Strategy Thinking Quotes & Sayings

I can't figure the stock market out. I think it's wacky. I have done well with a long-term strategy and will continue being a long-term investor. — Scott McNealy

I think Senator [Ted] Cruz's strategy is that there's 4.5 million, 5 million Republicans that didn't vote in 2012. This is the conventional wisdom and they didn't vote because they didn't like the nominee, wasn't conservative enough, or there was a religious component. Who knows what? — Rush Limbaugh

There is no grand strategy. My sensibilities push me in a certain direction. Other actors have different sensibilities. That's all. I think it really is that simple. There's no grand strategy. There are so many variables that I have no control over. I sign on to movies I want to watch, as a fan. — Shia Labeouf

Humankind's struggle against a hostile environment causes people throughout the ages to deploy their full armory of logic, training, strategy, imagination, inventiveness, and creativity. We are born with the natural ability to strategize. The most influential tool in humankind's intellectual tool kit is the ability to regenerate a sense of unruffled alertness, to establish a poised stance that leads to intuitive discoveries generated by the conscious and unconscious mind constantly filtering a plethora of data, selecting critical facts, and producing elegant solutions to seemingly insoluble dilemmas. — Kilroy J. Oldster

We need, men so possessed by the Spirit of God that God can think His thoughts through our minds, that He can plan His will through our actions, that He can direct His strategy of world evangelization through His Church. — Alan Redpath

Before you can pick a social-media strategy, you have to think of your customer and what the value proposition is for them. Social media is a way to engage customers, not to give your business a 'shout out.' — Carol Roth

I think we have to notice that the business processes we use right now for thinking and planning and budgeting and strategy are all delivered on very tight agendas. — Margaret J. Wheatley

I feel very strongly that the significance of 9/11 cannot be underestimated. It forces us to think in new ways about strategy, about national security, about how we structure our forces and about how we use U.S. military power. — Dick Cheney

If you didn't know better, you might have thought in 2003 and 2004 that U.S. government strategy was being set by people trying to make enemies rather than friends in the Arab-Islamic world. And if you didn't know better, you might think that the Chinese government's approach to the Olympics is being set by people trying to make the country look bad. — James Fallows

Now, you might say, 'why should we pay people for doing what they're supposed to do?' It's a fair question
but think of it this way. Every other anti-poverty program that's been tried has failed to get the national poverty rate below 11 percent. Why shouldn't we experiment with a program built around the one strategy that has proven time and again to work wonders
capitalism? — Michael Bloomberg

Chess is similar to boxing. You need to develop a strategy, and you need to think two or three steps ahead about what your opponent is doing. You have to be smart. But what's the difference between chess and boxing? In chess, nobody is an expert, but everybody plays. In boxing everybody is an expert, but nobody fights. — Vitali Klitschko

The violent, antirationalistic impulse in Western countries is reacting to an intellectual state of affairs in which all thinking has become strategy; this impulse shows a disgust for a certain form of self-preservation. It is a sensitive shivering from the cold breath of a reality where knowledge is power and power is knowledge — Peter Sloterdijk

We're doing some very exciting, bold things, pioneering content on mobile and for broadband, ... My vision is to say, as we take the strategy forward, we are doing it to deliver public remit. We're thinking less and less about C4 and more about the brand family. — Tim Duncan

The programme of the British Labour Party under Neil Kinnock is so wildly irresponsible, so separate and apart from the historic NATO strategy, that I think a Labour government that stood by its present policies and I rather doubt that they would would, if it didn't destroy the Alliance, at least diminish its effective ability to do the task for which it was created. — Richard Perle

Dream without fear, love without limits, and let your life sing its song. — Dilip Bathija

I'm not sure we have the right strategy in Afghanistan. Let me think this over for a few months. — Barack Obama

I think Barack Obama has the overall right strategy and he's been right to resist bringing in massive numbers of American troops. The Iraqis would love to have Americans die for Iraq and the Syrians would love to have Americans die for Syria. — Adam Schiff

I think that his [Obama's] task will be to develop an overall strategy for America in this period, when really a New World Order can be created. — Henry A. Kissinger

I think we really need a movement to drive how popular culture understands the issues that feminists care about. When I think about the LGBT movement for example, they have had a really intentional strategy to try to change images and representation of LGBT people in the media and the culture. It really moved the dial politically. That's what is needed in the women's movement - a strategy that can drive awareness and culture change. — Ai-jen Poo

I much preferred winning to thinking and I didn't like losing at all. — Aleksandar Hemon

