"Towering genius disdains a beaten path... It sees no distinction in adding story to story... It scorns to tread in the footsteps of any predecessor, however illustrious. It thirsts and burns for distinction; and, if possible, it will have it..."
– Abraham Lincoln, from the Lyceum Address, January 27, 1838
"I do the very best I can, I mean to keep going. If the end brings me out all right, then what is said against me won't matter. If I'm wrong, ten angels swearing I was right won't make a difference."
– Abraham Lincoln
"Far better is it to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checked by failure...than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in a gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat."
– Theodore Roosevelt, speech at the Hamilton Club, Chicago, April 10, 1899
"People ask the difference between a leader and a boss ... The leader works in the open, and the boss in covert. The leader leads, and the boss drives."
– Theodore Roosevelt, speech at Binghamton, New York, October 24, 1910
"Avoid having your ego so close to your position that when your position falls, your ego goes with it."
– Colin Powell, The Leadership Secrets of Colin Powell, 2002
