For years we thought of ourselves as a production-oriented company, meaning we put all our emphasis on designing and manufacturing the products. But now we understand the most important thing we do is market the product… Nike is a marketing-oriented company, and the product is our most important marketing tool.
- Phil Knight
Notable Quotables
If you wish to build a powerful personal network, branch out. Build a diverse network of professional contacts that includes people that don’t look like you, sound like you, speak like you or have your background, education or history. The only thing they should have in common with you and the other people in your network is that they should be really good at what they do. Create a personal network like that, and you’ll have a network that can help you succeed at anything.
- Ivan Misner
It was much easier to reach a few thousand people who really needed our product than to try to compete for the attention of millions of scattered individuals.
- Peter Thiel
User experience is everything. It always has been, but it’s undervalued and underinvested in. If you don’t know user-centered design, study it. Hire people who know it. Obsess over it. Live and breathe it. Get your whole company on board.
- Evan Williams
Great design = getting people to do what you want.
- Seth Godin
Increasingly, the Chinese will own a lot more of the world because they will be converting their dollar reserves and U.S. government bonds into real assets.
- George Soros
I believe that being successful means having a balance of success stories across the many areas of your life. You can’t truly be considered successful in your business life if your home life is in shambles.
- Zig Ziglar
Don’t limit yourself. Many people limit themselves to what they think they can do. You can go as far as your mind lets you. What you believe, remember, you can achieve.
- Mary Kay Ash
You know, people talk about this being an uncertain time. You know, all time is uncertain. I mean, it was uncertain back in – in 2007, we just didn’t know it was uncertain. It was – uncertain on September 10th, 2001. It was uncertain on October 18th, 1987, you just didn’t know it.
- Warren Buffett
It’s the next opportunity that keeps us motivated.
- Zig Ziglar
As long as a person doesn’t know what he doesn’t know, he doesn’t grow.
- John Maxwell
What I know is that if you do work that you love, and the work fulfills you, the rest will come.
- Oprah Winfrey
In war as in life, it is often necessary when some cherished scheme has failed, to take up the best alternative open, and if so, it is folly not to work for it with all your might.
- Winston Churchill
It took 23 years from Abraxane being conceived to us showing now with conclusiveness that it works in pancreatic cancer. We cannot afford as a society to wait another 23 years to make sure that the patients get the right care, at the right time, at the right place.
- Patrick Soon-Shiong
As the Readers’s Digest once said: ‘Many persons call a doctor when all they want is an audience.
- Dale Carnegie
You know capitalism is this wonderful thing that motivates people, it causes wonderful inventions to be done. But in this area of diseases of the world at large, it’s really let us down.
- Bill Gates
Ideas are easy. Implementation is hard.
- Guy Kawasaki
It is expected that Mainland China’s entry to the World Trade Organisation will materialise in the near future and the country will see further growth in its economy unfolding at a faster pace.
- Lee Shau Kee
There’s a fascinating statistic: One out of every four people in America has visited New York since 9/11. It is astounding. Now, I don’t know how you count it; it’s some people coming multiple times.
- Michael Bloomberg
It is predicated on the assumption that you dislike what you are doing during the most physically capable years of your life. This is a nonstarter—nothing can justify that sacrifice.
- Timothy Ferriss
I know I could be the host of ‘SportsCenter’ in two years if I changed my show today to sports.
- Gary Vaynerchuk
So, the judgment that you have to make is (a) is this market really much bigger (more than an order of magnitude) than has been exploited to date? and (b) are we going to be number one? If the answer to either (a) or (b) is no, then you should consider selling.
- Ben Horowitz
The McDonald brothers were simply not on my wavelength at all. I was obsessed with the idea of making McDonald’s the biggest and the best. They were content with what they had, they didn’t want to be bothered with more risks and more demands.
- Ray Kroc
Our chief want is someone who will inspire us to be what we know we could be.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
The miracle is not to walk on water. The miracle is to walk on the green earth, dwelling deeply in the present moment and feeling truly alive.
- Thich Nhat Hanh
Haiti should remind us all that there is an immediate need to invest in and promote long-term development projects that are sustainable, scalable, and proven to work.
- Bill Gates
There is only one way… to get anybody to do anything. And that is by making the other person want to do it.
- Dale Carnegie
Some questions that I’ve found to be very effective in one-on-ones: If we could improve in any way, how would we do it? What’s the number-one problem with our organization? Why? What’s not fun about working here? Who is really kicking ass in the company? Whom do you admire? If you were me, what changes would you make? What don’t you like about the product? What’s the biggest opportunity that we’re missing out on? What are we not doing that we should be doing? Are you happy working here?
- Ben Horowitz
I’m just always looking forwards. I spend very little time, looking backwards.
- Gary Vaynerchuk
Your employees come first. And if you treat your employees right, guess what? Your customers come back, and that makes your shareholders happy. Start with employees and the rest follows from that.
