Tough Decisions Quotes

My experience tells me the hard road is almost always the right road.

Whoever governs Singapore must have that iron in him. Or give it up. This is not a game of cards.

I didn't run for office to make friends.

Federal governments and even state governments within countries have basically been immobilized by conflicting interests, by conflicting views of what science is, and the inability to lead. They are immobilized because they don’t want to take tough votes and alienate half of the constituency.

Governments need to have both shepherds and butchers.

Tough times call for tougher decisions.

I'm very hard-nosed and cold-blooded and I can walk past a drowning man. If I have someplace else to go, well, tough s**t. I could do that. I can. Have. Sometimes, not because I was callous but had to do it.

When a man assumes leadership, he forfeits the right to mercy.

I never wanted to be feared. If I regret one thing, it is the fear I have caused. Fear is the tool of tyrants. Unfortunately, when the fate of the world is in question, you use whatever tools are available.

When you're President you have to make a lot of tough decisions. You have to keep lining them up and making them.

When I came into office, I could have kicked the can down the road for a little while, or I could do the right thing.

The issues that cross a president's desk are never easy. The easy questions don't even get to the president.

My goal was to do the best job I could in governing the state of Wisconsin, in some cases making very tough decisions to have to bring our spending in line with the resources we had at the state level.

You must endure what is painful to secure that which is profitable.

If someone were to ask me before I made the NBA, you going to have to go through all this, you're going to have to sign your soul away to play in the league, I still would have done it.

Government should make tough decisions in the larger national interests, even if it upsets the people.

War is never a choice between a good choice and a bad choice. It is a choice between a bad choice and a worse choice.

Fiction should be about moral dilemmas that are so bloody difficult that the author doesn't know the answer.

It's not easy to do the unpopular thing.

CEOs make hard decisions; sometimes, the least worst is the right one.

I'm able to make decisions even in the face of adversity.

Men ought either to be well treated, or crushed.

I've seen Coach Saban over the years have to make a lot of tough decisions, and there's not one decision he doesn't make that he doesn't bounce ideas off the staff. To me, that's invaluable.

Sometimes it seems like this is the choice - either kick ass or kiss ass.

Writing a novel is like driving a car at night. Sometimes you run over a drunk who's lain down and fallen asleep on the warm pavement. I mean, do you keep going, or what?