Selected Sidebar Quotes from "Getting Things Done"

Blessed are the flexible, for they shall not be bent out of shape. --Michael McGriffey, MD

Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler. --Albert Einstein

Fanaticism consists of redoubling your efforts when you have forgotten your aim. --George Santayana

The best way to get a good idea is to get lots of ideas. --Linus Pauling

What lies in our power to do, lies in our power not to do. --Aristotle

We all have times when we think more effectively, and times when we should not be thinking at all. --Daniel Cohen

The best place to succeed is where you are, with what you have. --Charles Schwab

Luck affects everything. Let your hook always be cast; in the stream where you least expect it there will be a fish. --Ovid

Let our advance worrying become advance thinking and planning. --Winston Churchill

The secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret of getting started is breaking your complex overwhelming tasks into small manageable tasks, and then getting started on the first one. --Mark Twain

I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened. --Mark Twain

No matter how big and tough a problem may be, get rid of confusion by taking one little step toward solution. Do something. --George F. Nordenholt

You can only cure retail, but you can prevent wholesale. --Brock Chisolm

Talk does not cook rice. --Chinese proverb

There are risks and costs to a program of action, but they are far less than the long range risks and costs of comfortable inaction. -- John F. Kennedy

People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don't believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and, if they can't find them, make them. --George Bernard Shaw

An idealist believes the short run doesn't count. A cynic believes the long run doesn't matter. A realist believes that what is done or left undone in the short run determines the long run. --Sydney J. Harris