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. — James MacGregor Burns Copy Share Image
Let us face reality. The framers (of the Constitution) have simply been too shrewd for us. They have outwitted us. They designed separate institutions… — James MacGregor Burns Copy Share Image
“Ambition must be made to counteract ambition. The interest of the man must be connected with the constitutional rights of the place. It may be a reflection on human nature, that such devices should be necessary to controul the abuses of government. But what is government itself but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels,… — James MacGregor Burns Copy Share
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… — James MacGregor Burns Copy Share Image
"Teachers"... treat students neither coercively nor instrumentally but as joint seekers of truth and of mutual actualization. They help students define moral values not… — James MacGregor Burns Copy Share Image
In real life, the most practical advice for leaders is not to treat pawns like pawns, nor princes like princes, but all persons like… — James MacGregor Burns Copy Share Image
The practice of leadership is not the same as the exercise of power. — James MacGregor Burns Copy Share Image
“equal, hierarchical, or unrelated? These relationships also define the exercise of power as a collective act. A psychological” — James MacGregor Burns Copy Share Image
To elevate the goals of humankind, to achieve high moral purpose, to realize major intended change, leaders must thrust themselves into the most intractable… — James MacGregor Burns Copy Share Image
“above all, Locke’s transforming idea that government was established and maintained by the consent of the governed, in which all men had an equal… — James MacGregor Burns Copy Share Image
Leaders are not pale reflectors of major social conflicts; they play up some, play down others, ignore still others. — James MacGregor Burns Copy Share Image
Those who remember only that the Roosevelts served hot dogs to the royals will be fascinated by this well-researched account of an historic and… — James MacGregor Burns Copy Share Image
“Politics seemed to have fallen to a new wartime low of spite and pettiness.” — James MacGregor Burns Copy Share Image
