This is my hand-crafted collection of project management quotes.  Even if you are not a project manager, you can borrow from the project management bag of tricks.

Project management is the art and science of making things happen.   The project manager leads a team on a journey (the project cycle), through trials and triumphs to realize a vision.

Project Management is the Art of Making Things Happen

Along that journey, project management involves balancing trade-offs between cost, time, and scope.   Along the way, it also involves communicating with stakeholders, influencing without authority, tracking and reporting status, tuning and pruning processes, and driving execution.  Project management includes managing risks and issues.  It also includes telling and selling the vision to get buy-in and support.

It’s one of the toughest jobs you’ll ever love.

With that in mind, here is my collection of project management quotes.   Find three that you can use to help you flourish in work and in life.   Share them with a friend.

Top 10 Project Management Quotes

1. “A {specification, design, procedure, test plan} that will not fit on one page cannot be understood.” – Mark Ardis
2. “All things are created twice; first mentally; then physically.  The key to creativity is to begin with the end in mind, with a vision and a blue print of the desired result.” — Stephen Covey
3. “Even if you are on the right track, you will get run over if you just sit there.” — Will Rogers
4. “No matter how good the team or how efficient the methodology, if we’re not solving the right problem, the project fails.” –- Woody Williams
5. “No one can whistle a symphony. It takes a whole orchestra.” — H.E. Luccock
6. “Of all the things I’ve done, the most vital is coordinating the talents of those who work for us and pointing them towards a certain goal.” — Walt Disney
7. “Planning without action is futile, action without planning is fatal.” — Cornelius Fitchner
8. “Trying to manage a project without project management is like trying to play a football game without a game plan.” — K. Tate
9. “We will either find a way, or make one.” –– Hannibal
10. “When I dare to be powerful – to use my strength in the service of my vision, then it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid.” — Audre Lorde

What is Project Management and What Do Project Managers Do

“Being a Project Manager is like being an artist, you have the different colored process streams combining into a work of art”

-– Greg Cimmarrusti

“Operations keeps the lights on, strategy provides a light at the end of the tunnel, but project management is the train engine that moves the organization forward.”

— Joy Gumz

“Project management can be defined as a way of developing structure in a complex project, where the independent variables of time, cost, resources and human behavior come together.”

-– Rory Burke

“Project management is like juggling three balls – time, cost and quality. Program management is like a troupe of circus performers standing in a circle, each juggling-three balls and swapping balls from time to time.”

— G. Reiss

“Project management is the art of creating the illusion that any outcome is the result of a series of predetermined, deliberate acts when, in fact, it was dumb luck.”

–-  Harold Kerzner

“Project managers function as bandleaders who pull together their players each a specialist with individual score and internal rhythm. Under the leader’s direction, they all respond to the same beat.”

— L.R. Sayles

“Project managers rarely lack organizational visibility, enjoy considerable variety in their day- to-day duties, and often have the prestige associated with work on the enterprise’s high- priority objectives.”

–- Meredith and Mantel

“The P in PM is as much about ‘people management’ as it is about ‘project management’.”

-– Cornelius Fichtner

“The project manager is expected to integrate all aspects of the project, ensure that the proper knowledge and resources are available when and where needed, and above all, ensure that the expected results are produced in a timely, cost- effective manner.”

-– Meredith and Mantel

“The project manager must be able to develop a fully integrated information and control system to plan, instruct, monitor and control large amounts of data, quickly and accurately to facilitate the problem-solving and decision- making process.”

–- Rory Burke

“Whilst you can practice good project management without EVM, you cannot practice EVM effectively without good project management.”

— Steve Crowther

“Why do so many professionals say they are project managing, when what they are actually doing is fire fighting?”

-– Colin Bentley

Action and Tasks

“A task is not done until it is done.”

-– Louis Frie

“Add little to little and there will be a big pile”

–- Ovid

“An ounce of action is worth a ton of theory.”

—  Friedrich Engels

“Each completed task establishes certain parameters and imposes constraints on the next task.”

-– Louis Fried

“He has half the deed done who has made a beginning.”

– Horace

“If everything seems under control, you’re not going fast enough.”

— Mario Andretti

“Momentum is a fragile force. Its worst enemy: procrastination. Its best friend: a deadline (think Election Day). Implication no. 1 (and there is no no. 2): Get to work! NOW!”

-– Tom Peters

“Pharmaceutical projects are like fresh fruit – they depreciate if they are not tended to, and they do poorly if sitting on the shelf with long periods of inactivity.”

— R. Burns

“Plans are only good intentions unless they immediately degenerate into hard work.”

— Peter Drucker

“Some things are better done than described.” –- Hunt and Thomas

“To get a project off the ground, tell a colleague it was their idea. They will put their heart and soul into making it successful.”

— T. Wouhra

“Working ten hour days allows you to fall behind twice as fast as you could working five hour days.”

-– Issac Assimov

Change and Change Management

“Change is not made without inconvenience, even from worse to better.”

–- Samuel Johnson

“Event management is the same as for any project – the project plan needs to include an appropriate change control process.”

— Brenda Treasure

“It is always easier to talk about change than to make it.”

— Alvin Toffler

“It must be considered that there is nothing more difficult to carry out nor more doubtful of success nor more dangerous to handle than to initiate a new order of things.”

–- Machiavelli

“The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man.”

–- George Bernard Shaw

Communication

“Data is like garbage.  You’d better know what you are going to do with it before you collect it.”

— Mark Twain

“Don’t use a sledgehammer to crack a walnut, but equally don’t agree important things informally where there is a chance of a disagreement later over what was agreed.”

-– Colin Bentley

“Ensure your documentation is short and sharp and make much more use of people-to-people communication.”

-– Bentley and Borman

“If it is not documented, it doesn’t exist.  As long information is retained in someone’s head, it is vulnerable to loss.”

-– Louis Fried

“Never allow a person to tell you no who doesn’t have the power to say yes.”

— Eleanor Roosevelt

“Reconnaissance memoranda should always be written in the simplest style and be purely descriptive. They should never stray from their objective by introducing extraneous ideas.”

–- Napoleon Bonaparte

“The conditions attached to a promise are forgotten and the promise is remembered.”

-– Edwards, Butler, Hill and Russell

“What is not on paper has not been said.”