This is the dilemma of science-think and yet again a situation in which scientists simply shouldn't be such scientists. Bring in the professionals, and trust them when they tell you to invest in communication. It may be frustrating and seem like a frivolous waste of resources, but what's the alternative strategy - to assume that people are rational, thinking beings? There's a famous quote by Democratic presidential candidate Adlai Stevenson, who heard a woman shout to him that all the thinking people of America were with him. He replied, "That's not going to be enough, Madam; I need a majority of the public. — Randy Olson

I love the pole vault because it is a professor's sport. One must not only run and jump, but one must think. Which pole to use, which height to jump, which strategy to use. I love it because the results are immediate and the strongest is the winner. Everyone knows it. In everyday life that is difficult to prove. — Sergei Bubka

Always think, 'what's the worst that can happen' and have some kind of strategy to deal with it — Richard Branson

Design thinking can be described as a discipline that uses the designer's sensibility and methods to match people's needs with what is technologically feasible and what a viable business strategy can convert into customer value and market opportunity. — Thomas Lockwood

A contrarian approach is just as foolish as a follow-the-crowd strategy. What's required is thinking rather than polling. — Warren Buffett

I closed my eyes and took more of those deep breaths Dad was so fond of, thinking that it was no wonder Prodigium were always getting their asses handed to them by humans. I mean, every time I had to do an intense spell, there was all this focusing, and relaxing, and picturing, and breathing...It wasn't exactly the most effective battle strategy against something like The Eye.
I should've known better than to think about The Eye,though. As soon as the name popped into my head, my control shattered.
And so did the terra-cotta pot.
Black soil rained down on my feet, and the purple flower drooped even further. I could have sworn it actually bobbed accusingly at me.
"Ugh," I groaned, as Cal quickly scooped the jagged pot out of my hands. "Sorry,but I warned you I was destructo-girl. — Rachel Hawkins

Because you've survived, there is a next strategy. — Janny Wurts

The strategy is about putting a good team together to give you a multifaceted picture zooming into the business culture. — Pearl Zhu

Many thrifts layered a billion dollars of brand-new loans on top of their existing, disastrous hundred million dollars of old loss-making loans, in a hope that the new would offset the old. Each new purchase of mortgage bonds (which was identical to making a loan) was like the last act of a desperate man. The strategy was wildly irresponsible, for the fundamental problem (borrowing short term and lending long term) hadn't been remedied. The hypergrowth only meant that the next thrift crisis would be larger. But the thrift managers were not thinking that far in advance. They were simply trying to keep the door to the shop open. That explains why thrifts continued to buy mortgage bonds even as they sold their loans. — Michael Lewis

Designing a winning strategy is the art of asking questions, experimenting and then constantly renewing the thinking process by questioning the answers. No matter how good today's strategy is, you must always keep reinventing it. — Constantinos C. Markides

I think the special stuff [music] still finds a way to be heard, as long as you pair it with a good release strategy. — G-Eazy

Who cares if it's a campaign strategy, and who are other people to say it's ridiculous? I'm not gay, but I strongly support gay marriage. What if someone told you you couldn't marry the one you love? I think it's about time! Let people who love each other that are the same sex get married. They deserve the right to be happy also. — Barack Obama

I think because I really didn't have a good strategy for my campaign. I didn't plan it the right way ... As a candidate who was already so well known ... I don't think I ever said, 'Yes, you may have known me for eight years, but I don't take anything for granted. I have to earn your support. — Hillary Clinton

Strategy, role-model, systems thinking, trust, relationship management, balance, etc., are all important culture change principles. — Pearl Zhu

I alone must solve my problem. I have to clear my mind of everything else, think hard, analyze, explore my options, plan a strategy for the immediate situation, and then do whatever it takes. Sometimes it means scraping off what I have done and starting over again and again. — Richard Schmid

Our Company was participating in a management seminar in which we were taught a strategy that goes by the unlovely name of 'reverse your buts.' I did not make this up! It works like this:
Maybe you're thinking, 'I love you, but you're driving me crazy.' Instead, try thinking, 'You're driving me crazy, but I love you. Isn't it amazing how different that feels? — Emily Watts

Strategic thinkers were naturally rattled to find this outsider fooling around with their work. They had been thinking strategically when Reagan was just another movie actor playing opposite a chimpanzee, for heaven's sake. They think Reagan is too naive, too innocent, to grasp the intellectual complexities of cold war strategy. — Russell Baker

I still believe that for good business analysts a concentrated portfolio is a good strategy combined with a long term horizon. Once again, the secret to success in following the formula strategy is patience, a quality in short supply for both professionals and individual investors alike. I think investors should have a large portion of their assets in equities over time. — Joel Greenblatt

