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Since its beginning, every issue of Case In Point has contained a quote that (in-part) conveyed the overall theme of the newsletter's story. For those interested, these quotes are listed here:
| Vol 1: 2009 |
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| Contemplating any business act, an employee should ask himself whether he would be willing to see it immediately described by an informed and critical reporter on the front page of his local paper, there to be read by his spouse, children, and friends. --Warren Buffet |
| Every dollar you lose to fraud or compliance failure is a dollar you've lost to your primary mission of education, research and outreach. --Kevin Robinson |
| Every manager is a risk manager. --Kevin Robinson |
| The time is always right to do what is right. --Martin Luther King, Jr. |
| I reject your reality and substitute my own. -- Adam Savage MythBusters |
| The cost of greatness is responsibility. -- Sir Winston Churchill |
| It's very important for universities to be high places of integrity. That's about all we have to go on. -- Morton Weir former university chancellor and current university board member at Knox College |
| Wisdom consists in being able to distinguish among dangers and make a choice of the least harmful. -- Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince |
| Relativity applies to physics, not ethics -- Albert Einstein |
| People often represent the weakest link in the security chain and are chronically responsible for the failure of security systems. -- Bruce Schneier |
| Complacency is not something we have the luxury of. -- Jacob Nolan, Texas A&M student |
| Every manager is a risk manager. -- Kevin Robinson |
| Vol 2: 2010 |
| We took risks. We knew we took them. Things have come out against us. We have no cause for complaint. -- Robert Frost |
| Character is much easier kept than recovered. -- Thomas Paine |
| Security is always excessive until it's not enough. -- Robbie Sinclair, Head of Security, Country Energy, NSW Australia |
| Setting an example is not the main means of influencing another, it is the only means. -- Albert Einstein |
| Don't get yourself in certain circumstances or instances, because it's not a good feeling to be sitting in that chair where you've got 12 people that are in control of your life. You have an opportunity to be in control of your life for yourself by the decisions that you make. -- Puff Daddy |
| Are you astonished Aulus, that our friend Fabullinus is so frequently deceived? A good man has always something to learn in regard to fraud. -- Marcus Aurelius quotes (Roman emperor, best known for his Meditations on Stoic philosophy, AD 121-180 |
| An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. -- Benjamin Franklin |
| If you do not manage culture, it manages you, and you may not even be aware of the extent to which this is happening. -- Unknown |
| Fundamentally, security is about people, not technology. -- Dr. Greg Newby |
| Carelessness does more harm than a want of knowledge. -- Benjamin Franklin |
| The cat, having sat upon a hot stove lid, will not sit upon a hot stove lid again. But he won't sit upon a cold stove lid, either. -- Mark Twain |
| Each time history repeats itself, the price goes up. -- Unknown |
| Vol 3: 2011 |
| Communication is the real work of leadership. -- Nitin Nohria |
| You can observe a lot just by watching. -- Lawrence Peter ''Yogi'' Berra |
| The corporate culture is the most powerful control in any organization. --James (Jim) Roth, PhD, author of Best Practices: Evaluating the Corporate Culture |
| Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so." -- Douglas Adams |
| By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; Second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest.." -- Confucius |
| To know what is right and to not do it is the worst cowardice. -- Confucius |
| Most ignorance is vincible ignorance. We don't know because we don't want to know." -- Aldous Huxley |
| What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun. -- Ecclesiastes 1:9 |
| "Gee, there is something wrong with just about everything, isn't there, Dad?" - "Beaver" (Theodore Cleaver) "Just about, Beav!" - Dad (Ward Cleaver) -- "Leave It To Beaver," television series 1957-1963 |
| One of the tests of leadership is the ability to recognize a problem before it becomes an emergency. -- Arnold Glascow |
| Responsibility walks hand in hand with capacity and power. Josiah Gilbert Holland 1819-1881, American Author |
| I don't expect anyone to be perfect. It's not human nature. What I do expect is that they will take risks, correct mistakes, and learn from both. -- Mike Armstrong, Former CEO AT&T |
| Vol 4: 2012 |
| Part of being a leader at that level is to be a risk manager and to think through what might happen -- Penn State Trustee Chair Karen B. Peetz |
| Better be wise by the misfortunes of others than by your own -- Aesop |
| We are too busy mopping the floor to turn off the faucet. -- Unknown |
