Quotes About Strategy

The quickest way to double your money is to fold it over and put it back in your pocket.

Mom had always taught all of us to examine decisions by reversibility—that is, to hedge our bets. When you couldn't decide between two things, she suggested you choose the one that allowed you to change course if necessary. Not the road less traveled but the road with the exit ramp.

Mom had always taught all of us to examine decisions by reversibility—that is, to hedge our bets. When you couldn't decide between two things, she suggested you choose the one that allowed you to change course if necessary.

Politics are about preserving relationships at the end of the day, and it has nothing to do with the greater good for humanity. It's just all about business.

Coolidge declared later that no one knew that McCall had told him to run and "some supposed I would run against him." But Coolidge was not of that stripe.

A growing number of people have realized that they lack what the ancient philosophers would have called a philosophy of life. Such a philosophy tells you what in life is worth having and provides you with a strategy for obtaining it. If you try to live without a philosophy of life, you will find yourself extemporizing your way through your days. As a result, your daily efforts are likely to be haphazard, and your life is likely to be misspent. What a waste!

Stoic test strategy: when faced with a setback, we should treat it as a test of our resilience and resourcefulness, devised and administered, as I have said, by imaginary Stoic gods.

One of their sting-elimination strategies is to pause, when insulted, to consider whether what the insulter said is true. If it is, there is little reason to be upset. Suppose, for example, that someone mocks us for being bald when we in fact are bald: "Why is it an insult," Seneca asks, "to be told what is self-evident?"3

The first tip I would offer to those wishing to give Stoicism a try is to practice what I have referred to as stealth Stoicism: You would do well, I think, to keep it a secret that you are a practicing Stoic. (This would have been my own strategy, had I not taken it upon myself to become a teacher of Stoicism.) By practicing Stoicism stealthily, you can gain its benefits while avoiding one significant cost: the teasing and outright mockery of your friends, relatives, neighbors, and coworkers.

Thus, tell someone that you possess and are willing to share with him an ancient strategy for attaining virtue, and you will likely be met with a yawn. Tell him that you possess and are willing to share an ancient strategy for attaining tranquility, though, and his ears are likely to perk up; in most cases, people don't need to be convinced of the value of tranquility.

Properly practiced creativity can make one ad do the work of ten.

Advertising is fundamentally persuasion and persuasion happens to be not a science, but an art.

You may outgun me, outman me, and outspend me. But I'm a writer. I will outplot you.

The United States is not actually against terrorism per se, only those terrorists who are not allies of the empire.

The United States is an equal-opportunity bomber. The only qualifications for a country to become a target are: (a) it poses an obstacle – could be anything – to a particular desire of the American Empire; (b) it is virtually defenseless against aerial attack; (c) it does not possess nuclear weapons.

Gendemen, I have resolved never to make an unjust war, but to end a just one only with the utter ruin of my enemies. I will attack the first to take the field, conquer him, and then deal with the others."- Charles XII

If he had wished, he could have annexed Denmark; and ended a thousand years of war and history. But Charles had no weaknesses; now and thereafter he was behaving out of a book. The first maxim of Alexanderism is never to stop; Charles continued.

He fought with Augustus and Peter, not with Russia or Poland. He aimed at full apologies, not conquests.

It is for these reasons that managing the neutral zone is so essential during a period of enormous change. Neutral zone management isn't just something that would be nice if you had more time. It's the only way to ensure that the organization comes through the change intact and that the necessary changes actually work the way that they are supposed to.

Purpose You can explain the basic purpose behind the outcome you seek. People have to understand the logic of it before they will turn their minds to work on it. Picture You can paint a picture of how the outcome will look and feel. People need to experience it imaginatively before they can give their hearts to it. Plan You can lay out a step-by-step plan for phasing in the outcome. People need a clear idea of how they can get where they need to go.

Grant himself.14 "Hereafter," he resolved, "I intend to be careful not to give them any news worth publishing."15

Tell me how you wish me to deal with these enemies of yours, for they are no able to camp, and I will deliver them in your hands in whatever manner you wish.' Modern accounts invariably include the story of how dal Verme sent Hawkwood a fox in a cage, to say that he had the clever Englishman trapped. -Jacopo dal Verme to Giangaleazzo Visconti

The dumber people think you are, the most surprised they're going to be when you kill them.

The dumber people think you are, the more surprised they're going to be when you kill them.