Quotes about strategy
page 6

“Violence is a personal necessity for the oppressed…It is not a strategy consciously devised. It is the deep, instinctive expression of a human being denied individuality.”

Richard Wright (1908–1960) African-American writer

Native Son (1940)

Personality

“The Way of strategy is the Way of nature. When you appreciate the power of nature, knowing the rhythm of any situation, you will be able to hit the enemy naturally and strike naturally. All this is the Way of the Void. I intend to show how to follow the true Way according to nature in the book of the Void.”

Miyamoto Musashi (1584–1645) Japanese martial artist, writer, artist

Go Rin No Sho (1645)
Context: Fifthly, the book of the Void. By Void I mean that which has no beginning and no end. Attaining this principle means not attaining the principle. The Way of strategy is the Way of nature. When you appreciate the power of nature, knowing the rhythm of any situation, you will be able to hit the enemy naturally and strike naturally. All this is the Way of the Void. I intend to show how to follow the true Way according to nature in the book of the Void.

Books, Way, Nature

“To attain the Way of strategy as a warrior you must study fully other martial arts and not deviate even a little from the Way of the warrior.”

Miyamoto Musashi (1584–1645) Japanese martial artist, writer, artist

Go Rin No Sho (1645), The Book No-Thing-ness
Context: To attain the Way of strategy as a warrior you must study fully other martial arts and not deviate even a little from the Way of the warrior. With your spirit settled, accumulate practice day by day, and hour by hour. Polish the twofold spirit heart and mind, and sharpen the twofold gaze perception and sight. When your spirit is not in the least clouded, when the clouds of bewilderment clear away, there is the true void.

Art, Way, Study

“The approach and strategies are very similar in that you gather all the information you can and then keep adding to that base of information as things develop.”

Warren Buffett (1930) American business magnate, investor, and philanthropist

"Buffett on Bridge" at Buffetcup.com (2013) http://archive.is/o4keX Context: The approach and strategies are very similar in that you gather all the information you can and then keep adding to that base of information as things develop. You do whatever the probabilities indicated based on the knowledge that you have at that time, but you are always willing to modify your behaviour or your approach as you get new information. In bridge, you behave in a way that gets the best from your partner. And in business, you behave in the way that gets the best from your managers and your employees.

“The trouble begins when we start to be so impressed by the strategies of our systematized thought that we forget that it does relate to an obverse, that it is hewn from negation, that it is but very small security against the void of negation which surrounds it.”

Glenn Gould (1932–1982) Canadian pianist

Glenn Gould Reader p5
Context: The trouble begins when we start to be so impressed by the strategies of our systematized thought that we forget that it does relate to an obverse, that it is hewn from negation, that it is but very small security against the void of negation which surrounds it. And when that happens, when we forget these things, all sorts of mechanical failures begin to disrupt the functions of the human personality. When people who practice an art like music become captives of those positive assumptions of system, when they forget to credit that happening against negation which system is, and when they become disrespectful of the immensity of negation compared to system — then they put themselves out of reach of that replenishment of invention upon which creative ideas depend, because invention is, in fact, a cautious dipping into the negation that lies outside system from a position firmly ensconced in system.

Forgetting

“The well-being of the British people and the health of our economy are far more important than any government's commitment to a particular strategy, but to change course now would be fatal to the whole counter-inflation strategy.”

Geoffrey Howe (1926–2015) British Conservative politician

"Chancellor determined not to change course in the fight against inflation", The Times, 11 March 1981, p. 6.
1981 budget speech.

People, Health, Change

“In connection with the matter of command in the field, there is perhaps a popular misconception that the Army and the Navy were intermingled in a standard form of joint operational organization in every theater throughout the world. Actually, the situation was never the same in any two areas. For example, after General of the Army Dwight D. Eisenhower had completed his landing in Normandy, his operation became purely a land campaign. The Navy was responsible for maintaining the line of communications across the ocean and for certain supply operations in the ports of Europe, and small naval groups became part of the land army for certain special purposes, such as the boat groups which helped in the crossing of the Rhine. But the strategy and tactics of the great battles leading up to the surrender of Germany were primarily army affairs and no naval officer had anything directly to do with the command of this land campaign. A different situation existed in the Pacific, where, in the process of capturing small atolls, the fighting was almost entirely within range of naval gunfire; that is to say, the whole operation of capturing an atoll was amphibious in nature, with artillery and air-support primarily naval. This situation called for a mixed Army-Navy organization which was entrusted to the command of Fleet Admiral Nimitz. A still different situation existed in the early days of the war during the Solomon Islands campaign where Army and Navy became, of necessity, so thoroughly intermingled that they were, to all practical purposes, a single service directed by Admiral William F. Halsey, Jr. Under General of the Army Douglas MacArthur, Army, Army Aviation, and the naval components of his command were separate entities tied together only at the top in the person of General MacArthur himself. In the Mediterranean the scheme of command differed somewhat from all the others.”

