Not According To Plan Quotes & Sayings

When a schedule is not met, those inclined to pass out blame are quick to point at the lowest-level workers; they reason that performance is the domain entirely of those who perform the work. They ask plaintively, "Why can't these guys ever meet their schedules?" The answer that the schedule might have been wrong in the first place only befuddles them. It's as though they believe there is no such thing as a bad schedule, only bad performances that resulted in missing the scheduled date. There is such a thing as a bad schedule. A bad schedule is one that sets a date that is subsequently missed. That's it. That's the beginning and the end of how a schedule should be judged. If the date is missed, the schedule was wrong. It doesn't matter why the date was missed. The purpose of the schedule was planning, not goal-setting. Work that is not performed according to a plan invalidates the plan. The missed schedule indicts the planners, not the workers. — Tom DeMarco

But spontaneity is not by any means a blind, disorderly urge, a mere power of caprice. A philosophy restricted to the alternatives of conventional language has no way of conceiving an intelligence which does not work according to plan, according to a one-at-a-time order of thought. Yet the concrete evidence of such an intelligence is right to hand in our own thoughtlessly ordered bodies. For the Tao does not 'know' how it produces the universe just as we do not 'know' how we construct our brains. — Alan W. Watts

We must acquire the faith to accept the fact that all knowledge is from God and known to God. Knowledge is released to man on earth according to God's plan for him. Free or liberal thinking does not change truth, the revealed knowledge which comes from God. — Delbert L. Stapley

I know you, you believe that God tests people and you have to have faith that things are going according to His plan.."
"God is not in my bedroom." That was just nine kinds of wrong. — James Buchanan

The states have authority to interpret the Constitution, enforce it, and protect the people from violations of it by the federal government In the first place, there is not a syllable in the plan under consideration which directly empowers the national courts to construe the laws according to the spirit of the Constitution, or which gives them any greater latitude in this respect than may be claimed by the courts of every State. — Alexander Hamilton

But he was an only child and an only son, and for a mother in such a position it is not always easy to accept that another woman will eventually enter her son's life and, if all goes according to plan - the plan being that of the other woman - take him away. This common conflict, so understandable and so poignant, is played out time and time again, and almost always with the same painful result: Mother loses. It is so, of course, if Mother is overt in her attempt to put off the almost inevitable; if she is covert, then she stands a chance, admittedly a remote one, of introducing into her son's mind a germ of doubt that the woman he has chosen might not be the right one for him. That takes skill, and boundless patience, but it is a course fraught with dangers for the relationship between mother and future daughter-in-law, let alone for that between mother and son. — Alexander McCall Smith

But I don't want to go back. Not yet.
Just because.
Because every once in a while, somebody brings me my lunch tray and my meds and he has a black eye or his forehead is swollen with stitches, and he says:
"We miss you Mr. Durden."
Or somebody with a broken nose pushes a mop past me and whispers:
"Everything's going according to the plan.
Whispers
"We're going to break up civilization so we can make something better out of the world."
Whispers
"We look forward to getting you back. — Chuck Palahniuk

Not everything in life can go perfectly according to plan. I mean I didn't keep every girlfriend I ever had. — Steve Wozniak

Whispering voice inside my head growing louder, my voice - not those of my parents or teachers or Carly or Muriel, even - telling me to live my life without fear or worry or doubt that nothing was going according to plan, as though such a plan ever existed in the first place. — Rachel Friedman

Most of the pain we experience, whether we realize it or not, comes from the fantasies we live in.
We create our own worlds, where there are certain rules, things to be done and said and events to happen. And every time that doesn't go according to the plan (which, basically, means anything because we have no control over what might happen and can't predict it), we panic. — Lidiya K.

