solidarity even when the threats aren't real.
”
”
Clay Shirky (Cognitive Surplus: Creativity and Generosity in a Connected Age)
“
The face of the movement was the “pro-life and pro-family values” stance of millions, but the blood running through the movement’s veins was the racism and greed of a few. That is how white evangelicals became the most powerful and influential voting bloc in the United States and the fuel of the American white supremacy engine. That’s how evangelical leaders get away with the stunning hypocrisy of keeping their money, racism, misogyny, classism, nationalism, weapons, war, and corruption while purporting to lead in the name of a man who dedicated his life to ending war, serving orphans and widows, healing the sick, welcoming immigrants, valuing women and children, and giving power and money away to the poor. That is also why all a political candidate must do to earn evangelical allegiance is claim to be antiabortion and antigay—even if the candidate is a man who hates and abuses women, who stockpiles money and rejects immigrants, who incites racism and bigotry, who lives in every way antithetical to Jesus’s teachings. Jesus, the cross, and the identity “pro-life” are just shiny decals evangelical leaders slap on top of their own interests. They just keep pushing the memo: “Don’t think, don’t feel, don’t know. Just be against abortion and gays and keep on voting. That’s how to live like Jesus.” All the devil has to do to win is convince you he’s God.
”
”
Glennon Doyle (Untamed)
“
In addition, of course, they would be taken to a bath and in the bath vestibule they would be ordered to leave their leather coats, their Romanov sheepskin coats, their woolen sweaters, their suits of fine wool, their felt cloaks, their leather boots, their felt boots (for, after all, these were no illiterate peasants this time, but the Party elite—editors of newspapers, directors of trusts and factories, responsible officials in the provincial Party committees, professors of political economy, and, by the beginning of the thirties, all of them understood what good merchandise was). "And who is going to guard them?" the newcomers asked skeptically. "Oh, come on now, who needs your things?" The bath personnel acted offended. "Go on in and don't worry." And they did go in. And the exit was through a different door, and after passing through it, they received back cotton breeches, field shirts, camp quilted jackets without pockets, and pigskin shoes. (Oh, this was no small thing! This was farewell to your former life—to your titles, your positions, and your arrogance!) "Where are our things?" they cried. "Your things you left at home!" some chief or other bellowed at them. "In camp nothing belongs to you. Here in camp, we have communism! Forward march, leader!"
And if it was "communism," then what was there for them to object to? That is what they had dedicated their lives to.
”
”
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (The Gulag Archipelago)
“
Jesus himself remains an enigma. There have been interesting attempts to uncover the figure of the ‘historical’ Jesus, a project that has become something of a scholarly industry. But the fact remains that the only Jesus we really know is the Jesus described in the New Testament, which was not interested in scientifically objective history. There are no other contemporary accounts of his mission and death. We cannot even be certain why he was crucified. The gospel accounts indicate that he was thought to be the king of the Jews. He was said to have predicted the imminent arrival of the kingdom of heaven, but also made it clear that it was not of this world. In the literature of the Late Second Temple period, there had been hints that a few people were expecting a righteous king of the House of David to establish an eternal kingdom, and this idea seems to have become more popular during the tense years leading up to the war. Josephus, Tacitus and Suetonius all note the importance of revolutionary religiosity, both before and after the rebellion.2 There was now keen expectation in some circles of a meshiah (in Greek, christos), an ‘anointed’ king of the House of David, who would redeem Israel. We do not know whether Jesus claimed to be this messiah – the gospels are ambiguous on this point.3 Other people rather than Jesus himself may have made this claim on his behalf.4 But after his death some of his followers had seen him in visions that convinced them that he had been raised from the tomb – an event that heralded the general resurrection of all the righteous when God would inaugurate his rule on earth.5 Jesus and his disciples came from Galilee in northern Palestine. After his death they moved to Jerusalem, probably to be on hand when the kingdom arrived, since all the prophecies declared that the temple would be the pivot of the new world order.6 The leaders of their movement were known as ‘the Twelve’: in the kingdom, they would rule the twelve tribes of the reconstituted Israel.7 The members of the Jesus movement worshipped together every day in the temple,8 but they also met for communal meals, in which they affirmed their faith in the kingdom’s imminent arrival.9 They continued to live as devout, orthodox Jews. Like the Essenes, they had no private property, shared their goods equally, and dedicated their lives to the last days.10 It seems that Jesus had recommended voluntary poverty and special care for the poor; that loyalty to the group was to be valued more than family ties; and that evil should be met with non-violence and love.11 Christians should pay their taxes, respect the Roman authorities, and must not even contemplate armed struggle.12 Jesus’s followers continued to revere the Torah,13 keep the Sabbath,14 and the observance of the dietary laws was a matter of extreme importance to them.15 Like the great Pharisee Hillel, Jesus’s older contemporary, they taught a version of the Golden Rule, which they believed to be the bedrock of the Jewish faith: ‘So always treat others as you would like them to treat you; that is the message of the Law and the Prophets.
”
”
Karen Armstrong (The Bible: A Biography (Books That Changed the World))
“
With Iran’s revolution, an Islamist movement dedicated to overthrowing the Westphalian system gained control over a modern state and asserted its “Westphalian” rights and privileges—taking up its seat at the United Nations, conducting its trade, and operating its diplomatic apparatus. Iran’s clerical regime thus placed itself at the intersection of two world orders, arrogating the formal protections of the Westphalian system even while repeatedly proclaiming that it did not believe in it, would not be bound by it, and intended ultimately to replace it. This duality has been ingrained in Iran’s governing doctrine. Iran styles itself as “the Islamic Republic,” implying an entity whose authority transcends territorial demarcations, and the Ayatollah heading the Iranian power structure (first Khomeini, then his successor, Ali Khamenei) is conceived of not simply as an Iranian political figure but as a global authority—“the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution” and “the Leader of the Islamic Ummah and Oppressed People.”
The Iranian constitution proclaims the goal of the unification of all Muslims as a national obligation: In accordance with the sacred verse of the Qur’an (“This your community is a single community, and I am your Lord, so worship Me” [21:92]), all Muslims form a single nation, and the government of the Islamic Republic of Iran has the duty of formulating its general policies with a view to cultivating the friendship and unity of all Muslim peoples, and it must constantly strive to bring about the political, economic, and cultural unity of the Islamic world.
