We misjudge risk if we feel we have some control over it, even if it’s an illusory sense of control.

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

Considering their impact, you might expect mosquitoes to get more attention than they do. Sharks kill fewer than a dozen people every year, and in the U.S. they get a week dedicated to them on TV every year.

My mom was on the United Way group that decides how to allocate the money and looks at all the different charities and makes the very hard decisions about where that pool of funds is going to go.

It is difficult for the common good to prevail against the intense concentration of those who have a special interest, especially if the decisions are made behind locked doors.

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

I’ve always felt like there was a lot of hype around me even when there wasn’t. I felt like everyone was talking about me even when no one was talking about me.

In my experience, many people confuse being cowardly with being nice.

Is it weird in here, or is it just me?

All political thinking for years past has been vitiated in the same way. People can foresee the future only when it coincides with their own wishes, and the most grossly obvious facts can be ignored when they are unwelcome.

There are risks and costs to action. But they are far less than the long range risks of comfortable inaction.

The ‚I think‘ which Kant said must be able to accompany all my objects, is the ‚I breathe‘ which actually does accompany them.

Reality simply consists of different points of view.

I only change things where I know about a situation. I’d never change just for change.

If you are ever in doubt as to whether to kiss a pretty girl, always give her the benefit of the doubt.

Since the team understands that the leader is de facto in charge, in that respect, a leader has nothing to prove. But in another respect, a leader has everything to prove: Every member of the team must develop the trust and confidence that their leader will exercise good judgment, remain calm, and make the right decisions when it matters most.

Necessity never made a good bargain.

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.

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

They consider me to have sharp and penetrating vision because I see them through the mesh of a sieve.

All art is at once surface and symbol. Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril. Those who read the symbol do so at their peril. It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors. Diversity of opinion about a work of art shows that the work is new, complex and vital.

High office teaches decision making, not substance. It consumes intellectual capital; it does not create it. Most high officials leave office with the perceptions and insights with which they entered; they learn how to make decisions but not what decisions to make.

People often think I’m a faker, but I’m usually honest, in a certain way – in such a way that often nobody believes me!

You can tell more about a person by what he says about others than you can by what others say about him.

People may hear your words, but they feel your attitude.

Next to knowing when to seize an opportunity, the most important thing in life is to know when to forego an advantage.

It is a fine game to play – the game of politics – and it is well worth waiting for a good hand before really plunging.

Example is leadership.

Young people are fitter to invent than to judge; fitter for execution than for counsel; and more fit for new projects than for settled business.

It all depends on how we look at things, and not how they are in themselves.

I don’t write policy for my government.

It is change, continuing change, inevitable change, that is the dominant factor in society today. No sensible decision can be made any longer without taking into account not only the world as it is, but the world as it will be.

Genius… means little more than the faculty of perceiving in an unhabitual way.

I don’t think I’m bad for people. If I did think I was bad for people, I would go back to driving a truck, and I really mean this.

Many a doctrine is like a window pane. We see truth through it but it divides us from truth.

My authoritarian and quick manner of making decisions led me to have serious problems and to be accused of being ultraconservative. I have never been a right-winger. It was my authoritarian way of making decisions that created problems.

I was planning to go into architecture. But when I arrived, architecture was filled up. Acting was right next to it, so I signed up for acting instead.

The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity. The fears are paper tigers. You can do anything you decide to do. You can act to change and control your life; and the procedure, the process is its own reward.

We will burn that bridge when we come to it.

It isn’t that they can’t see the solution. It is that they can’t see the problem.

There is a soak-the-rich attitude in the air, a feeling that if you have a lot of money you must have got it by some ghastly means. I can quite happily say there was never any family money. All the money we got was mine, just from writing books.

How people themselves perceive what they are doing is not a question that interests me.

Most people have no idea what something would sound like if it wasn’t an MP3.

I don’t think I would run for president.

Beauty is all very well at first sight; but who ever looks at it when it has been in the house three days?

He only employs his passion who can make no use of his reason.

People only see what they are prepared to see.

I wouldn’t put myself forward to do a film like ‚Changeling‘ if I thought I couldn’t pull people into a story because of all the other ways people see me.

Ultimately this issue is on us. We’re the ones who make the decisions about what our kids eat.

When somewhat at a distance, I cannot hear the high tones of instruments, voices. In speaking, it is not surprising that there are people who have never noticed it, for as a rule I am absent-minded, and they account for it in that way.

The image is one thing and the human being is another. It’s very hard to live up to an image, put it that way.

What really matters is how God sees me. He isn’t concerned with labels; he is concerned about the state of man’s soul.

There are definitely people who disagree with certain creative decisions you make. Pleasing everyone is pretty hard.

You know how advice is. You only want it if it agrees with what you wanted to do anyway.

Imagination decides everything.

We view things not only from different sides, but with different eyes; we have no wish to find them alike.

I can tell you this: If I’m ever in a position to call the shots, I’m not going to rush to send somebody else’s kids into a war.

Take calculated risks. That is quite different from being rash.

There are various eyes. Even the Sphinx has eyes: and as a result there are various truths, and as a result there is no truth.

The light which puts out our eyes is darkness to us. Only that day dawns to which we are awake. There is more day to dawn. The sun is but a morning star.

We run carelessly to the precipice, after we have put something before us to prevent us seeing it.