One of my favorite Abraham Lincoln quotes:
"Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery, I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally."
This quote is appealing even beyond the historical significance of slavery in our country. It speaks to anyone and everyone who will tell you what you should and shouldn't do, who will represent facts as though they have experienced them, who will give advice when they've not experienced what they describe, and who will dare to make the rules for a game they haven't played nor intend to play. As another quote says, "Talk is cheap, it takes money to buy whiskey." Those who are "doing" should never be at the mercy of those who are "managing." The best leaders are always those who can, and have, performed well at the endeavor.
Slavery was propogated for years in our country because good people listened for too long to those who painted it with colors other than the truth. Lincoln cut through all that with one elegant sentence. As a matter of fact, his quote is timeless and can apply to anything we might consider. Try this. Substitute anything for the word "slavery" and see how the quote works. If thinking is asking questions to ourselves and then working out the answers, and quality thinking is the asking of quality questions, then this little trick ought to elevate the quality of our thinking just a bit!
Think.
Act.
Lead.
Then think some more.
