Status Updates From Certain Trumpets: The Natur...

The orator’s first test is his ability to create heroes in response to his call. The orator’s final test is his ability to create heroism in himself to match what he has been preaching. Here the artificial becomes the true in the most complete way. Leaders and followers prod each other toward their shared goal.

I was expecting a clip show, a second-rate compilation, a distraction from the engaging way he dives into a period and serves as the expert guide. Not so. Even when he points the reader's attention to a given figure for briefer intervals, as here, genuineness comes through.

Only the thirsty person is desperate to drink, only the person needing love will go out to seek it. ignorance is the genuine motive for Socrates’ quest, not a mere pose or profession, a feigned puzzlement used to embarrass those he interrogates. That is the paradox of intellectual leadership. It must come from a sharp perception of the absence of knowledge. The great teacher is the strategically ignorant person.

Most people do not have the flexibility of a Hume, they remain crusty discoverers or affable disseminators.

Excerpt from: "Certain Trumpets: The Nature of Leadership" by Garry Wills. Scribd.
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some forms of diplomacy are indistinguishable from basic humanity.

Excerpt from: "Certain Trumpets: The Nature of Leadership" by Garry Wills. Scribd.
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There is a general revulsion from bureaucracy. Bureaucracy is an attempt to make administration automatic, not dependent on the comings and goings of personalities.⁶ It can protect as well as burden the subject. Most of us would prefer, as defendants, the cumbersome procedures of jury trials to the “creative” law enforcement of lynching, police impulse, or ruler’s whim.

Internally, remember, friction chews at an army even in success.

Excerpt from: "Certain Trumpets: The Nature of Leadership" by Garry Wills. Scribd.
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I like Wills range. Eleanor Roosevelt and other civil rights leaders are still often cited for their leader ship, to have them followed by Napoleon, a destructive white guy is bracing in a good way.

Clausewitz said the difference between moving in drill practice and moving in war is that between walking on the ground and walking under water.

One of the most distressing tasks of a university president is to pretend that the protest and outrage of each new generation of undergraduates is [sic] really fresh and meaningful. In fact, it is one of the most predictable controversies that we know. The participants go through a ritual of hackneyed complaints almost as ancient as academe, while believing that what is said is really radical and new.³

"The discipline and opportunities of writing her daily column gave shape to her life." On Eleanor Roosevelt, also expressing the importance of my blog to my development, at least

The believer in the system and nothing but the system is a pragmatist with no practical effect. Even fanatics accomplish more.

Excerpt from: "Certain Trumpets: The Nature of Leadership" by Garry Wills. Scribd.
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"Single-minded leaders are prophets to their admirers, fanatics to their critics."

"The artist suffers, but gains from his suffering, because it severs him from 'the herd.'"