Get Things Done Quotes

I'm in a position where, if you have the ability, you should use it well. To get things done. ~ Christine Quinn

We have a crisis of leadership in America because our overwhelming power and wealth, earned under earlier generations of leaders, made us complacent, and for too long we have been training leaders who only know how to keep the routine going. Who can answer questions, but don't know how to ask them. Who can fulfill goals, but don't know how to set them. Who think about how to get things done, but not whether they're worth doing in the first place. What we have now are the greatest technocrats the world has ever seen, people who have been trained to be incredibly good at one specific thing, but who have no interest in anything beyond their area of exper­tise. What we don't have are leaders. What we don't have, in other words, are thinkers. People who can think for themselves. People who can formulate a new direction: for the country, for a corporation or a college, for the Army - a new way of doing things, a new way of looking at things. People, in other words, with vision. ~ William Deresiewicz

If you took all the killing in Star Wars and replaced it with fucking, you'd have an R-rated movie instead of PG. You ask me what's wrong with society? That's what's fucking wrong with society, that's everything that's wrong with society. From the age we're old enough to watch Star Wars we're told that sexuality is something we should be shy and timid about, while violence makes us heroes. Something we were designed to do is secret and shameful. Something we should never do is how we get things done. Star Wars is a great movie, don't get me wrong, but if you think its more acceptable for children than Looking For Alaska, because of the latter's sexual content, then your view of what it means to be human is seriously disturbed. ~ Max Davine

I always try to work hard and get things done as soon as possible, but never at the loss of quality of the product. ~ Chet Faker

In a country as large and diverse as America, compromise is how we get things done. It isn't always pretty, but we have to find solutions to our problems that, at the end of the day, most people can live with. ~ Mark Udall

There are millions of people who can get things done. There are very, very few people who will change the pattern in the whole field. ~ Bill Drayton

People don't like him (John Poindexter) for the same reason they don't like me ... If you get things done in this bureaucracy you step on toes. ~ Oliver North

No," said his cousin. "I've had enough of this. Let's write to the newspapers! That's the way to get things done. Everyone's complaining about the fruit and vegetables and the seafood. Vetinari should be made to understand the plight of the small-time entrepreneur. After all, what do we occasionally pay our taxes for? ~ Terry Pratchett

I'm a progressive who likes to get things done. ~ Hillary Clinton

Anger is a gift. Remember that." She stood. "You gotta grasp onto it, hold it tight and use it as ammunition. You use that anger to get things done instead of just stewing in it. ~ Mark Oshiro

You can't just listen to Rush Limbaugh and get things done. ~ Barack Obama

We rush, rush, rush to get things done, and in the process, our lives rush past us.
Life isn't supposed to rush past you like that. You're supposed to live it. Moment by moment. Mile by mile. Day by day. ~ Lisa Verge Higgins

We look for the scrappy entrepreneur: the kind of person who will get things done without looking to spend money right away. ~ Jon Oringer

I wasn't the kind of student that Pratt was looking for. They wanted patient people who would work on something forever. I didn't want to work on any project forever. I intended to get things done. ~ Jack Kirby

A leader's job is not to do the work for others, it's to help others figure out how to do it themselves, to get things done, and to succeed beyond what they thought possible. ~ Simon Sinek

The way to get things done is not to mind who gets the credit of doing them ~ Benjamin Jowett

I grew up in a big family. You have to learn to get along with each other ... get things done as a family. ~ John Boehner

The technology we need most badly is the technology of community, the knowledge about how to cooperate to get things done. ~ Bill McKibben

There are 3 things I look for when I hire people. Are they smart? Do they get things done? Do I want to spend a lot of time around them? ~ Sam Altman

I care about this state ... and I feel a responsibility to get things done. If we stay healthy and play smart we can be a playoff team. I think we're on the right track. ~ Steve Mariucci

The Russian Revolution is a radical change in history. The abolition of private property has created a new world. You may like it or detest it, but it's new. Hitler's socialism was a sham to get a mob of gangsters into power. He's frozen the German economy just as it was, smashed the labor unions, lengthened the working hours, cut the pay, and kept all the old rich crowd on top, the Krupps and Thyssens, the men who gave him the money to run for office. The big Nazis live like barons, like sultans. The concentration camps are for anybody who still wants the socialist part of National Socialism."

