#Succession Quotes

“If you be King, why should not I succeed?”

“When nature removes a great man, people explore the horizon for a successor; but none comes, and none will. His class is extinguished with him. In some other and quite different field, the next man will appear.”

“All his successors gone before him have done 't; and all his ancestors that come after him may.”

“There is no indispensable man.”

“When a highly successful leader retires after a long career, it is very unlikely that his successor will be of comparable caliber. Anyone of similar ability and drive would have gone somewhere else, instead of waiting in the wings for years for a chance to show his own leadership.”

“Nothing is more incumbent on the old than to know when they should get out of the way and relinquish to younger successors the honors they can no longer earn, and the duties they can no longer perform.”

“I figure I'll be champ for about ten years and then I'll let my brother take over - like the Kennedys down in Washington.”

“If you can raise up leaders, you will always have followers, but if you can't raise up leaders, you will only have followers.”

“A leader's lasting value is measured by succession.”

“Hereditary right should be kept sacred, not from any inalienable right in a particular family, but to avoid the consequences that usually attend the ambition of competitors.”

“This is something else that is drilled into us in the military: Make sure you know who your replacement is, in case you become a casualty. So you have to have depth within an organization.”