Mickey Mouse popped out of my mind onto a drawing pad 20 years ago on a train ride from Manhattan to Hollywood at a time when business fortunes of my brother Roy and myself were at lowest ebb and disaster seemed right around the corner.
- Walt Disney
Notable Quotables
There is never a bad time to start a business – unless you want to start a mediocre one.
- Gary Vaynerchuk
I have friends in overalls whose friendship I would not swap for the favor of the kings of the world.
- Thomas Edison
Zynga is about fun. Fun is important. Fun is good. And to have the ability to do something fun for 10 or 15 minutes that’s right at your fingertips and involves your friends, well, that’s better than television in terms of social connectivity.
- Reid Hoffman
Trees will improve property values, take pollutants out of the air, help with water runoff.
- Michael Bloomberg
We were looking to guide and help people who want to start small businesses.
- David Nilssen
So sure, start with a slogan. But don’t bother wasting any time on it if you’re merely going for catchy. Aim for true instead.
- Seth Godin
Well we know that people in Austrailia love the idea of both Impulse and Virgin Blue getting up and adding a bit of competition, and it’s fun to be able to deliver it.
- Richard Branson
The Net is not television. It is the finest direct-marketing mechanism in the history of mankind. It is direct mail with free stamps, and it allows you to create richer and deeper relationships than you’ve ever been able to create before.
- Seth Godin
There is a huge need and a huge opportunity to get everyone in the world connected, to give everyone a voice and to help transform society for the future. The scale of the technology and infrastructure that must be built is unprecedented, and we believe this is the most important problem we can focus on.
- Mark Zuckerberg
I’ve seen the promised land, and there is good news. You can have it all.
- Timothy Ferriss
You can make something big when young that will carry you through life. Look at all the big startups like Microsoft, Apple, Google, Facebook, Twitter, etc. They were all started by very young people who stumbled on something of unseen value. You’ll know it when you hit a home run.
- Steve Wozniak
Cultures, for better or worse, are very stable.
- Jeff Bezos
Today people who hold cash equivalents feel comfortable. They shouldn’t. They have opted for a terrible long-term asset, one that pays virtually nothing and is certain to depreciate in value.
- Warren Buffett
It is going to be a little, if you will, laboratory for sustainability in businesses of small scale
- Larry Ellison
No matter what any of us has—and how grateful we are for what we have—no one has it all.
- Sheryl Sandberg
The lesson is that, No. 1, this management has to be at the highest class possible. No. 2, they have to have a succession plan.
- Prince Al Waleed Bin Talal Alsaud
No individual may have great power without availing himself of the Master Mind.
- Napoleon Hill
If you cannot read all your books, at any rate handle, or as it were, fondle them…let them be your friends.
- Winston Churchill
The three most charismatic leaders in this century inflicted more suffering on the human race than almost any trio in history: Hitler, Stalin, and Mao. What matters is not the leader’s charisma. What matters is the leader’s mission.
- Peter Drucker
It’s amazing that the amount of news that happens in the world every day always just exactly fits the newspaper.
- Jerry Seinfeld
What has sustained us through these years? Trust. Dedication. Discipline.
- Cheng Yu-tung
Excitement is the more practical synonym for happiness, and it is precisely what you should strive to chase. It is the cure-all.
- Timothy Ferriss
Anyone who lives within their means suffers from a lack of imagination.
- Oscar Wilde
If God would have wanted us to live in a permissive society He would have given us Ten Suggestions and not Ten Commandments.
- Zig Ziglar
The best customer service is if the customer doesn’t need to call you, doesn’t need to talk to you. It just works.
- Jeff Bezos
We’re better than the rest of the country but we shouldn’t believe it too much.
- Peter Thiel
I never get the accountants in before I start up a business. It’s done on gut feeling, especially if I can see that they are taking the mickey out of the consumer.
- Richard Branson
But you are the average of the five people you associate with most, so do not underestimate the effects of your pessimistic, unambitious, or disorganized friends. If someone isn’t making you stronger, they’re making you weaker.
- Timothy Ferriss
If you don’t believe in your product, or if you’re not consistent and regular in the way you promote it, the odds of succeeding go way down. The primary function of the marketing plan is to ensure that you have the resources and the where withal to do what it takes to make your product work.
- Jay Conrad Levinson
I was dyslexic, I had no understanding of schoolwork whatsoever. I certainly would have failed IQ tests. And it was one of the reasons I left school when I was 15 years old. And if I – if I’m not interested in something, I don’t grasp it.
- Richard Branson
The industrial age is ending, and a new one is beginning. It produces art instead of stuff and it rewards gracefulness.
- Seth Godin
Early must I rise. Leave now you must!
- Yoda
I remember clearly when the financial plan – If i may call it so – of my life was formed. It was out in Ohio, under the ministration of a dear old minister who preached, Get money; get it honestly, and then give it away wisely. I wrote that down in a little book.
- Ron Chernow
Adversity doesn’t build character, it reveals it.