According to Paul, contentment is precisely what you and I are to study (Philippians 4:11). "Learn to be content," he tells us, understanding that if we're not content where we are today, we'll not be content wherever we plan on going tomorrow. — Jon Courson

Sometimes the best plan is to simply expect that things might not go according to plan. — Tanya Masse

Our attitude toward abortion ... is fixed by our knowledge that according to an eternal plan all of the spirit children of God must come to this earth for a glorious purpose, and that individual identity began long before conception and will continue for all the eternities to come. We rely on the prophets of God who have told us that while there may be 'rare' exceptions, 'the practice of elective abortion is fundamentally contrary to the Lord's injunction, 'Thou shalt not ... kill, nor do anything like unto it' — Dallin H. Oaks

There's a small moment in this chapter when Bella wants to practice fighting techniques with Emmett, but Edward won't let her.
Emmett is here? Hi Emmett! Hey Emmett, according to Google Maps, you live 2,931 miles away from me. If I don't make any stops for food or fuel, and sit on a pile of absorbent kitty litter, I can make the trip in 48 hours. So I can be there by Sunday or Monday. Oh ... hey, did you know Monday is Valentine's Day? That's super weird, right? Didn't plan that at all. I swear. OK, see you then!
Anyway, Bella wants to practice with Emmett but Edward says no. Huh? Not only does Edward refuse to teach his wife basic self-defense, but she can't even learn some tips from The Pain Maker? Why? I dare you to explain this. I double wolf dare you. — Dan Bergstein

She thought that trying to live life according to any plan you actually work out is like trying to buy ingredients for a recipe from the supermarket. You get one of those trolleys which simply will not go in the direction you push it and end up just having to buy completely different stuff. What do you do with it? What do you do with the recipe? She didn't know. — Douglas Adams

The basic conviction of a Christian is that God intends good for us and that he will get his way in us. He does not treat us according to our deserts, but according to his plan. He is not a police officer on patrol, watching over the universe, ready to club us if we get out of hand or put us in jail if we get obstreperous. He is a potter working with the clay of our lives, forming and reforming until, finally, he has shaped a redeemed life, a vessel fit for a kingdom. A LONG OBEDIENCE — Eugene H. Peterson

Holding on will not make something come back. In my experience, it actually pushes it farther away. You cannot go back and undo what's done, my friends. You can only move forward. And if your deepest compulsions and instincts tell you that you're meant to be with that person or doing that thing, you should let go and move forth and see how life takes you there. Clearly, things aren't going according to your desired plan already, so why not throw caution to the wind and see where you end up. — Brianna Wiest

Resignation to misfortune is the only attitude, but not an easy one to adopt. It seems undeserved where plans were well laid and so nearly crowned with a first success. I cannot see that any plan would be altered if it were to do again, the margin for bad weather was ample according to all experience and this stormy December - our finest month - is a thing that the most cautious organiser might not have been prepared to encounter. It is very evil to lie here in a wet sleeping-bag and think of the pity of it all. — Robert Falcon Scott

If we further consider this divine panoramic view within which all evil is supposedly a "secret good" is held by a God who, according to Scripture, has a passionate hatred toward all evil, the "solution" becomes more problematic still. For it is certainly not clear how God could hate what he himself wills and sees as a contributing ingredient in the good of the whole. If all things play themselves out according to a divine plan, how can God genuinely hate anything? — Gregory A. Boyd

God sees and understands what we do not see and understand. He asks us to put aside our natural tendencies to want to figure out what should happen in our lives and when it should happen. He also desires us to stop being frustrated because things do not go according to our plan, and instead to relax, enjoy the ride, and trust He is working everything out according to His timing and the wisdom of His plan. — Joyce Meyer

Maybe you believe that we fall into our future blindly, drifting from adventure to adventure, our journey zigzagging not according to plan but according to pure chance. Or just maybe, as random and haphazard as our lives seems
maybe that's exactly what the author had in mind. — Jodi Picoult

Error is intimately bound up with the notion of intention. The term 'error' can only be meaningfully applied to planned actions that fail to achieve their desired consequences without the intervention of some chance or unforeseeable agency. Two basic error types were identified: slips (and lapses), where the actions do not go according to plan, and mistakes, where the plan itself is inadequate to achieve its objectives. — James Reason

The antidote to a meaningless and lawless existence was provided by humanism, a revolutionary new creed that conquered the world during the last few centuries. The humanist religion worships humanity, and expects humanity to play the part that God played in Christianity and Islam, and that the laws of nature played in Buddhism and Daoism. Whereas traditionally the great cosmic plan gave meaning to the life of humans, humanism reverses the roles and expects the experiences of humans to give meaning to the cosmos. According to humanism, humans must draw from within their inner experiences not only the meaning of their own lives, but also the meaning of the entire universe. This is the primary commandment humanism has given us: create meaning for a meaningless world. Accordingly, — Yuval Noah Harari