[...]

"I'm sorry. I'm impressed with Hitler's ability to use socialist prattle when necessary, and then discard it. He uses doctrines as he uses money, to get things done. They're expendable. He uses racism because that's the pure distillate of German romantic egotism, just as Lenin used utopian Marxism because it appealed to Russia's messianic streak. Hitler means to hammer out a united Europe.... He understands them, and he may just succeed. A unified Europe must come. The medieval jigsaw of nations is obsolete. The balance of power is dangerous foolishness in the industrial age. It must all be thrown out. Somebody has to be ruthless enough to do it, since the peoples with their ancient hatreds will never do it themselves. It's only Napoleon's original vision, but he was a century ahead of his time. ~ Herman Wouk

Part of America is we've always had people that can get things done. ~ Stephen Pagliuca

I'd like to think I'm a serious legislator and trying to get things done. ~ Rob Portman

It was becoming very complicated because of all the modifications they were doing along the way and taking everyone double the work hours to get things done. ~ Sheri Grunska

Even as entrepreneurs, we rely on people to get things done. We may have the original idea, but moving it forward can involve hundreds of people. Every person becomes integral to the overall success. ~ Donald J. Trump

Never retract, never explain, never apologize; get things done and let them howl. ~ Nellie L. McClung

Basically, managing is about influencing action. Managing is about helping organizations and units to get things done, which means action. Sometimes, managers manage actions directly. They fight fires. They manage projects. They negotiate contracts. ~ Henry Mintzberg

Having fewer unhealthy days and, in turn, more days when you have the energy to get things done is probably the global constant through which businesses and individuals can think about the quantifiable upside of increasing wellbeing. ~ Tom Rath

These are tough times and under this Tory-led government many people in Manchester are suffering and getting left behind. If elected I will use all my energy, skills, experience and knowledge to stand up for our communities and get things done for the better. ~ Lucy Powell

Life is rich it's full of gifts-the more you have the more there is to share. You know its men with small souls who think there isn't enough to go around. They fight to keep their little grasp on their tiny piece of the world and they're always angry because they're never satisfied. They're cursed with a hole they can never fill. They may get things done but they can never keep what they've achieved. ~ Phyllis Curott

California had organized itself, not accidentally, into highly partisan legislative districts. It elected highly partisan people to office and then required these people to reach a two-thirds majority to enact any new tax or meddle with big spending decisions. On the off chance that they found some common ground, it could be pulled out from under them by voters through the initiative process. Throw in term limits - no elected official now serves in California government long enough to fully understand it - and you have a recipe for generating maximum contempt for elected officials. Politicians are elected to get things done and are prevented by the system from doing it, leading the people to grow even more disgusted with them. "The vicious cycle of contempt," as Mark Paul calls it. California state government was designed mainly to maximize the likelihood that voters will continue to despise the people they elect. ~ Michael Lewis

In this culture of participation awards, this society where everyone is special and legitimate skill is the mark of a bygone era, we have ceased to quantify accomplishment. I look around and see a generation of useless, over privileged men who have all been taught to express their opinions rather than get things done. ~ J.A. Rock

Power, in a nutshell, is the ability to get things done, and politics is the ability to decide which things need to be done. ~ Zygmunt Bauman

I've always been a reformer all the time I served in public office, and remain a reformer in Ohio, but I also know how to get things done. And I think it's important that, while we acknowledge the anxieties that Americans have, I think it's also important we realize at the end of the day, we need to have somebody who knows how to land a plane, and I've landed quite a few planes ~ John Kasich

Having been a lobbyist myself you can't overstate how easy it is to get things done your way. It's a complicated policy and many lobbyists are trying to wreck amendments as we speak. ~ Bryony Worthington, Baroness Worthington

She always said, 'When I'm home, I've got to get things done, even if there are visitors. Elizabeth knows how to relax in her own house.' And then she would shake her head, as if Elizabeth had remarkable powers. ~ Jane Smiley

