It is a socialist idea that making profits is a vice; I consider the real vice is making losses.
Plans are of little importance, but planning is essential.
Interpretation
What this quote means
While having a specific plan may not be crucial, the process of planning is vital for success.
This quote emphasizes the distinction between having a fixed plan and the act of planning itself. Winston Churchill suggests that while the details of a plan may change or become irrelevant, the process of planning equips individuals and organizations with the foresight, adaptability, and readiness needed to face future challenges effectively. Thus, planning is more about developing a mindset of preparedness than strictly adhering to predetermined steps.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
In a motivational speech about business strategy, one could use this quote to highlight the necessity of flexibility in decision-making.
More from Winston Churchill
All quotes βThe United States is like a gigantic boiler. Once the fire is lit under it, there's no limit to the power it can generate.
Politics is almost as exciting as war, and quite as dangerous. In war you can only be killed once, but in politics many times.
I will not pretend that if I had to choose between communism and Nazism I would choose communism.
Mountaintops inspire leaders but valleys mature them.
True genius resides in the capacity for evaluation of uncertain, hazardous, and conflicting information.
Similar quotes
Wise men say, and not without reason, that whosoever wished to foresee the future might consult the past.
How many precious things do we not already possess which others have not - have hardly an idea of! Let us enjoy these, then, and bless God that we are permitted to enjoy them, rather than importune His goodness with vain longings for more.
Your talk," I said, "is surely the handiwork of wisdom because not one word of it do I understand.
Opinion-sharing sessions are like junk food: they fill you up with starch and leave you feeling both sated and hungry. A sustained inquiry into the truth of a matter is an almost athletic experience; it may exhaust you, but it also improves you.
Jealousy is comparison. And we have been taught to compare, we have been conditioned to compare, always compare. Somebody else has a better house, somebody else has a more beautiful body, somebody else has more money, somebody else has a more charismatic personality. Compare, go on comparing yourself with everybody else you pass by, and great jealousy will be the outcome; it is the by-product of the conditioning for comparison.
You've got your passion. You've got your pride. But don't you know that only fools are satisfied? Dream on, but don't imagine they'll all come true.