180 Decision Quotes

Reason well from the beginning and then there will never be any need to look back with confusion and doubt.

Acts which are essentially dishonourable must not be done; they would be justified only by calm contemplation of their correctness in abstract cases.

When love grows diseased, the best thing we can do is to put it to a violent death. I cannot endure the torture of a lingering and consumptive passion.

The war on terror involves Saddam Hussein because of the nature of Saddam Hussein, the history of Saddam Hussein, and his willingness to terrorize himself.

A man who waits to believe in action before acting is anything you like, but he's not a man of action. It is as if a tennis player before returning a ball stopped to think about his views of the physical and mental advantages of tennis. You must act as you breathe.

The keen spirit Seizes the prompt occasion, makes the thought Start into instant action, and at once Plans and performs, resolves and executes!

If a man consults whether he is to fight, when he has the power in his own hands, it is certain that his opinion is against fighting.

Desperate affairs require desperate measures.

Rosemary and Guy Woodhouse had signed a lease on a five-room apartment in a geometric white house on First Avenue when they received word, from a woman named Mrs. Cortez, that a four-room apartment in the Bramford had become available.

I am trying to do two things: dare to be a radical and not a fool, which is a matter of no small difficulty.

The tide tarrieth no man.

Down that path lies madness. On the other hand, the road to hell is paved with melting snowballs.

I'm all in favor of the democratic principle that one idiot is as good as one genius, but I draw the line when someone takes the next step and concludes that two idiots are better than one genius.

A price is something you get. A cost is something you lose.

Life in the twentieth century is like a parachute jump: you have to get it right the first time.

There's no such thing as a free lunch.

The acorn becomes an oak by means of automatic growth; no commitment is necessary. The kitten similarly becomes a cat on the basis of instinct. Nature and being are identical in creatures like them. But a man or woman becomes fully human only by his or her choices and his or her commitment to them. People attain worth and dignity by the multitude of decisions they make from day by day. These decisions require courage.

Human freedom involves our capacity to pause, to choose the one response toward which we wish to throw our weight.

What is today supported by precedents will hereafter become a precedent.

Character, in the long run, is the decisive factor in the life of an individual and of nations alike.

A difference which makes no difference is no difference at all.

I'd decided to take the risk, and either I'd succeed or else.

It is all very well to be cautious, but if we are too cautious we will miss our opportunity.

You know, doing what is right is easy. The problem is knowing what is right.

He nothing common did or mean Upon that memorable scene, But with his keener eye The axe's edge did try.

A real decision is measured by the fact that you've taken a new action. If there's no action, you haven't truly decided.

One does simply what one can in order to apply what one knows.

He who considers too much will perform little.

'There is only one side to the stock market; and it is not the bull side or the bear side, but the right side'

Yesterday the greatest question was decided which ever was debated in America; and a greater perhaps never was, nor will be, decided among men. A resolution was passed without one dissenting colony, 'that these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States.'

Timidity is the root of prudence in the majority of men.

To Perl, or not to Perl, that is the kvetching.

Car on ne doit point tenir pour conseil ce qui se fait apres disner.

C'est une imprudence assez commune aux rois D'ecouter trop d'avis et se tromper au choix.

Before I pay for it, I pray for it.

The purpose of having an open mind is the same as having an open mouth, the object being eventually to close it on something solid. But one should never close either mind or mouth until the general circumstances of the moment make it reasonable to do so.

Consecutusque cohortis ad Rubiconem flumen, qui provinciae eius finis erat, paulum constitit, ac reputans quantum moliretur, conversus ad proximos: 'Etiam nunc,' inquit, 'regredi possumus; quod si ponticulum transierimus, omnia armis agenda erunt.'

Tunc Caesar: 'Eatur,' inquit, 'quo deorum ostenta et inimicorum iniquitas vocat. Iacta alea est,' inquit.

Wilt make haste to give up thy verdict because thou wilt not lose thy dinner.

'Well that remains to be seen'

Straight to the utmost crown of night he flew. The nothingness was a nakedness, a point Beyond which thought could not progress as thought. He had to choose. But it was not a choice Between excluding things. It was not a choice Between, but of. He chose to include the things That in each other are included, the whole, The complicate, the amassing harmony.

Well, then it is necessary to make the attempt, since the entire offensive has no more than a 10 per cent chance of success. It must be done, since this offensive is the last remaining chance to conclude the war favourably.

