Quotes & Sayings About Business As Usual

But even the tough, capable centurions gave Marcus speculative glances, as if seeking out his thoughts on their predicament. Marcus returned the glances with nothing but crisp salutes, letting them see the First Spear proceeding with business as usual. — Jim Butcher

When Moses smashed the golden calf, the Israelites stopped worshipping it. When a flood inundated the temple of Baal, the Malachites decided Baal wasn't such a hot god anyway. But Jesus has been out to lunch for two thousand years, and people not only still follow his teachings, they live and die believing he'll come back eventually, and it will be business as usual when he does. — Stephen King

It's very simple. If the American people care about a lot of things including corruption in government, then, in fact, if you use the power to appoint in order to do political business, to clear fields, to save your party money and so on, if it's not a crime - and I believe it is - it certainly is business as usual, politics of corruption. — Darrell Issa

He was feeling a new heresy coming over him, possibly as a result of the spirits, and it had something to do about the celibacy of the clergy. He had one already about the shape of his tonsure and the usual one about the date of Easter, as well as his of Pelagian business-but the latest was beginning to make him feel as if the presence of children was unnecessary. — T.H. White

Business as usual is dead. Green growth is the answer to both our climate and economic problems — Anders Fogh Rasmussen

Democracy is disruptive. Around the world, peaceful protesters are being demonised for this, but there is no right in a democratic civil society to be free of disruption. Protesters ideally should read Gandhi and King and dedicate themselves to disciplined, long-term, non-violent disruption of business as usual - especially disruption of traffic. — Naomi Wolf

Too many people learn about war with no inconvenience to themselves. They read about Verdun or Stalingrad without comprehension, sitting in a comfortable armchair, with their feet beside the fire, preparing to go about their business the next day, as usual.
One should really read such accounts under compulsion, in discomfort, considering oneself fortunate not to be describing the events in a letter home, writing from a hole in the mud. One should read about war in the worst circumstances, when everything is going badly, remembering that the torments of peace are trivial, and not worth any white hairs. Nothing is really serious in the tranquility of peace; only an idiot could be really disturbed by a question of salary.
One should read about war standing up, late at night, when one is tired, as I am writing about it now, at dawn, while my asthma attack wears off. And even now, in my sleepless exhaustion, how gentle and easy peace seems! — Guy Sajer

I was gratified by the way our players had approached each game throughout the season. They had remained focused on the task at hand, playing hard and smart week after week. We didn't have any turmoil or distractions. We went about our business as usual. To do that in a setting that often was anything but usual is a testament to the character of our players and coaches. Our process worked; we simply picked a bad year to only be very good. — Tony Dungy

In Taiwan during the 1960s and mainland China in the 1980s, conceptualism played a role similar to that of Dada, that is, as a vehicle for upsetting conventions - aesthetic, social, and political. Almost all Chinese conceptual artists proclaimed an allegiance to Dada. On the mainland, they also embraced traditional Chan Budhism, wich encourages an ironic sensibility and rejects the privileging of any one doctrine in the search for enlightment. Combined, Dada and Chan Budhism became a potent weapon in the Chinese avant-garde's assault on business as usual. — Gao Minglu

You know, we can't keep talking about our dependence on foreign oil and the need to deal with global warming and the challenge that it poses to our climate and to God's creation and just let business as usual go on, and that means something has to be taken away from some people. — Hillary Clinton

A vote should be generative, not like business as usual, which is what voting feels like for most of us. — Eileen Myles

I would suggest that especially in the differential of images that arise, in the inflections that we find within the representations of women we may also recover a subjectivity for women. For this reason also I am specifically interested in bringing to light other models for women's roles, models that upset business as usual and offer a greater diversity of possibilities for the easy we can imagine women. — Loriliai Biernacki

Screwing business as usual fundamentally recognises that doing good is good for business. — Richard Branson

She sat in a corner warm with sunlight, a copy of Home Notes open unread upon her knee, and watched the green meadows flying past while the business men in the carriage talked about news in the papers - awful, as usual - their golf, their gardeners, and the detective stories they were reading. — Stella Gibbons