– Anonymous

“Unengaged sponsor sinks the ship.”

– Angela Waner

Failure and Learning

“I have witnessed boards that continued to waste money on doomed projects because no one was prepared to admit they were failures, take the blame and switch course. Smaller outfits are more willing to admit mistakes and dump bad ideas.”

— Luke Johnson

“If an IT project works the first time, it was a very small and simple project.”

-– Cornelius Fitchner

“If an IT project works the first time, it was in your nightly dreams. Time to wake up and get to work.”

–- Cornelius Fitchner

“If you always blame others for your mistakes, you will never improve.”

— Joy Gumz

“If you have never recommended canceling a project, you haven’t been an effective project manager.” -– Woody Williams

“In NASA, we never punish error. We only punish the concealment of error.”

— Al Siepert

“In poorly run projects, problems can go undetected until the project fails. It’s like the drip … drip … drip of an leaky underground pipe. Money is being lost, but you don’t see it until there is an explosion.”

— Joy Gumz

“It is better to know some of the questions than all of the answers.”

— James Thurber

“It’s not enough that we do our best; sometimes we have to do what’s required.”

-– Winston Churchill

“Know when to cut your losses if necessary. Don’t let your desire to succeed be the enemy of good judgment. If Napoleon had left Moscow immediately, he may have returned with a salvageable army.”

-– Jerry Manas

“No major project is ever installed on time, within budget, with the same staff that started it.”

-– Edwards, Butler, Hill and Russell

“Skills can be learned while experience must be earned.”

— Joy Gumz

“What we learn from lessons learned is that we don?t learn from lessons learned.”

— T. Block

Plans and Planning

“A good plan can help with risk analyses but it will never guarantee the smooth running of the project.”

-– Bentley and Borman

“A project without a critical path is like a ship without a rudder.”

— D. Meyer

“A well-constructed project management workshop should give people a solid foundation to build on.”

-– Bentley and Borman

“For a project plan to be effective it must equally address the parameters of ‘activity time’ and ‘activity logic’. This logical relationship is required to model the effect schedule variance will have down stream in the project.”

-– Rory Burke

“Good judgment comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgment.”

–- Fred Brooks

“Plans are only good intentions unless they immediately degenerate into hard work.”

-– Peter Drucker

“Plans are worthless, but planning is invaluable.”

-— Peter Drucker

“Running a project without a WBS is like going to a strange land without a roadmap.”

— J. Phillips

“Things which matter most must never be at the mercy of things which matter least.”

-— Goethe

“This ad hoc approach to project management – coupled as it frequently is, with an on-the-job training philosophy – is pervasive. It is also pernicious.”

— Jack Meredith

“Unless commitment is made, there are only promises and hopes … but no plans.”

-– Peter Drucker

“What is truth today may be falsehood tomorrow. Never confuse your plan with truth.”

-– Woody Williams

“When the territory and the map disagree, believe the territory.”

— Swiss Army Manual

“You can’t keep it all in your head. Project control tools are an absolute necessity for the control of large projects.”

-– Louis Fried

Process

“An intelligent person armed with a checklist is no substitute for experience.”

— Joy Gumz

“At times, project managers seem to forget that many of the conventional forms, charts, and tables that they must fill out are intended to serve as aids, not punishments.”

— Mantel, Meredith, Shafer, and Sutton

“Before anything can be repeatable or reusable, it must be usable.”

-– Woody Williams

“Do not repeat the tactics which have gained you one victory, but let your methods be regulated by the infinite variety of circumstances.”

–- Sun Tzu

“If you can’t describe what you are doing as a process, you don’t know what you’re doing.”

— W. Edwards Deming

“It is not a question of how well each process works; the question is how well they all work together.”

— Lloyd Dobyns and Clare Crawford-Mason

“Process for process sake is not good for goodness sake.”

— Lynn A. Edmark

“You can only elevate individual performance by elevating that of the entire system.”

— W. Edwards Deming

Project Cycle

“A project is complete when it starts working for you, rather than you working for it.”

-– Scott Allen

“‘Begin at the beginning,’ the King said gravely, ‘and go on till you come to the end; then stop.’”

— Lewis Carroll

“Like organic entities, projects have life cycles. From a slow beginning they progress to a buildup of size, then peak, begin a decline, and finally must be terminated. (Also, like other organic entities, they often resist termination.)”

–- Meredith and Mantel

Quality

“External audits are routine in the financial area. I fail to understand why nonprofits don’t use them more in the vital program area.”

— E. Stoesz

“Testing proves the presence of bugs but not their absence.”

–- Woody Williams

“The testers won’t break the system but the user who thinks the cd-rom drive as a drinks holder will.”

–- Cornelius Fitchner

“There are two types of software : bad software and the next release.”

–- Cornelius Fitchner

“When debugging, novices insert corrective code; experts remove defective code.”

–- Richard Pattis

“When end users get involved in the final stages of testing, light bulbs go on, and they often have an “aha” moment. Unfortunately, that is often too late.”

— Frank R. Parth

Rewards and Recognition

“Good leaders do not take on all the work themselves; neither do they take all the credit.”

–- Woody Williams

“If, on your team, everyone’s input is not encouraged, valued, and welcome, why call it a team?”

-– Woody Williams

“Lavish credit on anyone and everyone who helped you the least bit.”

-– Tom Peters

“Rewards and motivation are an oil change for project engines. Do it regularly and often.”

-– Woody Williams

“True motivation comes from achievement, personal development, job satisfaction, and recognition.”

— Frederick Herzberg

Risks and Risk Management

“Assumption is the mother of all screw-ups.”

— Wethern’s Law of Suspended Judgement

“PMs are the most creative pros in the world; we have to figure out everything that could go wrong, before it does.”

–- Fredrik Haren

“Project proposals, business cases or cost benefit analyses are probably being massaged (either by underestimating costs or timeframes or by being very optimistic about the benefits) so projects will be approved.”

-– Bentley and Borman

“When a risk occurs, with some ingenuity, this may open up an opportunity, and conversely when pursuing an opportunity there will be associated risks. Risks are generally deemed acceptable if the possible gains exceed the possible losses.”

–- Rory Burke

Schedule and Time

“Beware the time-driven project with an artificial deadline.”

— M. Dobson

“It is useless to desire more time if you are already wasting what little you have.”

