Benjamin Franklin Quotes

True economy means the wisest expenditure of what we have, everything considered, looking at it from the broadest standpoint. It is not a good thing to save a nickel at the expenditure of twenty-five cents' worth of time.

I'd say that, to be a good deal maker, you have to have 3 basic characteristics - timing, timing, and timing.

To govern is always to choose among disadvantages.

Adhering to budgeting rules shouldn't trump good decision-making.

The best way to make a good deal is to have the ability to walk away from it.

I know how to take good ideas and turn them into sensible law at great odds.

People (political and military leaders) much prefer to speak of what they are going to do rather than what the outcome will be.

Johnson showed me how important it was to use every hour of every day to shape national policy while we had the power to do so.

We have generals working on worst-case scenarios; we need statesmen on best cases.

The day-to-day making of policy is arguing all the time.

One of the challenges of a good policy is trying to figure out what your priorities are.

Only by decisions of national policy based upon accurate information can we have the chance that peace will endure.

Everybody trades off in some sense or another.

Nine times out of ten your two smartest policy advisors disagree.

No quarrel ought ever be converted into a policy.

What is done from necessity involves neither censure nor applause

You want consensus, but there are times when people are just not going to agree. So you just have to decide.

You can never in negotiations be totally predictable. The minute you’re predictable, they’re going to figure out how to take advantage.

Countries are very reluctant to impose short term pain for long term gain.

Embracing a bad idea for the sake of optics [political image] is always bad.

The challenge in multi-lateral negotiations is not to lose sight of one's over-arching goal in the midst of the cacophony of opinions at the bargaining table.

You can much better have an influence on the debate when you sit at the bargaining table and you can give input.

When the President is a moralist, he needs a process that will make up for the natural shortcomings of such a style—an inattention to second-step thinking, an allergy to detail, a tendency not to see the point of having dissenters, a habit of allowing certainty to override considerations of risk. It is the National Security Advisor’s responsibility to fill a President’s strategic gaps, not to exacerbate them.

Hawks usually care about benefits; doves most about costs. Neither benefits or costs however are easily estimated in advance.

I have one yardstick by which I test every major problem—and that yardstick is: Is it good for America?