I don't want people to matter to me too much. Sometimes it hurts too much to think about them. Ones you love who don't love you, ones who are dead or hate you, ones who you think about but never get to be with. I like people but when I get too close, it fucks me up and I can't get things done. ~ Henry Rollins

Doing the right thing is important, which is where strategy comes in. But doing that thing well - execution - is what sets companies apart. After all, every football play is designed to go for a huge gain. The reason it doesn't is because of execution - people drop balls, miss blocks, go to the wrong place, and so forth. So, success depends on execution - on the ability to get things done. ~ Jeffrey Pfeffer

It's risky...But sometimes that's the only way to get things done. Take the risk, light the fuse. Onward. ~ Kalynn Bayron

New media require that we - as leaders of our lives - choose where, when, and how to get things done, to manage the boundaries between different parts of life. ~ Stewart D. Friedman

Ignoring phone calls leads to a simple life with more free time. Ignoring emails works well also! I do both when I am trying to get things done. ~ Steven Magee

I just get things done instead of talking about getting them done. I don't go out and party. I don't smoke, drink or do drugs and I'm not married, that leaves a lot of time for my work. ~ Henry Rollins

Sometimes, you have to get angry to get things done. ~ Ang Lee

Never be easy for any president to deal with any Congress. But republicans got to work together. We got to get things done. ~ Chris Christie

In America, being able to get things done, especially if it's by bending rules, making exceptions, or calling in a favor, is the way to show power. In France, being able to say non (especially to a bureaucratically legitimate request) is the way to show power. And piss me off. ~ Vivian Swift

Yes, it seems that as the President (George W. Bush) comes to the end of his two terms, he's finally realized the best way to get things done for you, is for you to do it. ~ Jon Stewart

Clinton knew how to get things done. He was battling the Republicans, and then he basically took a lot of their agenda and made it his own. That's what Obama's not doing. ~ Dennis Quaid

To be purposeful people who can get things done, we need to be able to organize our desires, goals, time, and efforts. This is an important aspect of functioning. ~ Henry Cloud

Sometimes you need conflict in order to come up with a solution. Through weakness, oftentimes, you can't make the right sort of settlement, so I'm aggressive, but I also get things done, and in the end, everybody likes me. ~ Donald Trump

People who want to appear clever rely on memory. People who want to get things done make lists. ~ Peter McWilliams

Most people live life backwards. They party and kill time in their youth, when they're strong and have the energy to accomplish great things. And then they're older, they try to get things done, but they have less energy and enthusiasm by that time. ~ Jarod Kintz

Stubborn people get themselves in a lot of trouble, but they also get things done. ~ Anna Paquin

basis, you may find that it is affecting your daily life because you simply don't get things done. Fortunately, there are a number of habits that you can introduce into your life to stop procrastination. Some of them ~ Sam Davis

Hardworking families can no longer afford to wait for a Congress that gridlocks on ideology. I look forward to working with my colleagues from both parties to get things done. ~ Kyrsten Sinema

The edge is a great place to be. Inside the box is too dark. Outside the box, there's no leverage. But on the edge of the box, you can get things done! ~ Seth Godin

It's interesting to play a female character who's not ever using feminine wiles to get things done. ~ Allison Tolman

I wish I could be someone that is more in the moment. There's a benefit to being who I am because I get things done, but I probably don't need to be in my own head all the time because it's intense in there. ~ Steve Grand

Before you can do things for people, you must be the kind of man who can get things done. But to get things done, you must love the doing, not the secondary consequences. The work, not the people. Your own action, not any possible object of your charity. ~ Ayn Rand

All organizations are hierarchical. At each level people serve under those above them. An organization is therefore a structured institution. If it is not structured, it is a mob. Mobs do not get things done, they destroy things. ~ Theodore Levitt

Why is Amber standing outside in the snow eating a taco?"