— James Allen

“Projects progress quickly until they become 90% complete; then remain at 90% complete forever.”

-– Edwards, Butler, Hill and Russell

“The functional groups should not be allowed to stretch out the project for the sake of improvement, refinement, or the investigation of the most remote potential risk.”

-– Meredith and Mantel

“There is nothing more perishable than an airline seat – unless it is time on a project.”

— Joy Gumz

“You may con a person into committing to an unreasonable deadline, but you cannot bully them into meeting it.”

-– Edwards, Butler, Hill, and Russell

Scope, Deliverables, and Impact

“Don’t do anything you don’t have to do.”

-– Louis Fried

“Make an extensive table of project ‘deliverables’. Label one column ‘as requested’. Create another column labeled ‘could be’. Make each ‘could be’ wild and woolly!”

–- Tom Peters

“My personal philosophy is not to undertake a project unless it is manifestly important and nearly impossible.”

— Edwin Land

“Our focus on meaningful projects means serving a useful social purpose while generating high-quality profits.”

— Masimi Iijima

Teams and Leaders

“Any Idiot can point out a problem …. A leader is willing to do something about it! Leaders solve problems!” –

– Tony Robbins

“As has been taught to teachers of the Harvard Business School, the art of asking good questions is often the most important element of managerial tasks.”

-– Parte Bose

“Get the right people. Then no matter what all else you might do wrong after that, the people will save you. That’s what management is all about.”

-– Tom DeMarco

“If everyone is thinking alike, someone isn’t thinking.”

-– General George Patton Jr.

“Innovative efforts should never report to line managers charged with responsibility for ongoing operations. The new project is an infant and will remain one for the foreseeable future, and infants belong in the nursery. The ‘adults’, that is, the executives in charge of existing businesses or products will have neither the time nor understanding for the infant.”

— Peter Drucker

“Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things.”

— Peter F. Drucker

“Most success depends on colleagues, on the team. People at the top have large egos, but you must never say ‘I’: it’s always ‘we’.”

— Frank Lampl

“Nobody knows how Honda is organized, except that it uses lots of project teams and is quite flexible.”

— Kenichi Ommae

“Some of the most flowery praise you hear on the subject of teams is only hypocrisy. Managers learn to talk a good game about teams even when they’re secretly threatened by the whole concept.”

-– Tom DeMarco

“The real problem is what to do with problem solvers after the problem is solved.”

–- Gay Talese

“We cannot drive people; we must direct their development. Teach and lead.”

–- Woody Williams

“What we are looking for is managers who are awake enough to alter the world as they find it, to make it harmonize with what they and their people are trying to accomplish.”

–- Tom DeMarco

“Whatever we do must be in accord with human nature. We cannot drive people; we must direct their development.  The general policy of the past has been to drive; but the era of force must give way to the era of knowledge, and the policy of the future will be to teach and lead, to the advantage of all concerned.”

— Henry L. Gantt

“You can’t turn a herd of turtles into a twenty-mule work team.”

— L. Todryk

Vision

“All things are created twice; first mentally; then physically.  The key to creativity is to begin with the end in mind, with a vision and a blue print of the desired result.”

— Stephen Covey

“Effective leaders help others to understand the necessity of change and to accept a common vision of the desired outcome.”

— John Kotter

“Every moment is a golden one for him who has the vision to recognize it as such.”

— Henry Miller

“Every person takes the limits of their own field of vision for the limits of the world.”

— Arthur Schopenhauer

“First comes thought; then organization of that thought, into ideas and plans; then transformation of those plans into reality. The beginning, as you will observe, is in your imagination.”

–- Napoleon Hill

“Good business leaders create a vision, articulate the vision, passionately own the vision, and relentlessly drive it to completion.”

— Jack Welch

“He who has a ‘why’ to live for can bear with almost any ‘how’.”

— Friedrich Nietzsche

“I think there is something, more important than believing: Action! The world is full of dreamers, there aren’t enough who will move ahead and begin to take concrete steps to actualize their vision.”

— W. Clement Stone

“If I have seen farther than others, it is because I was standing on the shoulders of giants.”

— Isaac Newton

“Imagination is more important than knowledge.”

-— Albert Einstein

“It’s easy to see, hard to foresee.”

— Benjamin Franklin

“Keep your dreams alive. Understand to achieve anything requires faith and belief in yourself, vision, hard work, determination, and dedication. Remember all things are possible for those who believe.”

— Gail Devers

“People are more inclined to be drawn in if their leader has a compelling vision. Great leaders help people get in touch with their own aspirations and then will help them forge those aspirations into a personal vision.”

— John Kotter

“People buy into the leader before they buy into the vision.”

— John C. Maxwell

“Vision without action is a dream. Action without vision is simply passing the time. Action with Vision is making a positive difference.”

— Joel Barker

“Vision is the art of seeing what is invisible to others.”

— Jonathan Swift

“When I dare to be powerful – to use my strength in the service of my vision, then it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid.”

— Audre Lorde

“With vision there is no room to be frightened., No reason for intimidation. It’s time to march forward! Let’s be confident and positive!”

— Charles R. Swindoll

Arm yourself with your favorite project management quotes.  Use the principles, patterns, and practices you learn from project management to make things happen in your work … and in your life.

“Cause life is a lesson, you learn it when you’re through.” – Limp Bizkit

This collection of inspirational life quotes can help you gain perspective on various questions, from “what is the good life?” to “what is the meaning of life?”

You can also use life quotes to help you find your purpose.

I included life quotes from a variety of sources including Buddha, Confucius, Dr. Seuss, Emerson, Gandhi, Tony Robbins, and more.

They are all here in your corner to shine a spotlight on life and share their lessons learned on how to live life, love life, find happiness, and live your version of the good life.

What Do You Want Your Life to Be About?

Is life but a dream?  … Is life a bowl of cherries? …

Or, is life ultimately what you make of it?

I’m a believer that life is what you make of it.  I think one of the best questions you can ask yourself is, “What do you want your life to be about?”

Just by asking that questions sets the stage for learning.

What Inspirational Life Quotes Teach Us

What can we learn from this collection of the best inspirational life quotes?

Here’s my take … Life quotes teach you to have ametaphor for life.  Whether you see life as a comedy, a drama, a dream, or an an adventure, use whatever works for you.

