Forethought we may have, undoubtedly, but not foresight.

When in doubt, don’t.

The day-to-day making of policy is arguing all the time. You’re trying to get the right approach and the right answer, and there are moments that aren’t very pleasant. But in the end, you look at the overall product.

In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.

Actors know, with me they aren’t going to be allowed to rehearse a scene for a couple of hours and then get away with doing 25 takes before we get it right. So they come with their full bag of tricks.

My preparation is about precision. It is a science.

You can always amend a big plan, but you can never expand a little one. I don’t believe in little plans. I believe in plans big enough to meet a situation which we can’t possibly foresee now.

My biographers… would like to have my time at the court almost complete before they finish the book. We decided… to flip the order.

Telling us to obey instinct is like telling us to obey ‚people.‘ People say different things: so do instincts. Our instincts are at war… Each instinct, if you listen to it, will claim to be gratified at the expense of the rest.

There is no more miserable human being than one in whom nothing is habitual but indecision.

The die is cast.

It is our future on the line, and we must at least have a say in it.

If to do were as easy as to know what were good to do, chapels had been churches, and poor men’s cottage princes‘ palaces.

I bought a gun and chose drugs instead.

An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last.

I’ve never gone wrong trusting my gut.

Success depends upon previous preparation, and without such preparation there is sure to be failure.

It’s getting harder to make decisions to just want to do something to work… I’m trying to find things that are extremely challenging or mean something to me deeply.

One must verify or expel his doubts, and convert them into the certainty of Yes or NO.

Risk comes from not knowing what you’re doing.

The strongest principle of growth lies in the human choice.

The executive has no right, in any case, to decide the question, whether there is or is not cause for declaring war.

The neo-cons constitute a radical reactionary fringe of the planning spectrum, but the spectrum is narrow.

The dangers of not thinking clearly are much greater now than ever before. It’s not that there’s something new in our way of thinking – it’s that credulous and confused thinking can be much more lethal in ways it was never before.

My friends ask me if I want more kids, and I always say yes, I want more; it’s the best thing you can have in your life.

The farther backward you can look, the farther forward you can see.

It is only in our decisions that we are important.

Leaders are responsible not for running public opinion polls but for the consequences of their actions.

I’ll be judged on the body of work and not the popularity of any one decision.

The way to develop decisiveness is to start right where you are, with the very next question you face.

If you are the kind of person who is waiting for the ‚right‘ thing to happen, you might wait for a long time. It’s like waiting for all the traffic lights to be green for five miles before starting the trip.

The wise use of your freedom to make your own decisions is crucial to your spiritual growth, now and for eternity.

Every mind must make its choice between truth and repose. It cannot have both.

Nothing is more expensive than a missed opportunity.

I never expect to lose. Even when I’m the underdog, I still prepare a victory speech.

The more extensive a man’s knowledge of what has been done, the greater will be his power of knowing what to do.

Any man can call time out, but no man can say how long the time out will be.

I don’t ever make moves under pressure.

We all want progress, but if you’re on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; in that case, the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive.

We need someone with superb judgement in their own right because, yes, a president can hire the best advisors on Earth, but I guarantee you this: Five advisors will give five different opinions. And it is the president – and the president alone – who always makes the final call.

Prepare for the unknown by studying how others in the past have coped with the unforeseeable and the unpredictable.

Policy makers who have never served in the military continue to use the military to lead social change in this country.

If every choice you make comes from an honest place, you’re solid, and nothing anybody can say about you can rock you or change your opinion.

In doubtful cases the more liberal interpretation must always be preferred.

I have too many clothes, I have too many options.

For those of you who do not know Him, choosing your eternal home is the most important decision you will ever make.

You’re president, if you conclude my judgment is not the right judgment, I abide by that, but I want an opportunity to have an input.

Stupidity has a knack of getting its way.

Quitting is the easiest thing to do.

No country can act wisely simultaneously in every part of the globe at every moment of time.

I had therefore to remove knowledge, in order to make room for belief.

No enterprise is more likely to succeed than one concealed from the enemy until it is ripe for execution.

You can’t learn in school what the world is going to do next year.

Bad seed is a robbery of the worst kind: for your pocket-book not only suffers by it, but your preparations are lost and a season passes away unimproved.

The business aspect is one of the most important things about having a music career, because every choice you make in a management meeting affects your life a year-and-a-half from now.

The safest course is to do nothing against one’s conscience. With this secret, we can enjoy life and have no fear from death.

Life was always a matter of waiting for the right moment to act.

I’ve done films where we don’t rehearse, and I’ve done films where we heavily rehearse. I like rehearsals.

Being flooded with information doesn’t mean we have the right information or that we’re in touch with the right people.

If I’d had good discipline, I might have gone into music.

What matters in the Sun-tzu universe are not positions of strength and power, but situations in which you have options, full of potential force.