In crises the most daring course is often safest.

Faith in oneself is the best and safest course.

The superpowers often behave like two heavily armed blind men feeling their way around a room, each believing himself in mortal peril from the other, whom he assumes to have perfect vision.

High office teaches decision making, not substance. It consumes intellectual capital; it does not create it. Most high officials leave office with the perceptions and insights with which they entered; they learn how to make decisions but not what decisions to make.

The safest words are always those which bring us most directly to facts.

The safest course for all of us as public officials is simply to throw all the money in a sack. Or in the way of one servant in the Biblical parable of the talents, bury the money in the ground rather than accept any risk. The servant's business plan proved reliable but ineffective.