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Quotations about strategy
Note that not all quotations have been tagged, so the Search function may find additional quotations on this topic.
What we need to do is always lean into the future; when the world changes around you and when it changes against you — what used to be a tail wind is now a head wind — you have to lean into that and figure out what to do, because complaining isn’t a strategy.
Jeff Bezos (b. 1964) American business magnate, entrepreneur, investor
Interview, ABC News (25 Sep 2013)
(Source)
Leadership is a potent combination of strategy and character. But if you must be without one, be without the strategy.
Norman Schwarzkopf (b. 1934) American military leader
(Attributed)
Culture eats strategy for breakfast.
Peter F. Drucker (1909-2005) Austrian-American business consultant
(Attributed)
Frequently attributed to Drucker, but not found in his writings. See here for more discussion.
It’s one thing to be aware of complex strategies and lies that might be going on around you. It’s another to let yourself become so worried about deception that you become paralyzed.
Steven Brust (b. 1955) American writer, systems programmer
Dragon (1998)
You can judge a leader by the size of the problem he tackles — people nearly always pick a problem their own size, and ignore or leave to others the bigger or smaller ones. The chief executive should be thinking about the long-term changes which will bring growth or decay to different parts of the enterprise, not fussing over day-to-day problems. Other people can cope with the waves, it’s his job to watch the tide.
Antony Jay (b. 1930) English writer, broadcaster, director
Management and Machiavelli: An Inquiry into the Politics of Corporate Life, ch. 17 (1967)
I am under no illusion that our present strategy of using means short of total war to achieve our ends and oppose communism is a guarantee that a world war will not be thrust upon us. But a policy of patience and determination without provoking a world war, while we improve our military power, is one which we believe we must continue to follow. … Under present circumstances, we have recommended against enlarging the war from Korea to also include Red China. The course of action often described as a limited war with Red China would increase the risk we are taking by engaging too much of our power in an area that is not the critical strategic prize. Red China is not the powerful nation seeking to dominate the world. Frankly, in the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, this strategy would involve us in the wrong war, at the wrong place, at the wrong time, and with the wrong enemy.
Omar Bradley (1893-1981) American general
Testimony, Senate Committees on Armed Services and Foreign Relations (15 May 1951)
In the discharge of the duties of the office there is one rule of action more important than all others. It consists in never doing anything that someone else can do for you. Like many other good rules, it is proven by its exceptions. But it indicates a course that should be very strictly followed in order to prevent being so entirely to trifling details that there will be little opportunity to give the necessary consideration to policies of larger importance.
Calvin Coolidge (1872-1933) American lawyer, politician, US President (1925-29)
The Autobiography of Calvin Coolidge (1929)
(Source)
Often given as "One rule of action more important than all others consists in never doing anything that someone else can do for you" or "Don't do anything yourself that someone else can do for you."
In military operations what is done openly and by force is much less than what is done by stratagem and the use of opportunity.
Polybius (203?-120 BC) Greek historian
Histories, 9.12 [tr. Paton (1925)]
Strategy is the art of making use of time and space. I am less chary of the latter than the former. Space we can recover, lost time never.
Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821) French emperor, military leader
Letter to Baron von Stein, Dammartin le St. Père (7 Jan 1814)
Alt. trans.: "One always has a chance of recovering lost ground, but lost time -- never."
You will usually find that the enemy has three courses open to him, and of these he will adopt the fourth.
Helmuth von Moltke (1800-1891) Prussian soldier
(Attributed)
A strategist should think in terms of paralyzing, not of killing. Even on the lower plane of warfare, a man killed is merely one man less, whereas a man unnerved is a highly infectious carrier of fear, capable of spreading an epidemic of panic. … The sword drops from a paralyzed hand.
B. H. Liddell Hart (1895-1970) English soldier, military historian (Basil Henry Liddell Hart)
Strategy, ch. 15 (1954)
I git thar fustest with the mostest.
Nathan Bedford Forrest (1821-1877) American / Confederate military leader
(Attributed)
Sometimes "corrected" as "I get there firstest with the mostest men," first found in print in a New York Tribune article about Civil War generals. The New York Times (28 May 1918) speculatively corrected this to "Ma'am, I get thar first with the most men." Elsewhere given as "I always make a rule to get there first with the most men."
Good and evil both increase at compound interest. That is why the little decisions you and I make every day are of such infinite importance. The smallest good act today is the capture of a strategic point from which, a few months later, you may be able to go on to victories you never dreamed of. An apparently trivial indulgence in lust or anger today is the loss of a ridge or railway line or bridgehead from which the enemy may launch an attack otherwise impossible.
C.S. Lewis (1898-1963) English writer and scholar [Clive Staples Lewis]
Mere Christianity, Book 3 “Christian Behavior,” ch. 7 “Forgiveness” (1952)
(Source)