- Timothy Ferriss
To lead a meaningful life, one must build trust with others. To enjoy peace, a nation must win the confidence and support of its people. To achieve stable growth, an enterprise must live up to its conviction.
- Cheng Yu-tung
Take time to be kind and to say ‘thank you.’
- Zig Ziglar
Nature is a machine. The family is a machine. The life cycle is like a machine.
- Ray Dalio
The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.
- Martin Luther King Jr.
The entrepreneur always searches for change, responds to it, and exploits it as an opportunity.
- Peter Drucker
For all of the most important things, the timing always sucks. Waiting for a good time to quit your job? The stars will never align and the traffic lights of life will never all be green at the same time. The universe doesn’t conspire against you, but it doesn’t go out of its way to line up the pins either. Conditions are never perfect. ‘Someday’ is a disease that will take your dreams to the grave with you. Pro and con lists are just as bad. If it’s important to you and you want to do it ‘eventually’, just do it and correct course along the way.
- Timothy Ferriss
The optimist sees opportunity in every danger, the pessimist sees danger in every opportunity.
- Winston Churchill
I believe we are in a world where innovation in stuff was outlawed. It was basically outlawed in the last 40 years – part of it was environmentalism, part of it was risk aversion.
- Peter Thiel
God created every one of us to be successful. Before the foundation of the world, He laid out an exact plan for our lives. And in this plan He has moments of favor that will come across our path. These moments are not ordinary. They are destiny-altering moments.
- Joel Olsteen
The Group has three areas. The first is Henderson Land the listed company. Now it has a total developable land bank of 75 million square feet of gross floor area in China. I hope that in the next two or three months that figure can rise to 150 million square feet. That would be a remarkable feet. So, Henderson is one hope. The second is Hong Kong and China Gas, which I also have high hopes for. In the mainland we already have had many projects in 12 cities there. No, actually I mean, we have projects in 55 cities in 12 provinces. Probably about 60 in total that we are working on. So that is the second area. The third area or hope is Shau Kee Finance. It’s assets have already doubled from $50 billion and I hope they can double again to $200 billion.
- Lee Shau Kee
God knows your value; He sees your potential. You may not understand everything you are going through right now. But hold your head up high, knowing that God is in control and he has a great plan and purpose for your life. Your dreams may not have turned out exactly as you’d hoped, but the bible says that God’s ways are better and higher than our ways, even when everybody else rejects you, remember, God stands before you with His arms open wide. He always accepts you. He always confirms your value. God sees your two good moves! You are His prized possession. No matter what you go through in life, no matter how many disappointments you suffer, your value in God’s eyes always remains the same. You will always be the apple of His eye. He will never give up on you, so don’t give up on yourself.
- Joel Olsteen
A company is a group organized to create a product or service, and it is only as good as its people and how excited they are about creating. I do want to recognize a ton of super-talented people. I just happen to be the face of the companies.
- Elon Musk
Politicians make decisions in favor of their interest groups or their supporters back in their hometowns.
- Tadashi Yanai
We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.
- Aristotle
Leaders relentlessly upgrade their team, using every encounter as an opportunity to evaluate, coach, and build self-confidence.
- Jack Welch
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
We need to understand the difference between discipline and punishment. Punishment is what you do to someone, discipline is what you do for someone.
- Zig Ziglar
In business, just the opposite is often true; silence means dissent. Have you ever been in a meeting where you sense there is obvious disagreement, but the disagreement never really gets put on the table? This what I call the Slow No’s.
- David Novak
The ideas I stand for are not mine. I borrowed them from Socrates. I swiped them from Chesterfield. I stole them from Jesus. And I put them in a book. If you don’t like their rules, whose would you use?
- Dale Carnegie
I love to learn but I do not want to be taught.
- Winston Churchill
If you look upon chronic diseases as an epidemic, and you see that the chronically ill are the poor, then you see that this issue of the uninsured is not really a moral but a financial obligation to change health care.
- Patrick Soon-Shiong
You either trust someone day one until they prove you wrong, or you say, ‘I don’t trust you until you show me I can trust you.’ I’m the latter.
- Charles Ergen
Every day I meet people who have so much to give but have been bullied enough or frightened enough to hold it back. It’s time to stop complying with the system and draw your own map. You have brilliance in you, your contribution is essential, and the art you create is precious. Only you can do it, and you must.
- Seth Godin
A man may be poor; he may have nothing at all except his labour to sell; he may be a manual worker for a weekly wage, but in a free commonwealth he must enjoy as good a right as any lord, or prelate, or capitalist in the country to the integrity of his own political convictions.
- Winston Churchill
In the U.S., HBO is a very aggressive service.
- Reed Hastings
To succeed in business, you must build a brand and never destroy it.
- Aliko Dangote
I find that I have about six bloggable ideas a day. I also find that writing twice as long a post doesn’t increase communication, it usually decreases it. And finally, I found that people get antsy if there are unread posts in their queue.
- Seth Godin
Chambers have numerous committees and serving on one of them provides numerous networking opportunities as well as professional leadership development.
