All Quotes

"Despite strikes and riots all over the country, bloodily put down by the Minute Men, Windrip's power in Washington was maintained. The most liberal four members of the Supreme Court resigned and were replaced by surprisingly unknown lawyers who called President Windrip by his first name. A number of Congressmen were still being "protected" in the District of Columbia jail; others had seen the blinding light forever shed by the goddess Reason and happily returned to the Capitol. The Minute Men were increasingly loyal—they were still unpaid volunteers, but provided with "expense accounts" considerably larger than the pay of the regular troops. Never in American history had the adherents of a President been so well satisfied; they were not only appointed to whatever political jobs there were but to ever so many that really were not; and with such annoyances as Congressional Investigations hushed, the official awarders of contracts were on the merriest of terms with all contractors. . . . One veteran lobbyist for steel corporations complained that there was no more sport in his hunting—you were not only allowed but expected to shoot all government purchasing-agents sitting."

"Aaron was uncomfortable and a little afraid. This, he thought, is how God might pray to his God. ~ Ch. 1"

"Reverend Lucius Fairlow... a mild-spoken young-old man with mild chestnut hair and a mild chestnut mustache and a conservative theology which stuck mildly to the pleasant certainties of God's anger and eternal hellfire. ~ Ch. 2"

"Aaron had learned… from Mr. Fairlow's two-hour sermons on "The Jealousy of an Angry Jehovah Who Hath Weighed Sinners in the Balance and Found Them Wanting",... that God was a torturer who punished small boys for sins they might commit later. ~ Ch. 3"

"Good sense from a child was not necessarily contemptible beside foolishness from a grown-up. ~ Ch. 3"

"When you think that most of us are doomed by divine grace to roast in hell, to say nothing of mortgages and hail and bad crops and extravagant womenfolks, 'tain't any laughing matter! ~ Ch. 3"

"It might be the doing of Satan, in whom Aaron anxiously believed with all of his being except, perhaps, his mind. ~ Ch. 4"

"It was of no use. That particular sort of coward and evader he was not, and he lay abed facing all his sins, all his slacknesses, and the merited punishment by a just and angry God. ~ Ch. 5"

"The more the Dakota have to do with the white, the worse. The whites give him whiskey to get his furs and bimeby he don't want to trap so many furst but he want plenty more whiskey. The white traders take his girl, and all he get in swap is a disease. They take his land, and all he get is a leetle annuity so he don't do any work and starve slow. The Indian gets white man's gun an he is drunk and kill his own brother and they call him sinful. That's what he get from the white man—fine kettle, fine gun, fine blanket, the big pox, the small pox and religion. ~ Ch. 20"

"Mostly the adult Indians did not wish their children to learn these arts from the emissaries of what they astonishingly considered an alien, false and hostile God. ~ Ch. 21"

"As they talked around the fire in the sitting-room, he was embarrassed by the nakedness of their piety. ~ Ch. 22"

"When he gets uppity about his supposed learning, I just take it on myself to remind him that God and his angels know almost as much as college professors ~ Ch. 23"

"He prayed, 'Lord God, let us be the kind of Christians that you would be if you were a Christian'. ~ Ch. 24"

"Aaron began to learn the Dakota language. Isaac, like a newly ordained Doctor of Philosophy, after years of being nagged into learning, rejoiced to be invited to stand up and look important and teach. He was astonished by his own erudition and by the fact that his class of one did not walk out. ~ Ch. 31"

"He fretted that he did not know anything. He sighed, 'I have sought the Kingdom of God a little, the Squire has sought it terribly, but we haven't even a map, and after what I saw this afternoon, I know the Sioux are as barbarous as we are. Is it possible that nobody has ever known—that there never has been a completely civilized man, and won't be for another thousand years? ~ Ch. 33"

"Indians, of course, have no 'theology,' and indeed no word for the system of credulity in which the white priests arrange for God, who must be entirely bewildered by it, a series of excuses for his failures. ~ Ch. 41"