Life quotes also teach you to grow your happiness right under your feet, live your life, not somebody else’s, drive from your life style, don’t regret the path not taken, and don’t wait until your life is on the line to squeeze all the juice you can out of it.

If you want to make the most of this life quotes collection, I recommend reading the top 10 list, then scanning the categories that are most interesting or meaningful for you, and choose three quotes to add to your toolkit for life.

Top 10 Inspirational Life Quotes
“And in the end, it’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years.” — Abraham Lincoln

“Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened.” — Dr. Seuss

“Dream as if you’ll live forever, live as if you’ll die today.” — James Dean

“Nobody can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending.” — Maria Robinson“

It is not length of life, but depth of life.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Our lives are defined by opportunities, even the ones we miss.” — F. Scott Fitzgerald

“Life is not measured by the number of breaths you take, but by every moment that takes your breath away.” – Anonymous

“We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand.” — Randy Pausch

“Why are you trying so hard to fit in, when you’re born to stand out.” — Oliver James

“You live but once; you might as well be amusing.” — Coco Chanel

Challenges (Inspirational Life Quotes)

Here are some of the best inspirational life quotes on how to think about challenges in life:

“And then I felt sad because I realized that once people are broken in certain ways, they can’t ever be fixed, and this is something nobody ever tells you when you are young and it never fails to surprise you as you grow older as you see the people in your life break one by one. You wonder when your turn is going to be, or if it’s already happened.”

— Douglas Coupland

“He who has a *why* to live can bear almost any *how*.”

— Friedrich Nietzsche

“Just when you think it can’t get any worse, it can. And just when you think it can’t get any better, it can.”

— Nicholas Sparks

“I’ve come to believe that all my past failure and frustration were actually laying the foundation for the understandings that have created the new level of living I now enjoy.”

— Tony Robbins

“Life beats down and imprisons the soul and art reminds you that you have one.”

— Stella Adler

“Life does not cease to be funny when people die any more than it ceases to be serious when people laugh.”

— George Bernard Shaw

“Life’s under no obligation to give us what we expect.”

— Margaret Mitchell

“Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less.”

— Marie Curie

“Perhaps our eyes need to be washed by our tears once in a while, so that we can see Life with a clearer view again.”

— Alex Tan

“Suffering has been stronger than all other teaching, and has taught me to understand what your heart used to be. I have been bent and broken, but – I hope – into a better shape.”

— Charles Dickens

“The flower that blooms in adversity is the rarest and most beautiful of all.”

— Emperor, Mulan

“The greatest pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do.”

— Walter Bagehot

“The most important thing in life is not the triumph but the struggle. The essential thing is not to have conquered but to have fought well.”

— Pierre de Courbertin

“The most important of life’s battles is the one we fight daily in the silent chambers of the soul.”

— David O. McKay

“We have to dare to be ourselves, however frightening or strange that self may prove to be.”

— May Sarton

“When we long for life without difficulties, remind us that oaks grow strong in contrary winds and diamonds are made under pressure.”

— Peter Marshall

“You cannot find peace by avoiding life.”

— Virginia Woolf

Choices and Plans (Inspirational Life Quotes)

Here are some of the best inspirational life quotes on how to think about choices and plans for life:

“A good traveler has no fixed plans and is not intent on arriving.”

— Lao Tzu

“A man sooner or later discovers that he is the master-gardener of his soul, the director of his life.”

— James Allen

“At one point in your life you either have the thing you want or the reasons why you don’t.”

— Andy Roddick

“I can choose either to be a victim of the world or an adventurer in search of treasure. It’s all a question of how I view my life.”

— Paulo Coelho

“I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be.”

— Douglas Adams

“If you can’t change your fate, change your attitude.”

— Amy Tan

“If you don’t know where you are going, any road will get you there.”

— Lewis Carroll

“It is in your moments of decision that your destiny is shaped.”

— Tony Robbins

“Life consists not in holding good cards but in playing those you hold well.”

— Josh Billings

“Oh the places you’ll go! There is fun to be done! There are points to be scored. There are games to be won. And the magical things you can do with that ball will make you the winning-est winner of all.”

— Dr. Seuss

“Our attitude toward life determines life’s attitude towards us.”

— John N. Mitchell

“Sacrifice is a part of life. It’s supposed to be. It’s not something to regret. It’s something to aspire to.”

— Mitch Albom

“Sometimes you don’t need a goal in life, you don’t need to know the big picture. you just need to know what you’re going to do next!”

— Sophie Kinsella

“The doors we open and close each day decide the lives we live.”

— Flora Whittemore

“Things change. And friends leave. Life doesn’t stop for anybody.”

— Stephen Chbosky

“We can’t plan life. All we can do is be available for it.”

— Lauryn Hill

“You can’t just plan a moment when things get back on track, just as you can’t plan the moment you lose your way in the first place.”

— Sarah Dessen

Day to Day (Inspirational Life Quotes)

Here are some of the best inspirational life quotes on day to day living:

“Any idiot can face a crisis – it’s day to day living that wears you out.”

— Anton Chekhov

“Don’t go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first.”

— Mark Twain

“Finish every day and be done with it. You have done what you could; some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; you shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.”

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

“How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.”

— Anne Frank

“I still find each day too short for all the thoughts I want to think, all the walks I want to take, all the books I want to read, and all the friends I want to see.”

— John Burroughs

“If the world were merely seductive, that would be easy. If it were merely challenging, that would be no problem. But I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.”

— E.B. White

“It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop.”

– Confucius

“May you live every day of your life.”

— Jonathan Swift

“My life is every moment of my life. It is not a culmination of the past.”

— Hugh Leonard

“To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts.”

— Henry David Thoreau

“Who will tell whether one happy moment of love or the joy of breathing or walking on a bright morning and smelling the fresh air, is not worth all the suffering and effort which life implies.”

— Erich Fromm

Dreams and Destiny (Inspirational Life Quotes)

Here are some of the best inspirational life quotes on how to think about dreams and your destiny:

“Don’t part with your illusions. When they are gone you may still exist, but you have ceased to live.”

— Mark Twain

“He lives the poetry that he cannot write. The others write the poetry that they dare not realize.”

— Oscar Wilde

“If you care about something you have to protect it – If you’re lucky enough to find a way of life you love, you have to find the courage to live it.”

