Quotes & Sayings About Forethought

Rashness in a leader causes failure; the sailor of a ship is calm, wise at the proper time. Yes, and forethought: this too is bravery. — Euripides

Most of the time you can get away with launching a terrible product, or with not washing your hands, but one time in a thousand, you will kill a person, or a company. — Megan McArdle

The essentials," I answered, "are to learn to shape God with forethought, care, and work; to educate and benefit their community, their families, and themselves; and to contribute to the fulfillment of the Destiny. — Octavia E. Butler

A warm breeze scudded through the crowd, perfumed with celebration: burnt sugar, the sourness of beer, the warm, golden scent of hay. Here was life in all its sweetness, surprising her when she least expected it, twisting forethought into revelation, reminding her that plans sometimes proved unnecessary, that occasionally everything came together spontaneously, as though the universe were an ever-resolving pattern that wanted to please her in the end. — Meredith Duran

Yet at least we can admire the wise Prearrangement which has ordained that, as they have no hopes, so they shall have no memory to recall, and no forethought to anticipate, the miseries and humiliations which are at once a necessity of their existence and the basis of the constitution of Flatland. — Edwin A. Abbott

Science fiction is one of the smartest genres around because you have to have so much forethought. — Amanda Schull

... In this way that he sought to control the very passage of his life, deftly and without forethought, yet precisely and with enormous care. Part of it was to allow what was enormous, what was profound, without limiting it. — Jesse Ball

If the gods have determined about me and about the things which must happen to me, they have determined well, for it is not easy even to imagine a deity without forethought; and as to doing me harm, why should they have any desire towards that? For what advantage would result to them from this or to the whole, which is the special object of their providence? But if they have not determined about me individually, they have certainly determined about the whole at least, and the things which happen by way of sequence in this general arrangement I ought to accept with pleasure and to be content with them. — Marcus Aurelius

I stopped short in the path today to admire how the trees grow up without forethought regardless of the time and circumstances. They do not wait as men do - now is the golden age of the sapling - Earth, air, sun, and rain, are occasion enough - . — Henry David Thoreau

The Don considered a use of threats the most foolish kind of exposure; the unleashing of anger without forethought as the most dangerous indulgence. No one had ever heard the Don utter a naked threat, no one had ever seen him in an uncontrollable rage. It was unthinkable. — Mario Puzo

Marriage, I have always held, is a serious affair, to be entered into only after long deliberation and forethought, and suitability of tastes adn inclinations is the most important consideration. — Agatha Christie

She leaned forward, her gaze so intense that Helen wanted to look away. "And I love him more for it. Do you hear me? He was a good man when he went away to the Colonies. He came back an extraordinary man. So many think that bravery is a single act of valor in a field of battle - no forethought, no contemplation of the consequences. An act over in a second or a minute or two at most. What my brother has done, is doing now, is to live with his burden for years. He knows that he will spend the rest of his life with it. And he soldiers on." She sat back in her chair, her gaze still locked with Helen's. "That to my mind is what real bravery is."
-Sophia to Helen about Alistair. — Elizabeth Hoyt

Forethought and prudence are the proper qualities of a leader.
[Lat., Ratio et consilium, propriae ducis artes.] — Tacitus

I want you to know that farmers are not going to be secondary thoughts to a Bush administration. They will be in the forethought of our thinking. — George W. Bush

Bees... by virtue of a certain geometrical forethought, knew that the hexagon is greater than the square and the triangle and will hold more honey for the same expenditure of material. — Pappus

I dream of a true husband - a good man, not a brute, nor a champion of men on the battlefield; I dream but of a gentle man, one who neither speaks too loud nor ignores evil. I pray for such a like-minded mate, who will be ever for me like harmony to music, virtue to the soul, prosperity to the state, and forethought to the universe. — A.A. Attanasio

We anticipate our own happiness, and eat out the heart and sweetness of worldly pleasures by delightful forethought of them. — John Tillotson

