100 Decision Quotes For Better Decision-Making (And Life)

By Maxime Lagacé

Maxime is the founder of WisdomQuotes. He has been collecting quotes since 2004. His goal? To help you develop a calm and peaceful mind. Learn more about him on his about page.

You make 35,000 decisions each day.

But what if you became 10% better at making them?

What about 25%?

50%?

Here are 100 of the best decision quotes I could find.

What’s my goal?

To help you make better decisions and ultimately improve your life.

You’ll discover authors like Jordan Peterson, Maya Angelou, Tony Robbins, and many more.

Enjoy!
decision quotes most important make good mood voltaire wisdom

The most important decision you make is to be in a good mood. Voltaire

The quality of your life ultimately depends on quality of your decisions. Ray Dalio (Source)

It’s the smallest decisions that can change your life forever. Gary Goodridge (Source)

The worst decision of all is none. Jordan Peterson

Your legacy is being written by yourself. Make the right decisions. Gary Vaynerchuk

decision quotes better judgments long term vision maxime lagace wisdom

Better decisions follow better judgment. Better judgments follow long-term vision. Maxime Lagacé

You are only one defining decision away from a totally different life. Mark Batterson

Decision is the ultimate power. Decisions shape destiny. Tony Robbins

Don’t mourn over your bad decisions. Just start overcoming them with good ones. Joyce Meyer

The best decisions aren’t made with your mind, but with your instinct. Lionel Messi

decision quotes indecision angela jiang wisdom

Indecision is eventually a decision. Angela Jiang (Source)

The best math you can learn is how to calculate the future cost of current decisions. Wesley Snipes (Source)

What you are not changing, you are choosing. Unknown

Wisdom starts when you no longer need short-term rewards. Maxime Lagacé

Hard choices, easy life. Easy choices, hard life. Jerzy Gregorek

Related

via GIPHY

More Great Quotes About Decisions

One day, or day one, you decide. Unknown

Every decision you make reflects your evaluation of who you are. Marianne Williamson

Effective decision-making can be seen as an optimal link between memory of the past, ground-realities of the present and insights of the future. Amit Ray

Two things determine how your life will turn out: luck and the quality of your decisions. Annie Duke (Source)

Where you are going to spend your time and your energy is one of the most important decisions you get to make in life. Jeff Bezos

Some people make bad choices, but that doesn’t make them bad people. Gary Goodridge

A happy, calm, and peaceful person will make better decisions. Naval Ravikant

More is lost by indecision than wrong decision. Cicero

Stay committed to your decisions, but stay flexible in your approach. Tony Robbins

Decisions are nothing without execution. Shane Parrish (Source)

Most people are either good at thinking with a 10 year time horizon or operating with the urgency of a 10 day time horizon. Extremely powerful if you can do both. Sam Altman

Ask yourself at every moment: is this necessary? Marcus Aurelius

You are the manifestation of every decision you’ve ever made. A decision today determines who you are tomorrow. Matthew Kobach

Don’t outsource your happiness or success to other people’s decisions. Naval Ravikant

A good decision starts with short-term pain and ends with long-term benefits. Maxime Lagacé

When making any major life decision, remember: If it’s not a “Fuck Yes;” then it’s a “No.” Mark Manson

Spend more time making the big decisions. Naval Ravikant

There are basically three really big decisions you make in your early life: where you live, who you’re with, and what you’re doing. Naval Ravikant

The single most important decision you make is where you live. It drives your business opportunities, relationships, food and water supply, politics, activities, and day-to-day quality of life. Naval Ravikant

A good rule of thumb: if a decision is not permanent, it’s better to move too fast. If a decision is permanent, it’s better to move too slow. Mark Manson (Source)

You can tell how good someone is at making decisions by how much time they have. Busy people spend a lot of time correcting poor decisions, so they don’t have time to make good decisions. Good decisions need good thinking, and that requires time. Shane Parrish

Your biography is not your destiny, your decisions are. Tony Robbins

If you don’t say yes in the first 5 minutes, say no. Shane Parrish

Don’t wait until life isn’t hard anymore before you decide to be happy. Autumn Wilson

All decisions are bets. Annie Duke (Thinking In Bets, Amazon book)

Every choice you make is a step toward or away from the person you want to become. No single choice will get you where you want to go. Only repeated steps over time in the same direction will move you forward. Shane Parrish

A simple heuristic to ask yourself: Is this choice going to make the future easier or harder? Shane Parrish

The easy choice in the moment almost always makes the future harder. The hard choice almost always makes the future easier. Shane Parrish (Source)

A real decision is measured by the fact that you’ve taken a new action. If there’s no action, you haven’t truly decided. Tony Robbins

At the start of a decision, intuition is unreliable. The patterns you’ve detected in the past might not apply to the present. After you’ve weighed the decision, intuition becomes useful. It adds valuable information that your analysis might have missed. Adam Grant (Source)

Never fall in love with your hypothesis. Peter Medawar

It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories instead of theories to suit facts. Arthur Conan Doyle

