Skip to main content

Success Quote by Roy E. Disney

"It's not hard to make decisions when you know what your values are"

About this Quote

Decision-making is often sold as a productivity trick, but Roy E. Disney frames it as something closer to identity work. Coming from a man who spent decades inside a company built on wholesome storytelling and ruthless corporate calculus, the line lands as both advice and quiet warning: if you think decisions are hard, the problem may not be the options, but the absence of a governing creed.

The intent is managerial clarity. Values, in this formulation, aren’t motivational posters; they’re an algorithm. They compress complexity, letting you choose without endlessly litigating trade-offs. That’s why the sentence is so clean and declarative: it performs the ease it promises. “Not hard” isn’t bravado so much as a rebuke to executive dithering and PR-driven compromise.

The subtext is sharper. Values aren’t neutral; they’re chosen, defended, and sometimes weaponized. In corporate life, “values” can mean principled stewardship or brand-safe rhetoric that justifies layoffs, acquisitions, and cultural shifts. Disney’s own history intensifies that tension: as nephew of Walt and a vocal critic of the company’s direction in the 1980s and early 2000s, Roy E. Disney used “values” as a lever against what he saw as creative dilution and governance failures. He wasn’t talking about abstract morality; he was talking about what the Disney name should cost you to uphold.

Context turns the quote into a litmus test: decisions get easy only when you’re willing to disappoint someone - investors, coworkers, audiences, even family - in service of a standard that doesn’t move with the quarter.

Quote Details

TopicHonesty & Integrity
SourceHelp us find the source
Cite

Citation Formats

APA Style (7th ed.)
Disney, Roy E. (2026, January 16). It's not hard to make decisions when you know what your values are. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/its-not-hard-to-make-decisions-when-you-know-what-129205/

Chicago Style
Disney, Roy E. "It's not hard to make decisions when you know what your values are." FixQuotes. January 16, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/its-not-hard-to-make-decisions-when-you-know-what-129205/.

MLA Style (9th ed.)
"It's not hard to make decisions when you know what your values are." FixQuotes, 16 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/its-not-hard-to-make-decisions-when-you-know-what-129205/. Accessed 17 Feb. 2026.

More Quotes by Roy Add to List
Decisions Made Easy by Knowing Your Values
Click to enlarge Portrait | Landscape

About the Author

USA Flag

Roy E. Disney (January 10, 1930 - December 16, 2009) was a Businessman from USA.

1 more quotes available

View Profile

Similar Quotes

George Steinbrenner, Businessman
Edward Dahlberg, Novelist