“There are a lot of people who lie and get away with it, and that’s just a fact.”

Learn to say ‘I don’t know.’ If used when appropriate, it will be often.

Prune – prune businesses, products, activities, people. Do it annually.

Everyone’s saying you can’t do anything until you can do everything.

Simply because you do not have evidence that something exists does not mean that you have evidence that it doesn’t exist.

If the staff lacks policy guidance against which to test decisions, their decisions will be random.

Whatever your position, reach out to those who know more than you do, and have been around longer than you have. Find those people. Listen carefully. And learn.

Every day is filled with numerous opportunities for serious error. Enjoy it.

It isn’t making mistakes that’s critical; it’s correcting them and getting on with the principal task.

There are no “knowns.” There are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say there are things that we now know we don’t know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we do not know we don’t know.

Remember where you came from.

Arguments of convenience lack integrity and inevitably trip you up.

Let your family, staff, and friends know that you’re still the same person, despite all the publicity and notoriety that accompanies your position.

If you try to please everybody, somebody’s not going to like it.

If you are not criticized, you may not be doing much.

Reduce the layers of management. They put distance between the top of an organization and the customers.

Test ideas in the marketplace. You learn from hearing a range of perspectives. Consultation helps engender the support decisions need to be successfully implemented.

A thing may be incredible and still be true; sometimes it is incredible because it is true.

Christianity is the root of all democracy, the highest fact in the rights of men.

Battered women is a phrase that uncovered major, long-hidden violence. It helps us to face the fact that, statistically speaking, the most dangerous place for a woman is in her own home, not in the streets.

The politician is the creature of the public sentiment — never goes ahead of it because he depends on it . . .

We too often bind ourselves by authorities rather than by the truth.

The problem that has no name-which is simply the fact that American women are kept from growing to their full human capacities-is taking a far greater toll on the physical and mental health of our country than any known disease.

Most people, in fact, will not take the trouble in finding out the truth, but are much more inclined to accept the first story they hear.

Nothing can ever happen twice. In consequence, the sorry fact is that we arrive here improvised and leave without the chance to practice.