Impact Assessment Quotes

Policies are judged by their consequences but crusades are judged by how good they make the crusaders feel.

...A new technology sometimes creates more than it destroys. Sometimes, it destroys more than it creates. But it is never one-sided.

The difference between a policy and a crusade is that a policy is judged by its results, while a crusade is judged by how good it makes its crusaders feel.

Don't ask what the work is. Rather, see what the work does.

The greatest decisions I've made in my life are by instinct. I remember when I hired Bill I had a lot of people telling me it was a mistake. But he and I had established a rapport in '96 when he coached the secondary. You need a coach that understands economics, that understands the impact of the salary cap and how to make those difficult decisions that allow you to sustain success over the long term. I don't think there's anyone better than Bill at doing that.

I must analyze, from what I do now, what will be the impact two or three or five years in the future. What is the statement I want to make?

We're now more than a year since my NSA revelations, and despite numerous hours of testimony before Congress, despite tons of off-the-record quotes from anonymous officials who have an ax to grind, not a single US official, not a single representative of the United States government, has ever pointed to a single case of individualized harm caused by these revelations. This, despite the fact that former NSA director Keith Alexander said this would cause grave and irrevocable harm to the nation.

I don't rate them, I just hit them.

You could be in the United Nations office all night every night and still feel like you were not making a sufficient dent in the world's problems. I think the key is prioritization. But every job presents the tyranny of the inbox, of allowing the urgent to crowd out the important. So we have to have our lodestars.

Ideas can threaten people. Be careful who you put them in front of.

The thing is that it is incredibly frustrating to anyone who would control it, because you can't predict the impact of any technology before you put it in place.

The crucial question for any policy is not what, are its intentions, but what are its effects?

My top priority will be to secure maximum value for money in aid through greater transparency, rigorous independent evaluation and an unremitting focus on results.

Another study described by NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which they will be putting out in print soon, they have only described it verbally, calling it an "Oh my God" study, suggesting that we could see nine feet of sea level rise as soon as 2050.

I often don't think a lot about the ramifications of anything I do.

I can discern that certain things have an effect on certain other things, but I don't view those effects as good or bad. If a context and a goal is defined, I could say if it's good or bad. But overall, I don't view things as good or bad.

Have I done the world good, or have I added a menace?

The hitter can never be the judge. Only the receiver of the blow can tell you how hard it was, whether it would kill a man or make a baby just yawn.

You will never be able to measure your influence for good.

I think it's a trial balloon to see what happens, and I'm not impressed with it.

Phil Collins sold five times as many records as I did. Does that make him nearly as influential as I am? Nope.

The downstream effects are unknown. Do your best and hope for the best. If you're improving the world-however you define that-consider your job well done.

Beyond being timely, an obituary has a more subjective duty: to assess its subject's impact.

In fact, it is often times a detriment for the Government to preemptively legislate on an issue before we can either define it or grasp its impact.

It's a real concern of mine every day. What can we do? How much can we do? How quickly can we address all these important things?