As long as I was in Washington I never met anybody that I thought was good enough, who knew enough, or who loved enough to make sexual decisions for anybody else.
Joycelyn Elders (b. 1933) American pediatrician, public health administrator, academic Penn & Teller: Bullshit!, s. 4, ep. 6 “Abstinence” (2006-06-05)
(Source)
Harry S Truman (1884-1972) US President (1945-1953)
(Misattributed)
Not a quote from Truman, but popularized by him through a sign he kept on his White House desk, displaying the message It had been sent to him from the Federal Reformatory at El Reno, Oklahoma in late 1945. On the reverse side it reads, "I'm from Missouri." Truman occasionally referenced the sign and phrase in speeches.
The phrase -- which itself refers to "passing the buck," or handing responsibility off to another -- predates Truman's administration, and may have been coined by Brigadier General A. B. Warfield in 1939 or earlier.
More discussion about this quotation and its origin:
It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.
Joanne "Jo" Rowling (b. 1965) British novelist [writes as J. K. Rowling and Robert Galbraith] Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets [Dumbledore] (1998)
(Source)
If only men could be depended upon to base their decisions on reason. Alas, there are only three or four of us in the world, and even we will bear watching.
Rex Stout (1886-1975) American writer The League of Frightened Men, ch. 18 [Wolfe] (1935)
(Source)
Original Greek. The key word êthos [ἦθος] is generally given here as "character." Alternate translations:
"Character in a play is that which reveals the moral purpose of the agents, i.e. the sort of thing they seek or avoid, where that is not obvious." [tr. Bywater (1909)]
"Psychology in the sense of "an index to the quality of the purpose" has for its sphere places where the ulterior purposes of an immediate resolve (positive or negative) is naturally obscure." [tr. Margoliouth (1911)]
"Character is that which reveals choice, shows what sort of thing a man chooses or avoids in circumstances where the choice is not obvious." [tr. Fyfe (1932)]
"Character is that which reveals decision, of whatever sort." [tr. Janko (1987), sec. 3.1.3]
"Moral character is what reveals the nature of people's fundamental options." [tr. Kenny (2013)]
Such closet politicians never fail to assign the deepest motives for the most trifling actions; instead of often ascribing the greatest actions to the most trifling causes, in which they would be much seldomer mistaken. They read and write of kings, heroes, and statesmen, as never doing any thing but upon the deepest principles of sound policy. But those who see and observe kings, heroes and statesmen, discover that they have headaches, indigestions, humours, and passions, just like other people; every one of which, in their turns, determine their wills, in defiance of their reason.
Lord Chesterfield (1694-1773) English statesman, wit [Philip Dormer Stanhope]
Letter to his son, #205 (5 Dec 1749)
(Source)
The truth is that many people set rules to keep from making decisions.
Mike Krzyzewski (b. 1947) American college basketball coach ["Coach K"] Leading with the Heart, ch. 1 “Getting Organized” (2000) [with Donald Phillips]
(Source)
Man is man because he is free to operate within the framework of his destiny. He is free to deliberate, to make decisions, and to choose between alternatives. He is distinguished from animals by his freedom to do evil or to do good and to walk the high road of beauty or tread the low road of ugly degeneracy.
Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968) American clergyman, civil rights leader, social activist, preacher The Measures of Man (1959)
Markets can remain irrational a lot longer than you and I can remain solvent.
John Maynard Keynes (1883-1946) English economist
(Attributed)
Generally credited to Keynes, but the earliest reference found is by financial analyst A. Gary Shilling, "Scoreboard," Forbes (15 Feb 1993). More discussion here.
Sometimes given as "Markets can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent" or "Markets can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent."
In our flowing affairs a decision must be made — the best, if you can, but any is better than none. There are twenty ways of going to a point, and one is the shortest; but set out at once on one. A man who has that presence of mind which can bring to him the instant all he knows, is worth for action a dozen men who know as much but can only bring it to light slowly.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) American essayist, lecturer, poet
“Power,” The Conduct of Life, ch. 2 (1860)
A conference is a gathering of important people who, singly, can do nothing, but together can decide that nothing can be done.
Fred Allen (1894-1956) American humorist [b. John Florence Sullivan]
Letter to William McChesney Martin (25 Jan 1940)
(Source)
The letter, to the then-President of the New York Stock Exchange, was written as an apology for a joke Allen had made about Wall Street, and was re-published in TIME magazine (4 Feb 1940).
Allen apparently used the line, and variations of it, at various times in his career. A variant more commonly quoted than the original shows up, without citation, in The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations:
Committee -- A group of men who individually can do nothing but as a group decide that nothing can be done.
