Notable Quotables

I think very early on in life we all learn what we’re good at and what we’re not good at, and we stay where it’s safe.

- Sara Blakely

In his rigidgly compartmentalized life, each hour was tightly budgeted, whether for business, religion, family or exercise. Perhaps those daily rituals helped him deal with the underlying tensions that might otherwise have become ungovernable, for although he tried to project to an air of unhurried calm, he was under terrific strain the surface, was constantly on edge. In one of his few admissions of weakness he recalled, for years on end I never had a solid night’s sleep, worrying about how it was to come out…I tossed about in bed night after night worrying over the outcome…All the fortune that I have made has not served to compensate for the anxiety of that period.

- Ron Chernow

Blue Ribbon Sports of Portland, Oregon. Sorry I’m all out of cards. Boy, does your country ever eat up business cards.

- Phil Knight

Within the Nasdaq as an example, I do believe that out of the top 100 companies … half of them will not be around five years from now.

- John Chambers

In the real world outside economic theory, every business is successful exactly to the extent that it does something others cannot.

- Peter Thiel

By spring of ’98, each company’s stock had more than quadrupled. Skeptics questioned earnings and revenue multiples higher than those for any non-internet company. It was easy to conclude that the market had gone crazy.

- Peter Thiel

You have to keep your goal in mind and never lose sight of it. I envisioned myself winning the heavyweight title for ten years before I actually captured it. If you’re not driven to do your best, you’ll never reach the level of excellence in your life.

- George Foreman

I’ll repeat something you might consider tattooing on your forehead: What we fear doing most is usually what we most need to do.

- Timothy Ferriss

Pay attention to those employees who respectfully ask why. They are demonstrating an interest in their jobs and exhibiting a curiosity that could eventually translate into leadership ability.

- Harvey Mackay

Spreading old ways to create wealth around the world will result in devastation, not riches. In a world of scarce resources, globalization without new technology is unsustainable

- Peter Thiel

My two primary areas of focus have been open-space conservation and education, and I expect those to remain my priorities in the future. The Irvine open space and parklands provide serenity and balance to our unique Orange County lifestyle.

- Donald Bren

RULE 2. Leaders make sure people not only see the vision, they live and breathe it.

- Jack Welch

If you say too much or mix in multiple pitches, you diffuse your goal. You must give the media a pitch they can hit.

- Michael Levine

Never give up. Today is hard, tomorrow will be worse, but the day after tomorrow will be sunshine.

- Jack Ma

Great companies in the way they work, start with great leaders.

- Steve Ballmer

And being as wicked as any man who ever lived, he exploited his advantage to the full.

- Winston Churchill

Contrary to popular belief, the price of real estate does go down on occasion.

- Robert Kiyosaki

The typical factory-centric organization places a premium on not-wrong, and spends no time at all weeding out those who don’t start. In the networked economy, the innovation-focused organization has no choice but to obsess about those who don’t start. Today, not starting is far, far worse than being wrong. If you start, you’ve got a shot at evolving and adjusting to turn your wrong into a right. But if you don’t start, you never get a chance.

- Seth Godin

Great marketing is all about telling your story in such a way that it compels people to buy what you are selling.

- Gary Vaynerchuk

All companies of any size have to continue to push to make sure you get the right leaders, the right team, the right people to be fast acting, and fast moving in the marketplace. We’ve got great leaders, and we continue to attract and promote great new leaders.

- Steve Ballmer

I’m trying to change the culture in New York City, that’s hard enough!

- Michael Bloomberg

Failure to me became not trying versus not succeeding.

- Sara Blakely

Results are gained by exploiting opportunities, not by solving problems.

- Peter Drucker

Start believing today that things are going to change for the better. Your best days are still out in front of you.

- Joel Olsteen

If David our CEO, devotes so much of his time to this, then all this stuff about teamwork and learning how to be a great leader must be pretty important.

- David Novak

Employee loyalty begins with employer loyalty. Your employees should know that if they do the job they were hired to do with a reasonable amount of competence and efficiency, you will support them.

- Harvey Mackay

Enthusiasm is the yeast that makes your hopes shine to the stars. Enthusiasm is the sparkle in your eyes, the swing in your gait. The grip of your hand, the irresistible surge of will and energy to execute your ideas.

- Henry Ford

My experience of malaria was just taking anti-malarials, which give you strange dreams, because I don’t want to get malaria.

- Bill Gates

Think of yourself as on the threshold of unparalleled success. A whole, clear, glorious life lies before you. Achieve! Achieve!

- Andrew Carnegie

[In April 2013] Being anonymous is an important part of democracy. I think it’s a critical part of democracy.