Worry is forethought gone to seed. — William George Jordan

All this care for the world, we must believe, is taken by the Gods without any act of will or labor. As bodies which possess some power produce their effects by merely existing: e.g. the sun gives light and heat by merely existing; so, and far more so, the providence of the Gods acts without effort to itself and for the good of the objects of its forethought. This solves the problems of the Epicureans , who argue that what is divine neither has trouble itself nor gives trouble to others. — Sallust

For still I see that forethought spares afterthought and after-sorrow. — Amelia Barr

Great is the art,
Great be the manners, of the bard.
He shall not his brain encumber
With the coil of rhythm and number;
But, leaving rule and pale forethought,
He shall aye climb
For his rhyme.
"Pass in, pass in," the angels say — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Evil presupposes a moral decision, intention, and some forethought. A moran or a lout, howeverm doesn't stop to think or reason. — Carlos Ruiz Zafon

Concerning the Gods, there are those who deny the very existence of the Godhead; others say that it exists, but neither bestirs nor concerns itself not has forethought far anything. A third party attribute to it existence and forethought, but only for great and heavenly matters, not for anything that is on earth. A fourth party admit things on earth as well as in heaven, but only in general, and not with respect to each individual. A fifth, of whom were Ulysses and Socrates, are those that cry:
I move not without Thy knowledge! — Epictetus

A wine cellar requires order, forethought and good taste,' the old man used to say. 'These are the virtues that made Britain great. — Ken Follett

Your intentions will be good. Without consideration and forethought, however, your actions could still be evil. That is the problem, of course, evil is always easy and resisting it is never so. Evil is relentless; and anyone, if they tire, if they are not vigilant, can fall prey to it. — Michael A. Stackpole

Cowl's apprentice was tough and competent, but no amount of training or forethought can prepare you for the sight of an angry dinosaur coming to eat your ass. — Jim Butcher

And then, without forethought or warning, she loved him. — Kris Tualla

If they had given in to passion, throwing caution to the wind,they would have lost everything. — Anuradha Bhattacharyya

Men are in a restless pursuit after satisfaction and earthly things. They have no forethought for their eternal state, the present hour absorbs them. They turn to another and another of earth's broken cisterns, hoping to find water, where not a drop was ever discovered yet. — Charles Spurgeon

Socrates famously said that the unconsidered life is not worth living. He meant that a life lived without forethought or principle is a life so vulnerable to chance, and so dependent on the choices and actions of others, that it is of little real value to the person living it. He further meant that a life well lived is one which has goals, and integrity, which is chosen and directed by the one who lives it, to the fullest extent possible to a human agent caught in the webs of society and history. — A.C. Grayling

The people who hire all these things done for them never know what they lose, for the homeliest tasks get beautified if loving hands do them, and Meg found so many proofs of this that everything in her small neatness from the kitchen roller to the silver vase on her parlor table was eloquent of home love and tender forethought. — Louisa May Alcott

Look and see which way the wind blows before you commit yourself. — Aesop

If we are born under a lucky star, it shows that we have earned the good fortune thereby Indicated, by forethought, kindness, and our other virtues expressed in previous lives, for we cannot have friends unless we are friendly ourselves. — Max Heindel

It's unfortunate when an athlete's talent comes with so little forethought or leadership [ ... ] The Falcons need to start over. If next year's team ends up being young and hungry but fairly average, the last thing you want as a general manager or coach is to have a blowhard cornerback whining about his contract leading the charge, no matter how good he is. — Jeff Schultz

The present moment is ever the critical time. The future is merely for intelligent forethought. — Robert Barr

He who exercises no forethought but makes light of his opponents is sure to be captured by them. — Sun Tzu

The man who knows when not to act is wise. To my mind, bravery is forethought. — Euripides

A man exercising no forethought will soon experience present sorrow. — Confucius

The necessary fiddling about and moving things can be greatly facilitated by a bit of forethought. — Carroll Smith

There are those among you who seek the talkative through fear of being alone.
The silence of aloneness reveals to their eyes their naked selves and they would escape.
And there are those who talk, and without knowledge or forethought reveal a truth which they themselves do not understand.
And there are those who have the truth within them, but they tell it not in words.
In the bosom of such as these the spirit dwells in rhythmic silence. — Kahlil Gibran