| Contemplating any business act, an employee should ask whether he/she would be willing to see it immediately described by an informed and critical reporter on the front page of the local paper, there to be read by his/her spouse, children, and friends. -- Warren E. Buffet |
| All men profess honesty as long as they can. To believe all men honest would be folly. To believe none so is something worse. -- John Quincy Adams |
| Many receive advice, only the wise profit from it. -- Harper Lee |
| If that is the culture at the bottom, God help the culture at the top -- Former FBI Director Louis Freeh discussing the Penn State situation where employees feared reporting criminal activity |
| Some choices we live not only once but a thousand times over, remembering them for the rest of our lives. -- Richard Bach |
| Passwords are like underwear … change yours often …. don't share them with friends … don't leave yours lying around … -- Virginia E. Rezmierski EDUCOM '98 |
| All of us are watchers - of television, of time clocks, of traffic on the freeway - but few are observers. Everyone is looking, not many are seeing. -- Peter M. Leschak |
| This was not a mistake, an oversight, or a misjudgment. This was a conspiracy of silence by top officials. -- Linda Kelly Pennsylvania Attorney General |
| Learn from the past, set vivid, detailed goals for the future, and live in the only moment of time over which you have any control: now. -- Denis Waitley |
| Vol 5: 2013 |
| Do what you can, with what you have, where you are. -- Theodore Roosevelt |
| It's tough to make predictions, especially about the future. -- Lawrence Peter ''Yogi'' Berra |
| Logic is the beginning of wisdom, not the end. -- Leonard Nimoy |
| No snowflake in an avalanche ever feels responsible. -- Stanislaw Jerzy Lec |
| Action is the foundational key to all success. -- Pablo Picasso |
| What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun. -- Ecclesiastes 1:9 (NIV) |
| An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. -- Benjamin Franklin |
| A naïve man believes everything, but a wise man looks well into the matter. -- Proverbs |
| He is most free from danger, who, even when safe, is on his guard. -- Publilius Syrus |
| Intellectuals solve problems, geniuses prevent them. -- Albert Einstein |
| If there is any one secret of success, it lies in the ability to get the other person's point of view and see things from that person's angle as well as from your own. -- Henry Ford |
| Start by doing what's necessary; then do what's possible; and suddenly you are doing the impossible. -- St. Francis of Assisi |
| Vol 6: 2014 |
| A computer lets you make more mistakes faster than any invention in human history - with the possible exceptions of handguns and tequila. -- Mitch Ratliff |
| There are risks and costs to a program of action - but they are far less than the long range cost of comfortable inaction. -- John F. Kennedy |
| A leader leads by example, whether he intends to or not. -- Unknown |
| Obedience of the law is demanded; not asked as a favor. -- Theodore Roosevelt |
| Awareness without action is worthless. -- Phil McGraw |
| Face reality as it is, not as it was or as you wish it to be. -- Jack Welch |
| The good we secure for ourselves is precarious and uncertain until it is secured for all of us and incorporated into our common life. -- Jane Addams |
| Society is always taken by surprise at any new example of common sense. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson |
| In any situation, the best thing you can do is the right thing; the next best thing you can do is the wrong thing; the worst thing you can do is nothing. -- Theodore Roosevelt |
| It is the fool who thinks he cannot be fooled. -- Joey Skaggs |
| Example is the best precept. -- Aesop |
| Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world. -- Nelson Mandela |
| Vol 7: 2015 |
| What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun. -- Ecclesiastes 1:9 |
| Wisdom consists in being able to distinguish among dangers and make a choice of the least harmful. -- Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince |
| Security is always excessive until it's not enough. -- Robbie Sinclair |
| The time is always right to do the right thing. -- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. |
| Leadership is solving problems. The day soldiers stop bringing you their problems is the day you have stopped leading them. They have either lost confidence that you can help or concluded you do not care. Either case is a failure of leadership. -- General Colin Powell |
| It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you'll do things differently. -- Warren Buffett |
| I believe in obedience to law because it protects the rights of all. -- Dr. George Petrie from The Auburn Creed |
| I believe that everyone chooses how to approach life. If you're proactive, you focus on preparing. If you're reactive, you end up focusing on repairing. -- John C. Maxwell |
| If you think technology can solve your security problems, then you don't understand the problems and you don't understand the technology. -- Bruce Schneier |
| Without continual growth and progress, such words as improvement, achievement, and success have no meaning -- Benjamin Franklin |