Ernest King (1878–1956) United States Navy admiral, Chief of Naval Operations

Third Report, p. 172
U.S. Navy at War, 1941-1945: Official Reports to the Secretary of the Navy (1946)

War, World, Communication, Support

“I think that this is a piece of a strategy. Um, it’s not a whole strategy. And I certainly don’t claim to single-handedly achieve much on my own. I’m just dealing with opinions.”

Natalie Wynn ContraPoints

ContraPoints, Miscellaneous, Contrapoints Is De-Radicalizing Young, Right-Wing Men https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Nrz4-FZx6k (Vice News, 2019)

Thinking

“When a war of annhilihation is surely though in point of time indefinately impending over a weaker state, the wiser, more resolute and more devoted men who would immediately prepare it for the unnavoidable struggle and thus cover their defensive policy with a strategy of offense always find themselves hampered by the indolent, cowardly mass of the money worshippers, of the aged and feeble, and the thoughtless who are minded merely to gain time to live and die in peace and to postpone and any price the final struggle.”

Theodor Mommsen (1817–1903) German classical scholar, historian, jurist, journalist, politician, archaeologist and writer

The History of Rome, Volume 2 Translated by W.P. Dickson
The History of Rome - Volume 2

Men, Money, War, Age

“Low output a man, which is what overmanning comes to, means low pay a man. Overmanning does not protect British jobs except in the short-term. The jobs protected by it are German and Japanese jobs. Overmanning is a large part of the British disease and the Labour Government actually encourages it. The industrial strategy, a verbal smokescreen, may blather on about being competitive but nearly every action taken under it involves a subsidy from the taxpayer to overmanning.”

Keith Joseph (1918–1994) British barrister and politician

Speech to the Conservative Party Conference in Brighton (12 October 1978), quoted in The Times (13 October 1978), p. 6
1970s

Disease, Parting

“Their strategy was simple. Moral domination. Nehru was a thinker. But Rajiv, Sonia, and Rahul are no intellectuals. They took a different route. They redefined morality. Secularism included. Anti-Congress was new immoral. Pro-Hindu became anti-Muslim. India was morally polarized. Morality is subjective. No one can say with guarantee what is pure morality. Masses were forced to choose between moral standards (Secularism, unity in diversity, inclusive etc.) and quality of life (development). People who wanted quality of life were made to feel guilty. Hindus who wanted to celebrate their religious freedom were made to feel guilty. Muslims who wanted to be part of mainstream India were made to feel guilty. They filled India’s psyche with fear, hate and guilt. They hated all indigenous, grassroots thinkers. They hated Sardar Patel, Lal Bahadur Shastri, Morarji Desai, Charan Singh, Chandrashekhar, P.V. Narsimha Rao, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, and now Modi. They are the land grabbers of Sainik Farms and Adarsh Societies of India. They run NGOs. They run media. They coin useless and irrelevant jargon to confuse the masses. They have designations but no real jobs. They are irrelevant NRIs who want us to see a reality which doesn’t exist. They want a plebiscite in Kashmir. They defend stone-pelters. They want Maoists to participate in mainstream politics. They want Tejpal to be freed. Yaqub to be pardoned. But they want Modi to be hanged. They are the hijackers of national morality. Secularism included. They are the robbers of Indian treasury. They are the brokers of power. They are the pimps of secularism. They are the Intellectual Mafia.”

Vivek Agnihotri (1973) director

Urban Naxals (2018)

Life, Hate, People, Fear

“The historical significance of the Proclamation is not so much that it enacted the emancipation of people of African descent; on the contrary, it was a military strategy. But if we examine the meaning of this historical moment we might better be able to grasp the failures as well as the successes of emancipation. I have thought that perhaps we were not asked to reflect on the significance of the Emancipation Proclamation because we might realize that we were never really emancipated. But anyway, at least we may be able to understand the dialectics of emancipation; because we still live the popular myth that Lincoln freed the slaves and that this continues to be perpetuated in popular culture, even by the film Lincoln.”

