Smart Decisions Quotes & Sayings

So key for making smart decisions is a mindset that actively monitors and is open to shifting tides and new information, one that is acutely aware that the interplay between our environment and its outcomes is ever in flux. — Noreena Hertz

The U.S. Congress can do a lot to support America's workplaces and the family. By working together in a bipartisan fashion, we can ensure our constituents get jobs they need while helping employers make smart decisions about their workforce. — Charles B. Rangel

Safe! All I wanted to do was keep them safe. How do you protect your brothers at eight-fucking-teen? How do you make enough money, get enough respect to do that? I wasn't smart, Eve. I'm a big, dumb fucking bastard. I couldn't even get a job as a bagger at the A&P. I wanted to make their lives worth living. That's what they'd done for me - made my life worth living. They're my family. I can't ... I just can't." Beckett pounded his chest.
"They would've been better off without me," he continued. "Blake would still be homeless, but Cole made his own damn way. But I wanted in. I wanted to belong. I was too fucking selfish to walk away. I should have walked away. But I didn't and now - " Beckett choked on a deep, angry sob. "Now, they're paying for it. All my stupid decisions. They'll die tonight. They'll both die, and I can't stop it. I can't plug it with money. I can't bring them back from the dead, even if I act tough or kill more people. — Debra Anastasia

Positioning the brand and regaining trust are all smart things for us to do and those are the litmus tests for any decisions we make. — John McKinley

Young women are not putting themselves in danger. The people around them are doing the real damage. Who? you might wonder. The abstinence teacher who tells her students that they'll go to jail if they have premarital sex. The well-founded organization that tells girls on college campuses that they should be looking for a husband, not taking women's studies classes. The judge who rules against a rape survivor because she didn't meet whatever standard for a victim he had in mind. The legislator who pushes a bill to limit young women's access to abortion because he doesn't think they're smart enough to make their own decisions. These are the people who are making the world a worse place, and a more dangerous one, at that, for girls and young women. We're just doing our best to live in it. — Jessica Valenti

I'm a smart girl. There are decisions that I make for reasons, and the most important thing is that my son is happy and he always will be. He's surrounded by love. — Christina Aguilera

Despite the insanity of using whether you would want to have a beer with someone as a legitimate reason for voting for or against them, I always felt that is indicative of a massive problem in politics: It matters as much what your personality is as how smart you are or how good you are at your job. That is a huge, huge problem. A lot of people who are very smart or very good at their jobs are not people I would want to ever have a beer with - but I would want them making massive policy decisions with huge implications for the future of the planet. — Michael Schur

Jacob didn't say "Seize the day," he said "Seize what's been handed you." Make smart decisions. Make decisions because - he said it again - life is a temporary situation. — James Patterson

You know what works in venture capital? A group of incredibly smart, connected people who have the financial wherewithal and risk appetite to make multi-million dollar bets on unproven ideas and inexperienced founders. People who can make decisions quickly, and who spend their time trying to help entrepreneurs make the most of that cash. — Sarah Lacy

Charlie and I decided long ago that in an investment lifetime, it's too hard to make hundreds of smart decisions. That judgment became ever more compelling as Berkshire's capital mushroomed and the universe of investments that could significantly affect our results shrank dramatically. Therefore, we adopted a strategy that required our being smart and not too smart at that, only a very few times. Indeed, we now settle for one good idea a year. — Warren Buffett

The fact that cognitive diversity matters does not mean that if you assemble a group of diverse but thoroughly uninformed people, their collective wisdom will be smarter than an expert's. But if you can assemble a diverse group of people who possess varying degrees of knowledge and insight, you're better off entrusting it with major decisions rather than leaving them in the hands of one or two people, no matter how smart those people are. — James Surowiecki

When you get to that level, it's not a matter of talent anymore - because all the players are so talented - it's about preparation, about playing smart and making good decisions. — Hakeem Olajuwon

High-tech employers recognize that we will only be as successful as the employees that we attract. When it comes to transportation, environmental, housing and land use decisions, we don't view investments as tax and spend, but rather as invest and prosper. — Carl Guardino

The poor also are willing to make, and do make, smart decisions, if you give them that opportunity. — Jacqueline Novogratz

In areas where they are simply incompetent, smart executives don't make decisions or take actions. They delegate. — Peter Drucker

There are only stupid decisions waiting for me here. But I've never cared all that much for being smart. — Cora Carmack

To all of you reading this who are on the fence about therapy because of the cost: It's smart money, spend it. That one hundred bucks an hour pays off down the road when you learn through therapy how to get out of your own way, stop self-sabotaging and thus make good decisions about relationships and career. Think of it as an investment in yourself. Simply going to therapy helps. Just carving out an hour for yourself, and deciding that you and your life are worth spending some time and money on makes a difference. That simple act alone boosts your self-esteem. Don't think of going to therapy as "I'm a broken pile of crap and need someone to fix me," think of it as "I'm going to change myself for the better instead of crying, masturbating and blaming my parents for the rest of my life. — Adam Carolla

I've never been good at making smart career decisions or doing the right strategic thing, and yet somehow it's all led me to exactly the kind of career that I would have dreamed of having - if only I'd been smart enough to dream something like that. — Michael Cerveris