”
”
Henry Kissinger (World Order)
“
It must be clear to those who look below the surface of things that far-reaching changes in our fundamental ideas and attitudes are setting in, and that the world of to-morrow will be a very different one from that which carried us into the abyss in 1914. In this connection a grave duty arises also for our science and philosophy. The higher thought of our day should not exhaust itself in fine-spun technicalities of speculation or research, but should regard itself as dedicated to service and should make its distinctive contribution towards the upbuilding of a new constructive world-view. We are passing through one of the great transition epochs of history; we are threatened with reaction on the one hand and with disintegration on the other. The old beacon lights are growing dimmer, and the torch of new ideas has to be kindled for our guidance. The word is largely with our intellectual leaders. In the last resort a civilisation vi PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION depends on its general ideas; it is nothing but a spiritual structure of the dominant ideas expressing themselves in institutions and the subtle atmosphere of culture. If the soul of our civilisation is to be saved we shall have to find new and fuller expression for the great saving unities—the unity of reality in all its range, the unity of life in all its forms, the unity of ideas throughout human civilisation, and the unity of man's spirit with the mystery of the Cosmos in religious faith and aspiration. Holism is in its own way a groping towards the new light and to new points of view. And I cannot help feeling that if the full extent of its implications is realised, both science and philosophy
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Jan Christiaan Smuts (Holism And Evolution)
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The goal was ambitious. Public interest was high. Experts were eager to contribute. Money was readily available. Armed with every ingredient for success, Samuel Pierpont Langley set out in the early 1900s to be the first man to pilot an airplane. Highly regarded, he was a senior officer at the Smithsonian Institution, a mathematics professor who had also worked at Harvard. His friends included some of the most powerful men in government and business, including Andrew Carnegie and Alexander Graham Bell. Langley was given a $50,000 grant from the War Department to fund his project, a tremendous amount of money for the time. He pulled together the best minds of the day, a veritable dream team of talent and know-how. Langley and his team used the finest materials, and the press followed him everywhere. People all over the country were riveted to the story, waiting to read that he had achieved his goal. With the team he had gathered and ample resources, his success was guaranteed. Or was it? A few hundred miles away, Wilbur and Orville Wright were working on their own flying machine. Their passion to fly was so intense that it inspired the enthusiasm and commitment of a dedicated group in their hometown of Dayton, Ohio. There was no funding for their venture. No government grants. No high-level connections. Not a single person on the team had an advanced degree or even a college education, not even Wilbur or Orville. But the team banded together in a humble bicycle shop and made their vision real. On December 17, 1903, a small group witnessed a man take flight for the first time in history. How did the Wright brothers succeed where a better-equipped, better-funded and better-educated team could not? It wasn’t luck. Both the Wright brothers and Langley were highly motivated. Both had a strong work ethic. Both had keen scientific minds. They were pursuing exactly the same goal, but only the Wright brothers were able to inspire those around them and truly lead their team to develop a technology that would change the world. Only the Wright brothers started with Why. 2.
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Simon Sinek (Start With Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action)
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When we think of the historic struggles and conflicts of the current and past century, we naturally think of famous leaders: men who governed nations, commanded armies, and inspired movements in the defense of liberty, or in the service of ideologies which have obliterated liberty.
Yet today, in this hour of human history, when the forces arrayed against the free spirit of man are more powerful, more brutal, and potentially more deadly than ever before, the single figure who has raised the highest flame of liberty heads no state, commands no army, and leads no movement that our eyes can see.
But there is a movement—a hidden movement of human beings who have no offices and no headquarters, who are not represented in the great halls where nations meet, who every day risk or suffer more for the right to speak, to think, and to be true to themselves than any of us here are likely to risk in our lifetime.
We heed this voice, not because it speaks for the left or the right or for any faction, but because it hurls truth and courage into the teeth of total power when it would be so much easier and more comfortable to submit to and embrace the lies by which that power lives.
What is the strength of this voice? How has it broken through to us when others have been silenced? Its strength is art.
Art illuminates the truth. It is, in a sense, subversive: subversive of hypocrisy, subversive of delusion, subversive of untruth.
Few combinations in all of history have demonstrated the power of the pen coupled with the courage of free men’s minds.
We need that power desperately today. We need it to teach the new and forgetful generations in our midst what it means to be free. Freedom is not an abstraction, neither is the absence of freedom.
Art is a unique gift. It cannot be transmuted to another. But let us pray that this courage is contagious.
We need echoes of this voice. We need to hear echoes in the White House. We need to hear the echoes in Congress and in the State Department and in the universities and media.
The American ethos, from its conception to the contemporary, has been dedicated to the firm, unyielding belief in freedom. Freedom for all mankind, as well as for ourselves. It is in this spirit that we live our lives.
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George Meany
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It is already apparent that the word 'Fascist' will be one of the hardest-worked words in the Presidential campaign. Henry Wallace called some people Fascists the other day in a speech and next day up jumped Harrison Spangler, the Republican, to remark that if there were any Fascists in this country you would find them in the New Deal's palace guard. It is getting so a Fascist is a man who votes the other way. Persons who vote your way, of course, continue to be 'right-minded people.'
We are sorry to see this misuse of the word 'Fascist.' If we recall matters, a Fascist is a member of the Fascist party or a believer in Fascist ideals. These are: a nation founded on bloodlines, political expansion by surprise and war, murder or detention of unbelievers, transcendence of state over individual, obedience to one leader, contempt for parliamentary forms, plus some miscellaneous gymnastics for the young and a general feeling of elation. It seems to us that there are many New Deal Democrats who do not subscribe to such a program, also many aspiring Republicans. Other millions of Americans are nonsubscribers. It's too bad to emasculate the word 'Fascist' by using it on persons whose only offense is that they vote the wrong ticket. The word should be saved for use in cases where it applies, as it does to members of our Ku Klux Klan, for instance, whose beliefs and practices are identical with Fascism.
Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately), there is a certain quality in Fascism which is quite close to a certain quality in nationalism. Fascism is openly against people-in-general, in favor of people-in-particular. Nationalism, although in theory not dedicated to such an idea, actually works against people-in-general because of its preoccupation with people-in-particular. It reminds one of Fascism, also, in its determination to stabilize its own position by whatever haphazard means present themselves--by treaties, policies, balances, agreements, pacts, and the jockeying for position which is summed up in the term 'diplomacy.' This doesn't make an America Firster a Fascist. It simply makes him, in our opinion, a man who hasn't grown into his pants yet. The persons who have written most persuasively against nationalism are the young soldiers who have got far enough from our shores to see the amazing implications of a planet. Once you see it, you never forget it.