Angela Davis (1944) American political activist, scholar, and author

Lincoln did not free the slaves. We also live with the myth that the mid-twentieth century Civil Rights Movement freed the second-class citizens. Civil rights, of course, constitute an essential element of the freedom that was demanded at that time, but it was not the whole story.
Freedom is a Constant Struggle: Closures and Continuities (2013)

People, Failure, Understanding, Success

“Evolution often uses this strategy. Indeed, the standard evolutionary practice of increasing the amount of genetic information as organisms increase in complexity is accomplished by doubling part of the genetic material and then allowing the slow specialization of function of the redundant set.”

Carl Sagan (1934–1996) American astrophysicist, cosmologist, author and science educator

Source: The Dragons of Eden (1977), Chapter 7, “Lovers and Madmen” (p. 183)

Parting

“By power… I do not understand a general system of domination exercised by one element or one group over another, whose effects… traverse the entire body social… It seems to me that first what needs to be understood is the multiplicity of relations of force that are immanent to the domain wherein they are exercised, and that are constitutive of its organization; the game that through incessant struggle and confrontation transforms them, reinforces them, inverts them; the supports these relations of force find in each other, so as to form a chain or system, or, on the other hand, the gaps, the contradictions that isolate them from each other; in the end, the strategies in which they take effect, and whose general pattern or institutional crystallization is embodied in the mechanisms of the state, in the formulation of the law, in social hegemonies. The condition of possibility of power… should not be sought in the primary existence of a central point, in a unique space of sovereignty whence would radiate derivative and descendent forms; it is the moving base of relations of force that incessantly induce, by their inequality, states of power, but always local and unstable. Omnipresence of power: not at all because it regroups everything under its invincible unity, but because it is produced at every instant, at every point, or moreover in every relation between one point and another. Power is everywhere: not that it engulfs everything, but that it comes from everywhere.”

Michel Foucault (1926–1984) French philosopher

Par pouvoir… je n’entends pas un système général de domination exercée par un élément ou un groupe sur un autre, et dont les effets, par dérivations successives, traversaient le corps social tout entier… il me semble qu’il faut comprendre d’abord la multiplicité de rapports de force qui sont immanents au domaine où ils s’exercent, et sont constitutifs de leur organisation ; le jeu qui par voie de luttes et d’affrontements incessants les transforme, les renforce, les inverse ; les appuis que ces rapports de force trouvent les uns dans les autres, de manière à former chaîne ou système, ou, au contraire, les décalages, les contradictions qui les isolent les uns des autres ; les stratégies enfin dans lesquelles ils prennent effet, et dont le dessin général ou la cristallisation institutionnelle prennent corps dans les appareils étatiques, dans la formulation de la loi, dans les hégémonies sociales. La condition de possibilité du pouvoir… il ne fait pas la chercher dans l’existence première d’un point central, dans un foyer unique de souveraineté d’où rayonneraient des formes dérivées et descendantes ; induisent sans cesse, par leur inégalité, des états de pouvoir, mais toujours locaux et instables. Omniprésence du pouvoir : non point parce qu’il aurait le privilège de tout regrouper sous son invincible unité, mais parce qu’il se produit à chaque instant, en tout point, ou plutôt dans toute relation d’un point à un autre. Le pouvoir est partout ; ce n’est pas qu’il englobe tout, c’est qu’il vient de partout.
Vol. I, p. 121-122.
History of Sexuality (1976–1984)

Law, Exercises, Game, Understanding

“Low output a man, which what overmanning comes to, means low pay a man. Overmanning does not protect British jobs except in the short-term. The jobs protected by it are German and Japanese jobs. Overmanning is a large part of the British disease and the Labour Government actually encourages it. The industrial strategy, a verbal smokescreen, may blather on about being competitive but nearly every action taken under it involves a subsidy from the taxpayer to overmanning.”

Keith Joseph (1918–1994) British barrister and politician

Speech to the Conservative Party Conference in Brighton (12 October 1978), quoted in The Times (13 October 1978), p. 6
1970s

Disease, Parting

“Venezuela’s political polarization is not new; the country has long been divided along racial and socioeconomic lines. But the polarization has deepened in recent years. This is partly due to US support for an opposition strategy aimed at removing the government of Nicolás Maduro through extra-electoral means. While the opposition has been divided on this strategy, US support has backed hardline opposition sectors in their goal of ousting the Maduro government through often violent protests, a military coup d’etat, or other avenues that sidestep the ballot box.”