These people walk by a window deformed by leprosy begging for a few paise, walk by children dressed in rags living in the street, and they think, "Business as usual" But if they perceive a slight against God, it is a different story. — Yann Martel

Earmarks have become a symbol of a Congress that has broken faith with the people. This earmark ban shows the American people we are listening and we are dead serious about ending business as usual in Washington. — John Boehner

The choice is ours-yours and mine. We can stay with business as usual and preside over a global bubble economy that keeps expanding until it bursts, leading to economic decline. Or we can adopt Plan B and be the generation that stabilizes population, eradicates poverty, and stabilizes climate. Historians will record the choice, but it is ours to make. — Lester R. Brown

It's not only joy as an act of defiance; it's business as usual as an act of defiance. This is just: Do your thing. — Bono

Lack of ethics is so ingrained in the financial industry that they are not even aware of it any more. It's just business as usual for them. — Robert Rolih

As far as we can tell from a purely scientific viewpoint, human life has absolutely no meaning. Humans are the outcome of blind evolutionary processes that operate without goal or purpose. Our actions are not part of some divine cosmic plan, and if planet earth were to blow up tomorrow morning, the universe would probably keep going about its business as usual. As far as we can tell at this point, human subjectivity would not be missed. Hence any meaning that people inscribe to their lives is just a delusion. — Yuval Noah Harari

In my generation, if a man washes the dishes, the older women still tend to cluster around and coo and thank him and praise him. But if a woman washes the dishes, it's business as usual, even if both man and woman have tough office jobs. — Sherwood Smith

This woman enabled her husband to cheat, and she wasn't doing either one of them any favors. Instead of leaving him, she would take him home, scold him, and then carry on with business as usual. Inside though, she would be hurting.
No woman could love a cheater and not pay the price for it. — Rose Wynters

World War III would become a great possibility, but such a scenario is quite possible under any new US administration ... To answer your question: business as usual. — Andre Vltchek

Fair Trade is a market-based, entrepreneurial response to business as usual: it helps third-word farmers developing direct market access as well as the organizational and management capacity to add value to their products and take them directly to the global market. Direct trade, a fair price, access to capital and local capacity-building, which are the core strategies of this model, have been successfully building farmers' incomes and self-reliance for more than 50 years. — Paul Rice

If your primary focus is to get over your health problems or get past a relationship crisis so that you can return to your former life and old patterns- that is, get back to business as usual-you are not really living. The distinction is paradoxical and sometimes subtle. It's the difference between walking through your life on your way to somewhere, and walking as your life. Even if you believe that where you want to get is extremely important, that destination is secondary. Your immediate experience is what really matters. It is your life. — Richard Moss

I felt him closing in on me. My insides twisted and my cheeks grew warmer with his approach as if I could feel the warmth of his shower radiating off him.
"All of a sudden, you're quiet and shy? You're not your usual pain in the ass self. I know you came here for a reason. What did you want to yell at me for this time?" he stopped just a few feet from me.
"Do you think you could put a shirt on? This is a business call, not the typical company you keep," I felt like I was chastising my shoes. — Alicia Deters

Today is a time of turbulence and stagnation, of threat and promise from a competitor: the magic, omnivorous videocassette recorder (VCR). In other words, it is business as usual. — Richard Corliss

We've painted ourselves into a corner where the only choice is real nightmare - triage, epidemic disease, famine, fascism, the collapse of human rights - or a leap to an entirely different level. We've taken business-as-usual off the menu. Now only the extreme possibilities loom. — Terence McKenna

No culture on earth is as heavily narcotized as the industrial West in terms of being inured to the consequences of maladaptive behavior. We pursue a business-as-usual attitude in a surreal atmosphere of mounting crises and irreconcilable contradictions. — Terence McKenna

The connection between health and productivity at work is intuitively obvious but has not been demonstrated to the satisfaction of either researchers or corporate financial officers. Ronald Kessler and Paul Stang help to bridge the usual gap between research and the marketplace with the help of a top-notch group of the best 'real-world' investigators obtainable-all in the cause of making the case that employee health should be treated as an investment in business performance-thus creating the new discipline of health and productivity management. — Sean Sullivan

