A Quote by Neal Stephenson

Any strategy that involves crossing a valley accepting short-term losses to reach a higher hill in the distance will soon be brought to a halt by the demands of a system that celebrates short-term gains and tolerates stagnation, but condemns anything else as failure. In short, a world where big stuff can never get done.

Neal Stephenson

Quote Topics

Accepting Any Anything Anything Else Big Big Stuff Brought Crossing Demands Distance Done Else Failure Gains Get Halt Higher Hill Involves Losses Never Reach Short Short-Term Soon Stagnation Strategy Stuff System Term Valley Will World

Quote Author

Neal Stephenson
American - Writer
Born: October 31, 1959

The dominance of short-term perspectives has led to routine decisions in the markets that sacrifice the long-term buildup of genuine value in pursuit of artificial, short-term gains.

Al Gore

Politicians and the government have become too interested in short-term gains. Of course, if you look at the direct financial returns in the short term, human space flight is expensive. But they need to look longer term.

Helen Sharman

The most important thing that a company can do in the midst of this economic turmoil is to not lose sight of the long-term perspective. Don't confuse the short-term crises with the long-term trends. Amidst all of these short-term change are some fundamental structural transformations happening in the economy, and the best way to stay in business is to not allow the short-term distractions to cause you to ignore what is happening in the long term.

Paul Saffo

I understand that fans think short-term, and there's nothing wrong with that. You live or you die in the short term. But I believe in our system, and when you do that, you don't make knee-jerk decisions.

Rocky Wirtz

The big companies are the private industry. But they're faced with a short-term need to show a profit in short-term.

Buzz Aldrin

Your short-term gains are the rest of the world's long-term disasters - for everybody, including yourselves. And, I'm sorry, I've been saying you and the United States or America, when I actually mean the US government. There's a difference. Big one.

Arundhati Roy

People are willing to get short-term gains at the risk of long-term choices.

Rick Rubin

Short-term market and economic prognostication is largely a fool’s errand, we invest according to a strategy that makes the need to rely on short-term market or economic assessments largely irrelevant.

Bill Ackman

Fitting in is a short-term strategy that gets you nowhere. Standing out is a long-term strategy that takes guts and produces results.

Seth Godin

People tend to overestimate the short-term impact of technological change. In the short-term, it's not going to make that much of a difference.

Stewart Butterfield

Money is a short-term result that incentivizes short-term decision making.

Simon Sinek

If the short-term decisions you make damage the long term, you should resist those. But there are many short-term decisions that you need to make to be a successful manager.

Paul Polman

With my eyes closed, I ask if she knows how this will all turn out. "Long-term or short-term?" she asks. Both. "Long-term," she says, "we're all going to die. Then our bodies will rot. No surprise there. Short-term, we're going to live happily ever after." Really? "Really," she says. "So don't sweat it.

Chuck Palahniuk

We believe strongly that in the long term, we will be better served - as shareholders and in all other ways - by a company that does good things for the world even if we forgo some short term gains. This is an important aspect of our culture and is broadly shared within the company.

Larry Page

I want to make it very clear that this middle-class tax cut, in my view, is central to any attempt we're going to make to have a short-term economic strategy and a long-term fairness strategy, which is part of getting this country going again.