On Plans And Planning

I like to browse around Bartleby.com. They have a searchable database of quotations there along with a very good set of thesauri and dictionaries.

There's been a lot of talk around here about plans and planning and I wanted to see what some others had said before. The historical consensus seems to be that a plan can never be better than the will to follow it. Here's a part of what I found. Enjoy.

Like the Roman town grid, the New York plan was laid down on largely empty land, a city designed in advance of being inhabited; if the Romans consulted the heavens for guidance in this effort, the city fathers of New York consulted the banks.
-----Richard Sennett (b. 1943), U.S. social historian.

“I like to have a plan,” said Mr. Palliser.
“And so do I,” said his wife,—”if only for the sake of not keeping it.”
“There’s nothing I hate so much as not carrying out my intentions,” said Mr. Palliser.
----Anthony Trollope (1815–1882), British novelist. Can You Forgive Her?

In the planning and designing of new communities, housing projects, and urban renewal, the planners both public and private, need to give explicit consideration to the kind of world that is being created for the children who will be growing up in these settings. Particular attention should be given to the opportunities which the environment presents or precludes for involvement of children with persons both older and younger than themselves.
----Urie Bronfenbrenner (b. 1917) U.S. (Russian-born) psychologist, advocate for families. Two Worlds of Childhood: U.S. and U.S.S.R.

A city … is the pulsating product of the human hand and mind, reflecting man’s history, his struggle for freedom, creativity, genius—and his selfishness and errors.
----Charles Abrams, Chairman, Department of City Planning, Columbia University The City Is the Frontier

We have come to accept with enthusiasm the unprofessional, unappreciative, unskillful butchery of the land that goes under the name of planning.
-----William L Pereira Recalled on his death, Time 25 Nov 85

Put in hours and hours of planning, figure everything down to the last detail, then what? Burglar alarms start going off all over the place for no sensible reason. A gun fires of its own accord and a man is shot. And a broken-down old house no good for anything but chasing kids has to trip over us. Blind accidents. What can you do against blind accidents?
----Ben Maddow (1909–1992), U.S. screenwriter, and John Huston (1906–1987). Doc Erwin Riedenschneider (Sam Jaffe), The Asphalt Jungle, to Dix Handley after their jewel heist plans start to unravel (1950).