When you have to kill a man it costs nothing to be polite.
- Winston Churchill
Notable Quotables
Economic cycles come and go…
- Cheng Yu-tung
The thing that we are trying to do at facebook, is just help people connect and communicate more efficiently.
- Mark Zuckerberg
Opportunity is often missed because it comes dressed in overalls and looks like work.
- Thomas Edison
Disneyland is a work of love. We didn’t go into Disneyland just with the idea of making money.
- Walt Disney
I think I did pretty well, considering I started out with nothing but a bunch of blank paper.
- Steve Martin
You were created to give. You were created to make the lives of others better. Someone needs what you have. Someone needs your love. Someone needs your smile. Someone needs your encouragement and your gifts.
- Joel Olsteen
I always want to listen to people and receive good criticism, but I just don’t have to answer to them; I have to answer to God.
- Joel Olsteen
I influence anybody who is able to get through the chaos of my first impression.
- Gary Vaynerchuk
But this “spray and pray” approach usually produces an entire portfolio of flops, with no hits at all. This is because venture returns don’t follow a normal distribution overall. Rather, they follow a power law: a small handful of companies radically outperform all others. If you focus on diversification instead of single-minded pursuit of the very few companies that can become overwhelmingly valuable, you’ll miss those rare companies in the first place.
- Peter Thiel
Okay, let’s talk about cartoon labels for half a second – some people think anything with a dog or a car or a colorful alien is garbage, which is not true. Look at Big Moose Red. It’s, like, a $6 wine with a cheesy label, and it’s actually a solid wine.
- Gary Vaynerchuk
But if you expect an indefinite future ruled by randomness, you’ll give up on trying to master it.
- Peter Thiel
I usually have my yellow legal pad with me, with a list of ten or fifteen things we need to be working on as a company. My list drives the executives around here crazy, but it’s probably one of my more important contributions.
- Sam Walton
Don’t have sex man. It leads to kissing and pretty soon you have to start talking to them.
- Steve Martin
You may live or work around a bunch of weeds, but don’t let that stop you from blooming. Realize that your environment does not prevent you from being happy. Some people spend all their time trying to pull up all the weeds. Meanwhile, they miss much of their lives. Don’t worry about things you can’t change. You can’t change the traffic in the morning. You can’t fix everybody at work. You can’t make all your family members serve God. But you shouldn’t let that keep you from being happy. Bloom anyway and focus on the things that you can change. You can change your own attitude. You can choose to be happy right where you are.
- Joel Olsteen
One evening, intending to ask my host mother to wake me the next morning (okosu), I ask her to violently rape me (okasu). She is very confused.
- Timothy Ferriss
You reinforce the behaviors that you reward, he explained. If you reward candor, you’ll get it.
- Jack Welch
As you and I march across the decades of time, we are going to meet a lot of unpleasant situations that are so. They cannot be otherwise. We have our choice. We can either accept them as inevitable and adjust ourselves to them, or we can ruin our lives with rebellion and maybe end up with a nervous breakdown.
- Dale Carnegie
I am so disturbed by kids who spend all day playing videogames.
- Larry Ellison
Occasionally a man stumbles over the truth. Most dust themselves off and continue walking as though nothing had happened.
- Winston Churchill
This first time through has been hectic, but I expect it to be more stream-lined next year.
- Jack Taylor
If you have the wrong people, it doesn’t matter whether you discover the right direction; you still won’t have a great company. Great vision without great people is irrelevant.
- James C. Collins
Take the first step in faith, you don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.
- Martin Luther King Jr.
I read a lot of history, biographies, science, and novels ushering a reporter out the door with a hint of relief. I do not read management or economics.
- Peter Drucker
So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you.
- Matthew 7:12
People are the key to success or extraordinary success.
- Azim Premji
Leaders who are kind of insecure or egocentric, they basically sabotage themselves.
- John C. Maxwell
If you don’t have ambition, you should not be alive.
- Aliko Dangote
We are making these changes at a time when we are beginning to see signs that our business is stabilizing.
- John Chambers
Corporations that navigate through these rough times will prosper as the region inevitably enters a new era of prosperity.
- Cheng Yu-tung
(after listening to people gripe and complain just smile and remember) Crows can’t hang with eagles.
- Joel Olsteen
My own center, my Kingdom Center, which is the highest priced tower in Saudi Arabia, was vacated twice because of terrorist attacks, terrorist threats.
- Prince Al Waleed Bin Talal Alsaud
Until we’re educating every kid in a fantastic way, until every inner city is cleaned up, there is no shortage of things to do.
