Jonathan Stroud Quotes

What I learned from architectural drafting is that everything has to have a plan to work. You just can't wing it. I can't get all the materials I need for a house and just start building. Whether it's a career, family, life - you have to plan it out.

The unknown is the governing condition of war.

He who fails to plan, plans to fail.

Plan. Yes. Good idea. I should come up with a plan.

If I always appear prepared, it is because before entering an undertaking, I have meditated long and have foreseen what might occur. It is not genius which reveals to me suddenly and secretly what I should do in circumstances unexpected by others; it is thought and preparation

The world's best swordsman doesn't fear the second best; he fears the worst swordsman, because he can't predict what the idiot will do.

I have meant what I have done. Or I have often meant what I have done. Or I have sometimes meant what I have done. Or I have tried to mean what I was doing.

I have got to figure out a system because I have bad filing, sorting, and organizing habits.

In any organization there ought to be the possibility of discussion... fence sitting is an art, and it's difficult, and it's important to do, rather than to go headlong in one direction or the other. It's just better to have action, isn't it than to sit on the fence? Not if you're not sure which way to go, it isn't.

Doubt is what allows a single gesture to have a heart.

I may say that this is the greatest factor: the way in which the expedition is equipped, the way in which every difficulty is foreseen, and precautions taken for meeting or avoiding it. Victory awaits him who has everything in order, luck, people call it. Defeat is certain for him who has neglected to take the necessary precautions in time, this is called bad luck.

Plan your work - work your plan. Lack of system produces that 'I'm swamped' feeling.

Method is the arithmetic of success.

There's some mysterious process at work here, which I don't even want to understand.

if the way ahead is not clear, time is often the best editor of one's intentions.

I'd rather work with a grassroots organization than in politics. I'm not sure I'd be the best politician because I don't think I'm good about tactfully tiptoeing around questions in the right way.

It's always good to keep people guessing.

One of the painful things about our time is that those who feel certainty are stupid, and those with any imagination and understanding are filled with doubt and indecision.

As I thought about that, I had to wonder: What will we know better about tomorrow? Who cares? Hindsight is useless.

Human life very much resembles a game of chess: for, as in the latter, while a gamester is too attentive to secure himself very strongly on one side of the board, he is apt to leave an unguarded opening on the other, so doth it often happen in life.

Methods and means cannot be separated from the ultimate aim.

We deliberate not about ends, but about means.

Well, if you're waitin' for a woman to make up her mind, you may have a a long wait.

By playing at Chess then, we may learn... First: Foresight. Second: Circumspection. Third: Caution.

I don't know what it is I'm doing. But it's not that. Despite all evidence to the contrary.