Crises Management Quotes

Foreign policy is consumed with momentary crises —– often created by failing states and violent groups. But in the long run, he future is shaped by winners, not noisy losers.

There is a marked tendency among policy makers to deal with the economic and political crises of today, leading them to repeat old mistakes

Too often, our concern for specific individuals today means neglecting crises that will harm countless people in the future.

And I, unfortunately, have been to too many disasters as president.

No emergency excuses you from exercising tolerance.

Give your opponent an out. Look at the crises from his point of view.... Try to pick an option that achieves your purpose at minimal cost to him—military, political or otherwise.

Rule. In difficult circumstances always act on first impressions.

Don't be a perfectionist, because perfectionists often spend too much time on little differences at the margins at the expense of other big, important things. Be an effective imperfectionist. Solutions that broadly work well (e.g., how people should contact each other in the event of crises) are generally better than highly specialized solutions (e.g., how each person should contact each other in the event of every conceivable crisis).

Every first-term president has to learn something after he comes into office. Nobody can be completely ready for the inevitable crises.

Nearly everywhere there is crushing poverty, religious and ethnic enmity, and exploitation of people, other species, and the earth. Sometimes it may even seem that we have passed the point of no return -- that we cannot limit population, harmonize differences, and decontaminate the planet in time. But in a time of crisis, the only philosophically tenable position for a pessimist is optimism.

Nasty financial crises tend to be even worse political ones.

The best political economy is the care and culture of men; for, in these crises, all are ruined except such as are proper individuals, capable of thought, and of new choice and the application of their talent to new labor.

History is full of lessons for how water crises could have been avoided or better managed.

This story is the ultimate example of American’s biggest political problem. We no longer have the attention span to deal with any twenty-first century crisis. We live in an economy that is immensely complex and we are completely at the mercy of the small group of people who understand it – who incidentally often happen to be the same people who built these wildly complex economic systems. We have to trust these people to do the right thing, but we can’t, because, well, they’re scum. Which is kind of a big problem, when you think about it.

Each powerful player, or coalition of players, will make concessions in areas where it has relatively less at stake in exchange for other such players making reciprocal concessions in other areas where it has relatively more at stake. Such trades are collectively rational insofar as they get each of the powerful players more of what it wants. But such trades are also dangerous because the whole international rule-system will become incoherent and therefore vulnerable to crises that will continue to become increasingly severe.