Strategic Inaction Quotes

Superior leaders get things done with very little motion. They impart instruction not through many words, but through a few deeds. They keep informed about everything but interfere hardly at all. They are catalysts, and though things would not get done as well if they were not there, when they succeed they take no credit. And, because they take no credit, credit never leaves them.

The softest things in the world overcome the hardest things in the world. Through this I know the advantage of taking no action.

The man who knows when not to act is wise. To my mind bravery if forethought.

Most successful investors, in fact, do nothing most of the time.

When you most succeed, you do so by seeming not to act at all.

Sometimes doing nothing is doing something.

One of the best rules anybody can learn about investing is to do nothing, absolutely nothing, unless there is something to do... I just wait until there is money lying in the corner, and all I have to do is go over there and pick it up... I wait for a situation that is like the proverbial "shooting fish in a barrel."

Sometimes an active policy is best advanced by doing nothing until the right time -- or never.

Pretend to be dumb, that's the only way to reach old age.

So we do nothing? --Claire We do the best nothing you've ever seen. --Michael

Admirals extolled for standing still, or doing nothing with a deal of skill.

Pretend to be mad and talk a lot. Then — and this is the important bit — do nothing at all until you absolutely have to and then make sure everyone dies.