The guy should never ever play football again

I said, mmh... yes, But not yet, mmh... yes, Mmh... Yes.

So LSM stays in. No ifs, buts, maybes or anything else. When I see the security people making sane arguments and agreeing on something, that will change. Quite frankly, I expect hell to freeze over before that happens, and pigs will be nesting in trees. But hey, I can hope. -- 10/1/07 -- http://kerneltrap.org/Linux/Pluggable_Security

He lived in one frozen, perfect moment - the moment when his heart was so full of love - no, not love. The moment when he decided, without love, that it would be better for his life, such as it was, to end than to have to watch [her] life end. It's is a moment that can be lived with for eternity

I wondered for a frightening moment how I dared to make such a decision for the whole world, without consulting anyone else. Then I laughed at myself. It was a little too late to wonder if I ought to play god. The game was already over

H'aint we got all the fools in town on our side? And ain't that a big enough majority in any town?

I was a-trembling, because I'd got to decide, forever, betwixt two things, and I knowed it. I studied a minute, sort of holding my breath, and then says to myself, 'All right, then, I'll GO to hell.'

Your lips are thrilling My arms are willing I know that I shouldn't stay. If I don't leave I'll be sorry What will my Mary say?

'Let it be so.'

I like her not!

Look ere ye leap.

The fat is in the fire.

Bang bang! You're dead!

:and that is final!

To choose doubt as a philosophy of life is akin to choosing immobility as a means of transportation.

As a professor used to say to me, it's life or death out there so make it happen.'

One minute decides the outcome of a battle, one hour the success of a campaign, one day the fate of empires.

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

We will never make a 32-bit operating system.

Lack of knowledge concerning all the factors and the failure to include them in our integral imposes false conclusions.

Enough had been thought, and said, and felt, and imagined. It was about time that something should be done.

A rule of thumb for a warrior is that he makes his decisions so carefully that nothing that may happen as a result of them can surprise him, much less drain his power.

The most effective way to live is as a warrior. A warrior may worry and think before making any decision, but once he makes it, he goes his way, free from worries or thoughts; there will be a million other decisions still awaiting him. That's the warrior's way.

If Columbus had an advisory committee he would probably still be at the dock.

I leave this rule for others when I'm dead Be always sure you're right - THEN GO AHEAD!

What is now decisive against Christianity is our taste, no longer our reasons.

Where there is no choice, we do well to make no difficulty.

A good plan today is better than a perfect plan tomorrow.

Take calculated risks. This is quite different from being rash. My personal belief is that if you have a 50% chance, take it!

We should pull out. Which is what Nixon's father should have done.

Everything you want in life has a price connected to it. There's a price to pay if you want to make things better, a price to pay just for leaving things as they are, a price for everything.

The absence of alternatives clears the mind marvelously.

Tell me one thing, Shaw, have you eaten that or are you going to?

Jack Benny: I'm thinking it over.

Clyde: Oh, we're not going to make that trip again, oh no.

What is right and what is practicable are two different things.

A pinch of probability is worth a pound of perhaps.

If a playwright tried to see eye to eye with everybody, he would get the worst case of strabismus since Hannibal lost an eye trying to count his nineteen elephants during a snowstorm while crossing the Alps.

It was, perhaps, one of those cases in which advice is good or bad only as the event decides.

Things that matter most must never be at the mercy of things that matter least.

It is better to be roughly right than precisely wrong.

Most, probably, of our decisions to do something positive, the full consequences of which will be drawn out over many days to come, can only be taken as the result of animal spirits-a spontaneous urge to action rather than inaction, and not as the outcome of a weighted average of quantitative benefits multiplied by quantitative probabilities.

Life is full of decisions and judgments and guesses, and it gets to the point where you're so accustomed to making them you keep right on making them even when you don't strictly need to. You get into a what if thing, and you start speculating about what you would do if some problem was yours instead of somebody else's. It gets to be a habit. It was a habit Jack Reacher had in spades.

We think we want to do something and when it comes to it, we don't. We don't like to commit.

He who hesitates is a damned fool.

Here I stand; I can do no otherwise. God help me. Amen!

Hier stehe ich, ich kann nicht anders. Gott helfe mir. Amen.

Isolation is the worst possible counselor.

I have made all the calculations; fate will do the rest.

Nothing is more difficult, and therefore more precious, than to be able to decide.