- Herb Kelleher
Frankly speaking, I decided to become a businessman at the moment when I understood that it is possible, because I grew up in a country where it was not possible. There existed even a special article in the penal code of the Soviet Union which punished entrepreneurial activity.
- Vladimir Potanin
They need to avoid coming at us head-on, and do their own thing better than we do ours. It doesn’t make any sense to try to underprice Walmart on something like toothpaste. That’s not what they customer is looking to a small store for anyway. Most independents are best off, I think, doing what I prided myself on doing for many years as a storekeeper, getting out front on the door and meeting everyone of the customers. Let them know how much you appreciate them, and that register yourself. That little personal touch is so important for an independent merchant because no matter how hard Walmart tries to duplicate, ad we try awfully hard, we can’t really do it.
- Sam Walton
Adversity doesn’t build character, it reveals it.
- Timothy Ferriss
The Group will be able to capture opportunities arising from the growth and integration of the two economies, and scale new heights in the years ahead.
- Cheng Yu-tung
You can design and create, and build the most wonderful place in the world. But it takes people to make the dream a reality.
- Walt Disney
It was the right thing to do.
- Phil Knight
You will need to find ways to do less and less to make more and more.
- Robert Kiyosaki
I’m going to give away a lot more than half my money. I’d be happy to give that to the government if the government put together programs that were like I’m giving away to charity, in which I believe the money is effectively used to help people.
- Ray Dalio
Percentage margins don’t matter. What matters always is dollar margins: the actual dollar amount. Companies are valued not on their percentage margins, but on how many dollars they actually make, and a multiple of that.
- Jeff Bezos
Speed is of the essence in responding to a crisis situation, and our focus is squarely on mobilizing resources to help in the relief and rebuilding efforts, while also helping customers and employees recover.
- John Chambers
Whatever I engage in, I must push inordinately.
- Andrew Carnegie
Maintain a pragmatic approach, keep up with the multitude of trials and strive to remain its level of attainment in order for achieving sound performance and scaling new heights.
- Cheng Yu-tung
The best way to predict the future is to create it.
- Peter Drucker
All honor’s wounds are self-inflicted.
- Andrew Carnegie
I bought a company in the mid-’90s called Dexter Shoe and paid $400 million for it. And it went to zero. And I gave about $400 million worth of Berkshire stock, which is probably now worth $400 billion. But I’ve made lots of dumb decisions. That’s part of the game.
- Warren Buffett
Most people spend more time and energy going around problems than in trying to solve them.
- Henry Ford
You will never change your life until you change something you do daily.
- John Maxwell
One of my goals is to inspire everyone I meet to become a better person.
- George Foreman
MySpace is like a bar, Facebook is like the BBQ you have in your back yard with friends and family, play games, share pictures. Facebook is much better for sharing than MySpace. LinkedIn is the office, how you stay up to date, solve professional problems.
- Reid Hoffman
If it didn’t happen in your life before, then you’re not paying attention you don’t think it’s possible. But almost all important events never happen in your life before.
- Ray Dalio
Before spending time on a stress-inducing question or problem, consider this: If you can’t define it or act upon it, forget it.
- Timothy Ferriss
I once dieted so religiously I quit eating in church.
- Zig Ziglar
If you think the people you attract could be better, then it’s time for you to improve yourself.
- Napoleon Hill
A riot is the language of the unheard.
- Martin Luther King Jr.
Doing a mall is not only construction of the physical place, what’s important is the merchandising mix.
- Henry Sy
What we want to watch is whether this is a short-term bump or not.
- John Chambers
In general, the apparel industry isn’t about continual process improvement or making the perfect piece of denim; it’s about chasing trends.
- Tadashi Yanai
I’m not an economist and we all know economists were created to make weather forecasters look good.
- Rupert Murdoch
Many people are unhappy and are not experiencing life to its fullest because they’ve closed their hearts to compassion, they are motivated by only what they want and what they think they need. They rarely do anything for anybody else unless they have an ulterior goal in mind. They are self-involved and self-centered.
- Joel Olsteen
The London property market has excellent investment opportunities.
- Wang Jianlin
Heretics are the new leaders. The ones who challenge the status quo, who get out in front of their tribes, who create movements.
- Seth Godin
Enjoyment is an incredible energizer to the human spirit.
- John C. Maxwell
I think Steve Jobs is my idol.
- Ma Huateng
If everyone is thinking alike, then no one is thinking.
- Benjamin Franklin
China is certainly an important player in the global economy, and a widespread AIDS epidemic would threaten that growth.
- Bill Gates
There is no expedient to which a man will not go to avoid the real labor of thinking.
- Thomas Edison
If you are going to kill a man, it costs nothing to be polite.
- Winston Churchill
When people lack concrete plans to carry out, they use formal rules to assemble a portfolio of various options.
