Notable Quotables

I think that maybe inside any business, there is someone slowly going crazy.

- Michael Gerber

Even if producing CO2 was good for the environment, given that we’re going to run out of hydrocarbons, we need to find some sustainable means of operating.

- Elon Musk

In a world of scarce resources, globalization without new technology is unsustainable.

- Peter Thiel

If you say you can or you can’t you are right either way

- Henry Ford

The essential thing to know about the Dip is that it’s there. Knowing that you’re facing a Dip is the first step in getting through it.

- Seth Godin

What we expect with confidence becomes our own self-fulfilling prophecy.

- Brian Tracy

Pay attention, don’t let life go by you. Fall in love with the back of your cereal box.

- Jerry Seinfeld

Failure to deliver on committments is, in the end, unacceptable.

- Jack Welch

Nature is what we know. We do not know the gods of religions. And nature is not kind, or merciful, or loving. If God made me — the fabled God of the three qualities of which I spoke: mercy, kindness, love — He also made the fish I catch and eat. And where do His mercy, kindness, and love for that fish come in? No; nature made us — nature did it all — not the gods of the religions.

- Thomas Edison

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

Psychological despotism, whether enlightened or not, is gross misuse of psychology. The main purpose of psychology is to acquire insight into, and mastery of, oneself. Not for nothing were what we now call the behavioral sciences originally called the moral sciences and “Know thyself” their main precept. To use psychology to control, dominate, and manipulate others is self-destructive abuse of knowledge. It is also a particularly repugnant form of tyranny.

- Peter Drucker

We do lots of Stuff. The only way you are going to have success is to have lots of failures first.

- Sergey Brin

The more we thought, the more they all sounded boring compared to Apple. You didn’t have to have a real specific reason for choosing a name when you were a little tiny company of two people; you choose any name you want.

- Steve Wozniak

To make a ton of steel on and half tons of iron stone has to be mined, transported by rail a hundred miles to the Lakes, carried by boat hundreds of miles, transferred to cars, transported by rail 150 miles to Pittsburgh; one and a half tons of coal must be mined and manufactured into coke and carried 50 (odd) miles by rail; and one ton of limestone mined and carried 150 miles to Pittsburgh. How then could steel be manufactured and sold without loss at 3 pounds for 2 cents. This, I confess seemed to me incredible, and little less than miraculous, but it was so.

- Andrew Carnegie

Dealing with people is probably the biggest problem you face, especially if you are in business.

- Dale Carnegie

In life, you don’t have a level of confrontation and the nonsense you run into when you’re a CEO. CEOs aren’t born.

- Ben Horowitz

Just because an employee does things differently doesn’t mean he or she won’t do the job right or as well. If you establish expectations of the goal and the standards to follow, then methodology shouldn’t be an issue.

- Harvey Mackay

I get energy from one-on-one conversations most often, and I lose energy from group conversations most often.

- Reid Hoffman

Change almost never fails because it’s too early. It almost always fails because it’s too late.

- Seth Godin

The best thinking has been done in solitude. The worst has been done in turmoil.

- Thomas Edison

Exercise is bunk. If you are healthy, you don’t need it: if you are sick you should not take it.

- Henry Ford

I wish HP nothing but the best. I think HP is an icon. Those of us who had their careers in the Valley think of Dave Packard and Bill Hewlett as role models. We would love to be half as good as they were.

- Larry Ellison

Oracle’s got 100+ enterprise applications live in the #cloud; today, SAP’s got nothin’ but SuccessFactors until 2020.

- Larry Ellison

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 decent method you follow is better than the perfect method you quit.

- Timothy Ferriss

Do you know how many companies have wanted me to do an energy drink for them because I named my book ‘Crush It!’? It might be fun one day, but right now I think it would undermine the personal brand I’ve built.

- Gary Vaynerchuk

Success is not what you have, but who you are.

- Bo Bennett

Far better to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows not victory, nor defeat.

- James C. Collins

When I jumped off a roof in Cannes in a bee costume, I looked ridiculous. But this is my business; I have to humiliate myself.

- Jerry Seinfeld

In practice, a large market will either lack a good starting point or it will be open to competition.

- Peter Thiel

Many of America’s and New York’s sons and daughters are around the world fighting for the freedoms that the Statue of Liberty stands for.

- Michael Bloomberg

Everyone has the potential to become an encourager. You don’t have to be rich. You don’t have to be a genius. You don’t have to have it all together. All you have to do is care about people and initiate.