- Jack Dorsey

Everything about my journey to get Spanx off the ground entailed me having to be a salesperson – from going to the hosiery mills to get a prototype made to calling Saks Fifth Avenue and Neiman Marcus. I had to position myself to get five minutes in the door with buyers.

- Sara Blakely

We have an average household net worth of $3.7 million. Of course, some of our cohorts have accumulated much more. Nearly 6 percent have a net worth of over $10 million. Again, these people skew our average upward. The typical (median, or 50th percentile) millionaire household has a net worth of $1.6 million.

- Thomas J Stanley

We don’t want tradition. We want to live in the present and the only history that is worth a tinker’s dam is the history we make today.

- Henry Ford

A little boy went out to the backyard to play with a baseball bat and a ball. He said to himself, I am the best hitter in the world.” Then he threw the ball up in the air and took a swing at it, but he missed. Without a moment’s hesitation, he picked up the ball and tossed it in the air again, saying as he swung the bat, I’m the best hitter in all the world.” He swung and missed. Strike two. He tossed the ball up again, concentrating more intensely, even more determined, saying, I am the best hitter in all the world!” He swung the bat with all his might. Whiff! Strike three. The little boy laid down his bat and smiled real big. What do you know?” he said. I’m the best pitcher in all the world!

- Joel Olsteen

Silicon Valley has some of the smartest engineers and technology business people in the world.

- Elon Musk

Follow your instincts. That’s where true wisdom manifests itself.

- Oprah Winfrey

Well the protester I think is a very powerful thing. It’s basically a mechanism of democracy that, along with capitalism, scientific innovation, those things have built the modern world. And it’s wonderful that the new tools have empowered that protestor so that state secrets, bad developments are not hidden anymore.

- Bill Gates

Said another way, the Entrepreneurial Model has less to do with what’s done in a business and more to do with how it’s done. The commodity isn’t what’s important—the way it’s delivered is. When The Entrepreneur creates the model.

- Michael Gerber

Choosing to be positive and having a grateful attitude is going to determine how you’re going to live your life.

- Joel Olsteen

The man who will use his skill and constructive imagination to see how much he can give for a dollar, instead of how little he can give for a dollar, is bound to succeed.

- Henry Ford

Sooner or later, you will see a China-based company that really has a global impact, and I think Baidu has a chance to become one of those companies. We should be able to compete on a global basis.

- Robin Li

The key thing about a book is that you lose yourself in the author’s world.

- Jeff Bezos

When we are harassed and reach the limit of our own strength, many of us then turn in desperation to God-There are no atheists in foxholes. But why wait till we are desperate? Why not renew our strength every day? Why wait even until Sunday? For years I have had the habit of dropping into empty churches on weekday afternoons. When I feel that I am too rushed and hurried to spare a few minutes to think about spiritual things, I say to myself: Wait a minute, Dale Carnegie, wait a minute. Why all the feverish hurry and rush, little man? You need to pause and acquire a little perspective. At such times, I frequently drop into the first church that I find open. Although I am a Protestant, I frequently, on weekday afternoons, drop into St. Patrick’s Cathedral on Fifth Avenue, and remind myself that I’ll be dead in another thirty years, but that the great spiritual truths that all churches teach are eternal. I close my eyes and pray. I find that doing this calms my nerves, rests my body, clarifies my perspective, and helps me revalue my values. May I recommend this practice to you?

- Dale Carnegie

You can’t build a strong corporation with a lot of committees and a board that has to be consulted every turn. You have to be able to make decisions on your own.

- Rupert Murdoch

Being defeated is often a temporary condition. Giving up is what makes it permanent.

- Marilyn vos Savant

Very important people have told me that they prefer good listeners to good talkers, but the ability to listen seems rarer than almost any other good trait.

- Dale Carnegie

Headlines, in a way, are what mislead you because bad news is a headline, and gradual improvement is not.

- Bill Gates

Well, you have the public not wanting any new spending, you have the Republicans not wanting any new taxes, you have the Democrats not wanting any new spending cuts, you have the markets not wanting any new borrowing, and you have the economists wanting all of the above. And that leads to paralysis.

- Michael Bloomberg

The worse a situation becomes the less it takes to turn it around, the bigger the upside.

- George Soros

At your next sales meeting with 20 people, three will take home the money of 17 others. Is it luck, hard work and a great attitude? Or it is persuasive skill – understanding the transactional dynamics of the sales process?

- Jerry Vass

If our company isn’t good enough to win, then do we need to exist at all?

- Ben Horowitz

China will become the IT (information technology) center of the world. We believe in giving something back and truly becoming a Chinese company.

- John Chambers

Another hero was Tom Swift, in the books. What he stood for, the freedom, the scientific knowledge and being and engineer gave him the ability to invent solutions to problems. He’s always been a hero to me. I buy old Tom Swift books now and read them to my own children.

