Quotes About Decision-making

This was Lenin's doing. How did he come to regard Stalin as suitable for membership in the inner circle of Bolshevik leaders?

Every president has to live with the result of what Lyndon Johnson did with Vietnam, when he lost the trust of the American people in the presidency.

We call people rats, who desert a sinking ship; but in some cases the rat has the wisdom of the situation.

the powerful are often reluctant to take advice

The essence of strategy is not to carry out a brilliant plan that proceeds in steps. It is to put yourself in situations where you have more options than your enemy does...True strategy is being able to do strategy A, B, or C, depending on the circumstances.

Most men are ruled by the heart, not the head. Their plans are vague, and when they meet obstacles they improvise. But improvisation will only get you as far as the next crisis, and is never a substitute for thinking several steps ahead and planning to the end.

Fortunately, to acquire rationality is not complicated. It simply requires knowing and working through a three-step process. First, we must become aware of what we shall call low-grade irrationality. This is a function of the continual moods and feelings that we experience in life, below the level of consciousness. When we plan or make decisions, we are not aware of how deeply these moods and feelings skew the thinking process.

We humans like to believe that we are consistent and mature, and that we have reasonable control over our lives. We make decisions based on rational considerations, on what will benefit us the most. We have free will. We know who we are, more or less. But in one particular aspect of life these self-opinions are all easily shattered - when we fall in love.

Chess contains the concentrated essence of life: First, because to win you have to be supremely patient and farseeing; and second, because the game is built on patterns, whole sequences of moves that have been played before and will be played again

grasping at Option A as the single right answer, true strategy is positioning yourself to be able to do A, B, or C depending

It is easy to be overwhelmed by everything that faces you in battle, where so many people are asking or telling you what to do.

To separate yourself from the mechanical and reactive types, you need to get rid of a common misconception: the essence of strategy is not to carry out a brilliant plan that proceeds in steps; it is to put yourself in situations where you have more options than the enemy does.

The key in life is to always be willing to walk away.

Most men are ruled by the heart, not the head. Their plans are vague, and when they meet obstacles they improvise. But improvisation will only bring you as far as the next crisis, and is never a substitute for thinking several steps ahead and planning to the end.

Power depended on being in the room when the decisions were taken.

Problems do not queue up outside a statesman's door, waiting to be solved in an orderly fashion, chapter by chapter, as the books would have us believe; instead they crowd in en masse, demanding attention.

No one who follows their conscience ever does wrong, Your Eminence. The consequences may not turn out as we intend; it may prove in time that we made a mistake. But that is not the same as being wrong. The only guide to a person's actions can ever be their conscience, for it is in our conscience that we most clearly hear the voice of God.

Hundreds of experiments show that encounters with rude, insulting, and demeaning people undermine others' performance—including their decision-making skills, productivity, creativity, and willingness to work a little harder and stay a little later to finish projects and to help coworkers who need their advice, skills, or emotional support.

If you don't know everything, you must go on with what you do know.

Juilin, she asked hesitantly, what were you going to do with the salt and cooking oil? Not exactly, she added more quickly. Just a general idea. He looked at her for a moment. I do not know. But they did not, either. That is the trick of it; their minds made up worse then I ever could. I have seen a tough man break when I sent for a basket of figs and some mice.

Perrin, my father says a general can take care of the living or weep for the dead, but he cannot do both.

Letting emotions go clouds judgment for a moment, but holding them in clouds it always.

Letting emotions go clouds judgment for a moment, but holding them in clouds it always. Just be sure you do not release them too often, or when it is best to keep control of them.

If you don't know everything, you must go on with what you do know