- Peter Thiel
The Apple Stores’ sleek minimalist design and close control over the consumer experience, the omnipresent advertising campaigns, the price positioning as a maker of premium goods, and the lingering nimbus of Steve Jobs’s personal charisma all contribute to a perception that Apple offers products so good as to constitute a category of their own.
- Peter Thiel
Specifically, the following things that cause no trouble when you are small become big challenges as you grow: Communication Common knowledge Decision making.
- Ben Horowitz
The future of the world’s film industry is in China because we have 1.3 billion people.
- Wang Jianlin
Too much, too many, and too often of what you want becomes what you don’t want.
- Timothy Ferriss
My politics are: I’m a trustbuster. Very focused. And yeah, I’m pro-efficiency. I want the most economic activity at the lowest price possible. It’s good for everybody; it’s not red or blue.
- Travis Kalanick
With comedy, you have no place to go but more comedy, so you’re never off the hook.
- Steve Martin
We have to realize that our lives could be gone in a moment. There are no guarantees that we will be here at this time next year. Learn to live each day to the fullest. Don’t complain. Don’t focus on what’s wrong. Be grateful for the opportunity to experience each day.
- Joel Olsteen
(Physics is) a good framework for thinking. … Boil things down to their fundamental truths and reason up from there.
- Elon Musk
We do lots of Stuff. The only way you are going to have success is to have lots of failures first.
- Sergey Brin
The first thing I would do for anyone who’s trying to lose body fat, for instance, would be to remove foods from the house that he or she would consume during lapses of self-control.
- Timothy Ferriss
The thing that’s confusing for investors is that founders don’t know how to be CEO. I didn’t know how to do the job when I was a CEO. Founder CEOs don’t know how to be CEOs, but it doesn’t mean they can’t learn. The question is… can the founder learn that job and can they tolerate all mistakes they will make doing it?
- Ben Horowitz
Nobody kicks a dead dog.
- Dale Carnegie
You can get everything in life you want if you will just help enough other people get what they want.
- Zig Ziglar
The most important rule of raising money privately: Look for a market of one. You only need one investor to say yes, so it’s best to ignore the other thirty who say “no.”
- Ben Horowitz
You need to take pride in what God has given you.
- Joel Olsteen
We’ll be watching as the storm approaches. If we see a service area is about to be hit by high winds, we will literally have crews loaded and sitting in trucks, ready to go.
- Ed Clark
People who enjoy what they are doing invariably do it well.
- Joe Gibbs
So great leaders don’t try to please everyone. Great leaders don’t water down their message in order to make the tribe a bit bigger. Instead, they realize that a motivated, connected tribe in the midst of a movement is far more powerful than a larger group could ever be.
- Seth Godin
You are closer than you think.
- Joel Olsteen
If you want a successful business, your people must feel that you are working for them—not that they are working for you.
- Sam Walton
I loved couriers. You had this transfer of physical information happening throughout the city and the world. Someone picking up the package, putting it in a bag, going somewhere, taking it out of the bag, giving it to someone else. I thought that was so cool. I wanted to map it, to see that flow on a big screen.
- Jack Dorsey
It never hurts a fool to appear before an audience, for his capacity is not a capacity for feeling.
- Dale Carnegie
I think so many people are reactive… they see things in a short term way they’re right up against it.
- Ray Dalio
The U.S., especially Hollywood, is so strong for film production.
- Wang Jianlin
Cisco Systems Capital will be investing in companies working on networking technology.
- John Chambers
I’m a strange mixture of my mother’s curiosity; my father, who grew up the son of the manse in a Presbyterian family, who had a tremendous sense of duty and responsibility; and my mother’s father, who was always in trouble with gambling debts.
- Rupert Murdoch
Competition means no profits for anybody, no meaningful differentiation, and a struggle for survival.
- Peter Thiel
The secret to modern life is finding the measure in time management. I have two kids, career and I travel, and I don’t think my life is any different than most couples. The most valuable commodity now for many people is time and how to parcel that out.
- Hugh Jackman
To be sure, real differences of opinion existed between the groups. Compared to pro-life participants, pro-choice participants had more favorable personal attitudes toward the pro-choice issues and less favorable attitudes toward the pro-life issues, and vice versa.
- John Chambers
Anything you’re interested in the world – whether it be Charlie Rose or JetBlue or a public figure or your local coffee shop – they’re on Twitter and broadcasting what is interesting to them.
- Jack Dorsey
Even if we are right and the other person is definitely wrong, we only destroy ego by causing someone to lose face. The legendary French aviation pioneer and author Antoine de Saint-Exupéry wrote: I have no right to say or do anything that diminishes a man in his own eyes. What matters is not what I think of him, but what he thinks of himself. Hurting a man in his dignity is a crime.
- Dale Carnegie
Only in a definite future is money a means to an end, not the end itself.
- Peter Thiel