"We should adopt Jesus boldly, and send missionaries to explain him to the whites, except that no Indian except one very old and sick and never much good in warfare would be pompous enough to tell alien peoples what he thinks they should believe. ~ Ch. 41"

"He had unhappily noticed at the mission that when he had most hotly prayed, it had been a way of escaping a decision, of frivolously passing the lot to God. ~ Ch. 50"

"I've sat at the preachers' feet and listened to them, faithfully, and tried to make myself become what they said I ought to be. I'm through! I do my own thinking now and my own bossing. ~ Ch. 51"

"It did seem sounder to build houses which he could build than to teach children a gospel which he did not altogether understand in a Sioux language which he could not quite speak. He reflected, 'If I could put over some kind of equality for Mark Shadrock and Black Wolf, that would be enough heavenly progress for me.' ~ Ch. 53"

"I don't believe in fear of divine vengeance, and I do believe in justice and equality.... ~ Ch. 57"

"An ugly woodshed that's there, right on the ground, is handsomer to me than a ten-story temple that isn't there. ~ Ch. 57"

"I have defined the hundred per cent American as ninety-nine per cent an idiot."

"What was once Sinclair Lewis is buried in no ground. Even in life he was fully alive only in his writing. He lives in public libraries from Maine to California, in worn copies in the bookshelves of women from small towns who, in their girlhood, imagined themselves as Carol Kennicotts, and of medical men who, as youths, were inspired by Martin Arrowsmith."

"While I have never been of the majority that considers the Sinclair Lewis of Main Street and Babbitt a major novelist, I feel sad to report of Gideon Planish that I found it unimportant, sloppy, even dull. There is something endearing about Mr. Lewis as a writer that checks an entirely objective estimate of his recent work-perhaps his boyish idealism of which he is so boyishly ashamed, or the fact that his fictional creations seem so clearly to be aspects of his own many-faceted personality that one feels that to turn on him is to take unfair advantage of what he has been naïve enough to tell us about himself."

"When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross."

"Serve To Lead"

"With the changes in technological complexity, especially in information technology, the leadership task has changed. Leadership in a networked organization is a fundamentally different thing from leadership in a traditional hierarchy."

"Leadership does not mean domination. The world is always well supplied with people who wish to rule and dominate others. The true leader is a different sort; he seeks effective activity which has a truly beneficent purpose. He inspires others to follow in his wake, and holding aloft the torch of wisdom, leads the way for society to realize its genuinely great aspirations."

"The art of leadership is in the ability to make people want to work for you, while they are really under no obligation to do so. Leaders are people, who raise the standards by which they judge themselves and by which they are willing to be judged. The goal chosen, the objective selected, the requirements imposed, are not mainly for their followers alone. They develop with consumate energy and devotion, their own skill and knowledge in order to reach the standard they themselves have set. This whole-hearted acceptance of the demands imposed by even higher standards is the basis of all human progress. A love of higher quality, we must remember, is essential in a leader."

"And that, quite frankly, was how we did things in the old Army. Back then it was all about action, not words. We did whaever it took to successfully complete the task, even if it meant putting our stripes on the line and bending a few rules. Today's N.C.O.s wouldn't dare make a move if it meant deviating from Army doctrine or established regulations. They are not risk takers. Personally, I see that as a serious problem. But if you doubt what I'm saying, just do a quick recap of America's most decisive battles by some of her most notable leaders. For instance, consider the actions taken during the crossing of the Delaware by General George Washington in the Revolutionary War. Or those taken by General Andrew Jackson at the Battle of New Orleans during the War of 1812. Or those taken by Colonel Joshua Chamberlain at the Battle of Little Round Top during the Civil War. Or by General Douglas MacArthur at the Battle of Inchon during the Korean Conflict. The point I'm trying to illustrate here is that it takes more than a course on leadership to be an effective leader. And it's not enough to be able to memorize and recite the N.C.O. creed to be a good leader. The best leaders are men of action with plenty of common sense and ingenuity. Being able to recite creeds or quote leadership manuals proves nothing. The mark of a real leader is the doing, not the talking."