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E.B. White (The Wild Flag: Editorials from the New Yorker on Federal World Government and Other Matters)
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Here is my six step process for how we will first start with ISIS and then build an international force that will fight terrorism and corruption wherever it appears. “First, in dedication to Lieutenant Commander McKay, Operation Crapshoot commenced at six o’clock this morning. I’ve directed a handpicked team currently deployed in Iraq to coordinate a tenfold increase in aerial bombing and close air support. In addition to aerial support, fifteen civilian security companies, including delegations from our international allies, are flying special operations veterans into Iraq. Those forces will be tasked with finding and annihilating ISIS, wherever they walk, eat or sleep. I’ve been told that they can’t wait to get started. “Second, going forward, our military will be a major component in our battle against evil. Militaries need training. I’ve been assured by General McMillan and his staff that there is no better final training test than live combat. So without much more expenditure, we will do two things, train our troops of the future, and wipe out international threats. “Third, I have a message for our allies. If you need us, we will be there. If evil raises its ugly head, we will be with you, arm in arm, fighting for what is right. But that aid comes with a caveat. Our allies must be dedicated to the common global ideals of personal and religious freedom. Any supposed ally who ignores these terms will find themselves without impunity. A criminal is a criminal. A thief is a thief. Decide which side you’re on, because our side carries a big stick. “Fourth, to the religious leaders of the world, especially those of Islam, though we live with differing traditions, we are still one people on this Earth. What one person does always has the possibility of affecting others. If you want to be part of our community, it is time to do your part. Denounce the criminals who besmirch your faith. Tell your followers the true meaning of the Koran. Do not let the money and influence of hypocrites taint your religion or your people. We request that you do this now, respectfully, or face the scrutiny of America and our allies. “Fifth, starting today, an unprecedented coalition of three former American presidents, my predecessor included, will travel around the globe to strengthen our alliances. Much like our brave military leaders, we will lead from the front, go where we are needed. We will go toe to toe with any who would seek to undermine our good intentions, and who trample the freedoms of our citizens. In the coming days you will find out how great our resolve truly is. “Sixth, my staff is in the process of drafting a proposal for the members of the United Nations. The proposal will outline our recommendations for the formation of an international terrorism strike force along with an international tax that will fund ongoing anti-terrorism operations. Only the countries that contribute to this fund will be supported by the strike force. You pay to play.
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C.G. Cooper (Moral Imperative (Corps Justice, #7))
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Throughout the history of the church, Christians have tended to elevate the importance of one over the other. For the first 1,500 years of the church, singleness was considered the preferred state and the best way to serve Christ. Singles sat at the front of the church. Marrieds were sent to the back.4 Things changed after the Reformation in 1517, when single people were sent to the back and marrieds moved to the front — at least among Protestants.5 Scripture, however, refers to both statuses as weighty, meaningful vocations. We’ll spend more time on each later in the chapter, but here is a brief overview. Marrieds. This refers to a man and woman who form a one-flesh union through a covenantal vow — to God, to one another, and to the larger community — to permanently, freely, faithfully, and fruitfully love one another. Adam and Eve provide the clearest biblical model for this. As a one-flesh couple, they were called by God to take initiative to “be fruitful . . . fill the earth and subdue it” (Genesis 1:28). Singles. Scripture teaches that human beings are created for intimacy and connection with God, themselves, and one another. Marriage is one framework in which we work this out; singleness is another. While singleness may be voluntarily chosen or involuntarily imposed, temporary or long-term, a sudden event or a gradual unfolding, Christian singleness can be understood within two distinct callings: • Vowed celibates. These are individuals who make lifelong vows to remain single and maintain lifelong sexual abstinence as a means of living out their commitment to Christ. They do this freely in response to a God-given gift of grace (Matthew 19:12). Today, we are perhaps most familiar with vowed celibates as nuns and priests in the Roman Catholic or Orthodox Church. These celibates vow to forgo earthly marriage in order to participate more fully in the heavenly reality that is eternal union with Christ.6 • Dedicated celibates. These are singles who have not necessarily made a lifelong vow to remain single, but who choose to remain sexually abstinent for as long as they are single. Their commitment to celibacy is an expression of their commitment to Christ. Many desire to marry or are open to the possibility. They may have not yet met the right person or are postponing marriage to pursue a career or additional education. They may be single because of divorce or the death of a spouse. The apostle Paul acknowledges such dedicated celibates in his first letter to the church at Corinth (1 Corinthians 7). Understanding singleness and marriage as callings or vocations must inform our self-understanding and the outworking of our leadership. Our whole life as a leader is to bear witness to God’s love for the world. But we do so in different ways as marrieds or singles. Married couples bear witness to the depth of Christ’s love. Their vows focus and limit them to loving one person exclusively, permanently, and intimately. Singles — vowed or dedicated — bear witness to the breadth of Christ’s love. Because they are not limited by a vow to one person, they have more freedom and time to express the love of Christ to a broad range of people. Both marrieds and singles point to and reveal Christ’s love, but in different ways. Both need to learn from one another about these different aspects of Christ’s love. This may be a radically new concept for you, but stay with me. God intends this rich theological vision to inform our leadership in ways few of us may have considered. Before exploring the connections between leadership and marriage or singleness, it’s important to understand the way marriage and singleness are commonly understood in standard practice among leaders today.
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Peter Scazzero (The Emotionally Healthy Leader: How Transforming Your Inner Life Will Deeply Transform Your Church, Team, and the World)
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My hope is that our leaders will capitalize on our country's most admirable qualities. When people in other nations face a challenge or a problem, it would be good for them to look to Washington for assistance or as a sterling example. Our government should be known to be opposed to war, dedicated to the resolution of disputes by peaceful means and whenever possible, eager to accomplish this goal. We should be seen as the unswerving champion of human rights both among our own citizens and within the global community. America should be the focal point around which other nations can rally against threats to the quality of our common environment. We should be willing to lead by example in sharing our great wealth with those in need. Our own society should provide equal opportunity for all citizens and assure that they are provided the basic necessities of life. It would be no sacrifice in exemplifying these traits. Instead, our nation's well being would be enhanced by restoring the trust, admiration and friendship that our nation formerly enjoyed among other peoples. At the same time, all Americans could be united in a common commitment to revive and nourish the political and moral values that we have espoused and sought during the past 240 years.
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Jimmy Carter (A Full Life: Reflections at Ninety)
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The Blacklist If you’re unfamiliar with Caillou, he is the leader of the toddler community. He is the Dark Lord from whom they take orders. Caillou is who every toddler aspires to be. He’s a whining shit stain of a kid who, despite having no redeeming qualities, not even physical attractiveness, still gets everything he asks for. If most of us were Caillou’s parents, we would have dropped him off at Grandma’s house and not looked back. He is a demon’s spawn. His whine could strip paint. His cries generate no sympathy in parents, only rage. Parents, have you noticed that as your child watched Caillou he began whining more? If you have not gotten your child addicted to this degenerate of a television-show character, proceed with caution. No animated child in history has angered parents like Caillou has. If you Google his name, you will find images of him walking through flames like a demon and YouTube channels dedicated to discussing his assholery.
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Bunmi Laditan (Toddlers Are A**holes: It's Not Your Fault)
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Whenever I feel discouraged in my own progress, I remember what one Trappist monk said to me as he reflected on his sixty years of life dedicated to prayer, “I am only a beginner.