- Steve Wozniak

I’m not even sure what it’s getting at … personalities are very wrong although mine is closer … don’t forget that my purpose was inspired by the values of the Homebrew Computer Club along with ideas of the value of such machines and Steve J. wasn’t around and didn’t attend the club so he was the one learning about such social impact of the future.

- Steve Wozniak

People shouldn’t have to spend a lot of money to get high-quality clothing.

- Tadashi Yanai

The world got enamored with smartphones and tablets, but what’s interesting is those devices don’t do everything that needs to be done. Three-D printing, virtual-reality computing, robotics are all controlled by PCs.

- Michael Dell

I never took classic business classes in college, so I don’t have the background that any of the people running large companies have.

- Howard Schultz

Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.

- Albert Einstein

I believe that God has put gifts and talents and ability on the inside of every one of us. When you develop that and you believe in yourself and you believe that you’re a person of influence and a person of purpose, I believe you can rise up out of any situation.

- Joel Osteen

The more you complain about your problems, the more problems you will have to complain about.

- Zig Ziglar

If you’re looking for an abdominal exercise well-suited to power development without bulk, look no further than the Janda sit-up.

- Timothy Ferriss

I’m a big believer than a great bit is a great bit – if I go and see someone I love, like Robert Klein. I want to hear some classics and some new stuff. But a great stand-up bit takes a long time to really polish and perfect, and they’re beautiful things when they’re done.

- Jerry Seinfeld

Embrace what you don’t know, especially in the beginning because what you don’t know can become your greatest asset. It ensures that you will be doing things absolutely differently from everybody else.

- Sara Blakely

Most business people today are not going to invest in the uncertainty that exists in America.

- Howard Schultz

They don’t call it the Internet anymore, they call it cloud computing. I’m no longer resisting the name. Call it what you want.

- Larry Ellison

And here is the prime condition of success, the great secret. Concentrate your energy, thoughts and capital exclusively upon the business in which you are engaged in. Having begun in one line, resolve to fight it out on that line; to lead in it. Adopt every improvement, have the best machinery and know the most about it.

- Andrew Carnegie

Twitter has been my life’s work in many senses. It started with a fascination with cities and how they work, and what’s going on in them right now.

- Jack Dorsey

I say something, and then it usually happens. Maybe not on schedule, but it usually happens.

- Elon Musk

Like technical debt, management debt comes in too many different forms to elaborate entirely, but a few salient examples will help explain the concept. Here are three of the more popular types among startups: 1. Putting two in the box 2. Overcompensating a key employee, because she gets another job offer 3. No performance management or employee feedback process

- Ben Horowitz

I think the positive competition between states in India is one of the most positive dynamics that the country has.

- Bill Gates

t’s better to hang out with people better than you. Pick out associates whose behavior is better than yours and you’ll drift in that direction.

- Warren Buffett

The revolutionary breakthrough will come with rockets that are fully and rapidly reusable. We will never conquer Mars unless we do that. It’ll be too expensive. The American colonies would never have been pioneered if the ships that crossed the ocean hadn’t been reusable.

- Elon Musk

Before you can be sure of your ability to transmute DESIRE into its monetary equivalent, you will require SPECIALIZED KNOWLEDGE of the service, merchandise or profession which you intend to offer in return for fortune.

- Napoleon Hill

Economic recovery in the United States has been taking place at a slow pace at a time of uncertainty in the Middle East. However, Mainland China was able to show steady sustained growth. Hong Kong, being right at the southern gateway of Mainland China, is able to benefit from its growth.

- Lee Shau Kee

More than trends, consumers need functionality. Everything needs an element of fashion, but that’s more like a spice.

- Tadashi Yanai

Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.

- Zig Ziglar

is his or hers. PRINCIPLE 8 Try honestly to see things from the other person’s point of view. PRINCIPLE 9 Be sympathetic with the other person’s ideas and desires. PRINCIPLE 10 Appeal to the nobler motives. PRINCIPLE 11 Dramatize your ideas. PRINCIPLE 12 Throw down a challenge.

- Dale Carnegie

But Governments and peoples do not always take rational decisions. Sometimes they take mad decisions, or one set of people get control who compel all others to obey and aid them in folly.

- Winston Churchill

How fortunate it was for the world that when these great trials came upon it there was a generation that terror could not conquer and brutal violence could not enslave.

- Winston Churchill

There are no shortcuts to knowledge, especially knowledge gained from personal experience. Following conventional wisdom and relying on shortcuts can be worse than knowing nothing at all.

- Ben Horowitz

One might think that the money value of an invention constitutes its reward to the man who loves his work. But… I continue to find my greatest pleasure, and so my reward, in the work that precedes what the world calls success.

- Thomas Edison

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