Quotes by Jack Weatherford

Khatun (queen) is one of the most authoritative and magnificent words in the Mongolian language. It conveys regality, stateliness, and great strength. If something resists breaking no matter how much pressure is applied, it is described as khatun. The word can form part of a boy’s or girl’s names, signifying power and firmness combined with beauty and grace. Because of the admitted qualities of khatun, men have often borne names such as Khatun Temur, literally ‘Queen Iron’, and Khatun Baatar, Queen Hero’.

If you cant swallow your pride, you cant lead. Even the highest mountain had animals that step on it.

The first key to leadership is self-control.

Without the vision of a goal, a man cannot manage his own life, much less the lives of others.

The first key to leadership was self-control, particularly the mastery of pride, which was something more difficult, he explained, to subdue than a wild lion and anger, which was more difficult to defeat than the greatest wrestler. He warned them that if you cant swallow your pride, you cant lead.

A leader should demonstrate his thoughts and opinions through his actions, not through his words.

Every society produces its own cultural conceits, a set of lies and delusions about itself that thrive in the face of all contrary evidence.

The Greeks who rhapsodized about democracy in their rhetoric rarely created democratic institutions. A few cities such as Athens occasionally attempted a system vaguely akin to democracy for a few years. These cities functioned as slave societies and were certainly not egalitarian or democratic in the Indian sense.