“A leader should have a quick intelligence. Time is a factor in all action. An imperfect scheme put into action at the proper time is better than a perfect one accomplished too late. Sometimes time is so important that it becomes the principal consideration.”

— André Maurois

Un Art de Vivre (The Art of Living) (1939), The Art of Leadership

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "A leader should have a quick intelligence. Time is a factor in all action. An imperfect scheme put into action at the p…" by André Maurois?

André Maurois 202

French writer 1885–1967

Related quotes

“The time for action is now. It's never too late to do something.”

Carl Sandburg (1878–1967) American writer and editor

Quoted as Sandburg in Stop Whining! Start Selling!: Profit-Producing Strategies for Explosive Sales Results (2003) by Jeff Blackman, but without citation of original source; this is elsewhere attributed to Antoine de Saint Exupéry, but also with no original sources cited.
Disputed

“Perhaps my cynicism comes in good time. Better I have it early than too late.”

Sheri S. Tepper (1929–2016) American fiction writer

Source: Singer from the Sea (1999), Chapter 8, “A Proposal and What Followed” (p. 139)

“A leader's intelligence must have simplicity and clarity; action is difficult when the mind is full of complex theories and schemes. An over-organized industry wastes just as much money as one without organization - the transmission uses up all the motor's power. (For this reason small enterprises directed by one man have the better of larger trusts because their costs are less and the quality of their product higher.) A leader must have a few very simple ideas, acquired from experience and confirmed by putting them into practice. This structure created by experience will contain much exact knowledge for use in connection with a given action.”

André Maurois (1885–1967) French writer

Un Art de Vivre (The Art of Living) (1939), The Art of Leadership

“Since no one is perfect, it follows that all great deeds have been accomplished out of imperfection.”

Lois McMaster Bujold book Mirror Dance

Source: Vorkosigan Saga, Mirror Dance (1994)

“This is a Government of to-morrow. … It is all swagger and pose, and no action. Let it be done. No, he cannot do it, he is too busy doing other things. Russia must come first. No time to carry schemes for the unemployed, no time to deal with profiteering in food and in materials for building. … Yet there was time for a Russian loan. Moscow first, and Camberwell afterwards.”

David Lloyd George (1863–1945) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech in Camberwell, London (27 October 1924) attacking Ramsay MacDonald's Labour Government, quoted in The Times (28 October 1924), p. 8
Later life

“Instead of an idea of style, which embraces too many associations, [I] have outlined the idea of a linked succession of prime works with replications, all being distributed in time as recognizably early and late versions of the same kind of action.”

George Kubler (1912–1996) American art historian

Source: The Shape of Time, 1982, p. 130

“We believe in constitutional action in normal times; we believe in revolutionary action in exceptional times. These are exceptional times.”

James Connolly (1868–1916) Irish republican and socialist leader

Workers Republic (socialist newspaper) 4 December, 1915 in “Trust Your Leaders!”

“I don’t think we as a party should let China and Russia stop international action to save lives in Syria … Three times they have vetoed action in Syria, and each time the crisis has escalated and escalated.”

Jo Cox (1974–2016) UK politician

Speaking on BBC Daily Politics show — UK 'should enforce Syria no-fly zone even if Russia vetoes UN resolution' https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/oct/12/uk-should-be-prepared-enforce-syria-no-fly-zone-russian-veto-un-isis-assad (12 October 2015)

“I think that, as life is action and passion, it is required of a man that he should share the passion and action of his time at peril of being judged not to have lived.”

Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. (1841–1935) United States Supreme Court justice

1880s, In Our Youth Our Hearts Were Touched With Fire (1884)

“My philosophy of life is that the meek shall inherit nothing but debasement, frustration and ignoble deaths; that there is security in personal strength; that you can fight City Hall and win; that any action is better than no action, even if it's the wrong action; that you never reach glory or self-fulfillment unless you're willing to risk everything, dare anything, put yourself dead on the line every time; and that once one becomes strong or rich or potent or powerful it is the responsibility of the strong to help the weak become strong.”

Harlan Ellison book The Harlan Ellison Hornbook

The Harlan Ellison Hornbook, (9 August 1973)

“A leader should have a quick intelligence. Time is a factor in all action. An imperfect scheme put into action at the proper time is better than a perfect one accomplished too late. Sometimes time is so important that it becomes the principal consideration.”

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

André Maurois 202

Related quotes

Related topics