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Peter Scazzero (The Emotionally Healthy Leader: How Transforming Your Inner Life Will Deeply Transform Your Church, Team, and the World)
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For Christian leaders this means that ministry is not only the means to bring the gospel to the world, ministry together is how God makes a congregation into a corps that is ready to continually bring the gospel in new ways to a changing world. As missionaries who have been thrown together into unfamiliar surroundings with little more than a sense of call and commitment to each other, when we love each other and are dedicated to our mission, we change.
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Tod Bolsinger (Canoeing the Mountains: Christian Leadership in Uncharted Territory)
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It’s Up to You” by Edgar A. Guest. That poem expressed his intense dedication to his goals and his principles: No one is beat till he quits; No one is through till he stops, No matter how hard failure hits, No matter how often he drops. A fellow’s not down till he lies In the dust and refuses to rise. Fate may slam him and bang him around And batter his frame till he’s sore, But she never can say that he’s downed While he bobs up serenely for more. A fellow’s not dead till he dies, Nor beat till no longer he tries.
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Pat Williams (Character Carved in Stone: The 12 Core Virtues of West Point That Build Leaders and Produce Success)
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But if you look at where you are and it’s not exactly where you want to be, then ask yourself what it would look like for you to show up—in mind, body, and spirit—to what you are wanting to do.
All you have to do is look around. Examples of people who show up every day are everywhere. Every athlete you admire, every businessperson you admire, every leader you admire shows up in ways you probably don’t even know. Because it’s not dramatic. There’s not a bunch of fanfare. Nobody gives you an award or a trophy for doing the work. It’s just commitment and repetition, a dedication to showing up and doing the same things, day after day.
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Scott Hamilton (Finish First: Winning Changes Everything)
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Everywhere there is the same pyramidal structure, the same worship of semi-divine leader, the same economy existing by and for continuous warfare. It follows that the three superstates not only cannot conquer one another, but would gain no advantage by doing so. On the contrary, so long as they remain in conflict they prop one another up, like three sheaves of corn. And, as usual, the ruling groups of all three powers are simultaneously aware and unaware of what they are doing. Their lives are dedicated to world conquest, but they also know that it is necessary that the war should continue everlastingly and without victory. Meanwhile the fact that there is no danger of conquest makes possible the denial of reality which is the special feature of Ingsoc and its rival systems of thought. Here it is necessary to repeat what has been said earlier, that by becoming continuous war has fundamentally changed its character.
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George Orwell (1984)
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sktaleb
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in European history from the fourteenth to the seventeenth century, comes from an eighteen-minute YouTube video produced by the author and philosophy guru Alain de Botton’s School of Life. De Botton dedicates a few minutes of the video to educating viewers about the Renaissance leaders’ zeal for building beautiful cities. You can count on one hand the number of cities built since the 1600s that can rival the elegance of cities that sprung up on the Italian Peninsula during the three-hundred-odd years of the Renaissance, de Botton says in the video. Sure, he concedes, the old urban planners didn’t have to worry about cars or zoning laws, but they had a mission and were extremely direct and didactic in carrying it out. “City fathers across the Italian Peninsula had fallen in love with a remarkable new idea: that their cities should be the focus of an unparalleled attention to beauty,
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Hamish McKenzie (Insane Mode: How Elon Musk's Tesla Sparked an Electric Revolution to End the Age of Oil)
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Comtex Inc
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Here are some of the key things I have learned from working with some of the most extraordinary leaders on the planet:
✨We all have childhood wounds and trauma to a greater or lesser degree.
✨The most exceptional leaders among us are not experiencing an absence of trauma, they have simply developed ways to navigate through it to achieve.
✨Leaders are consistently dedicated to their own growth.
✨Leaders do not shy away from the uncomfortable deep dive into the dark side of soul excavations.
✨Leaders unapologetically channel their vulnerability into opportunities for growth.
✨Leaders take time to learn what their triggers are, identify them, and dedicate time and energy to work through them when they surface.
✨Leaders show up every… single… time with courage and heart.
✨Profound healing is quicker and easier than you could ever possibly imagine when you’re working with the right person.
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Cathy Domoney
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We do not have to be perfect to lead, but we do need to be accountable, we do need to be dedicated to our own growth, and we do need to be courageous enough to take responsibility for our own evolution in truth, humility, and love.
It’s the honesty about this fundamental truth that makes leaders truly great, and it’s a lesson that we can take with us as we lead our children into the future.
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Cathy Domoney
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Since democratic leaders can’t wait for the people to arrive at even general understanding and have to engineer consent to socially constructive goals and values, some obvious questions arise. Who makes the decisions about these goals and values? What factors enter into the decisions of “democratic leaders”? How is their “responsibility” and dedication to the public interest established?
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Noam Chomsky (Consequences of Capitalism: Manufacturing Discontent and Resistance)
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Former slaves like Frederick Douglass, Sojourner Truth, and Harriet Tubman added their voices to the debate. Unlike white abolitionists these leaders’ “formative years and antislavery educations were spent on southern plantations, and not in organizations dedicated to moral suasion.”47 Douglass was critical of the complicity of churches, especially Southern churches, in the continuation of slavery. His polemics against churches in his autobiography read like the preaching of an Old Testament prophet railing against the corruption of religion in their day.
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Steven Dundas
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The most important behavior on your part involves dedicating a disproportionate share of your own time, attention, and discretionary resources to creating new business models. Existing businesses, and the leaders in charge of them, face little difficulty in articulating their needs, building a case for their support, and attracting people. Entrepreneurial initiatives, on the other hand, are usually seen as marginal or unimportant in their early stages. Unless you personally allocate to them disproportionate attention, disproportionate resources, and disproportionate talent, they will get squeezed by the existing business to the extent that they never have a chance to take off. Your challenge is to provide counterpressure to the inertial forces that lead your people to constantly attend to the demands of today’s business.
[...]
By disproportionate resources, we mean budget, access to operating capacity or operating assets, and, most vitally, the very best people. Ironically, these are the very resources that are highly desired by managers of the existing business, who are apt to hotly contest any other claim on them. Like the payment of disproportionate attention, the disproportionate allocation of resources to new business models has its costs. Every dollar and every hour of operations capacity allocated disproportionately to entrepreneurial initiatives is money and time denied the existing business. Disproportionate allocation must be a deliberate process, with commitment of resources being visibly recognized as a matter of strategic choice, not a struggle between long- and short-term goals.
[...]
Finally, you must be prepared for your organization’s top talent to work on entrepreneurial initiatives. This can create a painful dilemma. When top talent works on an entrepreneurial initiative, the current business is weakened accordingly. However, if only mediocre talent is assigned to the difficult task of new business development, the ventures are doomed. Furthermore, allowing ventures to be run by mediocre people sends an even stronger signal to the rest of the business about your real priorities. The smart people in the firm will recognize that business development is not truly a priority for you, and they will organize their own priorities accordingly. The message: If you don’t walk the talk, only the dumb people will listen.