Whatever was under his jacket broke and liquid went everywhere. He was cussing and carrying on, but I didn't take the time to think about all that just then. As the fight ran out of him, I cuffed him and looked around.
The cops, seated in their patrol car nearby, were just about doubled over laughing. I went over to see what was up.
"That's so and so, they told me. One of the biggest drug dealers in the city. We wish we could have beat him like you just did."
Apparently, Mr. Popo ignored all the signs and wandered into the training exercise figuring he'd carry on business as usual. There are idiots everywhere - but I guess that explains how he got into that line of work in the first place. — Chris Kyle

To the people of Illinois let me say this. Business as usual IS OVER. — Bruce Rauner

The notion of "business as usual" is a harmful myth. — Paul Gibbons

Over the past decade ... while many businesses have pursued what I call 'business as usual,' I have been part of a different, smaller business movement, one that tried to put idealism back on the agenda. — Anita Roddick

Because one of the greatest misconceptions in the climate debate is that our society is refusing to change, protecting a status quo called "business-as-usual." The truth is that there is no business-as-usual. The energy sector is changing dramatically all the time - but the vast majority of those changes are taking us in precisely the wrong direction, toward energy sources with even higher planet-warming emissions than their conventional versions. — Naomi Klein

This is not going to be business as usual. This is business unusual — Sebastian Coe

In every case, you must ensure that the organization is really ready to have desired behaviors happen on day one and become business as usual. If you do that, you can feel confident that — Steve Jacobs

Why indeed are the policies of the virtual world so very different from business as usual in the real world? Even as we accept the answer - because virtual-world designers focus on human happiness while real-world policy designers focus on other things - that answer boggles the mind. Why in heaven's name has public policy ever focused on anything other than happiness? When did we decide that human well-being was not the most important thing? — Edward Castronova

I came here as a son seeking his father's approval, hoping you could recognize what she and I have. But, it appears you're business as usual. — Nicole Gulla

The first step toward enhancing performance in an organization is realizing that improvement is possible only if participants abandon business-as-usual practices. Doing so requires recognizing and rejecting three prevailing myths. — Anders Ericsson

Some moment happens in your life that you say yes right up to the roots of your hair, that makes it worth having been born just to have happen. laughing with somebody till the tears run down your cheeks. waking up to the first snow. being in bed with somebody you love ... whether you thank god for such a moment or thank your lucky stars, it is a moment that is trying to open up your whole life. If you turn your back on such a moment and hurry along to business as usual, it may lose you the ball game. if you throw your arms around such a moment and hug it like crazy, it may save your soul. — Frederick Buechner

I don't think this one's business as usual. Me evil cunt sense is tinglin'. — Garth Ennis

Someplace between apathy and anarchy is the stance of the thinking human being. He does embrace a cause, he does take a position, and can't allow it to become business as usual. Humanity is our business. — Rod Serling

Let's go get ready to do something incredibly stupid."
"Business as usual, then," he said, and fled the kitchen, laughing, before I could swat him. — Seanan McGuire

The challenges facing Britain required not just a cool head, but a heart burning with the desire for change - not business as usual but a bold vision. — Michael Gove

For one of the odd things about death, Trudy has discovered, is that in its wake one must go about business as usual; it seems heartless and wrong, but now that the rituals of mourning have been attended to, the sole task left to Trudy is to try and comprehend the enormity of thes sudden change. — Jenna Blum

There is a clear message from science: To avoid dangerous interference with the climate system, we need to move away from business as usual. — Ottmar Edenhofer

When the price of oil on the world market began to fall, the American business community and the public lost interest in the great energy crusade. Carter's successor, Ronald Reagan, removed the solar panels from the White House roof and scrapped the wood-burning stove in the living quarters. America went back to business as usual, buying even larger gasguzzling vehicles, and using ever greater volumes of energy to support a wasteful, consumer-driven lifestyle. — Jeremy Rifkin