There's a problem when we're creating a job you can't do if you have kids," Dennis Van Roekel, former president of the National Education Association, told me. "There are a lot of us who spend too much time working. But ultimately, you need time for family, time for community, time for church." According to a union executive who has negotiated charter school contracts across the country, at many schools teachers are expected to eat lunch with their students, and have no prep period to plan lessons. At others, when a teacher calls in sick, the school will not hire a substitute, but will instead require other teachers to fill in during their prep periods. At one Chicago charter school, teachers complained that they had so little free time during the day that they could not visit the bathroom. — Dana Goldstein

Les femmes et les hommes ne vivent pas sur le me me plan. Women and men do not live according to the same design. — Boris Vian

And according to Duncan and the Business Roundtable handlers, we need to pay children for test scores, which ends up as great vehicle for fighting crime and ending poverty: not only will children be lured to school by testing rewards rather than selling dope on the corner, but they will be able to help pay the utility bills in the crumbling apartment where their parents have no jobs. So you see this is an anti-poverty plan! — Jim Horn

Petrie found nothing that disproved the pyramidologist's assumption that the Great Pyramid had been built according to a master plan. Indeed, he describes the Pyramid's architecture as being filled with extraordinary mathematical harmonies and concordances: those same strange symmetries that had so haunted the pyramidologist.

Petrie not only noted, for example, that the proportions of the reconstructed pyramid approximated to pi - which others have since elaborated to include those twin delights of Renaissance and pyramidological mathematicians, the Golden Section and the Fibonacci Series ... — John Romer

The benefits of a philosophy of neo-religious pessimism are nowhere more apparent than in relation to marriage, one of modern society's most grief-stricken arrangements, which has been rendered unnecessarily hellish by the astonishing secular supposition that it should be entered into principally for the sake of happiness. Christianity and Judaism present marriage not as a union inspired and governed by subjective enthusiasm but rather, and more modestly, as a mechanism by which individuals can assume an adult position in society and thence, with the help of a close friend, undertake to nurture and educate the next generation under divine guidance. These limited expectations tend to forestall the suspicion, so familiar to secular partners, that there might have been more intense, angelic or less fraught alternatives available elsewhere. Within the religious ideal, friction, disputes and boredom are signs not of error, but of life proceeding according to plan. — Alain De Botton

Here are some things we can expect of the New Tribal revolution, based on the experience of the Industrial Revolution.[ ... ] Three: It will be led by no one. Like the industrial revolution, it will need no shepherd, no organizer, no spearhead, no pacesetter, no mastermind at the top; it will be too much for anyone to lead.
Four: It will not be the initiative of any political, governmental, or religious body.
Five: It has no targeted end point. Whe should it have an end point?
Six: It will proceed according to no plan. How on earth could there be a plan? — Daniel Quinn

The world we imagine seems as real as the ones we've experienced. We suffuse the model with the emotional values of past realities. And in the thrall of that vision (call it "the plan," writ large), we go forth and take action. If things don't go according to the plan, revising such a robust model may be difficult. In an environment that has high objective hazards, the longer it takes to dislodge the imagined world in favor of the real one, the greater the risk. In nature, adaptation is important; the plan is not. It's a Zen thing. We must plan. But we must be able to let go of the plan, too. — Laurence Gonzales

Fortunately he had nothing resembling a plan, so he didn't have to worry about things not working out according to it. He simply let them happen, unable to make up his mind whether he was losing his judgement or finally developing some perspective. — L.J. Davis

The State should have made sure the money given to the NGOs was used according to a global plan for Haiti; not doing whatever they want. They should be supervised and have to report and make sure the money is being used properly. They are here, but we are seeing no results. — Michel Martelly

The Christ speaks: Wherever you are, whatever you do, you will be restless until you turn to God. Does it upset you when a day doesn't go according to your plan? Is there anyone who has everything for which one could wish? No, not one. Kings and popes are not exempt. Disappointment affects everyone. Doldrums corner even the most devout unless they are among the few who are able to endure hardship willingly without complaining. — Thomas A Kempis

