Marine Maxims is a collection of fifty principle-based leadership lessons that Thomas J. Gordon acquired commanding Marines over a career spanning three decades of service. Dealing with the complexities and challenges of the contemporary operating environment requires an internal moral compass fixed true. These maxims focus on developing inner citadels of character, moral courage, and the resilience to persevere in a contested domain where information is key. Its purpose is to provide future leaders with a professional development plan that will steel their resolve and enable them to lead with honor. Thematically, these maxims build upon a foundation of character, courage, and will. To be effective, a leader must model and inspire the will to persevere in the face of danger or adversity. The essence of effective leadership is credibility. A leader’s credibility is derived from a congruence of competence and character. Exceptional leaders are not remembered for what they accomplished, but how they did it. Those that lead with integrity will be remembered as a leader worth following.

Throughout his long, hectic and astonishingly varied life, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) would jot down his passing thoughts on theatre programmes, visiting cards, draft manuscripts and even bills ... Goethe was probably the last true ‘Renaissance Man’. Although employed as a Privy Councillor at the Duke of Weimar’s court, where he helped oversee major mining, road-building and irrigation projects, he also painted, directed plays, carried out research in anatomy, botany and optics – and still found time to produce masterpieces in every literary genre. His fourteen hundred Maxims and Reflections reveal some of his deepest thought on art, ethics, literature and natural science, but also his immediate reactions to books, chance encounters or his administrative work. Although variable in quality, the vast majority have a freshness and immediacy which vividly conjure up Goethe the man. They make an ideal introduction to one of the greatest of European writers.

Counsels parents on how to manage a rambunctious family, sharing the author's successes with experimenting with such tactics as instilling a fear of consequences, withholding unnecessary details, and using gentle manipulation.