- John C. Maxwell

I find my greatest pleasure, and so my reward, in the work that precedes what the world calls success.

- Thomas Edison

Many of our best opportunities were created out of necessity. The things that we were forced to learn and do, because we started out underfinanced and undercapitalized in these remote small communities, contributed mightily to the way we’ve grown as a company. Had we been capitalized, or had we been the offshoot of a large corporation the way I wanted to be, we might not ever have tried…

- Sam Walton

What I love about New York is just the electricity I feel right away.

- Jack Dorsey

Amateurs wait for inspiration. The real pros get up and go to work.

- Harvey Mackay

I’ve seen executives improve their performance and skill sets, I’ve never seen one lose the support of the organization and then regain it.

- Ben Horowitz

Americans want students to get the best education possible. We want schools to prepare children to become good citizens and members of a prosperous American economy.

- Bill Gates

In motivating people, you’ve got to engage their minds and their hearts. I motivate people, I hope, by example – and perhaps by excitement, by having productive ideas to make others feel involved.

- Rupert Murdoch

Although I don’t have a prescription for what others should do, I know I have been very fortunate and feel a responsibility to give back to society in a very significant way.

- Bill Gates

Good executives never put off until tomorrow what they can get someone else to do today.

- John C. Maxwell

Research shows that there is only half as much variation in student achievement between schools as there is among classrooms in the same school. If you want your child to get the best education possible, it is actually more important to get him assigned to a great teacher than to a great school.

- Bill Gates

It’s never paid to bet against America. We come through things, but its not always a smooth ride.

- Warren Buffett

[On a small business class taught at university by Frank Shallenberger] Shallenberger started by defining the type of person who was an entrepreneur, and I realized he was talking to me.

- Phil Knight

There is nothing in this world that can compare with the Christian fellowship, nothing that can satisfy but Christ.

- John D. Rockefeller

I’ve seen the promised land, and there is good news. You can have it all.

- Timothy Ferriss

I think my father is nearly perfect. I think he’s quite handsome, except a bit fat.

- Gina Rinehart

The job isn’t to catch up to the status quo, the job is to invent the status quo.

- Seth Godin

Are you bored with life? Then throw yourself into some work you believe in with all your heart, live for it, die for it, and you will find happiness that you had thought could never be yours.

- Dale Carnegie

This isn’t stealing this is standing on the shoulders of giants.

- David Novak

Everybody has equal opportunity, and I think that is true for everything.

- Mukesh Ambani

The worst that could happen wasn’t crashing and burning, it was accepting terminal boredom as a tolerable status quo.

- Timothy Ferriss

The employees who share innovative ideas may also be the folks who have some hidden talents that would help incorporate their suggestions.

- Harvey Mackay

To Be Success In Life Forget The Problems That You Face…But Don’t Forget The Lessons That Those Problems Taught To..

- Harvey Mackay

For the year ended 31 December 2011, the Group sold 325 residential units in Hong Kong, generating attributable sales revenue of HK$8,308 million, a marked increase when compared with HK$4,842 million for the previous financial year.

- Lee Shau Kee

We’ve announced an Oracle Virtual Compute Appliance, a bunch of low-cost commodity servers running Linux, integrated in our case, with InfiniBand – connected with InfiniBand vs. the traditional Ethernet.

- Larry Ellison

It’s fine to celebrate success, but it is more important to heed the lessons of failure.

- Bill Gates

If they really don’t want to buy the flats, I’ll take their deposits.

- Lee Shau Kee

What’s happening is that the two groups assume that the nature of the debate is really a matter of disagreement about their own sides’ core issues. Each side is assuming that people in the other group oppose what they hold most dear to themselves – what’s most important to their side – but in fact their adversaries really don’t oppose them.

- John Chambers

Genius is one per cent inspiration and ninety-nine per cent perspiration. Accordingly, a ‘genius’ is often merely a talented person who has done all of his or her homework.

- Thomas Edison

The combination of passion and art is what makes someone a linchpin.

- Seth Godin

In the course of my life, I have often had to eat my words, and I must confess that I have always found it a wholesome diet.

- Winston Churchill

Acceptance of what has happened is the first step to overcoming the consequences of any misfortune.

- Dale Carnegie

One of the jobs of a manager is to instill confidence, pump confidence into your people. And when you’ve got somebody who’s raring to go and you can smell it and feel it, give ’em that shot.

- Jack Welch

Linchpins are the essential building blocks of tomorrow’s high-value organizations. They don’t bring capital or expensive machinery, nor do they blindly follow instructions and merely contribute labor. Linchpins are indispensable, the driving force of our future.

