The ministers of kings should learn to moderate their ambition. The higher they elevate themselves above their proper sphere, the greater the danger that they will fall.
Louis XivRead
My child, you are going to be a great king; do not imitate me in the taste I have had for building, or in that I have had for war; try, on the contrary, to be at peace with your neighbors.
Interpretation
A parent advises their child to pursue peace rather than war and to create their own legacy.
In this quote from Louis XIV, a fatherly figure expresses hope and confidence in their child's potential to be a great leader. He emphasizes the importance of forging a unique path in leadership, urging the child to avoid his own past predilections for war and grand constructions, advocating instead for peaceful relations with others. This reflects a deeper wisdom about the values of harmony and collaboration over conflict and competition.
In practice
During a speech on diplomacy, one could quote this to emphasize the importance of peaceful negotiations.
The ministers of kings should learn to moderate their ambition. The higher they elevate themselves above their proper sphere, the greater the danger that they will fall.
I am dying, but the state remains.
Every time I appoint someone to a vacant position, I make a hundred unhappy and one ungrateful.
The only point of having power it seems to me is to empower others. The only point of leadership is to inspire.
I know that the right kind of leader for the Labour Party is a desiccated calculating machine who must not in any way permit himself to be swayed by indignation. If he sees suffering, privation or injustice he must not allow it to move him, for that would be evidence of the lack of proper education or of absence of self-control. He must speak in calm and objective accents and talk about a dying child in the same way as he would about the pieces inside an internal combustion engine.
He that thinketh he leadeth and hath no one following him is only taking a walk.
In this age, in this country, public sentiment is everything. With it, nothing can fail; against it, nothing can succeed. Whoever molds public sentiment goes deeper than he who enacts statutes, or pronounces judicial decisions.
My mother was the strong wife, partner, and co-worker Martin Luther King, Jr. needed to be an effective leader, and he said so on many occasions.
I cannot penetrate the soul of Arafat. I cannot know in advance whether, behind all the masks, he's the kind of leader who can reach an agreement or whether he wants to be the Moses of the Palestinians, staying in front of the river and not crossing into the promised land.
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