Do not tax your life with forethought of grief. — Wendell Berry

Forethought we may have, undoubtedly, but not foresight. — Napoleon Bonaparte

To all of you alive people walking around, taking your multivitamins and busy being Lutheran or getting colonoscopies, you need to invest in a good-quality, long-lasting wristwatch with day and date functions. Don't count on getting any cell phone reception in Hell, and don't think for a second you'll have the forethought to die with your charger cord in hand or even find yourself locked inside a rusted jail cell with a compatible electrical outlet. — Chuck Palahniuk

The habit of saving is itself an education; it fosters every virtue, teaches self-denial, cultivates the sense of order, trains to forethought, and so broadens the mind. — Thornton T. Munger

The first essential character [of civilization], I should say, is forethought. This, I would say, is what distinguishes men from brutes and adults from children. — Bertrand Russell

Wisdom, prudence, forethought, these are essential. But not second to these that noble courage which adventures the right, and leaves the consequences to God. — Robert Dale Owen

One day,' Orest said, looking at him comically, 'you will say something that is less than practical and sensible, something that is driven by no forethought and nothing but passion, and I will probably collapse with shock. — Mercedes Lackey

Being busy does not always mean real work. The object of all work is production or accomplishment and to either of these ends there must be forethought, system, planning, intelligence, and honest purpose, as well as perspiration. Seeming to do is not doing — Thomas A. Edison

In life, as in chess, forethought wins. — Charles Buxton

Not evil. Moronic, which isn't quite the same thing. Evil presupposes a moral decision, intention, and some forethought. A moron or a lout, however, doesn't stop to think or reason. He acts on instinct, like a stable animal, convinced he's doing good, that he's always right, and sanctimoniously proud to go around f***ing up ... anyone he perceives to be different from himself, be it because of skin color, creed, language, nationality, or ... leisure habits. What the world needs is more thoroughly evil people and fewer borderline pigheads. — Carlos Ruiz Zafon

Change takes time, forethought and knowledge, as well as an envisioned goal. — Obiora Embry

Few things are brought to a successful issue by impetuous desire, but most by calm and prudent forethought. — Thucydides

Treasures are not won by care and forethought
but by swift slaying and reckless attack. — Michael Moorcock

Sir," he said calmly, "that was the worst line I've ever heard, not only insulting but showing a severe lack of forethought. You're obviously bothering the young woman. You should leave before she does permanent damage to you. — Kim Harrison

Certain I am that every author who has written a book with earnest forethought and fondly cherished designs will bear testimony to the fact that much which he meant to convey has never been guessed at in any review of his work; and many a delicate beauty of thought, on which he principally valued himself, remains, like the statue of Isis, an image of truth from which no hand lifts the veil. — Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton

You can be an Olympic champion in 9.5 secs, but to be the greatest, there's more to it. It takes a bit of forethought and a lot of mental application. — Daley Thompson

Bravery without forethought, causes a man to fight blindly and desperately like a mad bull. Such an opponent, must not be encountered with brute force, but may be lured into an ambush and slain. — Sun Tzu

I dug through my purse for the Glock. There is was, and I realized I'd never set the safety. I decided to consider this a great example of forethought rather than my being the stupidest gun handler on the planet. — Gini Koch

All this intelligent and careful work revealed a man of great forethought. Yet you could see in Mr. Wicks's eyes
as he stood in the shade of the terminal awning, all that tweed and education waving to us, as one by one each bus pulled out for the noisy drive into the city
that he had failed. — Bill Buford

People who never had enough thrift and forethought to buy and pay for property in the first place seldom have enough to keep property up after they have gained it in some other way. — Thomas Nixon Carver

Destructive organizational habits can be found within hundreds of industries and at thousands of firms. And almost always, they are the products of thoughtlessness, of leaders who avoid thinking about the culture and so let it develop without guidance. There are no organizations without institutional habits. There are only places where they are deliberately designed, and places where they are created without forethought, so they often grow from rivalries or fear. — Charles Duhigg