Highly intelligent and well-informed people disagree on every political issue. Therefore, intelligence and knowledge are useless for making decisions, because if any of that stuff helped, then all the smart people would have the same opinions. So use your "gut instinct" to make voting choices. That is exactly like being clueless, but with the added advantage that you'll feel as if your random vote preserved democracy. — Scott Adams

I spent a lot of time, a lot of energy trying to be a better artist and I still [do]. I spend a lot of time focusing on my craft. If you're going to take your passion into something beyond just something for fun on the side, you got to spend a lot of time on it to be great, and then you've got to make smart decisions about who you collaborate with [and] where you live [to] put yourself in the right situations to meet the right people to catch those breaks. — John Legend

Instead of the primitive raw material economy, we will create a smart economy generating unique knowledge, new useful things and technologies. Instead of the archaic society, in which the leaders think and make decisions for everyone, we will become a country of intelligent, free and responsible people — Dmitry Medvedev

I won't ever put myself in a bad position so that people can say bad things about me. I make smart decisions, and my friends and my family, they are all there for the right reason. — Derrick Rose

Eisenhower's military life taught him that talent was a necessary but not sufficient condition for success. The only way to guarantee smart decisions, Ike believed, was to bring all the responsible parties together and have them fight it out. "I do not believe in bringing them one at a time and therefore being more impressed by the most recent one you hear," he later said. "You must get courageous men, men of strong views and let them debate and argue with each other". — Nancy Gibbs; Michael Duffy

What are the odds that people will make smart decisions about money if they don't need to make smart decisions
if they can get rich making dumb decisions? The incentives on Wall Street were all wrong; they're still all wrong. — Michael Lewis

With or without God, good decisions can be made; But only with God will great decisions be made. — Damon Thueson

Happy Thursday! Greet your problems and decisions with peace and calm. Use your inner wisdom to evaluate and make smart decisions for yourself! You got this ! — Tracey Edmonds

Was the influence all this money exerted, not just on the political process but on people's decisions about what to do with their lives. The more money to be made gaming the financial markets, the more people would decide they were put on earth to game the financial markets
and create romantic narratives to explain to themselves why a life spent gaming the financial markets is a purposeful life. And then there is maybe the greatest cost of all: Once very smart people are paid huge sums of money to exploit the flaws in the financial system, they have the spectacularly destructive incentive to screw the system up further, or to remain silent as they watch it being screwed up by others. p.266 — Michael Lewis

Friends are people that are willing to tell me when I'm making stupid decisions as well as encourage me onward when I'm making smart ones. — Tim Grahl

The dumb-manager theory of business problems just didn't hold water for me. There had to be a deeper reason why smart people would make decisions that lead to failure. — Clayton M Christensen

I also had to come tonight to apologize. If you need to go to Mexico to finish this process off, then I understand. I was wrong to criticize you for it or even imply that I had some kind of say in it. One of the greatest things about you is that in the end, you always make smart decisions. Can't always say the same for myself. Whatever you need to do, I'll support you. — Richelle Mead

I like to think that we're not defined by what happens to us ... because so many times they're beyond our control. I like to think that we're defined by our choices and our decisions. — Elizabeth Smart

professional skills, but not on financial skills. This explains how smart bankers, doctors, and accountants who earned excellent grades may struggle financially all of their lives. Our staggering national debt is due in large part to highly educated politicians and government officials making financial decisions with little or no training in the subject of money. Today — Robert T. Kiyosaki

You can be obsessed with makeup and hair products and, you know, your appearance and still be absolutely making smart life decisions and work on your smarts, develop your smarts by studying something like math. Then you'll make much better decisions on the brands of clothing that you buy or whatever it is that you want. — Danica McKellar

The sweet spot for smart decisions, then, comes not just from being a domain expert, but also from having high self-awareness. — Daniel Goleman

Start making smart decisions now to avoid paying for stupid ones later. — Sophia Amoruso

For decades we have been living lives of abundance, with little regard for our natural resources or global health. But we are now facing hard choices in our energy policy. Future generations - my children and grandchildren, along with yours - will have to live with the decisions we make today. And so it is time for us to make some tough and - hopefully - smart choices regarding our energy use and production before it is too late. — John McCain

Nasty Gal Obsessed: We keep the customer at the center of everything we do. Without customers, we have nothing. Own It: Take the ball and run with it. We make smart decisions, put the business first, and do more with less. People Are Important: Reach out, make friends, build trust. No Assholes: We leave our egos at the door. We are respectful, collaborative, curious, and open-minded. Learn On: What we're building has never been built before - the future is ours to write. We get excited about growth, take intelligent risks, and learn from our mistakes. Have Fun and Keep It Weird. — Sophia Amoruso

A guy from Bear Stearns had visited our class, thin and bald with a gold watch. He told us that if we were interested in getting into finance, we had better work hard and smart because a lot of machines were able to make investment decisions now, and in the future, computer programs would run everything. — Ned Vizzini

I just need to be in a position where I can control the ball, make smart decisions, and do what I'm coached up to do. — Carson Palmer