"To be perfectly honest, I'm not even sure I'm what you would have called a real leader. As an Army master sergeant, I certainly had the rank and the authority to tell soldiers what to do, but that alone didn't make me a leader. It takes more than stripes and silver bars to be a leader. There's one thing I do know for certain. You can't be a leader without respect. That's actually how you can tell whether or not a leader is any good. You can tell by how well respected he is by others. General George S. Patton was unquestionably a good leader. He was so good that even his enemies respected him. The same could be said about his principal adversary, German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, another leader respected by the soldiers of both camps. Now if that's not leadership, then I don't know what is."

"Leadership grows from self-confidence, which is also part of a Starfleet officer's education."

":William T. Riker: Wes, responsibility and authority go hand in hand. I know you're responsible, now we've got to teach you a little bit of authority. One of the reasons you've been given command is so you can make a few right decisions, that will establish a pattern of success and help build self-confidence. If you don't trust your own judgment, you don't belong in the command chair."

":Wesley Crusher: But what if I'm wrong?"

":William T. Riker: Then you're wrong. It's arrogant to think you'll never make a mistake."

":Wesley Crusher: But what if it's something really important. I mean, not just a mineral survey. What if someone dies because I made a mistake?"

":William T. Riker: In your position, it's important to ask yourself one question. What would Picard do?"

":Wesley Crusher: He'd listen to everyone's opinion, then make his own decision. But he's Captain Picard."

"I will not follow where the path may lead; instead I will go where there is no path and leave a trail."

"As we, the leaders, deal with tomorrow, our task is not to try to make perfect plans. Our task is to create organizations that are sufficiently flexible and versatile that they can take our imperfect plans and make them work in execution. That is the essential character of the learning organization."

"Leadership: whatever happens, you're responsible. If it doesn't happen, you're responsible."

"One cannot assert authority by accepting one's own fallibility. Simply, people need to be blinded by knowledge - we are made to follow leaders who can gather people together because the advantages of being in groups trump the disadvantages of being alone. It has been more profitable for us to bind together in the wrong direction than to be alone in the right one. Those who have followed the assertive idiot rather than the introspective wise person have passed us some of their genes. This is apparent from a social pathology: psychopaths rally followers."

"I suppose men are born with traits that can be cultivated in the direction of leadership. But there is also no doubt that leadership can be cultivated The idea of any man being born an army commander or being born to be a theater commander, such as General Eisenhower, just isn’t so. The characteristics of leadership, necessarily has to have certain decisiveness and confidence come from knowledge based on studies and training. The fundamental thing is your basic knowledge, the development of your mind, and your ability to apply this knowledge as you go along your military career."

"Character is what you are. Reputation is what others think you are. The reason that some fail to climb the ladder of success, or of leadership if you want to call it that, is that there is a difference between reputation and character. The two do not always coincide. A man may be considered to have sterling character. Opportunity might come to that man; but if he has the reputation for something he is not, he may fail that opportunity. I think character is the foundation of successful leadership."

"I am a leader by default, only because nature does not allow a vacuum."

"Remember, I have not appointed you as commanders and tyrants over the people. I have sent you as leaders instead, so that the people may follow your example. Give the Muslims their rights and do not beat them lest they become abused. Do not praise them unduly, lest they fall into the error of conceit. Do not keep your doors shut in their faces, lest the more powerful of them eat up the weaker ones. And do not behave as if you were superior to them, for that is tyranny over them."

"Narcissism is often the driving force behind the desire to obtain a leadership position. Perhaps individuals with strong narcissistic personality features are more willing to undertake the arduous process of attaining a position of power."

"A popular movement cannot be dependent on one single person, no matter how worthy that person might be."

"Outstanding leaders go out of their way to boost the self-esteem of their personnel. If people believe in themselves, it's amazing what they can accomplish."