— John Irving

“In essence, if we want to direct our lives, we must take control of our consistent actions. It’s not what we do once in a while that shapes our lives, but what we do consistently.”

— Tony Robbins

“It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live.”

— J.K. Rowling

“Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage.”

— Anaïs Nin

“Maybe everyone can live beyond what they’re capable of.”

— Markus Zusak

“Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them.”

— Henry David Thoreau

“Never be bullied into silence. Never allow yourself to be made a victim. Accept no one’s definition of your life; define yourself.”

— Harvey Fierstein

“Once you have mastered time, you will understand how true it is that most people overestimate what they can accomplish in a year – and underestimate what they can achieve in a decade!”

— Tony Robbins

“One reason so few of us achieves what we truly want is that we never direct our focus; we never concentrate our power. Most people dabble their way through life, never deciding to master anything in particular.”

— Tony Robbins

“Reality continues to ruin my life.”

— Bill Watterson

“Take up one idea. Make that one idea your life – think of it, dream of it, live on that idea. Let the brain, muscles, nerves, every part of your body, be full of that idea, and just leave every other idea alone. This is the way to success that is the way great spiritual giants are produced.”

— Swami Vivekananda

“The biggest adventure you can ever take is to live the life of your dreams.”

— Oprah Winfrey

“The future is something which everyone reaches at the rate of sixty minutes an hour, whatever he does, whoever he is.”

— C.S. Lewis

“You realize that our mistrust of the future makes it hard to give up the past.”

— Chuck Palahniuk

Fun (Inspirational Life Quotes)

Here are some of the best inspirational life quotes with a special twist of fun:

“I live in my own little world. But its ok, they know me here.”

— Lauren Myracle

“I love to see a young girl go out and grab the world by the lapels. Life’s a bitch. You’ve got to go out and kick ass.”

— Maya Angelou

“I think I’ve discovered the secret of life – you just hang around until you get used to it.”

— Charles M. Schulz

“In life you need either inspiration or desperation.”

— Tony Robbins

“Life doesn’t imitate art, it imitates bad television.”

— Woody Allen

“Life has become immeasurably better since I have been forced to stop taking it seriously.”

— Hunter S. Thompson

“Look, I don’t want to wax philosophic, but I will say that if you’re alive you’ve got to flap your arms and legs, you’ve got to jump around a lot, for life is the very opposite of death, and therefore you must at very least think noisy and colorfully, or you’re not alive.”

— Mel Brooks

“Maybe this world is another planet’s hell.”

— Aldous Huxley

“Not a shred of evidence exists in favor of the idea that life is serious.”

— Brendan Gill

“One day your life will flash before your eyes. Make sure its worth watching.”

– Anonymous

“The secret of life is honesty and fair dealing. If you can fake that, you’ve got it made.”

— Groucho Marx

“The trouble with being in the rat race is that even if you win, you’re still a rat.”

— Lily Tomlin

“The world is a stage, but the play is badly cast.”

—  Oscar Wilde

“There is more to life than simply increasing its speed.”

— Mahatma Gandhi

“There is only one difference between a long life and a good dinner: that, in the dinner, the sweets come last.”

— Robert Louis Stevenson

“When life gives you lemons, chunk it right back.”

— Bill Watterson

“You can have it all. Just not all at once.”

— Oprah Winfrey

How To Live (Inspirational Life Quotes)

Here are some of the best inspirational life quotes on how to live life to the fullest:

“A heart is not judged by how much you love; but by how much you are loved by others.”

— The Wizard of Oz

“A man with outward courage dares to die. A man with inward courage dares to live.”

– Unknown

“All the art of living lies in a fine mingling of letting go and holding on.”

— Henry Ellis

“Anyone who lives within their means suffers from a lack of imagination.”

— Oscar Wilde

“Breathe. Let go. And remind yourself that this very moment is the only one you know you have for sure.”

— Oprah Winfrey

“Carpe diem! Rejoice while you are alive; enjoy the day; live life to the fullest; make the most of what you have. It is later than you think.”

– Horace

“Develop an interest in life as you see it; the people, things, literature, music-the world is so rich, simply throbbing with rich treasures, beautiful souls and interesting people. Forget yourself.”

— Henry Miller

“Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment.”

– Buddha

“Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.”

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Do not let your fire go out, spark by irreplaceable spark in the hopeless swaps of the not-quite, the not-yet, and the not-at-all. Do not let the hero in your soul perish in lonely frustration for the life you deserved and have never been able to reach. The world you desire can be won. It exists … it is real … it is possible … it’s yours.”

— Ayn Rand

“Do your own thing on your own terms and get what you came here for.”

— Oliver James

“Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”

—  Howard Thurman

“Don’t be afraid of death; be afraid of an unlived life. You don’t have to live forever, you just have to live.”

– Natalie Babbitt

“Every man dies. Not every man really lives.”

— William Wallace

“Everything has been figured out, except how to live.”

— Jean-Paul Sartre

“Get busy living or get busy dying.”

— Stephen King

“I challenge you to make your life a masterpiece. I challenge you to join the ranks of those people who live what they teach, who walk their talk.”

— Tony Robbins

“I have a simple philosophy: Fill what’s empty. Empty what’s full. Scratch where it itches.”

— Alice Roosevelt Longworth

“I put all my genius into my life; I put only my talent into my works.”

— Oscar Wilde

“It’s your life, your one and only life, so take excellence very personally.”

— Scott Johnson

“Life was meant to be lived, and curiosity must be kept alive. One must never, for whatever reason, turn his back on life.”

— Eleanor Roosevelt

“Live simply so others may simply live.”

— Mother Teresa

“Nobody realizes that some people expend tremendous energy merely to be normal.”

— Albert Camus

“People aren’t born good or bad. Maybe they’re born with tendencies either way, but it’s the way you live your life that matters.”

— Cassandra Clare

“People living deeply have no fear of death.”

— Anais Nin

“Sometimes I can hear my bones straining under the weight of all the lives I’m not living.”

— Jonathan Safran Foer

“The art of living is more like wrestling than dancing.”

— Marcus Aurelius

“The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man who lives fully is prepared to die at any time.”

— Mark Twain

“The shoe that fits one person pinches another; there is no recipe for living that suits all cases.”

— Carl Jung

“Tis’ better to live your own life imperfectly than to imitate someone else’s perfectly.”

