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400 inspirational quotes to enlighten your life

Reuters/Yuri Gripas/Files
Reuters/Yuri Gripas/Files

Inspirational quotes about creating change from society’s leaders

Remarkable leaders have left an indelible mark on society. They used their vision, determination, and transformative actions to shape the course of history. 

Moreover, they inspire you to drive positive change in your life and communities.

  1. “Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.” ― Barack Obama
  2. “Times change, and we change with them.” ― William Henry Harrison
  3. “Those who have wrought great changes in the world never succeeded by gaining over chiefs; but always by exciting the multitude. The first is the resource of intrigue and produces only secondary results, the second is the resort of genius and transforms the universe.” ―Martin Van Buren
  4. “If you’re walking down the right path and you’re willing to keep walking, eventually you’ll make progress.” ―Barack Obama
  5. “It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit.” ― Harry S Truman
  6. “The ear of the leader must ring with the voices of the people.” ―Woodrow Wilson
  7. “If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more, and become more, then you are a leader.” ― John Quincy Adams
  8. “Don’t expect to build up the weak by pulling down the strong.” ―Calvin Coolidge
  9. “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” ― Franklin D. Roosevelt
  10. “You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today.” ― Abraham Lincoln
  11. “You are not here merely to make a living. You are here in order to enable the world to live more amply, with greater vision, with a finer spirit of hope and achievement. You are here to enrich the world, and you impoverish yourself if you forget the errand.” ― Woodrow Wilson
  12. “Ninety-nine percent of failures come from people who make excuses.” ― George Washington
  13. “The bold enterprises are the successful ones. Take counsel of hopes rather than of fears to win in this business.” ―Rutherford B. Hayes
  14. “Motivation is the art of getting people to do what you want them to do because they want to do it.” ―Dwight D. Eisenhower
  15. “There are no great limits to growth because there are no limits of human intelligence, imagination, and wonder.” ―Ronald Reagan
  16. “Some people don’t like change, but you need to embrace change if the alternative is disaster.” – Elon Musk
  17. “The question is not whether we are able to change but whether we are changing fast enough.” – Angela Merkel
  18. “Shame corrodes the very part of us that believes we are capable of change.” - Brené Brown
  19. “Be the change you wish to see in the world.” – Mahatma Gandhi
  20. “The choice, as [Barack] saw it, was this: you give up or you work for change.” – Michelle Obama
  21. “Every success story is a tale of constant adaption, revision and change.” – Richard Branson
  22. “The first step [towards] changing the world is to change our vision of the world and of our place in it.” – Arianna Huffington
  23. “We humans coevolve with our tools. We change our tools, and then our tools change us.” – Jeff Bezos
  24. “All we have to do is to wake up and change.” – Greta Thunberg
  25. “Change takes courage.” – Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
  26. “One child, one teacher, one book, one pen can change the world.” – Malala Yousafzai
  27. “What you’re supposed to do when you don’t like a thing is change it. If you can’t change it, change the way you think about it. Don’t complain.”  -Maya Angelou
  28. “The people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do.” – Steve Jobs
  29. “Don’t risk what is important to you to get something which isn’t important to you.” – Warren Buffett
  30. “If you truly pour your heart into what you believe in, even if it makes you vulnerable, amazing things can and will happen.” – Emma Watson
  31. “A leader takes people where they want to go. A great leader takes people where they don’t necessarily want to go, but ought to be.” – Rosalynn Carter
  32. “As we look ahead into the next century, leaders will be those who empower others.” – Bill Gates
  33. “A leader is a dealer in hope.” – Napoleon Bonaparte
  34. “People ask the difference between a leader and a boss. The leader leads, and the boss drives.” –Theodore Roosevelt
  35. “What you do has far greater impact than what you say.” — Stephen Covey
  36. “The task of the leader is to get his people from where they are to where they have not been.”  – Henry Kissinger
  37. “Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do, and they will surprise you with their ingenuity.” – George S. Patton
  38. “If you think you are leading and turn around to see no one following, then you are just taking a walk.” – Benjamin Hooks
  39. “Leadership is the capacity to transform vision into reality.” – Warren G. Bennis
  40. “The greatest leader is not necessarily the one who does the greatest things. He is the one that gets the people to do the greatest things.”– Ronald Reagan

Originally published at Crossmap. See the next page for quotes by educators. 

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