Quotes About Strategy

Some statesmen have been tagged as having great 'foresight' in their deliberations and activities. Are there any historical records of outstanding statesmen as possessing 'sight' in the ninth, tenth or double digit degree in their particular category of achievement?

Has fortune dealt you some bad cards. Then let wisdom make you a good gamester.

He too had plans... he wasn't embarrassed by the idea of carefully thinking through what would be necessary to achieve them. You made a picture of the life you wanted to have, and then you worked back from there to the present.

En ocasiones, las administraciones gubernamentales han confundido el Plan Nacional de Desarrollo —establecido desde hace seis sexenios— con una planificación de largo plazo. Esto es un error.

Dans ce pays-ci il est bon de tuer de temps en temps un amiral pour encourager les autres. (In this country England it is thought well to kill an admiral from time to time to encourage the others. from Candide)

And even, if circumstances required, a contingency plan for his contingency plan's contingency plan.

I don't like to hurt people. I'm not that kind of person. But in the ring, it's a different story. You have to be ruthless. You have to go for the kill.

Boxing is a sport. It's not a fight, it's a skill. It's an art. You don't just go in there and start swinging punches. You have to be smart, you have to know what you're doing.

Policymakers have to make judgments based on the best intelligence they get.

Blessed is he who talks in circles, for he shall become a big wheel.

Get all the fools on your side and you can be elected to anything.

The safe way to double your money is to fold it over once and put it in your pocket.

One thing I have learned in my time in politics is that if one of the parties is shameless, the other party cannot afford to be spineless.

I've done reasonably well over the last 10 years because I took the strategy of language and politics and applied it to the corporate world, which has never been done before.

The way you communicate an idea is different than the way you communicate a product.

Politics is gut commercials are gut.

The challenge in working in politics, particularly if you're working for a political party, is that everyone's a messenger.

Republicans use think tanks to come up with a lot of their messages. The think tanks are the single worst, most undisciplined example of communication I've ever seen.

he showed consummate folly in allowing the Duke to fight on ground of his own choosing.

Strategy is buying a bottle of fine wine when you take a lady out for dinner. Tactics is getting her to drink it.

This was a standard Wall Street ritual. You obtained an offer from another bank, then used that offer to try to persuade your current employer to give you a raise. It's the only way to get ahead at an investment bank, and senior managers, though furious when you do this, will think you are a loser if you do not. It's not uncommon for a new salesman or trader to multiply his starting salary by as much as ten times in a few years, using such negotiating tactics.

That trip, the odds had been in my favor: I had practiced counting cards and could count well enough at blackjack to give me a slim edge over the casino. The basic premise of card counting is that the player can beat the house when there are more high cards than low cards remaining in the deck. If you increase your bets when more low cards have been dealt and more high cards remain, you'll have an advantage over the dealer. I planned to have an advantage, and I planned to win.

My strategy was simple: Bet $5 when there were more low cards in the deck, and bet several hundred dollars when there were more high cards. By switching my bets and counting cards, I obtained a narrow advantage over the casino. Blackjack is the only casino game in which the player can consistently beat the house, and it was the only game I played. As I continued winning, the pit bosses began watching me more carefully. They get nervous about anyone counting cards, regardless of betting size.

while the firm sailed along cautiously, more aggressive banks—especially Salomon Brothers and Goldman, Sachs—began making more money. This was a serious problem for Morgan Stanley. In investment banking, cash conquers all. A bank's goal was to make money, not to preserve its chastity. If Morgan Stanley could outearn rivals by capitalizing on its stellar reputation, fine. But if less-reputed banks were generating more cash, Morgan Stanley was doing something wrong.