If a President of the United States ever lied to the American people, he should resign.
Interpretation
A President must uphold honesty and integrity; failing to do so warrants their resignation.
This quote emphasizes the importance of honesty in leadership, particularly in the role of the President of the United States. It asserts that a leader's credibility is paramount, and if they betray the trust of the people through dishonesty, they lose the moral authority to lead and should step down to maintain the integrity of their office.
In practice
During a discussion on the importance of integrity in politics.
You know, there was a recent poll which said that young people in the generation of the students here felt it was far more likely that they would see a UFO than that they would draw Social Security... It's very important you understand this. Once you understand this, you realize this is not an episode from the X Files, and you're not more likely to see a UFO if you do certain specific things.
When we got organized as a country, [and] wrote a fairly radical Constitution, with a radical Bill of Rights, giving radical amounts of freedom to Americans, it was assumed that Americans who had that freedom would use it responsibly...When personal freedom is being abused, you have to move to limit it.
For too long we've been told about 'us' and 'them.' Each and every election we see a new slate of arguments and ads telling us that 'they' are the problem, not 'us.' But there can be no 'them' in America. There's only us.
There is a huge body of business evidence now showing that energy savings give better service at lower cost with higher profit. We have to tear down barriers to successful markets and we have to create incentives to enter them.
Demand that your government pays more attention. It's immoral that people in Africa die like flies of diseases that no one dies of in the United States. And the more disease there is, the more political unrest there will be, leading to more Darfurs, which the U.S. will have to pay to fix.
I was not elected to produce a pile of vetoes.
Your job is to umpire for the ball and not the player.
When Jim Irsay called me five years ago, he told me, 'I want you to be our coach and help us win the Super Bowl.' He told me, 'We are going win it the right way. We are going to win it with great guys; win it with class and dignity. We are going to win it in a way that will make Indianapolis proud.'
The ultimate test of practical leadership is the realization of intended, real change that meets people's enduring needs.
If your actions create a legacy that inspires others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, then, you are an excellent leader.
To get important work done, most leaders organize people into teams. They believe that when people collaborate toward a common goal, great things can happen. Yet in reality, the whole is often much less than the sum of the parts.
Successful leaders don't start out asking, 'What do I want to do?' They ask, 'What needs to be done?' Then they ask, 'Of those things that would make a difference, which are right for me?'
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