“In preparing for battle I have always found plans useless, but planning indispensable.” — Dwight Eisenhower
“God laughs when Man plans.” — Yiddish proverb
“Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.” — Mike Tyson
“Plan your work. Work your plan.” — Grandpa Kellogg (and many others)
“Failing to plan is planning to fail.” — Alan Lakein
“A good plan violently executed is better than a perfect plan executed next week.” — George Patton
“Plans are only good intentions unless they immediately degenerate into hard work.” — Peter Drucker
“A goal without a plan is just a wish.” — Antoine de Saint-Exupery
“Proper planning and preparation prevents piss-poor performance.” — Military Acronym (also known as the 7 Ps)
Not sure where I came across this one, but “Tactics without Strategy is the noise before Defeat”.
My favorite remains “No plan survives contact with the enemy,” which is usually misattributed. Looks like it’s an evolved paraphrase of von Moltke’s original: gory details at https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Helmuth_von_Moltke_the_Elder
One of my favs as well — similar to the Mike Tyson one in fact!
Just discovered your blog – love the posts! My fav quote on plans:
You need a plan so you know what you’re not doing
Absolutely, I make a not-on-list list as part of every plan.
Great list. Not sure it will ever crack the Top 25, but for those of us who remember the 80s, it’s hard not to remember the A-Team’s Hannibal Smith on planning, “I love it when a good plan comes together.”