In preparing for battle, I have always found that plans are useless but planning is indispensable.
--
Quoted in Six Crises (1962) by Richard Nixon, and Quotation number 18611 in The Columbia World of QuotationsDwight D. Eisenhower
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I tell this story to illustrate the truth of the statement I heard long ago in the Army: Plans are worthless, but planning is everything. There is a very great distinction because when you are planning for an emergency you must start with this one thing: the very definition of "emergency" is that it is unexpected, therefore it is not going to happen the way you are planning.
Dwight D. Eisenhower
Whatever people do in the market economy, is the execution of their own plans. In this sense every human action means planning. What those calling themselves planners advocate is not the substitution of planned action for letting things go. It is the substitution of the planner's own plan for the plans of his fellow-men. The planner is a potential dictator who wants to deprive all other people of the power to plan and act according to their own plans. He aims at one thing only: the exclusive absolute pre-eminence of his own plan.
Ludwig von Mises
Plans are of little importance, but planning is essential.
Winston Churchill
Of course many people will have much to say.
We should listen. But we won't be deceived
by words such as Indispensable, Unique, and Great.
Someone else indispensable and unique and great
can always be found at a moment's notice.Constantine P. Cavafy
So long as we love we serve; so long as we are loved by others, I would almost say that we are indispensable; and no man is useless while he has a friend.
Robert Louis Stevenson
Eisenhower, Dwight D.
Eisenstein, Ferdinand
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