The Maxwell Daily Reader Quotes

“Nineteenth-century clergyman Phillips Brooks maintained, “Character is made in the small moments of our lives.” Anytime you break a moral principle, you create a small crack in the foundation of your integrity. And when times get tough, it becomes harder to act with integrity, not easier. Character isn’t created in a crisis; it only comes to light. Everything you have done in the past—and the things you have neglected to do—come to a head when you’re under pressure.”
― John C. Maxwell, The Maxwell Daily Reader: 365 Days of Insight to Develop the Leader Within You and Influence Those Around You

“Get a new definition of failure. Regard it as the price you pay for progress. If you can do that, you will put yourself in a much better position to fail forward.”
― John C. Maxwell, The Maxwell Daily Reader: 365 Days of Insight to Develop the Leader Within You and Influence Those Around You

“Good leaders will gain in influence beyond their stated position. Bad leaders will shrink their influence down so that it is actually less than what originally came with the position. Remember, a position doesn’t make a leader, but a leader can make the position.”
― John C. Maxwell, The Maxwell Daily Reader: 365 Days of Insight to Develop the Leader Within You and Influence Those Around You

“They are committed to excellence. John Johnson in Christian Excellence writes, “Success bases our worth on a comparison with others. Excellence gauges our value by measuring us against our own potential. Success grants its rewards to the few but is the dream of the multitudes. Excellence is available to all living beings but is accepted by the . . . few.”
― John C. Maxwell, The Maxwell Daily Reader: 365 Days of Insight to Develop the Leader Within You and Influence Those Around You

“I love the story about the shortest letter to the editor written to England’s newspaper the Daily Mail. When the editor invited readers to send in their answers to the question, “What’s wrong with the world?” writer G. K. Chesterton is reputed to have sent the following: Dear Sir, I am. Yours sincerely, G. K. Chesterton”
― John C. Maxwell, The Maxwell Daily Reader: 365 Days of Insight to Develop the Leader Within You and Influence Those Around You

“Author Napoleon Hill noted, “Effort only fully releases its reward after a person refuses to quit.” To develop persistence over the long haul, you have to cultivate inward determination on a continual basis. And if you do, someday your story may be similar to one of these: •Admiral Peary attempted to reach the North Pole seven times before he made it on try number eight.”
― John C. Maxwell, The Maxwell Daily Reader: 365 Days of Insight to Develop the Leader Within You and Influence Those Around You

“Authors Carole Hyatt and Linda Gottlieb indicate that people who fail on the job commonly cite “office politics” as the reason for their failures, but the reality is that what they call politics is often nothing more than regular interaction with other people.”
― John C. Maxwell, The Maxwell Daily Reader: 365 Days of Insight to Develop the Leader Within You and Influence Those Around You

“It’s been said that great people talk about ideas, average people talk about themselves, and small people talk about others. That’s what gossip does. It makes people small. There really is no upside to gossip. It diminishes the person being talked about. It diminishes the person who is saying unkind things about others, and it even diminishes the listener. That’s why you should avoid not only spreading gossip but also being a recipient of it.”
― John C. Maxwell, The Maxwell Daily Reader: 365 Days of Insight to Develop the Leader Within You and Influence Those Around You

“I’ve found that some unsuccessful people act the same way. They do all kinds of things to keep others from getting ahead, trying to prevent them from improving themselves or their situation. They use all kinds of devices to keep others in the basket with them: playing politics, promoting mediocrity, role-playing, and so on. But the good news is that if people try to do that, you don’t have to buy into their belief system. You can stay out of the basket by refusing to be a crab. You may have to face opposition and live through times of insecurity, but you’ll also experience freedom, increased potential, and satisfaction. Raise yourself up, and raise others with you. —”
― John C. Maxwell, The Maxwell Daily Reader: 365 Days of Insight to Develop the Leader Within You and Influence Those Around You

“Affirmation from others is fickle and fleeting. If you want to make an impact during your lifetime, you have to trade the praise you could receive from others for the things of value that you can accomplish. You can’t be “one of the boys” and follow your destiny at the same time.”
― John C. Maxwell, The Maxwell Daily Reader: 365 Days of Insight to Develop the Leader Within You and Influence Those Around You

“Cutting corners is a sign of impatience and poor self-discipline. But if you are willing to follow through, you can achieve a breakthrough. That’s why Albert Gray says, “The common denominator of success lies in forming the habit of doing things that failures don’t like to do.”
― John C. Maxwell, The Maxwell Daily Reader: 365 Days of Insight to Develop the Leader Within You and Influence Those Around You

“Most people tend to underestimate the time it takes to achieve something of value, but to be successful, you have to be willing to pay your dues. James Watt spent twenty years laboring to perfect his steam engine. William Harvey labored night and day for eight years to prove how blood circulated in the human body. And it took another twenty-five years for the medical profession to acknowledge he was right.”
― John C. Maxwell, The Maxwell Daily Reader: 365 Days of Insight to Develop the Leader Within You and Influence Those Around You

“Those who fly always first get out on the edge. If you want to seize an opportunity, you must take a risk. If you want to grow, you must make mistakes. If you want to reach your potential, you will have to take chances. If you don’t, you will be resigned to a life of mediocrity. The people who don’t make mistakes end up working for those who do. And in the end, they often end up regretting the safe life they lived. —”
― John C. Maxwell, The Maxwell Daily Reader: 365 Days of Insight to Develop the Leader Within You and Influence Those Around You