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Rita Gunther McGrath (The Entrepreneurial Mindset: Strategies for Continuously Creating Opportunity in an Age of Uncertainty)
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Don't you believe in an afterlife?"
"I don't. But I also feel we can never be certain of such things. I imagine it offers great comfort to you, and I'm all for anything that offers you peace of mind, life satisfaction, and encourages a virtuous life. But, personally, I don't find the idea of a reunion in heaven credible. I consider it as stemming from a wish."
"Then what religion do you believe in?"
"I don't believe in any religion or any god. I have an entirely secular view of life."
"But how is it possible to live like that? Without a set of ordained morals. How can life be tolerable or have any meaning without the idea of improving your position in the next life?"
I began to grow uneasy about where this discussion would lead and whether I was serving James's best interests. All in all, however, I decided it was best to continue being forthright.
"My real interest is in this life and in improving it for myself and others. Let me speak to your puzzlement about how I can find meaning without religion. I disagree about religion being the source of meaning and morality. I don't think there is an essential connection-or let me at least say an exclusive connection-between religion, meaning, and morality. I think I live a fulfilling and virtuous life. I am fully dedicated to helping others, like you for example, to live a more satisfying life. I would say I get my meaning in life from this human world right here, right now. I think my meaning comes from helping others find their meaning. I believe that preoccupation with a next life may undermine full participation in this life."
James looked so interested that I continued on for a few minutes to describe some of my recent readings in Epicurus and Nietzsche that emphasized this very point. I mentioned how Nietzsche much admired Christ but felt that Paul and later Christian leaders diluted Christ's real message and drained this current life of meaning. In fact, I pointed out, Nietzsche had
much hostility toward Socrates and Plato because of their disdain of the body, their emphasis on the soul's immortality, and their concentration on preparing for the next life. These very beliefs were cherished by the Neo-Platonists and eventually permeated early Christian eschatology.
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Irvin D. Yalom (Staring at the Sun: Overcoming the Terror of Death)
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Joining IAS Gurukul is not just a step towards a career; it's an immersion into a community of like-minded individuals who share the same vision – a vision of serving the nation with integrity and dedication. Here, we go beyond syllabi, delving into real-world challenges through case studies, discussions, and experiential learning. Our goal is to create not just successful IAS officers, but leaders who can inspire and drive meaningful change in the dynamic landscape of public administration.
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IAS Gurukul
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There is, however, another kind of leader—quieter and less glamorous but no less significant—whose virtues repay our attention. There is greatness in political lives dedicated more to steadiness than to boldness, more to reform than to revolution, more to the management of complexity than to the making of mass movements. Bush’s life code, as he once put it in a letter to his mother, was “Tell the truth. Don’t blame people. Be strong. Do your Best. Try hard. Forgive. Stay the course.” Simple propositions—deceptively simple, for such sentiments are more easily expressed than embodied in the arena of public life.
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Jon Meacham (Destiny and Power: The American Odyssey of George Herbert Walker Bush)
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It all comes down to competition. When our industrial revolution first began, Earth was ruled by monarchs. Wars soon took on a scope and scale that formerly would have been unthinkable—besides being beyond the scope of any kingdom to pay for. The monarchies, over time, were replaced by governments which, to varying degrees, allowed for the citizens to participate. It created the wealth that nation-states could call upon in times of war. “I don’t want to give you the impression that our society evolved in lock-step as part of some grand plan. The people living through those changes didn’t even have the concepts to explain what was happening. I have the advantage of having paid attention in my history classes. It was incredibly haphazard—fits and starts, wars, revolutions, counterrevolutions, etc.” “I know you aren’t calling for a revolution here,” Tima pressed. “Continue.” “The new economic systems relied, to varying degrees, on an educated populace, and so did the new political structures. Gradually capitalism, our economic system, became the most efficient way for a nation to harness the energy and spirit of its people. An individual with a great idea could become rich and powerful—good ideas were rewarded by the system itself. Bad ones would die on the vine. The problems started when the rich and powerful became the political leaders—too many laws and rules were created to protect the status quo, and it was no longer good idea versus bad, but which idea had the backing of the powers that be—” “Stop.” Tima held out a hand. “You are getting off into your recent history—the reason for your people leaving Earth and going to Eden. I’m less interested in that, and more in weighing your Earth’s development against that of my world. Why is this development prevented by our culture?” Ocheltree shrugged and pointed a finger at him. “You yourself have complained to me how hard it is to get others to even consider a new way of thinking. People have to be free to bring new ideas forward. If all you have is dedication to authority, you really are limited to the creativity and genius of your leaders.
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S.M. Anderson (The Wrong Game (The Eden Chronicles #5))
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People who influence not through the strength of a large title and by the threat of a big position but via the power of their characters, the nobility of their expertise, the compassion in their hearts and by their unusual dedication to leaving everyone they meet better than they found them. Leaders run less by the selfish addictions of the ego and more by the selfless dictates of our greater wisdom.
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Robin S. Sharma (The 5AM Club: Own Your Morning. Elevate Your Life.)
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Focus outwardly: the Attitude. We humans are self-absorbed by nature and spend most of our time focusing inwardly on our emotions, on our wounds, on our fantasies. You want to develop the habit of reversing this as much as possible. You do this in three ways. First, you hone your listening skills, absorbing yourself in the words and nonverbal cues of others. You train yourself to read between the lines of what people are saying. You attune yourself to their moods and their needs, and sense what they are missing. You do not take people’s smiles and approving looks for reality but rather sense the underlying tension or fascination. Second, you dedicate yourself to earning people’s respect. You do not feel entitled to it; your focus is not on your feelings and what people owe you because of your position and greatness (an inward turn). You earn their respect by respecting their individual needs and by proving that you are working for the greater good. Third, you consider being a leader a tremendous responsibility, the welfare of the group hanging on your every decision.
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Robert Greene (The Laws of Human Nature)
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Dedication We dedicate The #GirlBizMind Series to our common mentor Joel Bauer, and to the following people, who served as mentors, coaches and leaders in our lives: Helga
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Helga Klopcic (Remove Negative Thinking: How to Instantly Harness Mindfulness and The Power of Positive Thinking)
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When we asked him why he was so dedicated to reconciliation and to being willing to make concessions to his opponents, he did not hesitate to say that it had all been due to the influence and witness of the Christian churches. This was echoed by Tokyo Sexwale, the first Premier of the leading industrial province of Gauteng, when he too came to greet our synod as it was meeting in his province. Clearly the Church had made a contribution to what was happening in our land, even though its witness and ministry had been something of a mixed bag. Presumably without that influence things might have turned out a little differently. It could also be that at a very difficult time in our struggle, when most of our leaders were in jail or in exile or proscribed in some way or other, some of the leaders in the churches were thrust into the forefront of the struggle and had thereby given the churches a particular kind of credibility—people like Allan Boesak, formerly leader of the Dutch Reformed Mission Church, Frank Chikane, former general secretary of the South African Council of Churches (SACC), Peter Storey, former head of the Methodist Church, Beyers Naudé, the most prominent Afrikaner church dissident and also a general secretary of the SACC, Denis Hurley, formerly Roman Catholic Archbishop of Durban, and leaders of other faith communities who were there where the people were hurting. Thus when they spoke about forgiveness and reconciliation they had won their spurs and would be listened to with respect.