Greeley knew no language but his, but of that, he possessed a most extraordinary mastery. An employee — Harold Holzer

Failure means that you would not, or could not, pay for success. Success is a matter of sale. It can (most often) be bought by a large outlay
of hard forethought
of pains
of steadiness
of the golden wisdom coined from experience. But the figure is too high for most of us. We are too poor, or too slothful, to bring the price. — Charles Buxton

Choose your leaders with wisdom and forethought.
To be led by a coward is to be controlled by all that the coward fears.
To be led by a fool is to be led by the opportunists who control the fool.
To be led by a thief is to offer up your most precious treasures to be stolen.
To be led by a liar is to ask to be told lies.
To be led by a tyrant is to sell yourself and those you love into slavery. — Octavia E. Butler

Spontaneity needs to be balanced by careful preparation and forethought. It needs to be supported by an intense prayer life on the part of the minister. One must be well experienced in prayer to lead in prayer. One can hardly lead if one does not know the way oneself. Spontaneity has to arise from a profound experience of prayer. — Hughes Oliphant Old

A victim of God may, Through learning adaption, Become a partner of God, A victim of God may, Through forethought and planning, Become a shaper of God. Or a victim of God may, Through shortsightedness and fear, Remain God's victim, God's plaything, God's prey. — Octavia Butler

Whoever fails to turn aside the ills of life by prudent forethought, must submit to fulfill the course of destiny. — Friedrich Schiller

I almost wish I'd had the forethought to eat a tree myself. — Robin McKinley

In perseverance, in self command, in forethought, in all virtues which conduce to success in life, the Scots have never been surpassed. — Thomas B. Macaulay

Chores are easier if forethought is given to them and they are looked upon as little pleasures to perform instead of inconveniences that steal time and try the patience. — Richard Proenneke

I don't write with a scheme or a plan. I write word to word, so whatever that first sentence is, having said that, one more or less had to say what comes next and next and next. Guilty of no cogitation or forethought. — Padgett Powell

And there are those who talk, and without knowledge or forethought reveal a truth which they themselves do not understand. — Kahlil Gibran

Was this a betrayal, or was it an act of courage? Perhaps both. Neither one involves forethought: such things take place in an instant, in an eyeblink. This can only be because they have been rehearsed by us already, over and over, in silence and darkness; in such silence, such darkness, that we are ignorant of them ourselves. Blind but sure-footed, we step forward as if into a remembered dance. — Margaret Atwood

One could guess that there was the delicate forethought of a mother behind this choice of the pavillon for Albert: while not wanting to be separated from her son, she nevertheless realized that a young man of the viscount's age needed all his freedom. On the other hand, it must be said that one could also recognize in this the intelligent egoism of the young man, the son of wealthy parents, who enjoyed the benefits of a free and idle life, which was gilded for him like a birdcage. — Alexandre Dumas

Though the house itself was a fortress, still, Isaac Penn had thought to make sure that anyone who did manage to break in would be kept busy. Thus the vault was not a vault but rather a solid plug of molybdenum steel which extended into the wall for five feet. — Mark Helprin

He was too young to know that, in any novel with a reasonable amount of forethought, there were no coincidences. — John Irving

To be led by a fool is to be led by the opportunists who control the fool. — Octavia Butler

A resignation is a grave act; never performed by a right minded man without forethought or with reserve. — Salmon P. Chase

I realized that with everything I did from that point onward, I would have to ask myself this question: "How would I feel if what I'm doing right now is written up on the front page of the Wall Street Journal or the New York Times or if it is on television? Would I still do it?" That is a very useful exercise for leaders to engage in, because we shouldn't do anything we might be embarrassed by or ashamed of. — John E. Mackey

As a man without forethought scarcely deserves the name of a man, so forethought without reflection is but a metaphorical phrase for the instinct of a beast.
- (1772-1834) — Samuel Taylor Coleridge