- American Business Magazine
I had a terrible time hiring rich people. It sounds funny, but the problem is when things go wrong they can ask, ‘Why am I doing this?’ You don’t ever want anybody asking that question. You want them to say, ‘I know why I’m doing it, I need the money, let’s go’ or whatever it is that draws them.
- Ben Horowitz
Definite planning even went beyond the surface of this planet: NASA’s Apollo Program began in 1961 and put 12 men on the moon before it finished in 1972.
- Peter Thiel
Globalization has changed us into a company that searches the world, not just to sell or to source, but to find intellectual capital – the world’s best talents and greatest ideas.
- Jack Welch
A minute of thought is greater than an hour of talk.
- John C. Maxwell
Positional leaders ignore the fact that every person has hopes, dreams, desires, and goals of his own. And leaders must bring their vision and the aspirations of the people they lead together in a way that benefits everyone.”
- John C. Maxwell
All the adversity I’ve had in my life, all my troubles and obstacles, have strengthened me… You may not realize it when it happens, but a kick in the teeth may be the best thing in the world for you.
- Walt Disney
My motivation for all my companies has been to be involved in something that I thought would have a significant impact on the world.
- Elon Musk
I do not suppose that at any moment of history has the agony of the world been so great or widespread. Tonight the sun goes down on more suffering than ever before in the world.
- Winston Churchill
Philanthropy should be taking much bigger risks that business. If these are easy problems, business and government can come in and solve them.
- Bill Gates
One of [Bill] Bowerman’s more legendary innovations is the Waffle outsole, which he discovered by pouring rubber into a waffle iron.
- Phil Knight
You must go through the process before you get the product.
- Paul Pressey
Make your desires clear and reduce them to writing.
- Napoleon Hill
Learning to be a CEO through classroom training would be like learning to be an NFL quarterback through classroom training.
- Ben Horowitz
The Real ReasonNew College Grads Can’t Get Hired shocked many when it reported, The Workforce Solutions Group at St. Louis Community College finds that more than 60% of employers say applicants lack communication and interpersonal skills
- Martha C. White
But use the opposite technique – be liberal with your encouragement, make the thing seem easy to do, let the other person know that you have faith in his ability to do it, that he has an undeveloped flair for it – and he will practise until the dawn comes in the window in order to excel.
- Dale Carnegie
The patterns of success and failure we see among firms faced with sustaining and disruptive technology change are a natural or systematic result of good managerial decisions. That is, in fact, why disruptive technologies confront innovators with such a dilemma. Working harder, being smarter, investing more aggressively, and listening more astutely to customers are all solutions to the problems posed by new sustaining technologies. But these paradigms of sound management are useless—even counterproductive, in many instances—when dealing with disruptive technology.
- Clayton M. Christensen
I have the best job I could possibly have.
- Michael Bloomberg
The Lack of Candor is the biggest and deepest darkest secrets of business…People might not have agree with me on every issue, and I may not have been right all the time, but they always knew they were getting it straight and honest.
- Jack Welch
There have only been about a half dozen genuinely important events in the four-billion-year saga of life on Earth: single-celled life, multicelled life, differentiation into plants and animals, movement of animals from water to land, and the advent of mammals and consciousness.
- Elon Musk
If we can put a man on the moon, we can make pantyhose comfortable.
- Sara Blakely
You reinforce the behaviors that you reward, he explained. If you reward candor, you’ll get it.
- Jack Welch
Three out of four of us who are self-employed consider ourselves to be entrepreneurs. Most of the others are self-employed professionals, such as doctors and accountants.
- Thomas J Stanley
You cannot overestimate the unimportance of practically everything.
- John C. Maxwell
[On working at Nike for 48 years] In those 48 years, I have never had a promotion. but it had its other benefits.
- Phil Knight
You do not get what you want. You get what you negotiate.
- Harvey Mackay
There is scarcely anything that drags a person down like debt.
- P.T. Barnum
I’ve learned that it doesn’t matter how many times you failed…You only have to be right once…I was an idiot lots of times, and I learned from them all.
- Mark Cuban
The more seriously you take your growth, the more seriously your people will take you.
- John C. Maxwell
We beat our expectations in the run up to Christmas and this time last year we had particularly high stock levels leading to a bigger clearance.
- Simon Wolfson
For me, it’s a purity thing about the joke itself. It’s a test of a joke whether or not you do it completely clean and it works. If it does, then that’s a legitimate item you have there. For me, it’s nothing to do with finding those words offensive. It’s just not what I’m in search of. Do it clean, and you are really earning that laugh.
- Jerry Seinfeld
What options expensing will determine is job creation and job loss, … This is why we are debating it so strongly and I’m proud to champion it.
- John Chambers
My belief as a Christian is when we receive Christ as salvation, that that gives us a guarantee for Heaven.
- Joel Olsteen
One day, I’d like to write a book about the worst ads ever run, but my fear is that it would be too long.
- Seth Godin
He who is without a newspaper is cut off from his species.
- P.T. Barnum
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
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
India has the potential to be our biggest market in Asia, bigger than China, in as much as two to five years.
- John Chambers