One the one hand, our economists treat human beings as rational actors making choices to maximize their own economic benefit. On the other hand, the same companies that hire those economists also pay for advertising campaigns that use the raw materials of myth and magic to encourage people to act against their own best interests, whether it's a matter of buying overpriced fizzy sugar water or the much more serious matter of continuing to support the unthinking pursuit of business as usual in the teeth of approaching disaster. — John Michael Greer

The First Amendment was designed to allow for disruption of business as usual. It is not a quiet and subdued amendment or right. — Naomi Wolf

Globalisation must have, as a critical component, international dispensation in the locality of U.N. institutions. It cannot be, and must not be, business as usual in the establishment and location of international institutions, especially of the United Nations. — Anthony Carmona

You and I can choose to continue with business as usual in the Christian life and in the church as a whole, enjoying success based on the standards defined by the culture around us. Or we can take an honest look at the Jesus of the Bible and dare to ask what the consequences might be if we really believed him and really obeyed him. — David Platt

Denying the poor access to knowledge goes back a long way. The ancient Smriti political and legal system drew up vicious punishments for sudras seeking learning. (In those days, that meant learning the Vedas.) If a sudra listens to the Vedas, said one of these laws, 'his ears are to be filled with molten tin or lac. If he dares to recite the Vedic texts, his body is to be split'. That was the fate of the 'base-born'. The ancients restricted learning on the basis of birth. In a modern polity, where the base-born have votes, the elite act differently. Say all the right things. But deny access. Sometimes, mass pressures force concessions. Bend a little. After a while, it's back to business as usual. As one writer has put it: When the poor get literate and educated, the rich lose their palanquin bearers. — P.Sainath

My nightmare scenario is that the government saves Citibank once again, as well as the other banks, and business resumes as usual. Then, the next time the system breaks, it breaks much, much bigger. — Nassim Nicholas Taleb

We conservatives can win the ideological battles on a level playing field. Our ideas are better. Given fair elections based on contributions from regular voters, instead of $100,000 checks from business-as-usual special interests, we will prevail. — John McCain

The Americans are and remain our best friends, but this is absolutely not right. We can't simply return to business as usual. — Thomas De Maiziere

I think my political transformation began with my exposure to the business-as-usual attitude of many civil service bureaucrats during the war; then came the attempted Communist take-over of the picture business, which a lot of my liberal friends refused to admit ever happened; next, I had a brief experience living in a country that promised the kind of womb-to-tomb utopian benevolence a lot of these liberal friends wanted to bring to America. In 1949, I spent four months in England filming The Hasty Heart while the Labor Party was in power. I saw firsthand how the welfare state sapped incentive to work from many people in a wonderful and dynamic country. — Ronald Reagan

Poor people of all colors are getting poorer and our communities are getting more toxic. There is a misconception that to grow our economy we will have to do business as usual, because cleaning up the environment, mitigating climate change is just too costly. Well, I say the business of poverty is just too expensive a bill for humanity to pay any longer. — Majora Carter

The Millennium Development Goals can be met by 2015, but only if all involved break with business as usual and dramatically accelerate and scale up action now. — Kofi Annan

A sustainable economy represents nothing less than a higher social order one as concerned with future generations as with our own, and more focused on the health of the planet and the poor than on material acquisitions and military might. While it is a fundamentally new endeavor, with many uncertainties, it is far less risky than continuing with business as usual. — Lester R. Brown

When a world goes to pieces, when inhumanity reigns supreme, man cannot go on with business as usual. — Bruno Bettelheim

The maxim of the British people is; Business as Usual! — Winston Churchill

I feel like I am campaigning door to door. You just can't step out of a band like Brooks & Dunn and assume that it is just going to be business as usual. You have to work it. It does feel like a campaign where you would have Obama, Romney, or Newt beating the bushes right now. That's what I'm having to do. — Ronnie Dunn

My recipe for dealing with anger and frustration: set the kitchen timer for twenty minutes, cry, rant, and rave, and at the sound of the bell, simmer down and go about business as usual. — Phyllis Diller