And in Kandahar he was taught about survival, about fighting and killing and hunting, and he learned much else without being taught, such as looking out for himself and watching his tongue and not saying the wrong thing, the thing that might get him killed. About the dignity of the lost, about losing, and how it cleansed the soul to accept defeat, and about letting go, avoiding the trap of holding on too tightly to what you wanted, and about abandonment in general, and in particular fatherlesness, the lessness of fathers, the lessness of the fatherless, and the best defenses of those who are less against those who are more: inwardness, forethought, cunning, humility and good peripheral vision. The many lessons of lessness. The lessening from which growing could begin. — Salman Rushdie

I have always had people to propound how essential it is to dream,
but never do they tell what you should do when these dreams, out
of the blue, flux into reality. One thing is pretty clear to me now and
I'll say this
put forethought into what you wish for. What if it is
really granted? — Mansi Soni

The Second Rule is that the greatest harm can result from the best intentions. It sounds a paradox, but kindness and good intentions can be an insidious path to destruction. Sometimes doing what seems right is wrong, and can cause harm. The only counter to it is knowledge, wisdom, forethought, and understanding the First Rule. Even then, that is not always enough. — Terry Goodkind

I do give a great deal of forethought and zone in on character and all sorts of things like that. Never before have I just stuffed something away in the back cupboard of my brain because it was just such a crazy concept. — Greg Kinnear

To have too much forethought is the part of a wretch; to have too little is the part of a fool. — Lord David Cecil

The memory should be specially taxed in youth, since it is then that it is strongest and most tenacious. But in choosing the things that should be committed to memory the utmost are and forethought must be exercised; as lessons well learnt in youth are never forgotten. — Arthur Schopenhauer

When in a Mississippi jungle, you feel as if you're at the mercy of dark desires and ancient impulses. Despite unprecedented levels of pollution, cancerous suburban sprawl, and devastating natural disasters, the animals and insects still thrive in Mississippi. But not as much as the humans, the worst of all in Mississippi's animal kingdom, who reproduce with as little forethought as the cicadas restlessly moaning for mates in the bayou. Mississippi — Ken Ilgunas

The Providence that watches over the affairs of men works out of their mistakes, at times, a healthier issue than could have been accomplished by their wisest forethought. — James Anthony Froude

The point is that by exercising your capacity for forethought and planning, you strengthen your prefrontal cortex and its connection to the ventral striatum. — Anonymous

Another little-known favorite of mine takes some forethought in the early summer. We've all seen ox-eye daisy (Chrysanthemum leucanthemum) in fields and on roadsides; maybe you even grow it in your garden. As long as you can properly identify it, and as long as you can pick some from a safe, pesticide-free area (without secreting it from your neighbor's garden, even if she does grow a ton), snag handfuls of blooms and dry them well before storing them in a clean, dry jar with a tight-fitting lid. When a stuffy nose comes along, make a mug of tea with a heaping teaspoon of dried blooms. In about 30 minutes or less, a stuffed nose will be clear, and it should stay that way effectively for 4 to 6 hours, same as any cold capsule -- without the side effects. This works best with swollen nasal passages or a drippy nose. Drink a cup of the tea up to 4 times a day. — Diane Kidman

Nothing is more imminent than the impossible ... what we must always foresee is the unforeseen. — Victor Hugo

I approach my life with logic. I do not act on impulse or emotion. I very seldom find that I say, 'And then I can't think what came over me, but I did this or that or the other.' I nearly always know how I will act and I nearly always act in that way. I don't catch myself out in embarrassing situations because I've acted without forethought. I calculate what I will do. — Quentin Crisp

I haven't written a novel or something that long, because I really am improvising all along and the story is growing new limbs to do what it needs to do. So there's very little planning. There's a little planning where I say, "Well, it looks like I'm going in this direction, ok, good." But there's very little forethought or intellectual justification: "Oh, look, I'm putting in a theme park because that represents dystopian America!" — George Saunders

Avoid having to pump your brakes by keeping your flow on cruise control. — T.F. Hodge

Biggest dream?" I was proud of this one because I knew it would stump him. It required forethought.
"Kiss you."
"That's not funny," I said, holding his eyes, grateful I didn't stutter.
"No, but it made you blush. — Becca Fitzpatrick