Noam Chomsky (1928) american linguist, philosopher and activist

Quotes 2010s, 2019, Open Letter by Over 70 Scholars and Experts Condemns US-Backed Coup Attempt in Venezuela

Support, Country, Box

“A leaderless but powerful network is working to bring about radical change in the United States. Its members have broken with certain key elements of Western thought, and they may even have broken continuity with history. This network is the Aquarian Conspiracy. It is a conspiracy without a political doctrine. Without a manifesto. With conspirators who seek power only to disperse it, and whose strategies are pragmatic, even scientific, but whose perspective sounds so mystical that they hesitate to discuss it. Activists asking different kinds of questions, challenging the establishment from within.”

Marilyn Ferguson (1938–2008) American writer

The Aquarian Conspiracy (1980), Chapter One, The Conspiracy

History, Question, Change

“It means that until 12 April, anything is possible: a deal, a long extension if the United Kingdom decided to rethink its strategy, or revoking Article 50, which is a prerogative of the UK government. The fate of Brexit is in the hands of our British friends. As the EU, we are prepared for the worst, but hope for the best. As you know, hope dies last.”

Donald Tusk (1957) Polish politician, current President of the European Council

Brexit's fate 'is in British hands', says Donald Tusk https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-47672136 BBC News (22 March 2019) 2011, 2019

Fate, Hope

“As we counter this ideology, a key part of our strategy must be to tackle both parts of the creed – the non-violent and violent. This means confronting groups and organisations that may not advocate violence – but which do promote other parts of the extremist narrative.”

David Cameron (1966) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

2010s, 2015, Speech on extremism (20 July 2015)

Parting

“The Prevent strategy will be targeted against those forms of terrorism which pose the greatest risk to our national security, currently al-Qaeda and those they inspire. But Prevent must also recognise and tackle the insidious impact of non-violent extremism, which can create an atmosphere conducive to terrorism and can popularise views which terrorists exploit.”

Theresa May (1956) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Updated anti-extremism strategy published https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-13679360 BBC News (8 June 2011) 2010s, 2011

“As the war rages on in Afghanistan and—despite spin to the contrary—in Iraq as well, US Special Operations Forces and the Central Intelligence Agency are engaged in parallel, covert, shadow wars that are waged in near total darkness and largely away from effective or meaningful Congressional oversight or journalistic scrutiny. The actions and consequences of these wars is seldom discussed in public or investigated by the Congress. The current US strategy can be summed up as follows: We are trying to kill our way to peace. And the killing fields are growing in number.”

Jeremy Scahill (1974) American journalist

[Jeremy Scahill Testifies Before Congress on America's Secret Wars, The Nation, http://www.thenation.com/blog/156977/jeremy-scahill-testifies-congress-americas-secret-wars#, December 9, 2010, January 2, 2013]

War, Peace, Way, Intelligence

“Having conflicting goals, dedicating resources to unconnected targets, and accommodating incompatible interests are the luxuries of the rich and powerful, but they make for bad strategy. Despite this, most organizations will not create focused strategies. Instead, they will generate laundry lists of desirable outcomes and, at the same time, ignore the need for genuine competence in coordinating and focusing their resources. Good strategy requires leaders who are willing and able to say no to a wide variety of actions and interests. Strategy is at least as much about what an organization does not do as it is about what it does.”

Richard Rumelt (1942) American economist

Source: Good Strategy Bad Strategy, 2011, p. 20

Bad luck, Making love, Time

“The essential complement to the path-breaking book Competitive Strategy, Michael E. Porter’s Competitive Advantage explores the underpinnings of competitive advantage in the individual firm.”

Michael E. Porter (1947) American engineer and economist

Competitive Advantage, 1985

Books

“Interview: Robert Heller: Alistair Schofield speaks to Robert Heller, journalist, commentator and the author of more than 50 books on management and business strategy.”

Robert Heller (1932–2012) British magician

2006
http://www.extensor.co.uk/articles/int_heller/interview_robert_heller.html online
Interview: Robert Heller (2006)

Books, Business

“Harvey was not especially introspective, but this didn’t mean he was stupid. He was moral, within his lights; he understood the value of subtlety even if he wasn’t much for it himself, and one of the reasons he could get away with being loud and obnoxious was that he was a fair stick at strategy and logistics. Give him a job and he’d do it, usually in the most entropy-producing way possible, yes, but also in a way that achieved exactly the aim it was supposed to. One of Harvey’s guiding lights in terms of strategies was simplicity; all things being equal, Harvey preferred the course of action that let him get into the middle of things and then just buckle down. When asked about it, Harvey called it his Occam’s razor theory of combat: The simplest way of kicking someone’s ass was usually the correct one.”

