Quotes About Foresight

I once tried standing up on my toes to see far out in the distance, but I found that I could see much farther by climbing to a high place.

Ever since I was 15, I've tried to act and talk as if I was a public figure because I was sure that I would be one day and wanted to be prepared.

It's not that I ever sat down and outlined a trilogy, but I always have a sense of what size an idea is when I start it.

One thing I learned about riding is to look for trouble before it happens.

The truth is, as you know, people like us look at what's happening in the world, and then we project it forward. We think, 'If I know A and B, then I've got to know that C and D are coming,' and that's kind of the way it's been with my fiction.

Everyone wants to work with the big new producer or the hot new singer. The key is to find them before they're hot.

Many times I can see a solution to something differently and quicker than other people. I see the end zone and say 'This is where I want to go.'

Our task, your task... is to try to connect the dots before something happens. People say, 'Well, where's the smoking gun?' Well, we don't want to see a smoking gun from a weapon of mass destruction.

If one little old general in shirt sleeves can take Saigon, think about 200 million Chinese comin' down those trails. No sir, I don't want to fight them.

People ask me to predict the future, when all I want to do is prevent it.

Because there might come a day when there is no flashlight, there is no gun, there is no guiding hand. And I want to be ready for it." (divergent pg.138)

Plan what you are going to wear ahead of time. If you're going to an important dinner, you should always plan what you're going to wear because you don't want to look silly.

I have the general philosophy of creating the future you want to see.

I think it's very important to know what you want to do next versus just leave it up to chance, really position yourself in the right footings to get to where you want to be.

You don't destroy what you want to acquire in the future.

Don't worry. They're all against me. But I have one advantage: they don't know what they want. I do.

I have one talent, and that's figuring out what people want about two minutes before they know it themselves.

Beware the drunkard's wisdom.

There is a spooky quality about the ability of mathematicians to get there ahead of physicists. It's as if when Neil Armstrong first landed on the moon he found in the lunar dust the footsteps of Jules Verne.

I'm a peripheral visionary.

I was a peripheral visionary. I could see the future, but only way off to the side.

The general who wins the battle makes many calculations in his temple before the battle is fought. The general who loses makes but few calculations beforehand.

The one who figures on victory at headquarters before even doing battle is the one who has the most strategic factors on his side

The enlightened ruler is heedful, and the good general full of caution.