"Use the formula P=40 to 70, in..." - Quote by Colin Powell
Use the formula P=40 to 70, in which P stands for the probability of success and the numbers indicate the percentage of information acquired. Once the information is in the 40 to 70 range, go with your gut.
More by Colin Powell
“We have practiced diplomacy since the very beginning of the nation. Sometimes it has not worked, and we've had to go to war. I always believe you should try to find peace and reconciliation before conflict. That has been the approach I've taken.”
“Engineering didn't take to me. And what saved me and kept me in college was I ran into ROTC cadets who were in a fraternity called The Pershing Rifles. And I found my place. I found discipline. I found structure. I found people that were like me and I liked.”
“What we would be committed to would be a representative government where all the Iraqi people decide who should lead their nation, and lead it in a way that keeps it together as a single nation and where all parts of the nation - Shia, Sunni and Kurds - are able to live free and in peace and believe that their interests are represented by the government.”
More on Decision Making
“Yeah, we don't consider many stupid things. I mean, we get rid of 'em fast...Just getting rid of the nonsense -- just figuring out that if people call you and say, 'I've got this great, wonderful idea', you don't spend 10 minutes once you know in the first sentence that it isn't a great, wonderful idea...Don't be polite and go through the whole process.”
“How many things there are concerning which we might well deliberate whether we had better know them.”
“What would you do if you were President, and, on the first day of May, the Russian Ambassador presented you with a beautiful cake which emitted a curious ticking noise? Would you plunge it into a pail of water - thus insulting Soviet cuisine in general?”
More on Risk
“The more adaptability exists for a given kind of decision, the less risky it is to make plans for the future, and therefore the more likely it is that more people will make more plans in such areas.”
“To love is to risk not being loved in return.”
“That's the good part of dying; when you've nothing to lose, you run any risk you want.”