John Scalzi book The Ghost Brigades

Source: The Ghost Brigades (2006), Chapter 14 (p. 315)

Stupidity, Way, Light

“Then came the dress, the tapes, and the Federal grand jury. The attempt to obstruct and cover-up grew, expanded, and developed a life of its own. It overpowered the underlying offense itself. A new strategy was required, fast: The President was advised: `Admit the sex, but never the lies.”

Kay Bailey Hutchison (1943) American politician

Shift the blame; change the subject. Blame it on the plaintiff in the Arkansas case. Blame it on her lawyers. Blame it on the Independent Counsel. Blame it on partisanship. Blame it on the majority members of the House Judiciary Committee. Blame it on the process. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison's closed-door impeachment statement, CNN.com, CNN, February 12, 1999, 2007-07-21 http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/stories/1999/02/12/senate.statements/hutchison.html,

Life, Sex

“If you merely read this book you will not reach the Way of strategy. Absorb the things written in this book. Do not just read, memorise or imitate, but so that you realise the principle from within your own heart study hard to absorb these things into your body.”

Miyamoto Musashi (1584–1645) Japanese martial artist, writer, artist

Go Rin No Sho (1645), The Water Book

Books, Way, Study, Reading

“In general, the best thing to do when you suspect people of trying to distract you from the truth is not to actively confront them in the beginning, but in fact to encourage them to continue by showing interest in what they are saying or doing. You want them to talk more, to reveal more signs of tension and contrivance. At the right moment you must surprise them with a question or remark that is designed to make them uncomfortable, revealing you are onto them. Pay attention to the microexpressions and body language they emit at such moments. If they are really deceiving, they will often have a freeze response as they take this in, and then quickly try to mask the underlying anxiety. This was the favorite strategy of detective Columbo in the television series of the same name—facing criminals who had tried to reverse engineer the evidence to make it look like someone else had done it, Columbo would pretend to be perfectly friendly and harmless but then would suddenly ask an uncomfortable question and then pay extra attention to the face and body.”

Robert Greene (1959) American author

Chap. 3 : See Through People’s Masks
The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

People, Truth, Making love, Question

“Your task is the following: After any kind of success, analyze the components. See the element of luck that is inevitably there, as well as the role that other people, including mentors, played in your good fortune. This will neutralize the tendency to inflate your powers. Remind yourself that with success comes complacency, as attention becomes more important than the work and old strategies are repeated.”

Robert Greene (1959) American author

Chap. 11 : Know Your Limits
The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

Bad luck, People, Success

“Superiority of existence and ideology cannot easily be broken. The youth (and even the children) are subjected to the same strategies and tactics, ideological and political propaganda, and oppressive systems as the woman - adolescence, like femininity, is not a physical but social fact.”

Abdullah Öcalan (1949) Founder of the PKK

The Political Thought of Abdullah Ocalan (2017), Liberating Life: Women's Revolution

Children, Youth

“In complex environments, individuals are not fully able to analyze the situation and calculate their optimal strategy. Instead they can be expected to adapt their strategy over time based upon what has been effective and what has not.”

Robert Axelrod book The Complexity of Cooperation

Chap. 1 : Evolving New Strategies

Adapted from Robert Axelrod, “The Evolution of Strategies in the Iterated Prisoner’s Dilemma,” in Genetic Algorithms and Simulated Annealing, ed. Lawrence Davis (London: Pitman; Los Altos, Calif.: Morgan Kaufman, 1987)
The Complexity of Cooperation (1997)

Optimism, Time

“Our ignorance of brain function is currently so very nearly total that we could not even begin to frame appropriate research strategies. We would stand before the open brain, fancy instruments in hand, roughly as an unschooled labourer might stand before the exposed wiring of a computer: awed perhaps, but surely helpless. A microanalysis of brain functions is, moreover, no more useful for understanding anything about thinking than a corresponding analysis of the pulses flowing through a computer would be for understanding what program the computer is running. Such analyses would simply be at the wrong conceptual level. They might help to decide crucial experiments, but only after such experiments had been designed on the basis of much higher-level (for example, linguistic) theories.”

Joseph Weizenbaum (1923–2008) German-American computer scientist

Computer Power and Human Reason: From Judgment To Calculation (1976)

Understanding, Thinking, Help

“Culture eats strategy for breakfast.”