- Seth Godin

Keep the right perspective Some people would love to have your problems. They would gladly trade places with you. They would love to have the job that frustrates you. They would love to sit in traffic in that car you don’t like. They would love to have your husband, who gets on your nerves. They would love to live in the house you think is too small.

- Joel Olsteen

I want get across to not just the church world. I want to get outside those walls to everyday people.

- Joel Olsteen

The funny thing is people won’t let me pay for things. I’ll be in a restaurant and the manager will say, ‘Oh nom it’s on the house.’

- Richard Branson

For a highly motivated learner, it’s not like knowledge is secret and somehow the Internet made it not secret. It just made knowledge easy to find. If you’re a motivated enough learner, books are pretty good.

- Bill Gates

We thought we ought to put that in because it’s the truth but the (like-for-like) number even with those factors taken into account is still very disappointing.

- Simon Wolfson

As kids, we all worked for the company in one way or another. I got to work behind the candy counter or run the popcorn stand when I was five years old. The business was part of life, and it was always included in the dinner conversation. We learned a lot about the debt it took to open new stores, and I worried about it. I remember confiding to my girlfriend one time – crying and saying, I don’t know what we’re going to do. My daddy owes so much, and he won’t quit opening.

- Alice Walton

You can either fit in or stand out. Not both.

- Seth Godin

I think everything I have done in my life, my reasons at the time were right no matter how things worked out.

- Steve Wozniak

The ‘morality of compromise’ sounds contradictory. Compromise is usually a sign of weakness, or an admission of defeat. Strong men don’t compromise, it is said, and principles should never be compromised.

- Andrew Carnegie

So Bush certainly wasn’t the greatest, and Obama has not done the job. And he’s created a lot of disincentive. He’s created a lot of great dissatisfaction. Regulations and regulatory is going through the roof. It’s almost impossible to get anything done in the country.

- Donald Trump

The difference between successful people and really successful people is that really successful people say no to almost everything.

- Warren Buffett

We are in the throes of a transition where every publication has to think of their digital strategy.

- Bill Gates

My opinion is it’s a bridge too far to go to fully autonomous cars.

- Elon Musk

The best entrepreneurs I’ve ever met are all good communicators. It’s perhaps one of the very few unifying factors.

- Timothy Ferriss

I believe that if you show people the problems and you show them the solutions they will be moved to act.

- Bill Gates

Create a vision and personalize it. People need to say, I understand it, I’m excited about it, and I can make it happen.

- David Novak

Eventually I left City College in my senior year, just four or five credits short of a sociology degree. This really upset my father who thought that I was a fool. Over and over he lectured me that the only way for a black man to make it was to get a degree and a job. For a while there I felt like I was a failure in my father’s eyes, which hurt alot, but promoting felt right in my gut. I knew that to be a man I had to follow my heart. My mother was always more open to Danny, Joey and me pursuing a more non-traditional entrepreneurial way…Early in my promoting career I lost all the money I’d saved on a show in Harlem no one came to. I came out to Hollis and no one would help me. My father just wanted me to go back to school and told me so. What could I say? I had no money. Then my mother went back in the house and came with $2,000 in crisp $100 bills from her personal savings. It was that money that kept me afloat until Kurtis Blow broke and I entered the record business. That act of love and faith, which is what kept me in business at a key time, is my favorite memory of her.

- Russell Simmons

When Ford sells a car, a dealer isn’t allowed to take out the engine and put a different one in. When a newsstand sells the Washington Post, no one can go to the newsstand and pay them to rip out the classified section and put their own classified section in – if they could, they would do so.

- Bill Gates

People work better when they know what the goal is and why. It is important that people look forward to coming to work in the morning and enjoy working.

- Elon Musk

Money will buy you a bed, but not a good night’s sleep, a house, but not a home, a companion, but not a friend.

- Zig Ziglar

We believe that it is better to give one a rod to fish rather than just dole out fish to them.

- Henry Sy

You will never change your life until you change something you do daily.

- John Maxwell

The tool that’s most associated with the recent progress against malaria is the long-lasting bed net. Bed nets are a fantastic innovation. But we can do even better. We can invent new ways to control the mosquitoes that carry the malaria parasite.

- Bill Gates

If you say you want to automate cars and save people’s lives, the skills you need for that aren’t taught in any particular discipline. I know – I was interested in working on automating cars when I was a Ph.D. student in 1995.

- Larry Page

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