This is stupid."
"Look. You think how stupid people are most of the time. Old men drink. Women at a village fair. Boys throwing stones at birds. Life. The foolishness and the vanity, the selfishness and the waste. The pettiness, the silliness. You think in war it must be different. Must be better. With death around the corner, men united against hardship, the cunning of the enemy, people must think harder, faster, be ... better. Be heroic.
Only it's just the same. In fact do you know, because of all that pressure, and worry, and fear, it's worse. There aren't many men who think clearest when the stakes are highest. So people are even stupider in war than the rest of the time. Thinking about how they'll dodge the blame, or grab the glory, or save their skins, rather than about what will actually work. There's no job that forgives stupidity more than soldiering. No job that encourages it more. — Joe Abercrombie

I think the lesson's learned are that we have to have to have a strategy to get and a strategy to get out. Which means, that you create a stable situation. — Jeb Bush

Consider just a few of the expressions that fall under the umbrella ARGUMENT IS WAR, collected by the linguist George Lakoff and the philosopher Mark Johnson.
Your claims are indefensible. He attacked every weak point in my argument. His criticisms were right on target. I demolished his argument. I've never won an argument with her. You don't agree? Okay, shoot! If you use that strategy, he'll wipe you out. She shot down all of my arguments.
Or the many variations of LOVE IS A JOURNEY:
Our relationship has hit a dead-end street. It's stalled; we can't keep going the way we've been going. Look how far we've come. It's been a long, bumpy road. We can't turn back now. We're at a crossroads. We may have to go our separate ways. The relationship isn't going anywhere. We're spinning our wheels. Our relationship is off the track. Our marriage is on the rocks. I'm thinking of bailing out. — Steven Pinker

What I think is coming instead are much more organic ways of organizing information than our current categorization schemes allow, based on two units - the link, which can point to anything, and the tag, which is a way of attaching labels to links. The strategy of tagging - free-form labeling, without regard to categorical constraints - seems like a recipe for disaster, but as the Web has shown us, you can extract a surprising amount of value from big messy data sets. — Clay Shirky

Every difficulty requires new strategy to overcome it. — Lailah Gifty Akita

Nature demands variety, for men. It stands to reason, it's a part of the procreational strategy. It's Nature's Plan. Women know that instinctively. Why did they buy so many different clothes, in the old days? To trick the men into thinking they were several different women. A new one each day. — Margaret Atwood

Sometimes I decide not to make something because I am proud and think I am better than that - and then I realise I have to pay the rent and I have to take something which is even worse than all the other stuff they offer you because you were being so proud not to take it! But you adjust and sometimes for one reason or another there is no strategy at the end but there is the ability to do the best that you can with what you have. — Salma Hayek

Why people like to be kicked and punched in the face. The game is famous as box??
What's the inspiring thing??
Do you know that every punch in the head you lose a cell or cells so it's possible in the near future all boxer to be stupid. Why??
Because of the punches!
...
But still I don't see where is the Adrenaline in this sport?? There are random punches or kickes without thinking just dicide it to do it for fun. But in games like chess there is strategy + logic! — Deyth Banger

Concentrating on local foods means thinking of fruit invariably as the product of an orchard, and winter squash as the fruit of an early-winter farm. It's a strategy that will keep grocery money in the neighborhood, where it gets recycled into your own school system and local businesses. The green spaces surrounding your town stay green, and farmers who live nearby get to grow more food next year, for you. — Barbara Kingsolver

Through these experiences, I have realized the true power of this program. All I did was follow my Strategy. I have made tremendous strides in living this "new" life in such a short period of time. My self-esteem has blossomed! I'm more confident; I'm a better communicator; I'm more empathetic and compassionate toward others. I'm able to articulate ideas to people and manage to provide them with inspiration to start thinking about things differently where they may not have done that before. This — Karen Curry Parker

I am able to ride the bike and think clearly about strategy and tyres. I also have positive thinking. I am very constructively critical. — Valentino Rossi

Obstacles, of course, are developmentally necessary: they teach kids strategy, patience, critical thinking, resilience and resourcefulness. — Naomi Wolf

Take time to deliberate, but when the time for action comes, stop thinking and go in. — Napoleon Bonaparte

My book, Oral History: Understanding Qualitative Research is about how researchers use this method and how to write up their oral history projects so that audiences can read them. It's important that researchers have many different tools available to study people's lives and the cultures we live in. I think oral history is a most needed and uniquely important strategy. — Patricia Leavy