"That's just how they get things done in her homeland. ~ Hannah Johnson

What it takes to do a job will not be learned from management courses. It is principally a matter of experience, the proper attitude, and common sense - none of which can be taught in a classroom ... Human experience shows that people, not organizations or management systems, get things done. ~ Hyman G. Rickover

A lot of great thinkers- like Einstein and Newton- come up with their best ideas when they're young because they don't yet think in the way that the establishment teaches them. Sometimes your lack of knowledge frees your mind to be creative and think in a different way. But you still have to be logical and figure out a practical way to get things done, even though you're looking at things differently. ~ George Lucas

What a laugh, though. To think that one human being could ever really know another. You could get used to each other, get so habituated that you could speak their words right along with them, but you never knew why other people said what they said or did what they did, because they never even knew themselves. Nobody understands anybody.
And yet somehow we live together, mostly in peace, and get things done with a high enough success rate that people keep trying. Human beings get married and a lot of marriages work, and they have children and most of them grow up to be decent people, and they have schools and businesses and factories and farms that have results at some level of acceptability - all without having a clue what's going on inside anybody's head.
Muddling through, that's what human beings do.
that was the part of being human that Bean hated the most. ~ Orson Scott Card

You have a limited amount of time to get things done during the course of a given day. It follows that you should limit the scope of your to-do list to accommodate this constraint. If you only have four hours at your disposal, make sure the items on your to-do list can be completed within that time frame. Otherwise, you'll set yourself up for failure. ~ Damon Zahariades

The way Mom saw it, women should let menfolk do the work because it made them feel more manly. That notion only made sense if you had a strong man willing to step up and get things done, and between Dad's gimp, Buster's elaborate excuses, and Apache's tendency to disappear, it was often up to me to keep the place from falling apart. But even when everyone was pitching in, we never got out from under all the work. I loved that ranch, though sometimes it did seem that instead of us owning the place, the place owned us. ~ Jeannette Walls

One of the important lessons of the Internet is, how easy it is to get things done completely shapes what gets created. For that reason, technologies like Amazon's cloud service are very important. Even if they aren't technically impressive, they make things easy to do. ~ Patrick Collison

When you hurry you're more apt to make mistakes. But you have to be quick. If you're not quick you can't get things done. ~ John Wooden

If we're not enthusiastic, we can't get things done. If we're over-enthusiastic, we run into the danger of being fanatical. ~ Woodrow Wyatt

I'm fascinated by management and organizations: how organizations get things done and how successful organizations are built and maintained, how they evolve as they grow from start-ups to small companies to medium companies to big companies. ~ Mitch Kapor

It's not important to get things done, it's important to get the right things done. ~ Peter Drucker

Politics is not really different from marriage. You cannot get things done in your relationship if you tell your wife: Look, if you haven't made the bed and if you don't get the food on the table, I will go and just hire someone and you will become irrelevant. That is not how you make a marriage work. ~ Arnold Schwarzenegger

As legendary investor Warren Buffett put it, by definition, "A leader is someone who can get things done through other people: ~ Tom Rath

The older I get, I'm definitely getting pulled towards the West Coast, because it's a different quality of life. New York is great when you're in your early 20s and you're running around and it's really fun, but it's a place for me to get things done. ~ Erin Wasson

Our Body function in unity,to get things done.The body of the world, should learn from our body. ~ Peter Irabor

I will get things done for America ... Faced with apathy, I will take action. Faced with conflict, I will seek common ground ... Faced with adversity, I will persevere. I will carry this commitment with me this year. I am an Americorps volunteer. ~ William J. Clinton

Over the years, many producers have come and gone, and screenplays were written and abandoned. It's the Hollywood process. It's hard to get things done. ~ Lawrence Blume

Highly-adaptive, informal networks move diagonally and eliptically, skipping entire functions to get things done. ~ Jacques Barzun

I have always said I've had a big personality, and I've always said I'm a pushy broad, and I've always said I want to get things done. ~ Christine Quinn

Think about it. Politics is just a name for the way we get things done ... without fighting. We dicker and compromise and everybody thinks he has received a raw deal, but somehow after a tedious amount of talk we come up with some jury-rigged way to do it without getting anybody's head bashed in. That's politics. The only other way to settle a dispute is by bashing a few heads in ... and that is what happens when one or both sides is no longer willing to dicker. That's why I say politics is good even when it is bad
because the only alternative is force-and somebody gets hurt. -- Senator Tom Fries ~ Robert A. Heinlein

