Never hire or promote in your own image. It is foolish to replicate your strength and idiotic to replicate your weakness. It is essential to employ, trust, and reward those whose perspective, ability, and judgment are radically different from yours. It is also rare, for it requires uncommon humility, tolerance, and wisdom. The real art of conversation is not only to say the right thing at the right place but to leave unsaid the wrong thing at the tempting moment. The leadership instinct you are born with is the backbone. You develop the funny bone and the wishbone that go with it. The really frightening thing about middle age is the knowledge that you'll grow out of it. What should move us to action is human dignity: the inalienable dignity of the oppressed, but also the dignity of each of us. We lose dignity if we tolerate the intolerable. It is better to die on your feet than live on your knees. When we discover that the truth is already in us, we are all at once our original selves. Trouble is part of your life -- if you don't share it, you don't give the person who loves you a chance to love you enough. Action springs not from thought, but from a readiness for responsibility. Experience is what allows us to repeat our mistakes, only with more finesse! | 
