In the ill-judged execution of the well-judged plan of things the call seldom produces the comer, the man to love rarely coincides with the hour for loving

Thomas Mann used to write education novels and now you can write an education memoir, and there are all these memoirs coming out now about people’s relationships with books. Like anything else, these can be good or bad. The genre doesn’t make it good or bad, it’s the execution

An enthusiast broods over the oppression of a people till he fancies himself commissioned by Heaven to liberate them. He ventures the attempt, which ends in little else than his own execution.

The first ‘D’ is to dream: dream big – not for yourself, but for the country and for the world. The second ‘D’ is to discover: discover your full potential and the opportunities that surround you; and the third ‘D’ is to do. ‘Do’ means to act on your dreams and make best use of the opportunities you have discovered.

I have more respect for the fellow with a single idea who gets there than for the fellow with a thousand ideas who does nothing

Stupidity cannot be cured. Stupidity is the only universal capital crime; the sentence is death. There is no appeal, and execution is carried out automatically and without pity.

Every minute you spend in planning saves 10 minutes in execution; this gives you a 1,000 percent Return on Energy!

Strategy is a commodity, execution is an art.

A really great man is known by three signs: generosity in the design, humanity in the execution, moderation in success.

Be audacious and cunning in your plans, firm and persevering in their execution, determined to find a glorious end.

No country can be well governed unless its citizens as a body keep religiously before their minds that they are the guardians of the law and that the law officers are only the machinery for its execution, nothing more

Vision without execution is hallucination. .. Skill without imagination is barren. Leonardo [da Vinci] knew how to marry observation and imagination, which made him history’s consummate innovator.

Companies face a handful of different risks, whether it is competitors or different market environments. But I think that people focus way too much on competitors and not enough on their own execution.