- Bill Gates
I consider my ability to arouse enthusiasm among my people the greatest asset I possess, and the way to develop the best that is in a person is by appreciation and encouragement. There is nothing else that so kills the ambitions of a person as criticisms from superiors. I never criticize anyone. I believe in giving a person incentive to work. So I am anxious to praise but loath to find fault. If I like anything, I am hearty in my approbation and lavish in my praise.
- Charles M. Schwab
The way to achieve happiness is to try for perfection that is impossible to achieve, and spend the rest of your life trying to achieve it.
- Winston Churchill
Your customers are only satisfied because their expectations are so low and because no one else is doing better. Just having satisfied customers isn’t good enough anymore. If you really want a booming business, you have to create Raving Fans.
- Ken Blanchard and Sheldon Bowles
My whole life had been designing computers I could never build.
- Steve Wozniak
Whether you believe you can do a thing or not, you are right.
- Henry Ford
I think the definition of a book is changing.
- Jeff Bezos
We think of Starbucks not as a coffee company but a media company.
- Howard Schultz
Don’t find fault, find a remedy.
- Henry Ford
All human beings are the same. In the United States, people come from all over the world, all races, all backgrounds. And they’re all doing what they want, many scoring huge successes. When I saw that, I became more open. It freed my soul.
- Masayoshi Son
Companies should not have a singular view of profitability. There needs to be a balance between commerce and social responsibility… The companies that are authentic about it will wind up as the companies that make more money.
- Howard Schultz
The fuel cell is just a fundamentally inferior way of delivering electrical energy to an electric motor than batteries.
- Elon Musk
China’s movie industry is growing a lot faster than that of the U.S.
- Wang Jianlin
When people lack concrete plans to carry out, they use formal rules to assemble a portfolio of various options.
- Peter Thiel
Man will occasionally stumble upon the truth but most times he will pick himself up and continue on.
- Winston Churchill
It is literally true that you can succeed best and quickest by helping others to succeed.
- Napoleon Hill
The best things that capture your imagination are ones you hadn’t thought of before and that aren’t talked about in the news all the time.
- Steve Wozniak
Thus far then have we travelled along the terrible road we chose at the call of duty. The mood of Britain is wisely and rightly averse from every form of shallow or premature exultation. This is no time for boasts or glowing prophecies, but there is this: A year ago our position looked forlorn, and well nigh desperate to all eyes but our own. To-day we may say aloud before an awe-struck world: ‘We are still masters of our fate. We are still captain of our souls.
- Winston Churchill
Change isn’t made by asking permission. Change is made by asking forgiveness, later.
- Seth Godin
There are no limitations to the mind except those we acknowledge.
- Napoleon Hill
When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.
- Oprah Winfrey
For more than a decade, I led an organization that put on an elaborate Christmas program each December. It was a big production, with over 250 people participating in more than 20 performances. By the end of the season, everyone who participated was exhausted.”
- John C. Maxwell
No man is ever whipped, until he quits in his own mind…A winner never quits and quitter never wins. No follower of this philosphy can reasonably expect accumulate a fortune without experience temporary defeat.
- Napoleon Hill
One definition of hope is happy anticipation of something good.
- Joel Olsteen
The knowledge worker is not poverty-prone. He is in danger of alienation, to use the fashionable word for boredom, frustration, and silent despair.
- Peter Drucker
Greatness is not a function of circumstance. Greatness, it turns out, is largely a matter of conscious choice, and discipline.
- James C. Collins
Do not look like you are playing the fiddle while Rome is burning….stay focussed – Paraphrased from
- David Novak
If you don’t understand the details of your business you are going to fail.
- Jeff Bezos
You can be in the storm, but don’t let the storm get in you.
- Joel Olsteen
I would love to do a deal with Walgreen. If they’re willing to come to the table, and offer rates in line with everybody else, then I’m happy to entertain those conversations.
- George Paz
People are more likely to accept an order if they have had a part in the decision that caused the order to be issued.
- Dale Carnegie
Entrepreneurship, then, is behavior rather than personality trait. And its foundation lies in concept and theory rather than in intuition.
- Peter Drucker
And if I were the president, I’d go out there and I’d emphasize the things I have done, and I’d say, ‘Some things haven’t worked, and I’m sorry about that, but I keep trying.’ And I’m – and I think the president is a very viable candidate, and you’re going to have a real horse race here no matter who the Republican nominee is.
- Michael Bloomberg
History with its flickering lamp stumbles along the trail of the past, trying to reconstruct its scenes, to revive its echoes, and kindle with pale gleams the passion of former days. What is the worth of all this? The only guide to a man is his conscience; the only shield to his memory is the rectitude and sincerity of his actions. It is very imprudent to walk through life without this shield, because we are so often mocked by the failure of our hopes and the upsetting of our calculations; but with this shield, however the fates may play, we march always in the ranks of honor.