— Elizabeth Gilbert

“To love. To be loved. To never forget your own insignificance. To never get used to the unspeakable violence and the vulgar disparity of life around you. To seek joy in the saddest places. To pursue beauty to its lair. To never simplify what is complicated or complicate what is simple. To respect strength, never power. Above all, to watch. To try and understand. To never look away. And never, never, to forget.”

— Arundhati Roy

“Use your health, even to the point of wearing it out. That is what it is for. Spend all you have before you die; do not outlive yourself.”

— George Bernard Shaw

“You can get all A’s and still flunk life.”

— Walker Percy

“You get treated in life the way you teach people to treat you.”

— Wayne Dyer

Learning and Growth (Inspirational Life Quotes)

Here are some of the best inspirational life quotes about how to think about learning and growth on the journey of life:

“Don’t be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better.”

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

“At the time, my life just seemed too complete, and maybe we have to break everything to make something better out of ourselves.”

— Chuck Palahniuk

“Biology gives you a brain. Life turns it into a mind.”

— Jeffrey Eugenides

“Fortunately analysis is not the only way to resolve inner conflicts. Life itself still remains a very effective therapist.”

— Karen Horney

“Intellectual growth should commence at birth and cease only at death.”

— Albert Einstein

“Most people have no idea of the giant capacity we can immediately command when we focus all of our resources on mastering a single area of our lives.”

— Tony Robbins

“Often, it’s not about becoming a new person, but becoming the person you were meant to be, and already are, but don’t know how to be.”

— Heath L. Buckmaster

“Scar tissue is stronger than regular tissue. Realize the strength, move on.”

— Henry Rollins

“Sometimes you have to kind of die inside in order to rise from your own ashes and believe in yourself and love yourself to become a new person.”

— Gerard Way

“The aim of life is self-development. To realize one’s nature perfectly – that is what each of us is here for.”

— Oscar Wilde

“The difference between school and life? In school, you’re taught a lesson and then given a test. In life, you’re given a test that teaches you a lesson.”

— Tom Bodett

“The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom.”

— Isaac Asimov

“The world is a tragedy to those who feel, but a comedy to those who think.”

— Horace Walpole

“To become a spectator of one’s own life is to escape the suffering of life.”

— Oscar Wilde

“Wisdom is having things right in your life and knowing why.”

— William Edgar Stafford

Life is … (Inspirational Life Quotes)

Here are some of the best inspirational life quotes that teach us what life really is:

“Life is a daring adventure or nothing at all.”

— Helen Keller

“Life is a dream for the wise, a game for the fool, a comedy for the rich, a tragedy for the poor.”

— Sholom Aleichem

“Life is a gift, and it offers us the privilege, opportunity, and responsibility to give something back by becoming more.”

— Tony Robbins

“Life is a long lesson in humility.”

— James M. Barrie

“Life is a moderately good play with a badly written third act.”

— Truman Capote

“Life is a series of collisions with the future; it is not the sum of what we have been, but what we yearn to be.”

— Jose Ortega y Gasset

“Life is anything that dies when you stomp on it.”

— Dave Barry

“Life isn’t divided into genres. It’s a horrifying, romantic, tragic, comical, science-fiction cowboy detective novel. You know, with a bit of pornography if you’re lucky.”

— Alan Moore

“Life is full of beauty. Notice it. Notice the bumble bee, the small child, and the smiling faces. Smell the rain, and feel the wind. Live your life to the fullest potential, and fight for your dreams.”

— Ashley Smith

“Life is half spent before we know what it is.”

— George Herbert

“Life is hard. After all, it kills you.”

— Katharine Hepburn

“Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving.”

— Albert Einstein

“Life is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced.”

— Soren Kierkegaard

“Life is never easy for those who dream.”

— Robert James Waller

“Life is something to do when you can’t get to sleep.”

— Fran Lebowitz

“Life is the art of drawing without an eraser.”

— John W. Gardner

“Life is to be enjoyed, not endured.”

— Gordon B. Hinckley

“Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.”

— George Bernard Shaw

“Life isn’t fair, it’s just fairer than death, that’s all.”

— William Goldman

Passion and Joy (Inspirational Life Quotes)

Here are some of the best inspirational life quotes on how to think about passion and joy:

“Life must be lived as play.”

– Plato

“Live with passion!”

— Tony Robbins

“Paradoxically though it may seem, it is none the less true that life imitates art far more than art imitates life.”

— Oscar Wilde

“Some people have lives; some people have music.”

— John Green

“Sometimes our light goes out, but is blown again into instant flame by an encounter with another human being.”

— Albert Schweitzer

“There are two basic motivating forces: fear and love. When we are afraid, we pull back from life. When we are in love, we open to all that life has to offer with passion, excitement, and acceptance. We need to learn to love ourselves first, in all our glory and our imperfections. If we cannot love ourselves, we cannot fully open to our ability to love others or our potential to create. Evolution and all hopes for a better world rest in the fearlessness and open-hearted vision of people who embrace life.”

— John Lennon

“Unbeing dead isn’t being alive.”

—  E.E. Cummings

“Unrest of spirit is a mark of life.”

— Karl A. Menninger

“What we play is life.”

— Louis Armstrong

“Why do they always teach us that it’s easy and evil to do what we want and that we need discipline to restrain ourselves? It’s the hardest thing in the world–to do what we want. And it takes the greatest kind of courage. I mean, what we really want.”

— Ayn Rand

Purpose and the Meaning of Life (Inspirational Life Quotes)

Here are some of the best inspirational life quotes on how to think about your purpose and the meaning of life:

“Here is the test to find whether your mission on Earth is finished: if you’re alive, it isn’t.”

— Richard Bach

“I don’t want to live. I want to love first, and live incidentally.”

— Zelda Fitzgerald

“If I can stop one heart from breaking, I shall not live in vain.”

— Emily Dickinson

“I’m killing time while I wait for life to shower me with meaning and happiness.”

— Bill Watterson

“In three words I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life: it goes on.”

— Robert Frost

“It is not what we get. But who we become, what we contribute… that gives meaning to our lives.”

— Tony Robbins

“Life has meaning only if one barters it day by day for something other than itself.”

— Antoine de Saint-Exupery

“Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.”

