Leopold II Quotes

Sometimes ruin comes for lack of judgment.

The best laid plans o’ mice an’ men Gang aft a-gley

If there is a wrong way to do something, then someone will do it.

Good consequences are sometimes the result of mistakes.

We cannot undo the past in this misguided war in Iraq.

Sometimes you do something, and you get screwed. Sometimes it's the things you don't do, and you get screwed.

The remedy is worse than the disease.

My life is littered with bad decisions.

When the systems we expect to help us actually hurt us, we have tragedy.

It is easier to criticize than to correct our past errors.

I don't think anyone sets out to do something bad, it's just that it's very difficult.

It seems that every time I stick my neck out, I get my foot into something else.

Success is ninety-nine percent failure.

While all other sciences have advanced, that of government is at a standstill—little better understood, little better practiced now than three or four thousand years ago.

A President in a ... crisis makes, say, 10 bets a day. Maybe I made the wrong choice three times.

As President I'll make mistakes because I'm going to do things ... and people who do things err.

Success is ... what we can make of the mess we have made of things.

If officials on the spot commit in good faith an error of judgment, which is worse—to support them or to throw them over?

What is done cannot be effaced. We have to act upon a moral field prepared for us ...

Errors will occur in spite of utmost fidelity.

The statesman must weigh the rewards of success against the penalties of failure. And he is permitted only one guess.

A little too late, is much too late.

A regret for the mistakes of yesterday must not, however, blind us to the tasks of today.

I have been wrong enough times to know that it is always a possibility.

The greatest events occur without intention playing any part in them; chance makes good mistakes and undoes the most carefully planned undertaking. The world's greatest events are not produced, they happen.