Intelligence Analyst "Words To Live By" -- #10, Voting Closes 19 JUL 11!

This is the tenth, and last, list of "Intelligence Analyst Words To Live By."  

The tenth list is below and links to the previous nine lists are below that.  I am off to the Global Intelligence Forum next week and will not be back until 18 JUL so I decided to keep the voting open until then.  Please pass these lists on to any analysts you know!

Create your free online surveys with SurveyMonkey, the world's leading questionnaire tool.

Links to the previous nine lists:

List 1
List 2
List 3
List 4
List 5
List 6 
List 7
List 8
List 9

The current frontrunners from the ninth list include (with the percentage representing the percent of respondents who said move it up the list):

"The greatest derangement of mind is to believe in something because one wishes it to be so." -- Louis Pasteur (77%)
"I suppose that if we in intelligence were one day given three wishes, they would be to know everything, to be believed when we spoke, and in such a way to exercise an influence to the good in the matter of policy." -- Sherman Kent (53%)
"There is no limit to what a man can do or where he can go if he doesn't mind who gets the credit." -- Ronald Reagan (64%)

All other entries are currently below 50%

Intelligence Analyst "Words To Live By" -- #9 (SurveyMonkey.com)

This is the ninth of 10 surveys I intend to conduct to determine which are the "best" quotes, sayings and words of wisdom for intelligence analysts.

If you want more detail on why I am doing this, see the previous post.

Create your free online surveys with SurveyMonkey, the world's leading questionnaire tool.

Voting on the first eight lists is still open:

List 1
List 2
List 3
List 4
List 5
List 6 
List 7 
List 8

The current frontrunners from the seventh list -- I am one behind -- include (with the percentage representing the percent of respondents who said move it up the list):

"The intelligence analyst's function might be described as transcending the limits of incomplete information through the exercise of analytical judgment." -- Richards Heuer (58%)
"What experts think matters far less than how they think." -- Philip Tetlock (77%)
"If you can imagine it, the enemy will do it." -- Numerous (70%)
 "The noblest service comes from nameless hands, and the best servant does his work unseen." -- Oliver Wendell Holmes (58%)
"Uncertainty, ambiguity, debate, and partial answers to tangled questions will remain an existential condition of the analytical process." -- Loch Johnson (56%)
 "Bad news does not improve with age." -- Anonymous (63%)
"The best defense for the analyst who feels pressure to reach a certain judgment, or the case officer pressured to “bend the rules,” is the ethical recognition that no one—analyst, interrogator, or policymaker—is well served by such corruption." -- William Nolte (67%)      

All other entries are currently below 50%.

Intelligence Analyst "Words To Live By" -- #8 (SurveyMonkey.com)

This is the eighth of 10 surveys I intend to conduct to determine which are the "best" quotes, sayings and words of wisdom for intelligence analysts.

If you want more detail on why I am doing this, see the previous post.

Create your free online surveys with SurveyMonkey, the world's leading questionnaire tool.

Voting on the first seven lists is still open:

List 1
List 2
List 3
List 4
List 5
List 6 
List 7

Intelligence Analyst "Words To Live By" -- #7 (SurveyMonkey.com)

This is the seventh of 10 surveys I intend to conduct to determine which are the "best" quotes, sayings and words of wisdom for intelligence analysts.

If you want more detail on why I am doing this, see the previous post.

Create your free online surveys with SurveyMonkey, the world's leading questionnaire tool.

Voting on the first six lists is still open:
List 1
List 2
List 3
List 4
List 5
List 6

The current frontrunners from the sixth list include (with the percentage representing the percent of respondents who said move it up the list):

"It is better to be vaguely right than precisely wrong." -- Carveth Read (55%)
"When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?" -- John Maynard Keynes (76%)
"Summarizing is not the same as analyzing." -- Kathleen Cassedy (76%)
"What gets us into trouble is not what we don't know, it's what we know for sure that just ain't so." -- Mark Twain (67%)
"When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. -- Sherlock Holmes (59%)
"Have the courage for what you already know." -- Frederich Nietzsche (52%)
"Things are not always what they seem; the first appearance deceives many. The intelligence of a few perceives what has been carefully hidden." -- Phaedrus (64%)  

All other entries are currently below 50%.