Quality

Quality

There is hardly anything in the world that some man cannot make a little worse and sell a little cheaper.
John Ruskin 1819–1900, English critic and social theorist

Quality is never an accident; it is always the result of intelligent efforts.
John Ruskin 1819-1900, English author and social critic

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then, is not an act, but a habit.
Aristotle 384BC-322BC, Greek philosopher and scientist

As natural selection works solely by and for the good of each being, all corporeal and mental endowments will tend to progress towards perfection.
Charles Darwin 1809-1882, English naturalist and originator of the evolution theory

If you can not describe what you are doing as a process, you do not know what you are doing.
W. Edwards Deming 1900-1993, American continuous improvement management guru

It is quality rather than quantity that matters.
Lucius Annaeus Seneca 5BC-65AD, Roman tragedian, philosopher, and counselor to Nero, Epistles

Quality is free, but only to those who are willing to pay heavily for it.
Philip Crosby 1926-2001, American business philosopher and writer on quality

It is the quality of our work which will please God and not the quantity.
Mahatma Gandhi 1869 – 1948, Indian deep thinker and constant experimenter

Professionalism means consistency of quality.
Frank Tyger

Strategy

Imagination is more important than knowledge.
Albert Einstein 1879-1955; German-born American theoretical physicist

Running a company on market research is like driving while looking in the rear mirror.
Anita Roddick 1942-, American businesswoman

Know the other and know thyself: Triumph without peril. Know nature and know the situation: Triumph completely.
Sun Tzu c. 490 BC, Chinese military strategist

For every complex problem there is a simple solution that is wrong.
George Bernard Shaw 1856-1950; Irish playwright and critic

Smart people also learn from their enemies.
Aristophanes 445BC-385BC, Greek poet

Thinking is more interesting than knowing, but less interesting than looking.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe 1749-1832, German poet, dramatist and scientist

Drive thy business; let it not drive thee.
Benjamin Franklin 1706-1790; American writer and statesman

What we anticipate seldom occurs; what we least expect generally happens.
Benjamin Disraeli 1804-1881, British prime minister and novelist

A gladiator makes his plan in the arena (too late).
Seneca 4BC-65AC, Roman writer and moralist

How many things are looked upon as quite impossible until they have been actually effected.
Pliny the Elder 23-79, Roman writer

A wise man also fears a weak enemy.
Publilius Syrus ~100 BC

The processes used to arrive at the total strategy are typically fragmented, evolutionary, and largely intuitive.
James Quinn in Strategic Change: Logical Incrementalism, 1978

Perception is strong and sight weak. In strategy it is important to see distant things as if they were close and to take a distanced view of close things.
Miyamoto Musashi 1584-1645, legendary Japanese swordsman

Consider the little mouse, how sagacious an animal it is which never entrusts its life to one hole only.
Plautus 254BC-184 BC, Roman playwright

There is always a better strategy than the one you have; you just haven`t thought of it yet.
Sir Brian Pitman, former CEO of Lloyds TSB, Harvard Business Review, April 2003

To conquer the enemy without resorting to war is the most desirable. The highest form of generalship is to conquer the enemy by strategy.
Sun Tzu c. 490 BC, Chinese military strategist

The pilot cannot mitigate the billows or calm the winds.
Plutarch 46-120, Greek biographer and philosopher

However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results.
Sir Winston Churchill 1874-1965, English statesman

When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.
`Sherlock Holmes`, Arthur Conan Doyle 1859-1930, English novelist

To plan, v. To bother about the best method of accomplishing an accidental results.
Ambrose Bierce 1842-1914, American columnis

Alliance, n. In international politics, the union of two thieves who have their hands so deeply inserted in each other`s pocket that they cannot seperately plunder a third.
Ambrose Bierce 1842-1914, American columnist

Planning is an unnatural process; it is much more fun to do something. The nicest thing about not planning is that failure comes as a complete surprise, rather than being preceded by a period of worry and depression.
Sir John Harvey-Jones, Former CEO of ICI

The first percept was never to accept a thing as true until I knew it was such without a single doubt.
René Descartes 1596-1650, French rationalist philosopher and mathematician

Advantage is a better soldier than rashness.
William Shakespeare 1564-1616, English dramatist

Uncertainty is not a result of ignorance or the partiality of human knowledge, but is a characteristic of the world itself.
M. Taylor in The Moment of Complexity: Emerging Network Culture, 2001

We are not all capable of everything.
Virgil 70-19BC, Roman philosopher

Your most dangerous competitors are those that are most like you. The differences between you and your competitors are the basis of your advantage.
Bruce Henderson, Founder Boston Consulting Group, HBR 1989