Relationship Quotes

"The most important single ingredient in the formula of success is knowing how to get along with people."

— Theodore Roosevelt

"If you deal with every customer in the same way, you will only close 25 to 30 percent of your contacts, because you will only close one personality type. But if you learn how to effectively work with all four personality types, you can conceivably close 100 percent of your contacts."

— Rod Nichols

"Strange is our situation here upon earth. Each of us comes for a short visit, not knowing why, yet sometimes seeming to divine a purpose. From the standpoint of daily life, however, there is one thing we do know: that man is here for the sake of other men."

— Albert Einstein

"You do not lead by hitting people over the head — that's assault, not leadership."

— Dwight D. Eisenhower

"The first responsibility of a leader is to define reality; The last is to say thank you. In between the two, the leader must become a servant and a debtor . . . A friend of mine characterized leaders simply like this: 'Leaders don't inflict pain; they bear pain.'"

— Max De Pree

"Always recognize that human individuals are ends, and do not use them as means to your end."

— Immanuel Kant

"The fields of industry are strewn with the bones of those organizations whose leadership became infested with dryrot, who believed in taking instead of giving . . . who didn't realize that the only assets that could not be replaced easily were the human ones."

— Le Roy H. Kurtz
General Motors

"In real life, the most practical advice for leaders is not to treat pawns like pawns, nor princes like princes, but all persons like persons."

— James MacGregor Burns

"Accept the fact that we have to treat almost anybody as a volunteer..."

— Peter Drucker

"The best executive is one who has sense enough to pick good people to do what he wants done, and self-restraint enough to keep from meddling with them while they do it."

— Theodore Roosevelt

"Be not angry that you cannot make others as you wish them to be, since you cannot make yourself as you wish to be."

— Thomas a Kempis

"Trust men and they will be true to you: treat them greatly and they will show themselves great."

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Nothing grows well without space and air."

— Patricia Monaghan

"When dealing with people, remember you are not dealing with creatures of logic, but creatures of emotion."

— Dale Carnegie

"The soft stuff is always harder than the hard stuff."

— Roger Enrico
Vice Chairman, Pepsico

"I am convinced that nothing we do is more important than hiring and developing people. At the end of the day you bet on people, not on strategies."

— Larry Bossidy
CEO, Allied Signal

"Kind words can be short and easy to speak, but their echoes are truly endless."

— Mother Teresa

"To err is human, to forgive divine."

— Alexander Pope

"If you wish to make a man your enemy, tell him simply, 'You are wrong.' This method works every time."

— Henry C. Link