Michelle Obama Quotes

It takes real planning to organize this kind of chaos.

The system is that there is no system. That doesn't mean we don't have process. Apple is a very disciplined company, and we have great processes. But that's not what it's about. Process makes you more efficient.

A place for everything, everything in its place.

Every great man exhibits the talent of organization or construction, whether it be in a poem, a philosophical system, a policy, or a strategy. And without method there is no organization nor construction.

The only difference between a mob and a trained army is organization.

Order marches with weighty and measured strides. Disorder is always in a hurry.

You have to have a plan, or else you're just creating a recipe for chaos.

We have a strategic plan. It's called 'doing things'.

Any system or blueprint for success is better than none at all. Think on paper.

We go in with eyes wide open and recognize there will be a lot of hard work involved. But we anticipate having success. We feel like we have assembled a great group of people. If we were going to do it any other way, we would have made an announcement a long time ago. We were very diligent.

There are, it seems, two muses: The Muse of Inspiration, who gives us inarticulate visions and desires, and the Muse of Realization, who returns again and again to say, 'It is yet more difficult than you thought.' It may be that when we no longer know what to do, we have come to our real work and when we no longer know which way to go, we have begun our real journey.

You have to appreciate the spiritual component of having an opportunity to do something as wondrous as writing. You should be practical and smart and you should have a good agent and you should work really, really hard. But you should also be filled with awe and gratitude about this amazing way to be in the world.

While I am proud of a number of accomplishments, there are real costs to being unreasonable. Long hours. Too little time with family. A near incapacity for, as they say, stopping and smelling the roses.

As for work, without it, without painstaking work, any writer or artist definitely remains a dilettante; there's no point in waiting for so-called blissful moments, for inspiration; if it comes, so much the better--but you keep working anyway.

It seemed to me that I should have a desk, even though I had no real need for a desk. I was afraid that if I had no desk in my room my life would seem too haphazard.

Order is the key to all problems.

I learned how to order my thoughts, and most important, learned how to develop a plan. I discovered the power of a plan. If you can plan it out, and it seems logical to you, you can do it. And that was the secret to success.

Seven Steps to Success 1) Make a commitment to grow daily. 2) Value the process more than events. 3) Don't wait for inspiration. 4) Be willing to sacrifice pleasure for opportunity. 5) Dream big. 6) Plan your priorities. 7) Give up to go up.

Order and system are nobler things than power.

We're not going to have a backlash. We're going to build a consensus. And I live in the real world, not the kind of fantasy goals that we would all like, but we would never achieve if we go about it in the blunderbuss fashion that your question would assume.

I like playing a character that admires real musicianship, and real talent and hard work. I think that's a good message for everyone.

In real life, strategy is actually very straightforward. You pick a general direction and implement like hell.

You can holler, protest, march, picket and demonstrate, but somebody must be able to sit in on the strategy conferences and plot a course. There must be strategies, the researchers, the professionals to carry out the program. That's our role.

If it's knowledge and wisdom you want, then seek out the company of those who do real work for an honest purpose.

You cannot expect victory and plan for defeat.