Quotes About Decision-making

The great political problem in our modern democracy is how to induce our leaders to lead.

It is a sort of managerial aristocracy that quietly determines what we buy and how we vote and what we deem as good or bad. "They govern us," the author writes, "by their qualities of natural leadership, their ability to supply needed ideas and by their key position in the social structure.

If the democratically backed will of the world's largest trading bloc can be undone by a group of unelected trade judges, imagine the odds for anyone else.

It's dismaying to see the unilateralism that the government is doing.

Nassim Taleb asked why, after a driver crashes his school bus, killing and injuring his passengers, he should be put in charge of another bus and asked to set up new safety rules.

A satellite has no conscience.

Let alone, without the help of or hot cognition, cold cognition is simply paralyzed by choice.

Given that the pre-frontal cortex is a key to our success as a species, consuming any amount of alcohol or other intoxicant seems really stupid.

cultures—people are spontaneously generous if forced to make instant decisions but begin to gravitate toward more selfish strategies if given time to think. All of this suggests that honest behavior is governed by automatic mental processes, whereas controlled processes are involved in lying or faking. In other words, effortless, unselfconscious behavior—behavior that is wu-wei—acts like a window into our true character.

are spontaneously generous if forced to make instant decisions but begin to gravitate toward more selfish strategies if given time to think.

are spontaneously generous if forced to make instant decisions but begin to gravitate toward more selfish strategies if given time to think. All of this suggests that honest behavior is governed by automatic mental processes, whereas controlled processes are involved in lying or faking. In other words, effortless, unselfconscious behavior—behavior that is wu-wei—acts like a window into our true character.

The scientist is not responsible for the laws of nature. It is his job to find out how these laws operate. It is the scientist's job to find the ways in which these laws can serve the human will. However, it is not the scientist's job to determine whether a hydrogen bomb should be constructed, whether it should be used, or how it should be used. This responsibility rests with the American people and with their chosen representatives.

At thirty a man suspects himself a fool; Knows it at forty, and reforms his plan; At fifty chides his infamous delay, Pushes his prudent purpose to resolve; In all the magnanimity of thought Resolves; and re-resolves; then dies the same.

One of the most helpful things that anybody can learn is to give up trying to catch the last eighth—or the first. These two are the most expensive eighths in the world. They

But the average man doesn't wish to be told that it is a bull or a bear market. What he desires is to be told specifically which particular stock to buy or sell. He wants to get something for nothing. He does not wish to work. He doesn't even wish to have to think. It is too much bother to have to count the money that he picks up from the ground.

I did precisely the wrong thing. The cotton showed me a loss and I kept it. The wheat showed me a profit and I sold it out. Of all the speculative blunders there are few greater than trying to average a losing game. Always sell what shows you a loss and keep what shows you a profit.

There is a time for all things, but I didn't know it. And that is precisely what beats so many men in Wall Street who are very far from being in the main sucker class. There is the plain fool, who does the wrong thing at all times everywhere, but there is the Wall Street fool, who thinks he must trade all the time. No man can always have adequate reasons for buying or selling stocks daily or sufficient knowledge to make his play an intelligent play.

It takes a man a long time to learn all the lessons of all his mistakes. They say there are two sides to everything. But there is only one side to the stock market; and it is not the bull side or the bear side, but the right side.

It's the guessing that develops a man's brain power. Just consider what you have to do to guess right.

The neutrality that compels to follow only particular guidelines and rules is a professional and dictatorial verdict, not according to the actual context of neutrality.

Voting the wrong ones to rule and expecting the incredible and fertile outcome, shows idiocy and wrong choice.

Your head is the head of your entity and body. Use, and drive that carefully, and wisely.

We may not be able to control life's circumstances, but we always have a choice about how we use our minds to respond to them.

Without HSPs in positions at the top in a society or organization, the warrior types tend to make impulsive decisions that lack intuition, use power and force abusively, and fail to take into account history and future trends. That's no insult to them; it is just their nature. (This was the whole point of Merlin's role in the King Arthur legends; similar figures are in most Indo-European epics.)