Planning and procrastination

October 8, 2012 Editor 0

A DOUBLE header for this week’s A-Z of business quotations: planning and procrastination. Or perhaps that’s just two sides of the same coin.

 

Planning

“Measure twice, cut once.”
Carpenters’ mantra

“Prediction is very difficult. Especially about the future.”
Niels Bohr, pictured, scientist (1885–1962), attributed

“Planning is an unnatural process; it is much more fun to do something. And the nicest thing about not planning is that failure comes as a complete surprise rather than being preceded by a period of worry and depression.”
John Harvey Jones, businessman (1924–2008)

“A stockbroker urged me to buy a stock that would triple in value every year. I told him: ‘At my age I don’t even buy green bananas.’”
Claude Pepper, politician (1900–89)

“A goal properly set is halfway reached.”
Abraham Lincoln, American president (1809–65)

 

Procrastination

“I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.”
Douglas Adams, author (1952–2001)

“We are all manufacturers. Making good, making trouble, or making excuses.”
H.V. Adolt

“Without action, the world would still be an idea.”
George Doriot, founder of INSEAD business school (1899–1987)

“Even a correct decision is wrong when it was taken too late.”
Lee Iacocca, businessman (1924–)

“A good solution applied with vigour now is better than a perfect solution applied ten minutes later.”
George Patton, American general (1885–1945), quoted in The Unknown Patton (1983) by Charles M. Province

“Work expands to fill the time available for its completion.”
Cyril Northcote Parkinson, historian (1909–93), Parkinson’s Law (1957)

Taken from The Economist‘s “Book of Business Quotations”

« O is for The oil and gas industry

 

 

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Categories: The Economist

Tags: business quotations, businessman, planning and procrastination