James Baldwin Quotes

I'm no genius. I'm not at all; I just happen to look five or 10 years ahead and think things through.

My job is to think beyond the immediate.

Instead of looking at the past, I put myself ahead twenty years and try to look at what I need to do now in order to get there then.

Neither man nor nation can prosper unless, in dealing with the present, thought is steadily taken for the future.

I know I made plenty of mistakes in my tenure. But one of the things that you learn is to be very careful and to protect yourself down the road a little bit, which is to say you've got to think ahead and think where is the story going to go? What are all the possible outcomes? And how do I protect the president from unexpected twists and turns in the road?

I like to pride myself on thinking pretty long term, but not that long term.

We have to always look ahead enough moves to be well prepared, even for victory!

If we think long term, we can accomplish things that we couldn't otherwise accomplish.

Long term thinking is so rare anywhere, but especially in startups. This is a huge advantage if you do it.

If you're too smart it can limit you because you spend so much time thinking that you don't do anything.

I have hesitation making any kind of decision, really in my life. I'm really slow at it.

Prudence is foresight and far-sightedness. It's the ability to make immediate decisions on the basis of their longer-range effects.

We are so in fear of failure that often we prefer not to try..

You always look ahead to what you'll do next.

When I plan ahead, I don't just plan what I'm doing tomorrow. I also plan what I'm doing five years from now.

He is short-sighted who looks only on the path he treads and the wall on which he leans.

Men of action," whose minds are too busy with the day's work to see beyond it. They are essential men, we cannot do without them, and yet we must not allow all our vision to be bound by the limitations of "men of action.

America looks 10 minutes ahead; Japan looks 10 years.

A lot of people – and I’m just not one of them – believe that you should live for the now. I think what you do is think about the great expanse of time ahead of you and try to make sure that you’re planning for that in a way that’s going to leave you ultimately satisfied. This is the way it works for me.

A man who does not think and plan long ahead will find trouble right at his door.

If you think about the long term then you can really make good life decisions that you won’t regret later.

Worry is simply thinking the same thing over and over again and not doing anything about it.

I didn't dare think of the future; the past was still happening.

I never think of what it's going to be like later. I only think in the present tense. The only time I think backwards is when I have to reissue something.

The curse of me and my nation is that we always think things can be bettered by immediate action of some sort, any sort rather than no sort.