Even after the Allies emerged triumphant in 1945, these concerns were not forgotten: depression and fascism remained ever-present in men's minds. The urgent question was not how to celebrate a magnificent victory and get back to business as usual, but how on earth to ensure that the experience of the years 1914-1945 would never be repeated. More than anyone else, it was Maynard Keynes who devoted himself to addressing this challenge. — Tony Judt

We would pay the bills. We would pretend to be high-class. This was compromise. This, I guessed, was business. — Aryn Kyle

If nothing is done to counter present trends, the major fault line in American politics will no longer be between Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives. It will be between the "establishment"
political insiders, power brokers, the heads of American business, Wall Street, and the mainstream media
and an increasingly mad-as-hell populace determined to "take back America" from them. — Robert B. Reich

Sustainable fishing is a fraud. It's a marketing term that really means 'business as usual.' — Paul Watson

Everyone must be clear that business as usual is not an option. Most of us live in buildings erected long before we were born and our successors will have to live with the environmental consequences of the buildings we construct today. It is vital that we minimise harmful impacts for those who come after us — Margaret Beckett

If you charge off with some political agenda that is not informed by clarity, you are going to end up with business as usual. The road to hell is paved with good intentions but it is not paved with clarity. — Terence McKenna

Hagrid, look what I've got for relatives!" Harry said furiously. "Look at the Dursleys!"
"An excellent point," said Professor Dumbledore. "My own brother, Aberforth, was prosecuted for practicing inappropriate charms on a goat. It was all over the papers, but did Aberforth hide? No, he did not! He held his head high and went about his business as usual! Of course, I'm not entirely sure he can read, so that may not have been bravery ... — J.K. Rowling

Ninety-eight percent of all American companies have fewer than 100 employees. Over half of all Americans work for a small business. Small businesses are the backbone of our nation's economy and we must protect this great resource. Helping American small business is part of our movement for change and the end of politics as usual. — Barack Obama

I've lived all over the world, but Harlem is very special to me, and when I decided to open a restaurant near my home, I didn't want it to be business as usual. — Marcus Samuelsson

When we put setbacks into two buckets - the "business as usual" bucket and the "holy cow" bucket - and use a different mindset for each, we are signing up for trouble. — Ed Catmull

Business as usual will not be accepted by any part of this city. — Harold Washington

These people walk by a widow deformed by leprosy ... walk by children dressed in rags living in the street, and they think, 'Business as usual.' But if they perceive a slight against God, it is a different story. Their faces go red, their chests heave mightily, they sputter angry words. The degree of their indignation is astonishing. Their resolve is frightening. — Yann Martel

All attempts to destroy democracy by terrorism will fail. It must be business as usual. — Margaret Thatcher

CEOs of fossil energy companies know what they are doing and are aware of long-term consequences of continued business as usual. In my opinion, these CEOs should be tried for high crimes against humanity and nature. — James Hansen

We are taking a business-as-usual position at my agency, though business before 9/11 wasn't that hot either! — Richard Curtis

Pose a political threat to Business As Usual, and sooner or later, mostly sooner, someone will try to kill you. — Alexander Cockburn

And I begin to see it. How a man may hardly know his sister, and meet her as a grown woman. She is like himself, yet not. She is familiar, yet piques his interest. One day his brotherly embrace is a little longer than usual. The business progresses from there. Perhaps neither party feels they are doing anything wrong, till some frontier is crossed. — Hilary Mantel

The problem with cap-and-trade and programs such as carbon capture and storage is that they all assume that business as usual can continue. The financial meltdown and peak oil has pretty much demonstrated that business as usual's not going to work. — Andrew Nikiforuk

One of the tragedies of the Bush administration is that we went back to business as usual, make a deal with the Democrats, let's all be friends in Washington philosophy. — Pete Du Pont

Which is why it's best all the way around if you let Snake act as your bodyguard for the next few days. He'll watch your back and take care of Franklin, and you can go about your business as usual. You okay with that, Snake?" Boss turned to him, and if Shell hadn't been watching, he felt sure the big guy would've winked. — Julie Ann Walker

