Character Quote by James MacGregor Burns

“Leadership, in short, is power governed by principle, directed toward raising people to their highest levels of personal motive and social morality,”

James MacGregor Burns

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More by James MacGregor Burns

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

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“Ambition must be made to counteract ambition. The interest of the man must be connected with the constitutional rights of the place. It may…

James MacGregor Burns

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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

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"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

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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

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The practice of leadership is not the same as the exercise of power.

James MacGregor Burns

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“equal, hierarchical, or unrelated? These relationships also define the exercise of power as a collective act. A psychological”

James MacGregor Burns

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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

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“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

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

James MacGregor Burns

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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

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“Politics seemed to have fallen to a new wartime low of spite and pettiness.”

James MacGregor Burns

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Explore all 24 James MacGregor Burns quotes

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