| Our research has shown that strong relationships, careers, organizations, and communities all draw from the same source of power --- the ability to talk openly about high-stakes, emotional, controversial topics. -- Patterson, Grenny, McMillan, and Switzler |
| Without reflection, we go blindly on our way, creating more unintended consequences, and failing to achieve anything useful. -- Margaret J. Wheatley |
| Vol 8: 2016 |
| Right is right even if no one is doing it; wrong is wrong even if everyone is doing it. -- Augustine of Hippo |
| Let us not look back in anger or forward in fear, but around in awareness. -- James Thurber |
| Transparency, honesty, kindness, good stewardship, even humor, work in businesses at all times -- John Gerzema |
| To sin by silence when they should protest makes cowards of men. -- Abraham Lincoln |
| Ultimately, what happened at Baylor is about a culture where too much power is given to one person. -- Tony Barnhart |
| It takes many good deeds to build a good reputation, and only one bad one to lose it. -- Benjamin Franklin |
| There are risks and costs to action. But they are far less than the long range risks of comfortable inaction. -- John F. Kennedy |
| Things will absolutely go wrong. In a healthy team, as soon as things go wrong, that information should be surfaced. Trying to hide or obscure bad news creates an environment of distrust or lack of transparency. -- Steven Sinofsky |
| People always make the best exploits. I've never found it hard to hack most people. If you listen to them, watch them, their vulnerabilities are like a neon sign screwed into their heads. -- Elliot Anderson (Rami Malek) in Mr. Robot |
| The proactive approach to a mistake is to acknowledge it instantly, correct and learn from it. -- Stephen Covey |
| Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so. -- Douglas Adams |
| Without reflection, we go blindly on our way, creating more unintended consequences, and failing to achieve anything useful. -- Margaret J. Wheatley |
| Vol 9: 2017 |
| When it comes to privacy and accountability, people always demand the former for themselves and the latter for everyone else. -- David Brin |
| To read without reflecting is like eating without digesting -- Edmund Burke |
| Common sense is unfunded. -- Unknown |
| Conscience is the inner voice that warns us somebody may be looking. -- H.L. Mencken |
| Whoever is careless with the truth in small matters cannot be trusted with important matters -- Albert Einstein |
| If you see something, say something -- Homeland Security |
| Be proactive not reactive, for an apparently insignificant issue ignored today can spawn tomorrow's catastrophe. -- Ken Poirot |
| A fool thinks he needs no advice, but a wise man listens to others. -- A Proverb of Solomon |
| It's the little details that are vital. Little things make big things happen. --John Wooden |
| There is a way that appears to be right, but in the end it leads to death. --Proverbs 14:12 |
| Who am I, where have I been, and where am I going? --Carl Sandburg |
| The first step towards getting somewhere is to decide that you are not going to stay where you are. --J. Pierpont Morgan |
| Vol 10: 2018 |
| Wise men say, and not without reason, that whoever wished to foresee the future might consult the past. -- Niccolò Machiavelli |
| That's been one of my mantras - focus and simplicity. Simple can be harder than complex: You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it's worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains. -- Steve Jobs |
| Transparency, honesty, kindness, good stewardship, even humor, work in businesses at all times. -- John Gerzema |
| Every day brings new choices. -- Martha Beck |
| It takes a career, a lifetime, to build up a reputation, and only one misstep for it all to crumble away. -- Aaron Rodgers |
| Once you've lost your privacy, you realize you've lost an extremely valuable thing. -- Billy Graham |
| Ethics is knowing the difference between what you have a right to do and what is right to do. -- Potter Stewart |
| We believe that transparency creates trust. -- Julie Sweet, CEO of Accenture, North America |
| Transparency is your friend in conflict of interest situations. -- Kevin Robinson |
| Success is a few simple disciplines, practiced every day; while failure is simply a few errors in judgment, repeated every day. -- Jim Rohn |
| Character is doing the right thing when nobody's looking. There are too many people who think that the only thing that's right is to get by, and the only thing that's wrong is to get caught. -- J.C. Watts |
| The improvement of understanding is for two ends: first, our own increase of knowledge; secondly, to enable us to deliver that knowledge to others. -- John Locke |
| Vol 11: 2019 |
| The wise man looks ahead. The fool attempts to fool himself and won’t face facts. -- a Proverb of Solomon |
| Success is more a function of consistent common sense than it is of genius. -- An Wang |
| A smart man makes a mistake, learns from it, and never makes that mistake again. But a wise man finds a smart man and learns from him how to avoid the mistake altogether. --Roy H. Williams |
Last Updated: March 29, 2019
