On seizing and listening.............

      While Henry Wriston believed in careful planning, he was also an opportunist.  He regarded plans as guidelines for handling only routine matters.  "When something unusual supervenes," he later wrote, "seize the opportunity and let the plan stay on ice for a while."
      Henry Wriston was also a master of intelligence gathering.  His ever-present bowl of jelly beans, said Walter Wriston, apparently induced faculty and students to volunteer equally juicy nuggets of campus gossip.  "He always seemed to know what was going on on campus," Wriston said.  "People accused him of having a spy system.  I asked him how he knew what was going on, and he used to say, "People will tell you absolutely anything if you'll listen."

-Phillip L. Zweig,  Wriston:  Walter Wriston, Citibank, and the Rise and Fall of American Financial Supremacy