The vice presidency “ought to be abolished,” he told his friend Leonard Wood. “The man who occupies it may at any moment be everything; but meanwhile… - Doris Kearns Goodwin

Scholars who have studied the development of leaders have situated resilience, the ability to sustain ambition in the face of frustration, at the heart of potential leadership growth. More important than what happened to them was how they responded to these reversals, how they managed in various ways to put themselves back together, how these watershed experiences at first impeded, then deepened, and finally and decisively molded their leadership.

It is surprising,” Roosevelt explained, “how much reading a man can do in time usually wasted.

Lincoln revealed early on a quality that would characterize his leadership for the rest of his life — a willingness to acknowledge errors and learn from his mistakes.