Efficiency Quotes

“Good big decisions do not take time at all, if they do you are in trouble.”

“We really can say no in 10 seconds or so to 90% and more of all the things that come along simply because we have these filters.”

“One of my favorite ideas is, never to keep an unnecessary soldier.”

“Don't labor forever over the question of how or if you can do it. Studies have shown that the most successful people make decisions rapidly because they are clear on their values and what they really want for their lives.”

“Whether or not [the company] maximizes resources, that's the job of the leader. How do I get greater results using less resources? That requires an enormous psychology when the economy is changing, the technology is changing, and the competition is worldwide.”

“It's a good idea not to major in minor things.”

“Time is one of the biggest issues you'll see. People just do not know how to maximize their time. The way in which you execute and utilize time is everything. And most people push up against the threshold of their control.”

“We have feudal governments in a commercial age. It would be but an easy extension of our commercial system, to pay a private emperor a fee for services, as we pay an architect, an engineer, or a lawyer. If any man has talent for righting wrong, for administering difficult affairs, for counselling poor farmers how to turn their estates to good husbandry, for combining a hundred private enterprises to a general benefit, let him in the county- town, or in Court-street, put up his sign-board, Mr. Smith, Governor, Mr. Johnson, Working king.”

“Methinks the human method of expression by sound of tongue is very elementary, and ought to be substituted for some ingenious invention which should be able to give vent to at least six coherent sentences at once.”

“The higher your energy level, the more efficient your body The more efficient your body, the better you feel and the more you will use your talent to produce outstanding results.”

“I write my scripts short and they develop on the set, which I have found a far better premise both economically and practically.”

“I'm a strategist, not a motivator. I'm obsessed with finding strategies that create real results in the shortest period of time.”

“People who have time on their hands will inevitably waste the time of people who have work to do.”

“There are only two economists in Congress and hundreds of lawyers. Does that explain why the government is in such a mess?”

“To the economically illiterate, if some company makes a million dollars in profit, this means that their products cost a million dollars more than they would have without profits. It never occurs to such people that these products might cost several million dollars more without the incentives to be efficient created by the prospect of profits.”

“What then is the intellectual advantage of civilization over primitive savagery? It is not necessarily that each civilized man has more knowledge but that he requires far less.”

“There is no bigger waste of time than doing 90% of what is necessary.”

“If we can but prevent the government from wasting the labours of the people, under the pretence of taking care of them, they must become happy.”

“Steam is no stronger now than it was a hundred years ago, but it is put to better use.”

“I think we have more machinery of government than is necessary, too many parasites living on the labor of the industrious.”

“Being busy does not always mean real work. The object of all work is production or accomplishment and to either of these ends there must be forethought, system, planning, intelligence, and honest purpose, as well as perspiration. Seeming to do is not doing.”

“Virtually everything that the government does costs more than when the same thing is done in private industry - whether it is building housing, running prisons, collecting garbage, or innumerable other things. Why in the world would we imagine that health care would be the exception?”

“The least productive people are usually the ones who are most in favor of holding meetings.”

“People who enjoy meetings should not be in charge of anything.”

“Wherefore, security being the true design and end of government, it unanswerably follows that whatever form thereof appears most likely to ensure it to us, with the least expense and greatest benefit, is preferable to all others.”