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Desmond Tutu (No Future Without Forgiveness)
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As a 'Leader' gains strength from his followers’ enthusiasm and dedication, the 'individuals' gain inspiration from their leader's integrity and vision!
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G.S. Krishnan (MYTHOLOGY LESSONS FOR MANAGERS: 100 Inspiring Stories of Corporate Functions)
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You tend to become that, what you want most. Look to the light of God, expect the best and give it your best. Make success happen with devotion and dedication. You can do it.
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Mark LaMoure (Step into Your Vision 2.0: 24 Inspirational Leaders Share Their Goal-Setting Secrets)
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In all crises, there are those who act and those who fear to act. The Federal Reserve, born of the now little-known Panic of 1907, failed its first major test in the 1930s. Its leaders and the leaders of other central banks around the world remained passive in the face of ruinous deflation and financial collapse. The result was a global Great Depression, breadlines, and 25 percent unemployment in the United States, and the rise of fascist dictatorships abroad. Seventy-five years later, the Federal Reserve—the institution that I have dedicated the better part of my adult life to studying and serving—confronted similar challenges in the crisis of 2007–2009 and its aftermath. This time, we acted.
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Ben S. Bernanke (The Courage to Act: A Memoir of a Crisis and Its Aftermath)
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Selfless Actions; expand our life outside of us, enable us admired leaders and make our actions that live beyond our lifespan.
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Ahmet Adam Asar
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The growth of an organization is not dependent on the number of employees in its register. It is dependent on the number of employees who show dedication and commitment to the vision of the organization.
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Israelmore Ayivor (Leaders' Ladder)
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Who’d rather read, “The godly shall never suffer persecution”? Me. But we do. So did Christians in the time of the apostles. And they are suffering now—around the world, but especially under the lash of Islamic terrorism. Who, just a few years ago, could have imagined the so-called Islamic State—or ISIS, or ISIL, or Daesh, or whatever you want to call it—appearing on the scene and literally crucifying Christians, including children; or that they would brag about beheadings; or that they would be committing mass executions of Christians? That’s evil incarnate—but the big-dog media don’t like to talk about it, and neither do liberal politicians. And that’s only one strand of Islamic terrorism. There’s al Qaeda and there are other jihadist movements, all of which are dedicated to the extermination or subjugation of Christians. There’s a global war against Christianity in the name of Islam—and a lot of us don’t even know about it, because the lamestream media don’t think it’s newsworthy. SWEET FREEDOM IN Action Today, challenge yourself to keep informed about the Jihadist threat. Pray for courage, pray for God’s protection of our country, pray for our leaders to defeat this death cult, and pray for threatened Christians around the world.
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Sarah Palin (Sweet Freedom: A Devotional)
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The ten messengers looked like warriors more than messengers, so Nabal surrounded himself with his bodyguard of twenty men to receive the visitors. “Shalom be upon your house, Nabal of Maon,” said the lead messenger. “My name is Joab, and this is my brother Abishai. We serve our lord, David ben Jesse.” Abishai nodded respectfully, as did the nine others with them. Nabal eyed them suspiciously. The leader named Joab had a nasty scar down his forehead and cheek that made him appear like a devious wolf. Joab continued, “Our lord understands that you are shearing your sheep now in Carmel.” Nabal replied with sarcasm, “I can readily see your lord takes such dedicated interest in my property. So important is it to him that he sends his warriors instead of messengers.” “We are warriors, it is true,” said Joab. “But we come in peace. We have watched over your shepherds for these past weeks and have done them no harm. Indeed, we have protected them from hostile outsiders, so that not a sheep has been taken.” Nabal knew exactly where this was going. He continued his sarcastic drawl, “What a privilege indeed is such peace. And what do I owe this son of Jesse for such unrequested protection?” Joab said, “May my lord find favor in your eyes. For a feast day is upon us. He only asks whatever food and drink you may spare for your servants and your son, David.” “My son, no less,” said Nabal. “And how many does this ‘son’ of mine employ in this protection business of his?” “We are six hundred.
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Brian Godawa (David Ascendant (Chronicles of the Nephilim, #7))
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Some leaders seek power for its own sake; some leaders seek power in order to increase their own resources or those of family, friends, and close associates. Those are not the leaders whom I admire, nor are they the leaders that young people should emulate. As I make clear in the pages that follow, the key to effective leadership is amoral: The skills that I describe can be used for the ends of a Nelson Mandela, or for the ends of Osama bin Laden. But once we turn from description to prescription, it is clear that, as individuals and as members of broader communities, we should do all that we can to increase the incidence of good leaders—individuals who are engaged, excellent, and dedicated to the pursuit of ethical ends.
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Howard Gardner (Leading Minds: An Anatomy Of Leadership)
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Fantasize and start dream building. Bring your dreams into material reality. See yourself at your best. Transform yourself with dedication and work for excellence.
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Mark LaMoure (Step into Your Vision 2.0: 24 Inspirational Leaders Share Their Goal-Setting Secrets)
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The history of the twentieth century, he pointed out, is replete with instances of the tragedy that overtakes democracy when a leader who has risen to power on the crest of a popular wave or with the support of a democratic organisation becomes a victim of political narcissism and is egged on by a coterie of unscrupulous sycophants who use corruption and terror to silence opposition and attempt to make public opinion an echo of authority. The Congress as an organisation dedicated to democracy and socialism has to combat such trends.
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Ramachandra Guha (India After Gandhi: The History of the World's Largest Democracy)
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Married couples bear witness to the depth of Christ’s love. Their vows focus and limit them to loving one person exclusively, permanently, and intimately. Singles — vowed or dedicated — bear witness to the breadth of Christ’s love. Because they are not limited by a vow to one person, they have more freedom and time to express the love of Christ to a broad range of people. Both marrieds and singles point to and reveal Christ’s love, but in different ways. Both need to learn from one another about these different aspects of Christ’s love. This
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Peter Scazzero (The Emotionally Healthy Leader: How Transforming Your Inner Life Will Deeply Transform Your Church, Team, and the World)
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Speakers, coaches, consultants, thought-leaders, experts, and authors who dedicate their professional lives for the love of humanity and the betterment of society are making a positive difference in the lives of millions. These messengers of hope make our entire world a better place through their love and generosity.