Tonight was a great opportunity to take on the political status quo that has given us trillion dollar deficits and put millions out of work. Our objective was to inject some common sense into the conversation among Republicans at a time when business-as-usual simply won't work. — Gary Johnson

Mr. Ward, what is it that the foulest bastards on earth denounce us for, among other things? Oh yes, for our motto of 'Business as usual.' Well-business as usual, Mr. Ward! — Ayn Rand

This, then, is the global significance of Chungking Mansions. It is a building of the periphery within a city of the core, a city located between the developing world's manufacturing hub and its poorest nether regions. It is a ghetto of middle-class striving within a city of wealthier middle-class striving, viewing its denizens with fear and scorn yet letting business as usual be the law of the day. Chungking — Gordon Mathews

But it doesn't have to be this way. We can do things better. We need to stop doing business as usual and start focusing on end-to-end quality. Security needs to be built in from the start - not slapped on after the fact. — Gene Spafford

He issue of inequality in this country [USA], and the ways that money has captured our political system, are serious indicators of that. And climate change is a game-changer. We really are in serious trouble as a species if we stick with business as usual. We desperately need to find alternatives, and in fact we are surrounded by them. — Cynthia Kauffman

You come to me for advice, but you can't cope with anything you don't recognize. Hmmm. So we'll have to tell you something you already know but make it sound like news, eh Well, business as usual , I suppose. — Douglas Adams

following one process and the development team with different process philosophies, terms and metrics. In Waterfall, once a "plan" is baked and approved, there is an expectation that the plan will be followed and delivered upon, even if the development team is using Agile to execute. Now I'm going to say it, "But that's not truly Agile," since Agile requires the plan to be flexible and consistently reprioritized and revised. We see this approach so often that we've heard many describe it as, "WaterScrumFall. " It's really business as usual — Anonymous

Like you, I'm fed up with business as usual in Washington. Send me to Congress, and I won't tweak our broken system. I'll shut it down. — Francine Busby

If some of these answers seem radical or far-fetched today, then I say wait until tomorrow. Soon it will be abundantly clear that it is business as usual that is utopian, whereas creating something very new and different is a practical necessity. — James Gustave Speth

Without putting the brakes on out-of-control campaign contributions from individuals and corporations - it will be business as usual, with 1 percent of Americans pulling the strings. — Madeleine M. Kunin

So what? A lobbyist cheated Indian tribes out of $25 million then laundered their money through phony Christian charities trying to stop other Indian tribes from getting casinos [on screen: 'Thou Shalt Not Compete'] and bribe congressmen in the process. Know what I call that? I call that business as usual in Washington. [on screen: 'Screwing Indians'] — Stephen Colbert

In the world of Big Macks Starbucks coffee and oversized SUVS it was business as usual snort and go — Saira Viola

The answer is to end our reliance on carbon-based fuels ... If we succeed, we create booming new industries, wealth, clean secure energy and maybe we prevent the greatest disaster so far in human history, saving millions of lives while improving billions more. If we fail, basically it's business as usual while things slowly get worse all around us. — Al Gore

The Earth has recovered after fevers like this, and there are no grounds for thinking that what we are doing will destroy Gaia, but if we continue business as usual, our species may never again enjoy the lush and verdant world we had only a hundred years ago. What is most in danger is civilization; humans are tough enough for breeding pairs to survive, and Gaia is toughest of all. What we are doing weakens her but is unlikely to destroy her. She has survived numerous catastrophes in her three billion years or more of life. — James E. Lovelock

Under business as usual, by mid-century things are looking rather grim," he told me a few hours after I had arrived at One Tree. We were sitting at a beat-up picnic table, looking out over the heartbreaking blue of the Coral Sea. The island's large and boisterous population of terns was screaming in the background. Caldeira paused: "I mean, they're looking grim already. — Elizabeth Kolbert

The reason that last-ditch political maneuvering has become business as usual in Washington is that the actors involved are drunk on blame and are convinced that the voting public is, too. They count on outrage, thereby spreading numbness. They cherish the prospect of partisan fury, thereby inspiring nonpartisan disgust. — Walter Kirn