A simple question to run your daily decisions through: Will this cost me time in the future or save me time in the future? James Clear

Systemize your decision making. Ray Dalio (wikipedia.org)

Raising the probability of being right is valuable no matter what your probability of being right already is. Ray Dalio

If you’re good at course correcting, being wrong may be less costly than you think. Jeff Bezos (Amazon)

Think of every decision as a bet with a probability and a reward for being right and a probability and a penalty for being wrong. Ray Dalio

The two biggest barriers to good decision making are your ego and your blind spots. Together, they make it difficult for you to objectively see what is true about you and your circumstances and to make the best possible decisions by getting the most out of others. Ray Dalio

Most people make bad decisions because they are so certain that they’re right. Radically open-minded people know that coming up with the right questions and asking other smart people what they think is as important as having all the answers. Ray Dalio

Sincerely believe that you might not know the best possible path and recognize that your ability to deal well with “not knowing” is more important than whatever it is you do know. Ray Dalio

It is in your moments of decision that your destiny is shaped. Tony Robbins

Science is about observables; decisions, risk, life, profits and wisdom are about unobservables. Nassim Nicholas Taleb (Source)

If you want to make the wrong decision, ask everyone. Naval Ravikant (Source)

Good decision making has surprisingly little to do with the moment of decision. At that point, it’s too late. Your brain makes choices rapidly and automatically based on experience. Good decision making is determined by what you have learned before the moment of decision. James Clear

The more reversible decisions you make, the fewer perfect decisions you need. James Clear

Authenticity is more than speaking. Authenticity is also about doing. Every decision we make says something about who we are. Simon Sinek

Most of us live our lives by accident – we live as it happens. Fulfillment comes when we live our lives on purpose. Simon Sinek

Often the best decisions have no immediate payoff. The best choices tend to compound. Most of the benefits come at the end, not the beginning. The more patient you are, the bigger the payoff. Shane Parrish

You may not control all the events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them. Maya Angelou

There are always two choices. Two paths to take. One is easy. And it’s only reward is that it’s easy. Unknown

Good decisions come from experience, and experience comes from bad decisions. Unknown

The most difficult thing is the decision to act! Amelia Earhart

Whenever you see a successful business, someone once made a courageous decision. Peter F. Drucker

The thing that cowardice fears most is decision. Søren Kierkegaard

You and only you are responsible for your life choices and decisions. Robert T. Kiyosaki

You cannot make progress without making decisions. Jim Rohn

Amateurs make decisions in committees so there is no one person responsible if things go wrong. Professionals make decisions as individuals and accept responsibility. Shane Parrish

Hard decisions become harder, not easier, with time. Waiting creates its own inertia. The longer you wait the harder it gets. The sooner you act, the higher the returns. Shane Parrish

Related: How to Make Smart Decisions Without Getting Lucky (fs.blog)

Reversible decisions should be made as soon as possible. Irreversible decisions should be made as late as possible. Shane Parrish

The quality of a single decision isn’t determined by the outcome. However, the aggregation of results over time indicates the quality of the process by which you make decisions. Shane

Good decision makers understand a simple truth: you can’t make good decisions without good thinking and good thinking requires time to think. If you want to think better, schedule time to think. Shane Parrish

When considering options, watch your heart rate. Shane Parrish

Look for win-win decisions. If someone absolutely has to lose, you’re likely not thinking hard enough or you need to make structural/environmental changes. Shane Parrish

Avoid things the best version of yourself will regret. Shane Parrish

Focus on collecting feedback to calibrate your ability to make this decision. Shane Parrish

A good life is the fruit of a succession of good decisions. Alain de Botton

Related: How to make a decision (6-minute YouTube video by The School Of Life)

The rule of 5. Think about what the decision looks like 5 days, 5 weeks, 5 months, 5 years, 5 decades. Shane Parrish (Source)

Too much information increases confidence not accuracy. Shane Parrish

Avoiding stupidity is easier than seeking brilliance. Shane Parrish

Sleepless nights get a bad rap. Some of the most important decisions or realizations come from nights when you can’t sleep. Jack Altman

Whenever I spend time with someone who is quick to make decisions, iterate, and digest feedback, I assume they will eventually be very successful. Jack Altman

Good decisions are made by groups, great decisions are made by individuals. When risk mitigation is the key, committees work well. When upside creation is the goal, the smaller the circle the better. Jack Altman

The chief enemy of good decisions is a lack of sufficient perspectives on a problem. Alain de Botton

Because you want life easy, it becomes hard. Maxime Lagacé

Conclusion

If all things are equal take the road less travelled. Shane Parrish

Key Takeaways

Want a better life? Learn to make better decisions.
How to make great decisions?
- Be calm
- Be happy
- Think long-term
- Schedule time to think
- Write (clear writing involves clear thinking)
You can change your destiny by changing your decisions, even the tiniest.
Having regrets over bad decisions is useless. Learn to move forward quickly.
An easy way to avoid bad decisions? Avoid short-term rewards.