- Winston Churchill
Problems cannot be solved by the same level of thinking that created them.
- Albert Einstein
I worked with such concentration and focus and I had hundreds of obscure engineering or programming things in my head. I was just real exceptional in that way.
- Steve Wozniak
Service for the Right Reasons: To Save the Whales, or Kill Them and Feed the Children? Morality is simply the attitude we adopt toward people we personally dislike.
- Oscar Wilde
I’d never worked in fashion or retail. I just needed an undergarment that didn’t exist.
- Sara Blakely
It’s obviously tricky to convert cellulose to a useful biofuel. I think actually the most efficient way to use cellulose is to burn it in a co-generation power plant. That will yield the most energy and that is something you can do today.
- Elon Musk
I didn’t think I would come to this conclusion — but eventually I came to the conclusion that more information is better, even if it is not as full as we would like to see.
- Sergey Brin
Capitalism works.
- Michael Bloomberg
Real entrepreneurs have what I call the three Ps (and, trust me, none of them stands for ‘permission’). Real entrepreneurs have a ‘passion’ for what they’re doing, a ‘problem’ that needs to be solved, and a ‘purpose’ that drives them forward.
- Michael Dell
Rich people have small TVs and big libraries, and poor people have small libraries and big TVs.
- Zig Ziglar
We appreciate size, but only if it is robust growth. Just to be big is not a target.
- Alexei Mordashov
[In June 2011] We’re focused on building a product and a business. Going public is an instrument and tool to help sustain the company. In the future, there may be an IPO, but I don’t know what the timing is.
- Jack Dorsey
There’s a wonderful saying that’s dead wrong. ‘Why did you climb the mountain?’ ‘I climbed the mountain because it was there.’ That’s utter nonsense…You climbed the mountain because you were there, and you were curious if you could do it. You wondered what it would be like.
- Larry Ellison
We don’t have the luxury of time. We spend more because of how we live, but it’s important to be with our family and friends.
- Sara Blakely
I don’t argue when people say that my message is simple, but I believe Jesus’ message was simple. Jesus didn’t go around condemning people.
- Joel Olsteen
In day-to-day life, you have stimulus to behave unethically, but in the long term, it always pays off to be ethical.
- Jorge Paulo Lemann
You can’t sit there and worry about everything.
- Michael Bloomberg
I’ve been very lucky, and therefore I owe it to try and reduce the inequity in the world. And that’s kind of a religious belief. I mean, it’s at least a moral belief.
- Bill Gates
No lover ever studied every whim of his mistress as I did those of President Roosevelt.
- Winston Churchill
Be nice to nerds. Chances are you’ll end up working for one.
- Bill Gates
If you go on with this nuclear arms race, all you are going to do is make the rubble bounce.
- Winston Churchill
Atari is a very sad story.
- Steve Wozniak
Don’t try to create a new market prematurely. The only way to know you have a real business is to start with an already existing customer, so you should build your company by improving on recognizable products already offered by successful competitors.
- Peter Thiel
If you’re trying to create a company, it’s like baking a cake. You have to have all the ingredients in the right proportion.
- Elon Musk
It is the individual who is not interested in his fellow men who has the greatest difficulties in life and provides the greatest injury to others.
- Dale Carnegie
1. Doing something unimportant well does not make it important.2. Requiring a lot of time does not make a task important.
- Timothy Ferriss
Never be bothered by what people say, as long as you know in your heart you are right.
- Dale Carnegie
This can only be accomplished by people who live, breathe, eat and sleep what they are doing…. [I am] associated with a large group of knowledgeable, dedicated [people] who eat, breathe, and sleep the world of aeronautics…. Man’s objective should be opportunity for greater accomplishment and greater service. The greatest pleasure life has to offer is the satisfaction that flows from… participating in a difficult and constructive undertaking.
- James C. Collins
What you need to keep most in the U.S. is the entrepreneurial spirit.
- Alexei Mordashov
Insulation prevents you from making the change and finding the understanding you set out to achieve in the first place.
- Seth Godin
Half of College Grads Are Working Jobs That Don’t Require A Degree, Forbes 2013 college graduates have are an average of $32,500 in debt.
- CNNMoney
You make a living by what you get. You make a life by what you give.
- Winston Churchill
When you cease to dream you cease to live.
- Malcolm Forbes
Right now I’m just delighted to be alive and to have had a nice long bath.
- Richard Branson
I think so many people are reactive… they see things in a short term way they’re right up against it.
- Ray Dalio
