James Baker Quotes

You can hesitate before deciding, but not once the decision is made.

It's one thing to make the speeches. It's another to make the tough decisions.

If there's no action, you haven't truly decided.

In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing, the next best thing is the wrong thing, and the worst thing you can do is nothing.

Make up your mind to act decidedly and take the consequences. No good is ever done in this world by hesitation.

They are no longer going to serve you well. You have to commit. I think the biggest word is commit. I hear women say to me all the time, and men - I want to, I want to.

You need to make a commitment, and once you make it, then life will give you some answers.

He who has a task to perform must know how to take sides, or he is quite unworthy of it.

The world is not looking for servants, there are plenty of these, but for masters, men who form their purposes and then carry them out, let the consequences be what they may.

[President] McKinley gave [Lt. Andrew Sommers] Rowan a letter to be delivered to [General Calixto] Garcia: Rowan took the letter and did not ask, "Where is he at?" By the eternal, there is a man whose form should be cast in deathless bronze and the statue placed in every college in the land. It is not book learning that young men need, nor instruction about this and that, but a stiffening of the vertebrae which will cause them to be loyal to a trust to act promptly, concentrate their energies, do the thing—"carry a message to Garcia.

When it comes to making tough decisions, I'm ready to make them.

I've learned enough times in life that saying something is completely different than acting upon it.

If you made the choice to get in there and fight, you have to accept accountability for whatever happens.

My favorite expression is: When you go up to the bell, ring it ? or don't go up to the bell.

Whatever happens, take responsibility.

When I decide to do something, I do it.

Don't take the will for the deed; get the deed.

One cannot govern with 'buts'.

Intentions count in your actions.

The test of any man lies in action.

All my life, whenever it comes time to make a decision, I make it and forget about it.

There's no such thing as coulda, shoulda, or woulda. If you shoulda and coulda, you woulda done it.

Don't have good ideas if you aren't willing to be responsible for them.

Action springs not from thought, but from a readiness for responsibility.

We will not duck the tough issues, we will lead.