“When you meet someone new, after the introductions and initial pleasantries, don’t hesitate. Dive in and ask to hear the person’s story. You can do it any number of ways: you can flat-out ask, “What’s your story?” You can request that he tell you about himself. You can ask where he is from or how he got into the field he’s in. Use your own style.”
― John C. Maxwell, The Maxwell Daily Reader: 365 Days of Insight to Develop the Leader Within You and Influence Those Around You

“Jim Rohn’s comment: “Don’t let your learning lead to knowledge; let your learning lead to action.”
― John C. Maxwell, The Maxwell Daily Reader: 365 Days of Insight to Develop the Leader Within You and Influence Those Around You

“No one becomes rich unless he enriches another.”
― John C. Maxwell, The Maxwell Daily Reader: 365 Days of Insight to Develop the Leader Within You and Influence Those Around You

“You will be able to reach your potential and help your organization reach its loftiest goals only if you begin developing leaders instead of merely attracting followers. Leaders who develop leaders experience an incredible multiplication effect in their organizations that can be achieved in no other way.”
― John C. Maxwell, The Maxwell Daily Reader: 365 Days of Insight to Develop the Leader Within You and Influence Those Around You

“Shakespeare said, “He is not worthy of the honeycomb that shuns the hive because the bees have stings.” Don’t let your fear keep you from taking small steps in your development. You never know where they might lead.”
― John C. Maxwell, The Maxwell Daily Reader: 365 Days of Insight to Develop the Leader Within You and Influence Those Around You

“Author and conference speaker Richard Exley explained his idea of friendship this way: “A true friend is one who hears and understands when you share your deepest feelings. He supports you when you are struggling; he corrects you, gently and with love, when you err; and he forgives you when you fail. A true friend prods you to personal growth, stretches you to your full potential. And most amazing of all, he celebrates your successes as if they were his own.”
― John C. Maxwell, The Maxwell Daily Reader: 365 Days of Insight to Develop the Leader Within You and Influence Those Around You

“Retired General Electric CEO Jack Welch said, “Before you are a leader, success is all about growing yourself. When you become a leader, success is all about growing others.”
― John C. Maxwell, The Maxwell Daily Reader: 365 Days of Insight to Develop the Leader Within You and Influence Those Around You

“William Osler, the physician who wrote The Principles and Practice of Medicine in 1892, once told a group of medical students: Banish the future. Live only for the hour and its allotted work. Think not of the amount to be accomplished, the difficulties to be overcome, or the end to be attained, but set earnestly at the little task at your elbow, letting that be sufficient for the day; for surely our plain duty is, as Carlyle says, “Not to see what lies dimly at a distance, but to do what lies clearly at hand.”
― John C. Maxwell, The Maxwell Daily Reader: 365 Days of Insight to Develop the Leader Within You and Influence Those Around You

“PUT FIRST THINGS FIRST TODAY AND
NEGLECT THINGS THAT DON’T REALLY MATTER.”
― John C. Maxwell, The Maxwell Daily Reader: 365 Days of Insight to Develop the Leader Within You and Influence Those Around You

“Sydney Harris sums up the elements of a teachable mind-set: “A winner knows how much he still has to learn, even when he is considered an expert by others. A loser wants to be considered an expert by others before he has learned enough to know how little he knows.”
― John C. Maxwell, The Maxwell Daily Reader: 365 Days of Insight to Develop the Leader Within You and Influence Those Around You

“Helen Keller, author, speaker, and advocate for disabled persons, asserted, “Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.”
― John C. Maxwell, The Maxwell Daily Reader: 365 Days of Insight to Develop the Leader Within You and Influence Those Around You

“And as novelist Robert Louis Stevenson advised, “Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds you plant.”
― John C. Maxwell, The Maxwell Daily Reader: 365 Days of Insight to Develop the Leader Within You and Influence Those Around You

“You beat 50 percent of the people in America by working hard,” says A. L. Williams. “You beat another 40 percent by being a person of honesty and integrity and standing for something. The last 10 percent is a dogfight in the free enterprise system.”
― John C. Maxwell, The Maxwell Daily Reader: 365 Days of Insight to Develop the Leader Within You and Influence Those Around You

“As Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “Trust men and they will be true to you: treat them greatly and they will show themselves great.”
― John C. Maxwell, The Maxwell Daily Reader: 365 Days of Insight to Develop the Leader Within You and Influence Those Around You

“EMBRACE THE ADVERSITIES YOU MAY BE FACING IN YOUR
LIFE, AND RETRAIN YOURSELF TO VIEW THEM AS BENEFICIAL.”
― John C. Maxwell, The Maxwell Daily Reader: 365 Days of Insight to Develop the Leader Within You and Influence Those Around You

“Every person possesses one of two mind-sets: scarcity or abundance. People with a scarcity mind-set believe that there’s only so much to go around, so you have to scrap for everything you can and protect whatever you have at all costs. People with an abundance mind-set believe there’s always enough to go around. If you have an idea, share it; you can always come up with another one. If you have money, give some of it away; you can always make more. If you have only one piece of pie, let someone else eat it; you can bake another one.”
― John C. Maxwell, The Maxwell Daily Reader: 365 Days of Insight to Develop the Leader Within You and Influence Those Around You

“LOOK AT YOUR OWN QUIRKS, IDIOSYNCRASIES, AND ODDITIES
AS A REMINDER TO BE MORE PATIENT WITH OTHERS.”
― John C. Maxwell, The Maxwell Daily Reader: 365 Days of Insight to Develop the Leader Within You and Influence Those Around You