Peter F. Drucker (1909–2005) American business consultant

According to The Quote Investigator, this phrase first appeared on PIMA’s North American Papermaker: The Official Publication of the Paper Industry Management Association, in an article by Bill Moore and Jerry Rose. The year was 2000. Since then, the phrase has appeared many times. Peter Drucker died in 2005. The first time his name was associated to the citation was on 2011. Other occurrences and versions of the phrase can be found at https://quoteinvestigator.com/2017/05/23/culture-eats/ Misattributed

“Just as important as getting cooperation started were the conditions that allowed it to be sustainable. The strategies that could sustain mutual cooperation were the ones which were provocable.”

Robert Axelrod The evolution of cooperation

Chap. 4 : The Live-and-Let-Live System in World War I
The Evolution of Cooperation (1984; 2006)

“The oligarchy understands that a “divide-and-conquer” strategy gives them more room to get what they want without opposition... oligarchies cannot hold on to power forever... When a vast majority of people come to view an oligarchy as illegitimate and an obstacle to their wellbeing, oligarchies become vulnerable. As bad as it looks right now, the great strength of this country is our resilience. We bounce back. We have before. We will again. In order for real change to occur – in order to reverse the vicious cycle in which we now find ourselves – the locus of power in the system will have to change. The challenge we face is large and complex, but we are well suited for the fight ahead. Together, we will dismantle the oligarchy. Together, we will fix the system.”

Robert B. Reich (1946) American political economist

The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It https://www.alternet.org/2020/03/the-system-is-rigged-but-we-can-fix-it/, Alternet, 24 March 2020

Bad luck, People, Understanding, Change

“If a nice strategy cannot be invaded by a single individual, it cannot be invaded by any cluster of individuals either.”

Robert Axelrod The evolution of cooperation

Chap. 3 : The Chronology of Cooperation
Proposition 7.
The Evolution of Cooperation (1984; 2006)

“The strategies which can invade ALL D in a cluster with the smallest value of p are those which are maximally discriminating, such as TIT FOR TAT.”

Robert Axelrod The evolution of cooperation

Chap. 3 : The Chronology of Cooperation
Proposition 6.
The Evolution of Cooperation (1984; 2006)

“For a nice strategy to be collectively stable, it must be provoked by the very first defection of the other player.”

Robert Axelrod The evolution of cooperation

Chap. 3 : The Chronology of Cooperation
Proposition 4.
The Evolution of Cooperation (1984; 2006)

“Any strategy which may be the first to cooperate can be collectively stable only when w is sufficiently large.”

Robert Axelrod The evolution of cooperation

Chap. 3 : The Chronology of Cooperation
Proposition 3.
The Evolution of Cooperation (1984; 2006)

“If the discount parameter, w, is sufficiently high, there is no best strategy independent of the strategy used by the other player.”

Robert Axelrod The evolution of cooperation

Chap. 1 : The Problem of Cooperation
Proposition 1.
The Evolution of Cooperation (1984; 2006)

“What characterises anthropological research today more than anything is the recognition of complexity; the world is complex, cultures are complex, communities are complex, and analytical strategies must acknowledge complexity.”

Thomas Hylland Eriksen (1962) Norwegian social anthropologist and professor

Source: What is Anthropology? (2nd ed., 2017), Ch. 4 : Theories

World, Communication

“This was not the time for rage but for politics and strategy.”

China Miéville book The Tain

The Tain (p. 252)
Short Fiction, Looking for Jake (2005)

Rage, Time

“What we call right-wing and liberal media in this country are really just two different strategies of the same kind of nihilistic lizard-brain sensationalism.”

Matt Taibbi (1970) author and journalist

America Is Too Dumb for TV News https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/america-is-too-dumb-for-tv-news-157274/, The Rolling Stones, Matt Taibbi, November 25, 2015

Country

“Always look at the long-term opportunity. Take a business where you can see the long-term potential, then put in a management team you can trust to execute your strategy.”

Bhanu Choudhrie (1978)

"Bhanu Choudhrie – C & C Alpha Group" https://www.thewealthscene.com/business-leaders-entrepreneurs/bhanu-choudhrie-c-c-alpha-group/, The Wealth Scene (2018)

Business

“When I was at the World Bank, it would often be said in the face of obvious failure that our strategy was correct, it just wasn't implemented well.”

Joseph E. Stiglitz book Making Globalization Work

§2, p. 52
Making globalization work (2006)

World, Failure

“Flag football is so much more about strategy. You can’t ‘take someone out’ with your body, so it’s more about your mind.”

Warren Farrell (1943) author, spokesperson, expert witness, political candidate

Source: The Boy Crisis (2018), pp. 254

Football

“I have seen a German youth camp, housing six thousand children around the age of ten, display in tree-high letters the words: ‘You were born to die for Germany!’ I have seen babies of six and seven, black-shirted and belted, march in Italy in military drill. I have seen children in Russia kindergartens taught how to adjust gas masks and the strategy of trench warfare.”

