Ben Carson Quotes

I think we need to think beyond the issue of absolute risk.

Chess helps you to concentrate, improve your logic. It teaches you to play by the rules and take responsibility for your actions, how to problem solve in an uncertain environment.

Game management is accomplished by staying constantly alert and then reading and reacting to potential problem situations before they materialize. It all boils down to paying attention to details.

It is axiomatic in politics that the earlier one addresses a problem, the more the alternatives and the easier the solutions.

Your military is hard-wired to approach everything with a can do attitude. Therefore reviewing and questioning us is helpful.

Among a great many other things that chess teaches you is to control the initial excitement you feel when you see something that looks good. It trains you to think before grabbing and to think just as objectively when you're in trouble.

If you're on a bus and going down a snowy mountain like in Tahoe, and the bus loses its brakes, where do you want to be sitting? Immediately, you all think, 'In the back.' But in the front would be the correct answer. As a quarterback, you want to take control of it.

The hardest thing to judge is what level of risk is safe.

Almost everything I do when I approach an operational problem comes from the time I've been in space. It's a way of organizing your thoughts. We use problem-solving; what we call "what-if-ing." What if this happened? What would we do? We go over plan B, C, D, E, F, and whatever else, depending on the criticality of what we're doing. This kind of thing can be applied almost everywhere, even at home.

you must be careful never to allow doubt to paralyze you. always take the decisions you need to take, even if you're not sure you're doing the right thing. You'll never go wrong if, when you make a decision, you keep in mind an old German proverb: 'The devil is in the detail.' Remember that proverb and you'll always be able to turn a wrong decision into a right one.

Wisdom consists in being able to distinguish among dangers and make a choice of the least harmful.

Great leaders don't rush to blame. They instinctively look for solutions.

All business proceeds on beliefs, or judgments of probabilities, and not on certainties.

One of the things Mr. Kennedy taught me was that in laying out a new project, you shouldn't try to cope with every little problem.

Exploring how you could make a bad situation worse can sometimes tell you what not to do.

Think as you work, for in the final analysis, your worth to your company comes not only in solving problems, but also in anticipating them.

If you have something at risk, you think differently.

Between calculated risk and reckless decision-making lies the dividing line between profit and loss.

I'm fascinated with films that deal with strategy because there's a right way and a wrong way to get the job done.

Take calculated risks. That is quite different from being rash.

The successful man is the one who finds out what is the matter with his business before his competitors do.

I encourage active skepticism - when people are being skeptical because they're trying to identify the best course of action. They're trying to identify the next step for themselves or other people.

The effort invested in 'getting it right' should be commensurate with the importance of the decision.

The rest is a mere matter of detail, to be settled with judgment, discretion, and caution.

Policymakers have to make judgments based on the best intelligence they get.