Have confidence in your decisions. Make them expeditiously, and stay with them as long as you believe you are correct no matter what others say. However, when you conclude you were in error, do not hesitate to announce the error publicly and change course.
Interpretation
Trust your decisions and act swiftly, but be ready to admit mistakes and adjust when necessary.
This quote emphasizes the importance of confidence in one's decision-making process. It advocates for making decisions quickly and standing by them as long as they seem correct. However, it also acknowledges the necessity of humility and the courage to admit when one is wrong and to change direction accordingly. This balance is crucial in leadership and personal growth, as it highlights the dual importance of conviction and adaptability.
In practice
In a leadership meeting, you could quote this to encourage team members to take initiative.
No, I am not a homosexual. If I were a homosexual, I would hope I would have the courage to say so. What's cruel is that you are forcing me to say I am not a homosexual. This means you are putting homosexuals down. I don't want to do that.
In a neighborhood, as in life, a clean bandage is much, much better than a raw or festering wound.
The knife of corruption endangered the life of New York City. The scalpel of the law is making us well again.
I was not afraid of the press or the militants. It was uncomfortable, but I was not afraid. With respect to the press, I knew I knew more than they knew about city matters. With respect to the militants, I understood it. I mean, everybody believed in those days that they were being screwed, you know, that somebody was getting ahead of them.
Live out of your imagination, not your history.
The shortest and surest way of arriving at real knowledge is to unlearn the lessons we have been taught, to mount the first principles, and take nobody's word about them.
Sad will be the day for every man when he becomes absolutely contented with the life that he is living, with the thoughts that he is thinking, with the deeds that he is doing, when there is not forever beating at the doors of his soul some great desire to do something larger, which he knows that he was meant and made to do because he is the child of God.
Afraid of decision, I buried my finer feelings in the depths of my heart and they died there.
An expert is a person who avoids the small errors while sweeping on to the grand fallacy.
You will never get any more out of this life than you expect.
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