— Soren Kierkegaard

“Life, he realized, was much like a song. In the beginning there is mystery, in the end there is confirmation, but it’s in the middle where all the emotion resides to make the whole thing worthwhile.”

— Nicholas Sparks

“Only a life lived for others is a life worth while.”

— Albert Einstein

“The great use of life is to spend it for something that will outlast it.”

— William James

“The main facts in human life are five: birth, food, sleep, love and death.”

— E. M. Forster

“The purpose of life is a life of purpose.”

— Robert Byrne

“The purpose of life is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experience.”

— Eleanor Roosevelt

“The whole of life is just like watching a film. Only it’s as though you always get in ten minutes after the big picture has started, and no-one will tell you the plot, so you have to work it out all yourself from the clues.”

— Terry Pratchett

“This life is worth living, we can say, since it is what we make it.”

— William James

“When I was 5 years old, my mother always told me that happiness was the key to life. When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down ‘happy’. They told me I didn’t understand the assignment, and I told them they didn’t understand life.”

— John Lennon

“When you can live forever what do you live for?”

— Stephenie Meyer

“When we remember we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained.”

— Mark Twain

“Where you end up is not the most important thing. It’s the road you take to get there. The road is what you’ll look back on and call your life.”

— Tim Willey

“You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of. You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life.”

— Albert Camus

Regrets and Mistakes (Inspirational Life Quotes)

Here are some of the best inspirational quotes on how to think about mistakes and regrets:

“A learning experience is one of those things that says, ‘You know that thing you just did? Don’t do that.”

— Douglas Adams

“A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing.”

— George Bernard Shaw

“Experience is the name every one gives to their mistakes.”

— Oscar Wilde

“For everything you have missed, you have gained something else, and for everything you gain, you lose something else.”

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

“How much I missed, simply because I was afraid of missing it.”

— Paulo Coelho

“I’ll try anything once, twice if I like it, three times to make sure.”

— Mae West

“If you wait to do everything until you’re sure it’s right, you’ll probably never do much of anything.”

— Win Borden

“Look at life through the windshield, not the rear-view mirror”

— Byrd Baggett

“Maybe all one can do is hope to end up with the right regrets.”

— Arthur Miller

“Of all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these, ‘It might have been.”

— John Greenleaf Whittier

“The past has no power over the present moment.”

— Eckhart Tolle

“This life is what you make it. Not matter what, you’re going to mess up sometimes, it’s a universal truth.”

— Marilyn Monroe

“We can never judge the lives of others, because each person knows only their own pain and renunciation. It’s one thing to feel that you are on the right path, but it’s another to think that yours is the only path.”

— Paulo Coelho

The Good Life (Inspirational Life Quotes)

Here are some of the best inspirational life quotes about how to live the good life:

“Good friends, good books and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life.”

— Mark Twain

“I don’t think that there are any limits to how excellent we could make life seem.”

— Jonathan Safran Foer

“I’m the one that has to die when it’s time for me to die, so let me live my life, the way I want to.”

— Jimi Hendrix

“It isn’t what you have or who you are or where you are or what you are doing that makes you happy or unhappy. It is what you think about it.”

— Dale Carnegie

“It’s all about quality of life and finding a happy balance between work and friends and family.”

— Philip Green

“Life loves the liver of it.”

— Maya Angelou

“Life well spent is long.”

— Leonardo da Vinci

“My definition of success is to live your life in a way that causes you to feel a ton of pleasure and very little pain – and because of your lifestyle, have the people around you feel a lot more pleasure than they do pain.”

— Tony Robbins

“Not life, but good life, is to be chiefly valued.”

– Socrates

“Now and then it’s good to pause in our pursuit of happiness and just be happy.”

— Guillaume Apollinaire

“The grand essentials to happiness in this life are something to do, something to love, and something to hope for.”

— Joseph Addison

“The real things haven’t changed. It is still best to be honest and truthful; to make the most of what we have; to be happy with simple pleasures; and have courage when things go wrong.”

— Laura Ingalls Wilder

“There are only four questions of value in life, Don Octavio. What is sacred? Of what is the spirit made? What is worth living for, and what is worth dying for? The answer to each is the same: only love.”

— Don Juan

“To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children…to leave the world a better place…to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.”

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

“You need to find a way to live your life, that it doesn’t make a mockery of your values.”

— Bill Ayers

The Value of Life (Inspirational Life Quotes)

Here are some of the best inspirational life quotes about the value of life:

“A man who dares to waste one hour of time has not discovered the value of life.”

— Charles Darwin

“Believe that life is worth living and your belief will help create the fact.”

— William James

“It is said that your life flashes before your eyes just before you die. That is true, it’s called Life.”

— Terry Pratchett

“It’s all in the view. That’s what I mean about forever, too. For any one of us our forever could end in an hour, or a hundred years from now. You never know for sure, so you’d better make every second count.”

— Sarah Dessen

“Memory is a way of holding on to the things you love, the things you are, the things you never want to lose.”

—  Kevin Arnold

“One lives in the hope of becoming a memory.”

— Antonio Porchia

“That it will never come again is what makes life so sweet.”

— Emily Dickinson

“The most important things in life aren’t things.”

— Anthony J. D’Angelo

“The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it.”

— Henry David Thoreau

“The things you do for yourself are gone when you are gone, but the things you do for others remain as your legacy.”

— Kalu Kalu

“There are many things worth living for, a few things worth dying for, and nothing worth killing for.”

— Tom Robbins

“There is no wealth but life.”

— John Ruskin

“To live is so startling it leaves little time for anything else.”

— Emily Dickinson

“To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.”

— Oscar Wilde

“Where there is love there is life.”

— Mahatma Gandhi

“While there’s life, there’s hope.”

— Marcus Tullius Cicero

“Your life is an occasion. Rise to it.”

— Suzanne Weyn

Have you found three quotes that mean something to you?  If not, circle back and find three that you think are the most insightful and share them with a friend.

Top 10 Leadership Lessons

• Lesson 1. Leadership is everyone’s business.
• Lesson 2. Credibility is the foundation.
• Lesson 3: Personal values drive commitment.
• Lesson 4. You either lead by example, or you don’t lead at all.
• Lesson 5. Looking forward is a leadership prerequisite.
• Lesson 6. It’s not just the leaders vision.
• Lesson 7. Challenge provides the opportunity for greatness.
• Lesson 8. Leaders are team players.
• Lesson 9. Leadership is a relationship.
• Lesson 10. Caring is at the heart of leadership.