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Susan C. Young (The Art of Being: 8 Ways to Optimize Your Presence & Essence for Positive Impact (The Art of First Impressions for Positive Impact, #1))
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The Lixingshe movement set up by dedicated supporters from Whampoa in 1932 to ensure authoritarian allegiance to the leader grew to number half a million members, with offshoots such as the political shock troops known as the Blue Shirts. But the notion of a continuous mass movement remained deeply suspect to the militarised bureaucracy in Nanking - a major difference between Chiang's regime and Mussolini's Italy or Hitler's Germany. It presented an authoritarian view of Chinese tradition as a historic justification for dictatorship with a conservative cultural policy to buttress the supremacy' of the state and its chief. Intellectuals were told to sacrifice their individual liberty for the sake of the nation. If the regime had fascist tendencies, it was `Confucian Fascism', as the historian Frederic Wakeman has dubbed it.
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Jonathan Fenby (Chiang Kai-Shek: China's Generalissimo and the Nation He Lost)
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Rather than setting up a separate diversity committee or women’s committee with dedicated resources, I recommend that companies instead assemble small, temporary, twenty-first-century leadership task forces. This is an efficient, flexible team with the knowledge and authority to make decisions and the seniority and business networks to influence key stakeholders. Such a team would emphasize the accountability of business leaders for making change happen.
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Avivah Wittenberg-Cox (Seven Steps to Leading a Gender-Balanced Business)
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Innovators are at their very heart visionaries who also have determination, dedication, passion and motivation.
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Pearl Zhu (Talent Master: 199+ Questions to See Talent from Different Angles (Digital Master Book 6))
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One of the results of the Islamic Revolution spreading outside Iran was the creation of Hezbollah, a Shiite terrorist organization in Lebanon. The organization’s name declares its dedication and commitment to Islam. The word Hezbollah is derived from the Arabic Hizb Allah, which means “party or fellowship of Allah.”2 This phrase comes from a Quranic verse (Surah al-Ma’idah, 5:56), which appears in red letters at the top of Hezbollah’s yellow-and-green flag: “The fellowship of Allah that must certainly triumph.”3 At its formation in 1982, Hezbollah was inspired by the ideology behind the Iranian Revolution and its principal leader, Ayatollah Khomeini.4 It adheres to Khomeini’s vision of an Islamic cleric-ruled state,5 vilayat-e-faqih, and thus views Iran as the ultimate example of the successful implementation of that vision. The group reveres Khomeini as the “divinely inspired ruler” of the community of true Muslim believers and Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s current Supreme Leader, as the modern “Legal Guardian of Muslims.”6 Hezbollah believes that Allah has established Iran as the “nucleus of the world’s central Islamic state.”7
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Jay Sekulow (Unholy Alliance: The Agenda Iran, Russia, and Jihadists Share for Conquering the World)
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Hadn't Gary Gygax simply invented a game, and an esoteric one at that? It was hardly a footnote in the increasingly fast and complex information age that we live in. What was all the fuzz about? The reason for all the fuzz among those who understood his work was simple. Gary Gygax and his seminal game creation, Dungeons & Dragons, had influenced and transformed the world in extraordinary ways. Yet, much of his contribution would also go largely unrecognised by the general public. Although it is debatable whether D&D ever became a thoroughly mainstream activity, as a 1983 New York Times article had speculated, referring to it as the great game of the 1980's, D&D and its RPG derivatives are beloved by a relatively small but dedicated group of individuals affectionately known as 'geeks'. Although the term 'geek' is not exclusive to role-playing gamers, the activities of this particular audience have often been viewed as the most archetypal form of 'geekiness'. Labels aside, what is notable is that the activities of this RGP audience were highly correlated with interests in other activities such as early computers, digital technologies, visual effects, and the performing arts. In this way, these geeks, though relatively small in number, became in many instances the leaders and masters of this era. With the advent of the digital age, geeks worldwide found opportunity and recognition never previously available to their predecessors. Icons and innovators such as George R. R. Martin, Mike Myers, Richard Garriott, Vin Diesel, Tim Duncan, Anderson Cooper, David X. Cohen, John Carmak, Tim Harford, Moby, and the late Robin Williams, to name just a few, were all avid role-playing gamers in their younger years. The list of those who include D&D as a regular activity while growing up is both extensive and impressive.
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Michael Witwer (Empire of Imagination: Gary Gygax and the Birth of Dungeons & Dragons)
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In the period immediately following ratification of the Constitution in 1789, the national public service at its upper levels has been described as a “Government by Gentlemen” and it did not look too different in certain respects from the one that existed in early-nineteenth-century Britain.8 One might also label it government by the friends of George Washington, since the republic’s first president chose men like himself who he felt had good qualifications and a dedication to public service.9 Under John Adams, 70 percent, and under Jefferson, 60 percent of high-ranking officials had fathers who came from the landed gentry, merchant, or professional classes.10 Many people today marvel at the quality of political leadership at the time of America’s founding, the sophistication of the discourse revealed in the Federalist Papers, and the ability to think about institutions in a long-term perspective. At least part of the reason for this strong leadership was that America at the time was not a full democracy but rather a highly elitist society, many of whose leaders were graduates of Harvard and Yale. Like the British elite, many of them knew each other personally from school and from their common participation in the revolution and drafting of the Constitution.
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Francis Fukuyama (Political Order and Political Decay: From the Industrial Revolution to the Globalization of Democracy)
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We are certain that for every one of these rock stars we meet in our daily work, there are dozens or even hundreds more who are doing their best to unseat us from our perch. Maybe all of them will fail, but probably not. Probably, somewhere in a garage, dorm room, lab, or conference room, a brave business leader has gathered a small, dedicated team of smart creatives. Maybe she has a copy of our book, and is using our ideas to help her create a company that will eventually render Google irrelevant. Preposterous, right? Except that, given that no business wins forever, it is inevitable. Some would find this chilling. We find it inspiring.
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Eric Schmidt (How Google Works)
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A leader learned to follow, and serves the followers who are learning to lead. ~T.F. Hodge
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T.F. Hodge (From Within I Rise: Spiritual Triumph over Death and Conscious Encounters With the Divine Presence)
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All of us grow spiritually weary at times, especially when we’re under attack from Satan, the enemy of our souls. Our leaders within the church are also vulnerable to battle fatigue. That’s why God calls us to uphold those serving in the ministry as well as one another. Believers can strengthen each other by sharing the responsibilities of serving God, offering verbal encouragement, and being dedicated to intercessory prayer. It’s important for us to be sensitive to the needs of others so that when a fellow believer grows weary, we can stand by them and help hold them up.
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Dianne Neal Matthews (Designed for Devotion: A 365-Day Journey from Genesis to Revelation)
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It’s more important for your team to be dedicated than to be “cross-functional.” I’d rather work with a balanced, diverse three-person team who are “all in” than fifteen people who cover every division of the company but can never find time to really do the hard work. While it’s good to get operators and scalers involved in the process, there are plenty of mechanisms to get them involved, exposed, and bought in if they can’t be dedicated (such as having them participate in prototyping or piloting).