Dorothy Thompson (1893–1961) American journalist and radio broadcaster

Dorothy Thompson’s Political Guide: A Study of American Liberalism and its Relationship to Modern Totalitarian States (1938)
Source: A Study of American Liberalism and its Relationship to Modern Totalitarian States (1938)
p. 34-35

Children, Youth, Age, Tree

“What you’re really doing is trying to win back what you’ve lost by going all in. It’s shitty poker, and even worse as a battle strategy.”

Daniel Abraham (1969) speculative fiction writer from the United States

Source: The Expanse, Tiamat's Wrath (2019), Chapter 17 (pp. 178-179)

“Withstanding hardships is a sort of sport. You can’t control how life plays, but you can control your defensive strategy.”

Isaac Mashman (2000) businessman, speaker

Life, Sport

“One common strategy on which we should all be able to agree is to take steps to reduce the risk of human extinction when those steps are also highly effective in benefiting existing sentient beings. For example, eliminating or decreasing the consumption of animal products will benefit animals, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and lessen the chances of a pandemic resulting from a virus evolving among the animals crowded into today’s factory farms, which are an ideal breeding ground for viruses. That therefore looks like a high-priority strategy.”

Peter Singer book The Most Good You Can Do

Source: The Most Good You Can Do: How Effective Altruism Is Changing Ideas About Living Ethically (2015), Chapter 15: Preventing Human Extinction (p. 177)

Chance, Animals

“Strategy can be defined as a coherent plan on how to overcome an obstacle with the limited resources that you have at hand.”

Julian Cole (1985) Strategy Consultant

https://www.irishtimes.com/advertising-feature/inside-marketing/mastering-strategy-crucial-for-business-success-1.4394295

“Strategy should never be an island unto itself, it functions best when fully integrated.”

Julian Cole (1985) Strategy Consultant

https://www.irishtimes.com/advertising-feature/inside-marketing/mastering-strategy-crucial-for-business-success-1.4394295

“In all forms of strategy, it is necessary to maintain the combat stance in everyday life and to make your everyday stance your combat stance. You must research this well.”

Miyamoto Musashi (1584–1645) Japanese martial artist, writer, artist

Go Rin No Sho (1645), The Water Book

Life

“Focusing on a short-term strategy makes you invisible. Focusing on a long-term strategy is a winning formula.”

Vladimer Botsvadze

“Nine times out of ten, salespeople don't succeed on social media, because they don't have a clear strategy on how to build an audience and provide value.”

Vladimer Botsvadze

Time

“I argue that the best strategy for understanding quantum gravity is to build a picture of the physical world where the notion of time plays no role at all.”

Carlo Rovelli (1956) Italian physicist

"Forget time" (Aug, 2008)

World, Understanding, Time

“Policies and business strategies that worked well in the industrial era are a recipe for stagnation and decline in the new economy”

John Roth (1942) Canadian businessman

John Roth https://web.archive.org/web/20110523072731/http://www.time.com/time/europe/magazine/2000/1225/poy_roth.html December 25, 2000

Business

“Strategies evolve within markets and their larger regulatory context.”

Bret Weinstein (1969) biologist, professor, public intellectual

The Personal Responsibility Vortex (April 16, 2012)

“China has always followed the path of peaceful development, pursued a mutually beneficial and win-win opening strategy, strengthened friendly exchanges with other countries, and actively fulfilled its international responsibilities and obligations.”

Liu Yandong (1945) Chinese politician

Source: "刘延东出席第五届世界和平论坛开幕式并致辞" https://www.mfa.gov.cn/ce/celk//chn/zgxw/t1382124.htm (16 July 2017)

Peace, Country

“The key to implementation is people. In a war, even you have a good fighting strategy, history tells us that having soldiers who are brave enough, with skills in shooting and fighting, is what makes the difference.”

Liu Chuanzhi (1944) Chinese businessman

Source: Lenovo Group’s Liu Chuanzhi on ‘Building a Healthy Company’ https://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/lenovo-groups-liu-chuanzhi-on-building-a-healthy-company/ in Knowledge @ Wharton (8 July 2009)

War, People, History, Fight

“Trying to win an argument with an irrational person is like trying to teach a cat to snorkel by providing written instructions. No matter how clear your instructions, it won't work. Your best strategy is to reduce the time you spend in that sort of situation.”