Thinking like a designer can transform the way you develop products services, processes and even strategy — Tim Brown

Applying creative thinking to our clients' business strategy-this should be our industry's new core competency. And-in what is very good news for our industry-this kind of creativity, creativity that goes to the heart of business, is more in-demand than ever. — Bob Schmetterer

Trying to guess the enemy's next move is useful; trying to guess what they are thinking is pointless. — Raymond E. Feist

Executives are waking up to realize that they can do a lot better, save money, make better decisions if they optimize and start thinking geographically and have a location strategy. — Jack Dangermond

Consider your goal like a war to win and use whatever strategies you know to win — Bangambiki Habyarimana

The early removal from school of future officers of Britain's seapower, leaving them unacquainted with the subject matter and ideas of the distant and recent past, may account for the incapacity of no military thinking in a world that devoted itself to military action. With little thought of strategy, no study of the theory of war or of planned objective, war's glorious art may have been glorious, but with individual exceptions, it was more or less mindless. — Barbara W. Tuchman

If everyone thinks you're doing the right thing, then everyone would be doing it. Have a controversial strategy. — Scott McNealy

I would also hope that no one would think about trying to amend the constitution as a political strategy, — Mary Cheney

A lot of people think international relations is like a game of chess. But it's not a game of chess, where people sit quietly, thinking out their strategy, taking their time between moves. It's more like a game of billiards, with a bunch of balls clustered together. — Madeleine Albright

If one can call anticipation of enemy reactions based on a lifetime of professional training and on thinking and application "intuition," he had it ... He was a professional soldier, a student of history — William Duggan

Political analysts say that President Bush's re-election strategy is to try and convince Americans that he's a war president. I don't get that, do you think that'll work? I mean, don't you think that if he tries to convince the American people that we need a war president, isn't he afraid that they're going to vote for the guy that was actually in a war? — Jay Leno

I love boxing and it did a lot for me. But sometimes it made me think how savage human beings could be to each other. That wasn't the kind of boxer I wanted to be. My strategy was to be as scientific as I could when I fought. I didn't want to be seriously hurt, and I didn't want to do that to anybody else either. — Muhammad Ali

Obviously what I think Senator [John] Kerry was pointing to, which is absolutely correct, which is the essential part of the strategy or a key component or a leg on the stool, is an Afghan partner that is ready to take control of both the security situation in Afghanistan, and the civilian side of that. — Rahm Emanuel

The documentary style is an incredibly flexible and useful one. It's a wonderful tool for establishing the credibility of the version of things that's in the photograph - a kind of rhetorical device or rhetorical strategy. It's always felt very natural to me, because I want a person to end up thinking about the world, and to think about it in a way that is transformed by the experience of art. — Frank Gohlke

Many well-meaning Americans have bought into the PC speech code, thinking that by being extra careful not to offend anyone we will achieve unity. What they fail to realize is that this is a false unity that prevents us from talking about important issues and is a Far Left strategy to paralyze us while they change our nation. People have been led to become so sensitive that fault can be found in almost anything anyone says because somewhere, somehow, someone will be offended by it. To stop this, Americans need to recognize what is happening, speak up courageously, avoid fearful or angry responses, and ignore the barking and snarling as we put political correctness to bed forever. — Ben Carson

People are looking for certainty. The more complex the world becomes, the more people look for people to give them certainty and tell them what to do. During the past few years of actively thinking about this, there is one thing that I have accepted: certainty is not out there. There is not one strategy to follow, and that's OK. — Noreena Hertz

I think it's overly simplistic to say that any one single strategy is going to really change the focus and change the trajectory of drug use. — Michael Botticelli

As an actor, I never really had a strategy. I just take projects, as they come. It all comes down to the writing, at the end of the day, for me. I don't care if it's a two-line cameo or the lead of the thing, as long as the project has some weight behind the writing and it's interesting and I think people will enjoy it. — Chris Vance

Strategy is about out-thinking your competition. Mark Zuckerberg, while at Harvard, built a website called Facemash 'for fun'. Even today, Facebook believe that 'done is better than perfect'. — Max McKeown

The strategy we've adopted precludes our following standard diversification dogma. Many pundits would therefore say the strategy must be riskier than that employed by more conventional investors. We disagree. We believe that a policy of portfolio concentration may well decrease risk if it raises, as it should, both the intensity with which an investor thinks about a business and the comfort-level he must feel with its economic characteristics before buying into it. — Warren Buffett

What is needed [to combat terrorism], in my view, is resolve, not retreat; courage, not concession. Rather than thinking in terms of an exit strategy, focus on a strategy for success. — Donald Rumsfeld