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Ryan Jacoby (Making Progress: The 7 Responsibilities of the Innovation Leader)
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And yet we are a resilient people, caretakers of a blessed nation. It has become a commonplace that we always rise to the occasion in this country. That is still true. And we surprise ourselves, never knowing with exact certainty from whence our next leader or hero will come—good reason to respect and defend one another as Americans, as fellow countrymen dedicated to a great proposition.
Allow me a few simple illustrations. If you were sitting in a saloon in 1860, and someone told you that while he did not know who would win that year's presidential election, the next elected president after him was right then a little known leather tanner in Galena, Illinois, he would be laughed out of the saloon. But then came Ulysses S. Grant. If you were sitting at Franklin D. Roosevelt's inauguration, in 1933, and someone told you the next president was a little-known judge in Jackson County, Missouri, he would have been made to look the fool. But then came Harry S. Truman. If you were a political consultant in California in 1950 watching the bitter Senate race between Richard Nixon and Helen Gahagan Douglas (where Nixon labeled Douglas "the pink lady"), and you said that actor Ronald Reagan (who was then campaigning for Douglas) would someday be a Republican president and would crush the Soviet Union, your career would have been over.
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William J. Bennett (From a World at War to the Triumph of Freedom 1914-1989 (America: The Last Best Hope #2))
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Specialists are also prone to overconfidence, to believe their narrow knowledge makes them experts in all other areas. They overestimate their understanding of others’ work, oversimplify it, and denigrate the dedication and skill of people outside their area.
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Robert I. Sutton (The Friction Project: How Smart Leaders Make the Right Things Easier and the Wrong Things Harder)
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Kevin Samrick, a dedicated Eagle Scout and engineer, has woven leadership, technical prowess, and adventure into his life. His journey started at Campolindo High School, where he was a prominent student leader, and continued at Harvey Mudd College, where he received the esteemed William P. Wiesmann Clinic Award.
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Kevin Samrick
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Jake Bartikofsky is a dynamic professional with a demonstrated history of success in the construction industry. His dedication, hard work, and goal-oriented mindset have distinguished him as a leader in his field.
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Jake Bartikofsky
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Renowned in the dental profession, Dr. Dhyllon's career is characterized by his unwavering commitment to excellence and his tireless efforts to advance dental health and education. With a deep-seated passion for innovation and a steadfast dedication to continuous learning, Dr. Dhyllon has emerged as a leader in the field, pushing boundaries and redefining the standards of dental care.
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Dr. Dhyllon
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He will have to learn, I know, that all men are not just, all men are not true, but teach him also that for every scoundrel there is a hero; that for every selfish politician, there is a dedicated leader. Teach him that for every enemy there is a friend.
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Abraham Lincoln’s Letter to his Son’s Teacher
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If you want a small team whose members are focused on a mission, empowered to make hard decisions, and dedicated to running fast in service of your customers, then a leader is critical. We call such leaders “single-threaded” because they wake up in the morning with only one thing on their mind—how their team can win.
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Jeff Lawson (Ask Your Developer: How to Harness the Power of Software Developers and Win in the 21st Century)
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The FBI nicknamed the program COINTELPRO, as a shorthand for "counterintelligence program." COINTELPRO originated in the 1950s, to prevent socialist movements from developing in the United States, and the program rose to new heights in the Black Power era. Even prior to Stokely Carmichael's first calls for Black Power in 1966, the FBI was organizing to undermine civil rights movement efforts. The Black organizations they labeled as "militant' included not only Stokely's SNCC but also the Rev. Dr. King's Southern Christian Leadership Conference, a group that never wavered in its dedication to nonviolent civil disobedience. Between 1963 and 1971, the FBI ran nearly three hundred separate COINTELPRO operations against Black nationalist groups, the majority of which targeted the Black Panther Party. The program's major goals were to:
1. Prevent the coalition of militant Black nationalist groups, as there would be strength in unity.
2. Prevent the rise of a "messiah" who could unify and electrify the movement, such as the Rev. Dr. King or Malcolm X.
3. Prevent violence, ideally by neutralizing movement leaders before they could become violent.
4. Prevent Black nationalist leaders from gaining respectability, ideally by discrediting them in the eyes of white people, Black people, and radicals of all races.
5. Prevent young people from joining the groups and increasing their membership base.
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Kekla Magoon (Revolution in Our Time: The Black Panther Party's Promise to the People)
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As I mentioned in the first chapter, management experts Dave Logan, John King, and Halee Fischer-Wright describe five stages of tribal development in their book, Tribal Leadership. My goal in my first year as head coach was to transform the Bulls from a stage 3 team of lone warriors committed to their own individual success (“I’m great and you’re not”) to a stage 4 team in which the dedication to the We overtakes the emphasis on the Me (“We’re great and you’re not”).
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Phil Jackson (Eleven Rings: The Soul of Success)
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Starting today, declare your devotion to remembering the sublime soul, brave warrior and undefeatable creator that your natural wisdom is calling on you to be. The trials of your past have skillfully served to reinvent you into one who is tougher, more aware of the powers that make you special and more grateful for the basic blessings of a life beautifully lived—splendid health, a happy family, a job that fulfils and a hopeful heart. These apparent difficulties have actually been the stepping stones for your current and future victories. The former limits that have shackled you and the “failures” that have hurt you have been necessary for the realization of your mastery. All is unfolding for your benefit. You truly are favored. Oh yes, whether you accept this or not, you are a lion, not a sheep. A leader, never a victim. A person worthy of exceptional accomplishment, uplifting adventure, flawless contentment and the self-respect that, over time, rises steeply into a reservoir of self-love that no one and no thing can ever conquer. You are a mighty force of nature and a dynamic producer, not a slumbering casualty caught flat-footed in a world of degrading mediocrity, dehumanizing complaint, compliance and entitlement. And with steadfast commitment and regular effort, you will evolve into an idealist, an unusual artist and a potent exceptionalist. A genuine world-changer, in your own most honest and excellent way. So be not a cynic, critic and naysayer. For doubters are degenerated dreamers. And average is absolutely unworthy of you. Today, and for each day that follows of your uniquely glorious, brilliantly luminous and most-helpful-to-many life, stand fiercely in the limitless freedom to shape your future, materialize your ambitions and magnify your contributions in high esteem of your dreams, enthusiasms and dedications. Insulate your cheerfulness, polish your prowess and inspire all witnesses fortunate enough to watch your good example of how a great human being can behave. We will watch your growth, applaud your gifts, appreciate your valor and admire your eventual immortality. As you remain within the hearts of many.
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Robin S. Sharma (The Everyday Hero Manifesto: Activate Your Positivity, Maximize Your Productivity, Serve The World)