practical decision-making Quotes

I knew what I had to do as party leader had to be sensible and relate to the real situation we were in, rather than a situation you would like to have.

I came in 1949, and all of us thought the climate was not just ripe for change. We often delay adjudication. [I]t’s [sic] not a question of evading at all. It’s just the practicalities of life – common sense.

I … think it is safer, when a practical question arises, to decide that question directly, and not indirectly, by deciding a general abstraction supposed to include it, and also including a great deal more.

Most people are reasonable. That's why they only do reasonably well.

I never hesitated to promote someone I didn't like. The comfortable assistant - the nice guy you like to go on fishing trips with - is a great pitfall. Instead I looked for those sharp, scratchy, harsh, almost unpleasant guys who see and tell you about things as they really are. If you can get enough of them around you, and have patience enough to hear them out, there is no limit to where you can go.

I didn't get where I am today by worryin' about how I'd feel tomorrow.

In practice, such trifles as contradictions in principle are easily set aside; the faculty of ignoring them makes the practical man.

Trump conducts meetings and actually tries to get something done rather than just have the meeting and rather than just announce a framework and rather than just touch on bullet points or outline points and to speak in large terms about what our four-year objectives are. My guess is that Trump gets in there, rolls up the sleeves, and starts talking about actual work that's going to be done, things that he wants to do, things he believes the American people elected him to do. And I think it probably is a stark contrast for people who basically work in a bureaucracy.

If you have two frogs, eat the ugliest one first.

If you look at how I've tried to and how I'll continue to try to govern, I'm not driven by some ideological agenda. I'm a pretty practical guy and I just want to make sure that things work.

Business is not a spiritual matter, and my business decisions are not based on spiritual considerations. When I founded the Essence of Life, a project aimed at teaching tolerance and respectful dialogue, the person appointed to head it was Irit Atzmon, a former colonel in the army. Can anything be more down-to-earth than that?

He has given ample evidence of qualities hardly any other living statesman has demonstrated to the same degree: the courage to look facts in the face and to seek flexible solutions, respect for others, give-and-take in dialog situations, absence of hypocrisy, a complete absence of grandeur in the conduct of his personal life. He has never been driven by blind self-assertion to make absurd decisions.

A rational man acting in the real world may be defined as one who decides where he will strike a balance between what he desires and what can be done.