James MacGregor Burns's Quotes

In real life, the most practical advice for leaders is not to treat pawns like pawns, nor princes like princes, but all persons like persons.

Divorced from ethics, leadership is reduced to management and politics to mere technique.

Leaders are not pale reflectors of major social conflicts; they play up some, play down others, ignore still others.

A revolution is an act of violence whereby one class shatters the authority of another.

Woodrow Wilson called for leaders who, by boldly interpreting the nation's conscience, could lift a people out of their everyday selves. That people can be lifted into their better selves is the secret of transforming leadership.