Scott Adams book The Joy of Work

Source: Books, The Joy of Work (1998)

Cats, Time, Personality

“By launching the COVID-19 vaccination campaign in our country today (10 April 2021), we are taking a new step in our strategy to fight the COVID-19 pandemic. To set an example, I made a decision to be the first to take the vaccine.”

Azali Assoumani (1959) President of Comoros

Source: Azali Assoumani (2021) cited in: " Comoros president receives injection of Chinese COVID-19 vaccine http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2021-04/10/c_139871604.htm" in Xinhuanet, 10 April 2021.

Decision, Fight, Country

“The height of a strategy is also the beginning of its demise.”

Brig. Gen. Eran Ortal (1971)

DCJ # 35 Hebrew, OCT 21

“Even if I knew ancient warfare, which I don’t, they probably have their own strategies here.”

Catherine Asaro Saga of the Skolian Empire

“The strategy is the same everywhere,” she muttered. “Kill.”
Source: Saga of the Skolian Empire, Skyfall (2003), Chapter 11, “Warlords of the Snow” (p. 134)

“Research. Trial strategy. Debate. As a lawyer, these are the complex areas in which you thrive. But when it comes to building a sustainable business, your education—and experience—can’t guarantee your success.”

Reza Torkzadeh Author and Lawyer

The Lawyer As CEO: Stay Competitive, Attract Better Talent, and Get Your Clients Results (While Building the Law Firm of the Future) (2022),

Education, Business, Success

“As a chess player, I know that strategy is the future impact of present decisions. However grand our plans are for two, five, even ten moves ahead, it's the move that we make now that determines that future.”

Garry Kasparov (1963) former chess world champion

2020s, Stand with Ukraine in the fight against evil (2022)

Decision, Future

“Our higher education system has to be a part of the economic recovery strategy.”

Gary Locke (1950) American politician

"Interview with Former Governor Gary Locke" https://greater-seattle.com/en/2020/06/11/interview-with-former-governor-gary-locke/ (11 June 2020)

Education, Parting

“But it is clear there is a difference in the ends proposed: for in some cases they are activities, and in others results beyond the mere activities, and where there are certain ends beyond and beside the actions, the results are naturally superior to the activities. Now, as there are numerous kinds of actions and numerous arts and sciences, it follows that the ends are also various. Thus the end of the healing art is health, of ship-building ships, of strategy victory, of economy wealth.”

Aristotle (-384–-321 BC) Classical Greek philosopher, student of Plato and founder of Western philosophy

Bk I, Ch I
The Ethics Of Aristotle (Vol. I)

Health, Art, Nature, Science

“You can say this for Senior Management: it knows how to articulate a goal. The strategy may be fuzzy, the execution nonexistent, but Senior Management knows what it wants.”

Max Barry book Company

Source: Company (2006), p. 54

“Hope is not a strategy.”

Chris Voss book Never Split the Difference: Negotiating As If Your Life Depended On It

Hope

“If people would understand that what we are calling mental illness is really just adaptive strategies for mitigating unsafety, it would completely change the approach we take with regards to mental illness.”

Teal Swan (1984) American spiritual teacher

People, Understanding, Change

“So many people are living from strategy instead of from authenticity. So many people are being strategic instead of honest; both with themselves and with others.”

Teal Swan (1984) American spiritual teacher

People

“It is ironic that when the priority is personal safety, the world becomes a very dangerous world. It becomes a world in which everyone is doing things for their own individual best interests. It becomes a society of control, strategy and zero-sum games.”

Teal Swan (1984) American spiritual teacher

World, Game, Personality

“Your existence will improve by associating only with people whose kindness, respect and correctness will be a lifestyle, not a strategy.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: La vostra esistenza migliorerà frequentando solo persone la cui gentilezza, rispetto e correttezza saranno uno stile di vita, non una strategia.
Source: prevale.net

People

“Setting boundaries with some individuals is not selfishness or weakness, but a strategy of wisdom to protect one's emotional, physical and mental health.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: Stabilire dei confini con alcuni individui non è egoismo o debolezza, ma una saggia strategia per proteggere la propria salute emotiva, fisica e mentale.
Source: prevale.net

Wisdom, Health, Selfishness

“Don't complain about boredom, while you look for strategies to combat it, everyday in the world there are people forced to search for solutions to live better.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: Non lamentarti della noia, mentre tu cerchi strategie per combatterla, ogni giorno nel mondo ci sono persone costrette a cercare soluzioni per vivere meglio.
Source: prevale.net

People, World, Search

Quotes about strategy page 6

Quotes about strategy
page 6