Lesson 1. Leadership is everyone’s business.

We keep finding leaders everywhere we look. They come from every type of organization, public and private, government and NGO, high-tech and low-tech, small and large, schools and professional services. They are young and old, male and female, gay and straight, and are present in every ethnic group. They come from every imaginable vocation and avocation. Leadership, in other words, is not the private reserve of a few charismatic men and women who are genetically endowed with some special power.  Similarly, leadership is not about organizational power or authority. It’s also not about celebrity or wealth, the family you are born into, being a CEO, president, general, or prime minister. And it’s definitely not about being a hero. Leadership is a set of skills and abilities that are accessible and learnable by anyone who has the motivation and desire to learn it.

Lesson 2. Credibility is the foundation.

Over these last 26 years we’ve asked people around the world to answer the question, “What do you look for and admire in a leader, someone whose direction you would willingly follow?” (The key word in this question is willingly!) What we’ve found in our investigation of admired leader qualities is that, more than anything, people want leaders who are credible. Quite simply, people need to believe in their leaders. Because our findings have been so pervasive and consistent, we’ve come to identify it as “The First Law of Leadership”: If you don’t believe in the messenger, you won’t believe the message.

And, what is credibility behaviorally? How do you know it when you see it?  When we ask these questions, the responses we get are essentially the same, regardless of how they are phrased. Credible leaders walk the talk, practice what they preach, are consistent in word and deed, put their money where their mouth is, and follow through on promises. This has led us to the Second Law of Leadership: To become a credible leader you must Do What You Say You Will Do, or DWYSYWD for short.

Lesson 3: Personal values drive commitment.

DWYSYWD has to fundamental parts to it—the say part and the do part. People expect their leaders to stand up for their beliefs.  But to stand up for your beliefs, you have to know what you stand for. To walk the talk, you have to have a talk to walk.  To do what you say, you have to know what you want to say.  To earn and sustain personal credibility, you must first be able to clearly articulate deeply held beliefs.  And we know from our research that those leaders who are the clearest about their own values, and who see the fit between their own values and the values of the organizations they serve, are the most committed leaders.  Personal values clarity is essential to commitment…and to integrity and authenticity.

Lesson 4. You either lead by example, or you don’t lead at all.

The second part of earning credibility—or, DWYSYWD—is the “do” part. The only way people know we value something is when they see it in action. When leaders practice what they preach they become role models for their constituents, and leaders who are seen as exemplary role models have higher performing units. In fact, in our most recent analysis of over 950,000 responses to our Leadership Practices Inventory, we found that Model the Way is the leadership practice that has more impact on constituents’ performance than any of the other Five Practices in our model. If you could only do one thing as a leader to energize the performance of others, it would be, based on our data, to be set an example based on a set of shared values.

Lesson 5. Looking forward is a leadership prerequisite.

In our most recent surveys, 72 percent of respondents selected the “forward-looking” as one of their most sought-after leadership characteristics. Among the most senior executives, the percentage expecting this quality is 88 percent. People expect leaders to have a sense of direction and a concern for the future of the organization. Exemplary leaders are able to envision the future, to gaze across the horizon of time and imagine the greater opportunities to come.  They are able to develop a unique image of the future. This ability, more than any of the other leadership skills, differentiates leaders from individual contributors.

Lesson 6. It’s not just the leaders vision.

At some point during all this talk over the years about the importance of being future-oriented, leaders got the sense that they were the ones who had to be the visionaries. Wrong! This is not what constituents expect. Yes, leaders are expected to be forward-looking, but they aren’t expected to be prophets. Exemplary leadership is not about uttering divinely inspired revelations. What people really want to hear is not just the leader’s vision. They want to hear about their own aspirations. They want to hear how their dreams will come true and their hopes will be fulfilled. The very best leaders understand that they are supposed to Inspire a Shared Vision, not sell their idiosyncratic view of the world.

Lesson 7. Challenge provides the opportunity for greatness.

When we ask people to tell us about their personal best leadership experiences, they talk about times of crisis, adversity, change, and great difficulty. We don’t do our best as leaders when we are maintaining the status quo or when we feel comfortable. The situations that bring out our best are those that challenge us. The study of leadership, then, is the study of how men and women guide people through adversity, uncertainty, hardship, disruption, transformation, transition, recovery, new beginnings, and other significant challenges. It’s also the study of how men and women, in times of constancy and complacency, actively seek to disturb the status quo and awaken new possibilities. Leadership and challenge are simply inseparable.

Lesson 8. Leaders are team players.

Leaders can’t do it alone. No leader in history ever got anything extraordinary done by himself or herself. When it comes to superior performance collaboration out produces both competition and individualistic efforts. And, at the heart of collaboration is trust. Without trust you cannot lead. As one leader put it to us: “I have a strong willingness to be a part of what is going on, rather than apart from.  I don’t think people enjoy working for long stretches for someone who won’t be part of what’s happening.”

Lesson 9. Leadership is a relationship.

Leadership is a relationship between those who choose to lead and those who choose to follow.  Any discussion of leadership must attend to the dynamics of this relationship. Exemplary leaders are devoted to building relationships based on mutual respect and caring, because they know that the quality of the relationship will determine the quality of the results. The emotional intelligence of a leader has more to do with their effectiveness than their experience and their expertise. One leader told us, “I may not be the most knowledgeable person…but I know how to get other people to think well about themselves.” What an awesome ability to have. The very best leaders know that their job is to make others feel powerful and capable, not to acquire power for themselves.

Lesson 10. Caring is at the heart of leadership.

Contrary to a lot of public myth about how managers have to be cold and rational — “it’s not personal, it’s just business” — research indicates just the opposite. The highest performing managers and leaders are the most open and caring. The best demonstrate more affection toward others and want others to be more open with them. Exemplary leaders excel at improving performance through more attention to the human heart.  The climb to the top of the summit is arduous and steep. The challenges are immense and often frightening. Against these odds leaders must sustain hope and offer encouragement. And the research is very clear. High hope leads to high performance.

I hope you’ll add your most important leadership lessons to this list.  The best leaders are the best learners, and I know we have so much more to learn from you.