Sargent Shriver Quotes

Perspective gives us the ability to accurately contrast the large with the small, and the important with the less important. Without it we are lost in a world where all ideas, news, and information look the same. We cannot differentiate, we cannot prioritize, and we cannot make good choices.

Knowing what to take out and what to leave in is what separates the men from the boys.

Someday you're going to have to learn to separate what seems to be important from what really is important.

Necessity does everything well.

Besides the noble art of getting things done, there is the noble art of leaving things undone. The wisdom of life consists in the elimination of non-essentials.

The term 'triage' normally means deciding who gets attention first.

The essence of strategy is choosing what not to do.

The best thing about lying in bed late is that you learn to distinguish between first things and trivia, for whatever presses on you has to prove its importance before it makes you move.

You can only bite off so much, so you gotta know what you want to do.

If everything is very important, then nothing is important.

The art of leadership is saying no, not saying yes. It is very easy to say yes.

There is always a multitude of reasons both in favor of doing a thing and against doing it. The art of debate lies in presenting them; the art of life lies in neglecting ninety-nine hundredths of them.

It’s never too expensive to do the things that absolutely have to be done.

Pay attention to matters of importance.

People who lack the skill of discrimination tend to believe that everything is of relatively equal importance.

Budgets are matters of priority and prioritizing. It's a high priority.

Half of the troubles of this life can be traced to saying yes too quickly and not saying no soon enough.

What we say no to is sometimes more important than what we say yes to.

The best we can do is prioritize our needs and make choices accordingly.

Art, like morality, consists in drawing the line somewhere.

Some information is important, and some is not, and intelligence consists in knowing one from the other.

You've got to make sure you're listening to the people that are important to listen to. And then everything else, you kind of have to tune out and do your thing.

I have to prioritize and learn how to sometimes say 'no,' even when there might be a good opportunity. That means turning down a check or a potential relationship, or sometimes letting someone down who you are close with.

Need always plays into your decisions more as the draft unfolds.

The most fundamental constraint is limited time