Inspiring quotes that show the power of emotional intelligence

Emotional intelligence can be the most potent weapon in our armory. It helps boost our self-awareness, self-control, motivation, empathy, and social skills, all of which help us become much better leaders.

Here are 55 quotes to remind us of the power and importance of emotional intelligence and why we should focus on developing it further.

1. If your emotional abilities aren't in hand, if you don't have self-awareness, if you are not able to manage your distressing emotions, if you can't have empathy and have effective relationships, then no matter how smart you are, you are not going to get very far. -Daniel Goleman
2. 75 percent of careers are derailed for reasons related to emotional competencies, including inability to handle interpersonal problems; unsatisfactory team leadership during times of difficulty or conflict; or inability to adapt to change or elicit trust.  -Center for Creative Leadership
3. When dealing with people, remember you are not dealing with creatures of logic, but with creatures of emotion. -Dale Carnegie
4. When our emotional health is in a bad state, so is our level of self-esteem. We have to slow down and deal with what is troubling us, so that we can enjoy the simple joy of being happy and at peace with ourselves. -Jess C. Scott 
5. The only way to change someone's mind is to connect with them from the heart.
   -Rasheed Ogunlaru
6. No one cares how much you know, until they know how much you care.
    -Theodore Roosevelt
7. Unleash in the right time and place before you explode at the wrong time and place. -Oli Anderson
8. The greatest ability in business is to get along with others and influence their actions. -John Hancock
9. In a high-IQ job pool, soft skills like discipline, drive, and empathy mark those who emerge as outstanding. -Daniel Goleman
10. Any person capable of angering you becomes your master. -Epictetus
11. Anyone can be angry--that is easy. But to be angry with the right person, to the right degree, at the right time, for the right purpose, and in the right way--that is not easy. -Aristotle
12. Every time we allow someone to move us with anger, we teach them to be angry.  -Barry Neil Kaufman
13. Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around. -Leo Buscaglia
14. Emotions can get in the way or get you on the way. -Mavis Mazhura
15. Experience is not what happens to you--it's how you interpret what happens to you. -Aldous Huxley
16. Running a marathon with a backpack is tough and may hinder you from winning the race. Don't let the baggage from your past--heavy with fear, guilt, and anger--slow you down.  -Maddy Malhotra
17. Our feelings are not there to be cast out or conquered. They're there to be engaged and expressed with imagination and intelligence. -T.K. Coleman
18. When you make people angry, they act in accordance with their baser instincts, often violently and irrationally. When you inspire people, they act in accordance with their higher instincts, sensibly and rationally. Also, anger is transient, whereas inspiration sometimes has a lifelong effect. -Peace Pilgrim
19. It isn't stress that makes us fall--it's how we respond to stressful events.
    -Wayde Goodall
20. Whatever is begun in anger, ends in shame. -Benjamin Franklin
21. Emotional intelligence is the ability to sense, understand, and effectively apply the power and acumen of emotions as a source of human energy, information, connection, and influence.  -Robert K. Cooper, PhD
22. It is very important to understand that emotional intelligence is not the opposite of intelligence, it is not the triumph of heart over head--it is the unique intersection of both. -David Caruso
23. We define emotional intelligence as the subset of social intelligence that involves the ability to monitor one's own and others' feelings and emotions, to discriminate among them and to use this information to guide one's thinking and actions. -Salovey and Mayer
24. For news of the heart, ask the face. -West African saying
25. Let's not forget that the little emotions are the great captains of our lives and we obey them without realizing it. -Vincent van Gogh
26. Quick to judge, quick to anger, slow to understand ... prejudice, fear, and ignorance walk hand in hand. -Peart
27. The essential difference between emotion and reason is that emotion leads to action while reason leads to conclusions. -Donald Calne
28. You can conquer almost any fear if you will only make up your mind to do so. For remember, fear doesn't exist anywhere except in the mind. -Dale Carnegie
29. Your intellect may be confused, but your emotions will never lie to you. -Roger Ebert
30. Change happens in the boiler room of our emotions--so find out how to light their fires. -Jeff Dewar
31. If we lack emotional intelligence, whenever stress rises the human brain switches to autopilot and has an inherent tendency to do more of the same, only harder.  Which, more often than not, is precisely the wrong approach in today's world.
    -Robert K. Cooper
32. Never react emotionally to criticism. Analyze yourself to determine whether it is justified. If it is, correct yourself. Otherwise, go on about your business. -Norman Vincent Peale
33. To increase your effectiveness, make your emotions subordinate to your commitments. -Brian Koslow
34. When you listen with empathy to another person, you give that person psychological air. -Stephen R. Covey
35. Tenderness and kindness are not signs of weakness and despair, but manifestations of strength and resolution. -Kahlil Gibran
36.  Remember that failure is an event, not a person. -Zig Ziglar
37. We are at our most powerful the moment we no longer need to be powerful. -Eric Micha'el Leventhal
38. I'm a pessimist because of intelligence, but an optimist because of will. -Antonio Gramsci
39. It takes something more than intelligence to act intelligently. -Fyodor Dostoyevsky
40. A leader is a dealer in hope. -Napoleon Bonaparte
41. When people talk, listen completely. Most people never listen. -Ernest Hemingway
42. Whenever you feel like criticizing anyone ... just remember that all the people in this world haven't had the advantages that you've had. -F. Scott Fitzgerald
43. Some people think only intellect counts: knowing how to solve problems, knowing how to get by, knowing how to identify an advantage and seize it. But the functions of intellect are insufficient without courage, love, friendship, compassion, and empathy. -Dean Koontz
44. He'd always known that shit rolled downhill, but he never knew tears did the same thing. -Amy Lane
45. Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate. -C.G. Jung
46. Don't compromise yourself. You're all you've got.  -Janis Joplin
47. Wisdom tends to grow in proportion to one's awareness of one's ignorance.
    -Anthony de Mello
48. The way to do is to be. -Lao Tzu
49. The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change. 
    -Carl R. Rogers
50. I know that I am intelligent, because I know that I know nothing. -Socrates
51. If we can't laugh at ourselves, do we have the right to laugh at others? -C.H. Hamel
52. Before you are a leader, success is all about growing yourself. When you become a leader, success is all about growing others. -Jack Welch
53. In my 35 years in business, I have always trusted my emotions. I have always believed that by touching emotion you get the best people to work with you, the best clients to inspire you, the best partners and most devoted customers. 
    -Kevin Roberts
54. One way to boost our willpower and focus is to manage our distractions instead of letting them manage us. -Daniel Goleman
55. Emotional intelligence is a way of recognizing, understanding, and choosing how we think, feel, and act. It shapes our interactions with others and our understanding of ourselves. It defines how and what we learn; it allows us to set priorities; it determines the majority of our daily actions. Research suggests it is responsible for as much as 80 percent of the "success" in our lives. -J. Freedman