Hannibal achieved this great victory not with superior numbers but superior strategy and extraordinary tactical execution. And that's his lesson to us: When faced with superior competitors, use your knowledge of their habits and weaknesses to outsmart them. How can you invert commonplace thinking and outmaneuver your competitors when they're falsely feeling confident? — Anonymous

Thinking and planning is one side of life; doing is another. A man cannot be
doing all the time. — Mary Stewart

There is a belief advanced today, and in some cases by conservative black authors, that poor children and particularly black children should not be allowed to hear too much about these matters. If they learn how much less they are getting than rich children, we are told, this knowledge may induce them to regard themselves as "victims," and such "victim-thinking," it is argued, may then undermine their capacity to profit from whatever opportunities may actually exist. But this is a matter of psychology-or strategy-and not reality. The matter, in any case, is academic since most adolescents in the poorest neighborhoods learn very soon that they are getting less than children in the wealthier school districts. They see suburban schools on television and they see them when they travel for athletic competitions. It is a waste of time to worry whether we should tell them something they could tell to us. About injustice, most poor children in American cannot be fooled. — Jonathan Kozol

I don't trust painting. At least not in New York. Most painting here relies on formula and repetition, whoring itself to the market. There seems to be no risk and once a painter gets a strategy, very little exploration. As a result, I stopped thinking about painting. I prefer forms of art that are more market-resistant, more idea-based, more - for lack of a better word - risky. — Kenneth Goldsmith

I think that the climate change policy and strategy that we have developed and that we have rolled out thus far is an example of incredibly high-quality work, incredible collaboration by an exceptionally large number of well-informed people. — Rachel Notley

We need to stop thinking about infrastructure as an economic stimulant and start thinking about it as a strategy. Economic stimulants produce Bridges to Nowhere. Strategic investment in infrastructure produces a foundation for long-term growth. — Roger McNamee

In human relationships, those who do not love are rarely loved: those who will not be friends end up by having none. [p. 15 apud Thinking Strategically; on the "Intransigence strategy"] — David Schoenbrun

Any man who retreats into a cave which has only one opening deserves to die. — Frank Herbert

How much time have you invested in thinking about strategy? How many options have you considered before the plan was written? How have you ensured that the thinking behind the plan is challenged? How much time do you spend exploring trends, possibilities and cool stuff? How much time is spent playing with ideas, hopes and dreams? — Max McKeown

I try and avoid thinking of strategy and I tend to stick to my gun of doing things that I like and try to avoid things that I "should" be doing, and stay true to that. — Rebecca Hall

When the door to suicide opens it becomes a viable option that you never considered before, but, once ajar, it initiates an invasion strategy. Day by day thoughts blacken under the occupation of the new inhabitant. It becomes an all-consuming addiction that makes its home in your head and heart and, before you know it, the whole neighbourhood is talking and thinking about suicide. Eventually, the mind is overwhelmed by the conspiracy of its own darkness and begins to wage war against the body. At this point, the body is powerless. — B.G. Bowers

Teaching people a large number of sword techniques254 is turning the way into a business of selling goods, making beginners believe that there is something profound in their training by impressing them with a variety of techniques. This attitude toward strategy must be avoided, because thinking that there is a variety of ways of cutting a man down is evidence of a disturbed mind. In the world, different ways of cutting a man down do not exist. — Miyamoto Musashi

I think that intelligent forecasting (company revenues, earnings, etc.) should not seek to predict what will in fact happen in the future. Its purpose ought to be to illuminate the road, to point out obstacles and potential pitfalls and so assist management to tailor events and to bend them in a desired direction. Forecasting should be used as a device to put both problems and opportunities into perspective. It is a management tool, but it can never be a substitute for strategy, nor should it ever be used as the primary basis for portfolio investment decisions. — Peter Cundill

Thinking about your role will automatically get you in the frame of mind to get your strategy and game plan right before you step onto that field. — Harbhajan Singh

You want to know the biggest illusion about success? That it's like a pinnacle to be climbed, a thing to be possessed, or a static result to be achieved. If you want to succeed, if you want to achieve all your outcomes, you have to think of success as a process, a way of life, a habit of mind, a strategy for life. — Tony Robbins

Give serious thought to why your company should care about your strategy. Specifically, find problems that the board wants to be solved. What are senior managers scared of? Part of becoming a credible strategic thinker is learning effective approaches to selling ideas for your situation. You'll know that you're getting better at selling (or pitching) strategy when managers start coming to you when there is strategic thinking to be done. — Max McKeown