I have been constantly telling people to encourage people, to question the unquestioned and not to be ashamed to bring up new ideas, new processes to get things done. ~ Ratan Tata

I don't create companies for the sake of creating companies, but to get things done. ~ Elon Musk

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. ~ Laozi

On our own we simply don't know how to get things done the same way you do things. But, like everyone else, we want to do the best we possibly can. When we sense you've given up on us, it makes us feel miserable. So please keep helping us, through to the end. ~ Naoki Higashida

Power is just using energy in a wise way to get things done. Power has been misinterpreted to mean getting my way on the backs of other people. Getting whatever I want, forgetting that there are other beings and species and energies involved. ~ Elizabeth Lesser

Governments take too long to get things done and there are far too many varied interests at stake. If you were starting a business today and needed a partner, you would never choose a large bureaucratic institution like the government. ~ Naveen Jain

You do not exist in this world to get things done. You exist to glorify God by doing good to others. ~ Tim Challies

I'm always amazed by people who blog all the time and tweet all the time, and still get things done. I don't know how they do it. ~ Jarvis Cocker

She's a planner. She doesn't, you know, wing anything. She likes to make lists and check things off, get things done. ~ Gillian Flynn

Now, look, it's true, Americans do want leaders that will come to Washington, D.C. and work together to get things done, but that comes with a very important caveat, it depends what they're trying to do. ~ Marco Rubio

People support me because they know me. They know my life's work. They have worked with me and many have also worked with Senator [Bernie] Sanders. And at the end of the day they endorse me because they know I can get things done. ~ Hillary Clinton

It appears, Mister Lipwig, that you do not understand the nature of our relationship. I ask, very politely, for you to achieve something, bearing in mind that there are other ways I could ask, and it is your job to get things done. ~ Terry Pratchett

QUOTE:
"Creating art and literature requires a creative imagination as well as the ability to get things done in a disciplined manner. Live in the moment, and plan for tomorrow. ~ Adam Donaldson Powell

We'll get things done together. Democrats, Republicans, independents, we're going to make progress together when I'm president. ~ Hillary Clinton

Though the views of members of the House and Senate are as divergent as the people we represent, we bear the responsibility to work through our political differences and get things done. That's our job. ~ Martha Roby

New Rule: America must stop bragging it's the greatest country on earth, and start acting like it. I know this is uncomfortable for the "faith over facts" crowd, but the greatness of a country can, to a large degree, be measured. Here are some numbers. Infant mortality rate: America ranks forty-eighth in the world. Overall health: seventy-second. Freedom of the press: forty-fourth. Literacy: fifty-fifth. Do you realize there are twelve-year old kids in this country who can't spell the name of the teacher they're having sex with?

America has done many great things. Making the New World democratic. The Marshall Plan. Curing polio. Beating Hitler. The deep-fried Twinkie. But what have we done for us lately? We're not the freest country. That would be Holland, where you can smoke hash in church and Janet Jackson's nipple is on their flag.

And sadly, we're no longer a country that can get things done. Not big things. Like building a tunnel under Boston, or running a war with competence. We had six years to fix the voting machines; couldn't get that done. The FBI is just now getting e-mail.

Prop 87 out here in California is about lessening our dependence on oil by using alternative fuels, and Bill Clinton comes on at the end of the ad and says, "If Brazil can do it, America can, too!" Since when did America have to buck itself up by saying we could catch up to Brazil? We invented the airplane and the lightbulb, they invented the bikini wax, and now ~ Bill Maher

Know Where You Want To Go - And Why. ~ Mani S. Sivasubramanian

I mean, I can get things done if I need to, but I can really be completely irresponsible and procrastinate until the very, very, very bitter end. In fact, sometimes I work better under pressure. ~ Cameron Diaz

Studio films are really fun. You have months and months to shoot. With the smaller films you get to be on a much more intimate set and have to get things done quickly. ~ Emma Roberts

History has shown us that 'Get Things Done' is mindless liberal code for passing ineffective legislation and expanding government for government's sake. ~ Michelle Malkin

The real world doesn't reward perfectionists. It rewards people who get things done. ~ Ziad K. Abdelnour