Plans are nothing; planning is everything.
Interpretation
While having plans may be unimportant, the process of planning is crucial for success.
This quote emphasizes the importance of the planning process over the fixed plans themselves. It suggests that the act of planning prepares us for uncertainty and challenges, enabling us to adapt and respond effectively when situations change, demonstrating that flexibility and preparation are keys to achieving our goals.
In practice
During a team meeting to discuss project strategies, I used this quote to highlight the importance of our planning process.
If a man's associates find him guilty of being phony, if they find that he lacks forthright integrity, he will fail. His teachings and actions must square with each other. The first great need, therefore, is integrity and high purpose.
The libraries of America are and must ever remain the home of free and inquiring minds. To them, our citizens-of all ages and races, of all creeds and persuasions-must be able to turn with clear confidence that there they can freely seek the whole truth, unvarnished by fashion and uncompromised by expediency.
You don't lead by hitting people over the head - that's assault, not leadership.
When pressure mounts and strain increases everyone begins to show the weaknesses in his makeup. It is up to the Commander to conceal his: above all to conceal doubt, fear, and distrust.
Some years ago I became president of Columbia University and learned within 24 hours to be ready to speak at the drop of a hat, and I learned something more, the trustees were expected to be ready to speak at the passing of the hat.
I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity.
To achieve success, whatever the job we have, we must pay a price
The Self doesn't live forever in time, it lives in the timeless present prior to time, prior to history, change, succession. The Self is present as Pure Presence, not as everlasting duration, a rather horrible notion.
NASA's been one of the most successful public investments in motivating students to do well and achieve all they can achieve, and it's sad that we are turning the program in a direction where it will reduce the amount of motivation it provides to young people.
Everybody is going to be excited to play in a Super Bowl. When you still enjoy the preparation and the work part of it, I think you ought to be still doing that. I think as soon as I stop enjoying it, if I can't produce, if I can't help a team, that's when I will stop playing.
A great social success is a pretty girl who plays her cards as carefully as if she were plain.
The problem with being clever, Serene thought with a sigh, is that everyone assumes you're always planning something.
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