Jonah-John-if I had been a Sam, I would have been a Jonah still-not because I have been unlucky for others, but because somebody or something has compelled me to be certain places, at certain times, without fail. Conveyances and motives, both conventional and bizarre, have been provided. And, according to plan, at each appointed second, at each appointed place this Jonah was there. — Kurt Vonnegut

Everything was going according to plan. What caught me off guard, however, was the fact that this eagerly awaited phase brought a sense of loss to me that triggered a whole new wave of soul searching I had not anticipated. — Carolyn Custis James

The problem with the religious solution [for mysteries such as consciousness and moral judgments] was stated by Mencken when he wrote, "Theology is the effort to explain the unknowable in terms of the not worth knowing." For anyone with a persistent intellectual curiosity, religious explanations are not worth knowing because they pile equally baffling enigmas on top of the original ones. What gave God a mind, free will, knowledge, certainty about right and wrong? How does he infuse them into a universe that seems to run just fine according to physical laws? How does he get ghostly souls to interact with hard matter? And most perplexing of all, if the world unfolds according to a wise and merciful plan, why does it contain so much suffering? As the Yiddish expression says, If God lived on earth, people would break his window. — Steven Pinker

It is quite possible that, even if you set the most relevant, realistic goals, you may not achieve them in the way or the time you wanted to. Life may throw something unexpected in your path, which stops you from achieving what you want, when you want. This is not failure. Feeling like you have failed is bound to lead to low mood, and can often come about if things haven't quite gone according to plan. However, the best thing to do is to draw a mental line under the experience, learn from what has happened and try again. As long as you are still trying, you are working towards your long-term aims; and as long as you are doing that, you are never truly failing. — Anna Barnes

I can only say God is faithful because what's happening in my life right now was said in the year 2011 in LA and that I was so discouraged, things were not happening according to my plan. God the promise keeper gave me a promise that day and I see that promise manifesting daily. Thank you Jesus your promises are 'Yes and Amen'. — Euginia Herlihy

Don't cluster too much plans to do within a relatively minimum time. As beginner, you must not cut your coat according to your elder brother's size. Know your limit. — Israelmore Ayivor

According to CNN, Donald Rumsfeld said the war in Iraq did not go according to plan. And President Bush said, 'What? We had a plan?' — Jay Leno

When you face unexpected events, you have to try to overcome those problems, but at the same time, you have to continue working according to the plan that you defined since the beginning. So that's what we have tried to do - not to avoid the urgent responses but to continue the route that we had defined. — Laura Chinchilla

I'm afraid I'm not working out according to plan," he said. "But if I am really a person you shouldn't expect me to. Why did you make me without making a world for me to live in. It's as though God had made Adam and not bothered to make Eden, nor Eve. I think it's going to be frightfully difficult being me. — Olaf Stapledon

You can plan events, but if they go according to your plan they are not events. — John Berger

Not everything can go according to the plan. — Henning Mankell

[T]here is not a syllable in the plan under consideration which directly empowers the national courts to construe the laws according to the spirit of the Constitution. — Alexander Hamilton

May the days be aimless. Let the seasons drift. Do not advance the action according to a plan. — Don DeLillo

He so tempers the outcome of events according to his incomprehensible plan that the prayers of the saints, which are a mixture of faith and error, are not nullified."185 — Timothy J. Keller

May the days be aimless. Do not advance action according to a plan. — Don DeLillo

When we did not know God, we did not live according to His plan; we planned our lives independently and we had lives full of ups and downs — Sunday Adelaja

But influential business leaders were eager proponents of numbers-driven merit pay for teachers. Ross Perot, for example, pushed Dallas to implement a plan to use test scores alone to evaluate teachers and distribute pay increases. So it was ironic that private industry had, by the 1980s, mostly turned away from efforts to pay white-collar workers according to strict productivity measures, finding that such formal evaluation programs were too expensive and time-consuming to create and implement. Research showed that companies with merit pay schemes did not perform better financially than did organizations without it, nor were their employees happier. Instead, management gurus recommended that workers be judged primarily by the holistic standards of individual supervisors. — Dana Goldstein

I found happiness when I realized that as imperfect as I may be, I am the perfect Nick Vujicic. I am God's creation, designed according to His plan for me. That's not to say there isn't room for improvement. I'm always trying to be better so I can better serve Him and the world! — Nick Vujicic