Quotes About Decision-making

Spark asks whether men or women are in the driver's seat and whether the power to choose one's destroyer is women's only form of self-assertion.

there are often many things we feel we should do that, in fact, we don't really have to do. Getting to the point where we can tell the difference is a major milestone in the simplification process.

As you begin to simplify your life, you're going to be making a lot of changes in the way you spend your time. If saying no is a problem for you, go back to your short list (#21) and keep it firmly in mind. Your objective will be to get to the point where you see that by turning down an invitation you're not saying no to someone else; rather you're saying yes! to what you really want to do.

A committee is a thing which takes a week to do what one good man can do in an hour.

Too often the great decisions are originated and given form in bodies made up wholly of men, or so completely dominated by them that whatever of special value women have to offer is shunted aside without expression.

Will people ever be wise enough to refuse to follow bad leaders or to take away the freedom of other people?

I am convinced that every effort must be made in childhood to teach the young to use their own minds. For one thing is sure: If they don't make up their minds, someone will do it for them.

We must all face an unpalatable fact that we have, too often, a tendency to skim over; we proceed on the assumption that all men want freedom. This is not as true as we would like it to be. There are many men and women who are far happier when they have relinquished their freedom, when someone else guides them, makes their decisions for them, takes the responsibility for them and for their actions. They don't want to make up their minds. They don't want to stand on their own feet.

Today I know what I felt, but then I didn't understand. At that instant I had only an unpleasant impression, as if he had given the signal and from then on all I could do was to sink by degrees into repugnance. In reality I felt above all a blaze of hatred toward myself, because I was there, because I had no excuses, because it was I who had decided to come, because it seemed to me that I could not retreat.

Ya da daha s?k olarak emin olduÄŸum konu, büyük bir giriÅŸime ad?m atarken kaynaklar?m?z hakk?nda doÄŸru bir hesap yapmam?z gerektiÄŸiydi; çünkü örneÄŸin bir kule inÅŸa edeceksek ve elimizde en son ta??n paras? haz?r deÄŸilse bu iÅŸe hiç baÅŸlamamal?yd?k.

Moral indignation is a bad counsellor.

for as long as self-doubt is not paralysing, it also allows for alternative points of view to be given their proper weight and consideration and so can be considered a vital step in any sound decision-making process.

A rationalization a day keeps your conscience at bay.

Success in life is the result of good judgment. Good judgment is usually the result of experience. Experience is usually the result of bad judgment.

Management problems are not respecters of the company organization, nor of the talents of the people appointed to solve them.

The aim of management science is to display the best course of action in a given set of circumstances, and this must include all the circumstances.

The strategies that managers employ are at least as important as the facilities at their disposal.

States are doomed when they are unable to distinguish good men from bad.

I say 'told myself' because—and this became clearer to me later, I didn't know this back then, I wasn't wise to it—to put it bluntly, we never really know why we do what we do. The part of our brains tasked with generating reasons doesn't care about truth… only plausibility.

If you are dazzled by the appearance of a promised pleasure, guard yourself against being carried away by it; but let the matter wait, and allow yourself some delay. Then bring to mind both points of time: that in which you will enjoy the pleasure, and that in which you will repent and reproach yourself after you have enjoyed it; and set before you, in opposition to these, how you will rejoice and praise yourself if you abstain.

Chrysippus' questions might be useful. He asked: 'Is there good or bad at hand? Is it appropriate to react?' This could be supplemented with a few more, producing a kind of Chrysippan flowchart:

Second, the purpose must be defined precisely, and not in a fashion that smuggles in the answer to the question before the decision-maker.

Phineas Gage's case is not the only important historical source in the effort to understand the neural basis of reasoning and decision making...[to understand the effect of] prefrontal damage. ... The Hebb-Penfield and Ackerly-Benton shared a number of personality traits...They are bereft of a theory of their own mind and of the mind of those with whom they interact

Phineas Gage's case is not the only important historical source in the effort to understand the neural basis of reasoning and decision making;