We are the greatest computers in this world, but now we've created the smart phone which is smarter than us now, but we're still making dumb decisions. We have given our creations more power than we have, and that to me is dumb. — Bootsy Collins

I think growing an economy is a good way to help with a deficit, but ultimately, it's about fiscal discipline and responsible spending - and smart decisions. — Justin Trudeau

As investors, we want to believe we are smart, insightful and uniquely talented - even though we often fail to do the heavy lifting, put in the long hours, and make the uncomfortable but necessary decisions to achieve success. — Barry Ritholtz

But figuring out Saddam Hussein was one our greatest mysteries. He marched to his own drummer and frequently as this unfolded he made decisions which were sometimes inexplicable to us and sometimes didn't look very smart. — Brent Scowcroft

Research shows that most of the decisions are made within the first four minutes, far too soon for personality and intelligence to be properly assessed. Among the characteristics that emerge as favorable are self-assurance, eye contact, enthusiasm, cologne, a firm handshake and spectacles. Humour may be beneficial but not if it comes across as smart-arse, competitive or hostile. — Glen Wilson

That man who is without religion and mercy should be rejected. A guru without spiritual knowledge should be rejected. The wife with an offensive face should be given up and so should relatives who are without affection. — Chanakya

becoming an ageless goddess means letting go of the fear that you aren't smart enough, educated enough, or intuitive enough to make the right decisions for yourself. — Christiane Northrup

One of our jobs is to keep women working, which we do by keeping women coming to the movies. And doing that means making good, smart, often funny movies that women can identify with-with terrific dialogue we all remember and cherish, and stories that illuminate our lives and decisions and turning points. — Lynda Obst

Cloud-based, blockchain-based autonomous business entities running via smart contract could then electronically contract with compliance entities like governments to self-register in any jurisdictions in which they wanted to operate. Every business could be a general universal business first, and a jurisdictional business later when better decisions can be made about jurisdictions. The same could be true for individuals as general humans first, and citizens on demand later. — Melanie Swan

Groups are only smart when there is a balance between the information that everyone in the group shares and the information that each of the members of the group holds privately. It's the combination of all those pieces of independent information, some of them right, some of the wrong, that keeps the group wise. — James Surowiecki

Atticus Finch is the most beautiful man I've ever met in print. He's a good dad and he does what's right, not what's safe, not what's popular. What's right. He's gentle. He's smart. He's strong. He's decisive and he's willing to follow through with his decisions, no matter what the odds. Even — Kristen Ashley

When there aren't any smart decisions, I suppose you just have to pick the stupid decision you like best. — Orson Scott Card

Just really, really believe in what you're trying to do. Don't let people alter that. Let people advise you and lead you down paths to make smart business decisions. But trust your instinct and trust that overwhelming drive that made you put all your dreams and everything on the line. — Luke Bryan

I had wanted to escape my traveling childhood, yet I was traveling and making the discovery that ordinary people are smart, smart people are ordinary, decisions are best made by the people affected by them, and human beings have an almost infinite capacity for adapting to the expectations around us - which is both the good and the bad news — Gloria Steinem

I feel like I've been very smart in the way that I carry myself and treat myself. I feel like my mom was a big part of that just because she's always let us make our own decisions, and we've known very much about the mistakes and the dangers already of whatever this Hollywood life may be. — Evan Ross

The fixed- and growth-mindset groups started with the same ability, but as time went on the growth-mindset groups clearly outperformed the fixed-mindset ones. And this difference became ever larger the longer the groups worked. Once again, those with the growth mindset profited from their mistakes and feedback far more than the fixed-mindset people. But what was even more interesting was how the groups functioned. The members of the growth-mindset groups were much more likely to state their honest opinions and openly express their disagreements as they communicated about their management decisions. Everyone was part of the learning process. For the fixed-mindset groups - with their concern about who was smart or dumb or their anxiety about disapproval for their ideas - that open, productive discussion did not happen. Instead, it was more like groupthink. — Carol S. Dweck

There is no plan ... You need to make smart choices, But you can make career decisions for two different types of reasons.
You can do something for instrumental reasons
because you think it's going to lead to something else, regardless of whether you enjoy it or it's worthwhile ... or you can do something for fundamental reasons
because you think it's inherently valuable, regardless of what it may or may not lead to.
The dirty little secret is that insturmental reasons usually don't work. Things are too complicated, too unpredictable. You never know what' going to happen. So you end up stuck. The most successful people
not all of the time, but most of the time
make decisions for fundamental reasons.
They take a job or join a company because it will let them do interesting work in a cool place
even if they don't know exactly where it will lead. They're not fools. They're enlightened pragmatists. — Daniel H. Pink

To be efficient with the football in practice and on the game field obviously is the most important thing, but be efficient with the football, make smart decisions, be great on third downs, be great in the red zone, when the game's on the line in the fourth quarter - that's what I love. — Russell Wilson

Seize what's been handed you. Make smart decisions. Make decisions because life is a temporary situation. — James Patterson

Making one brilliant decision and a whole bunch of mediocre ones isn't as good as making a whole bunch of generally smart decisions throughout the whole process. — John Carmack