Notable Quotables

Being busy is most often used as a guise for avoiding the few critically important but uncomfortable actions.

- Timothy Ferriss

People suck at following advice. Even the most effective people in the world are terrible at it. There are two reasons: 1. Most people have an insufficient reason for action. The pain isn’t painful enough. It’s a nice-to-have, not a must-have. There has been no Harajuku Moment. 2. There are no reminders. No consistent tracking = no awareness = no behavioral change. Consistent tracking, even if you have no knowledge of fat-loss or exercise, will often beat advice from world-class trainers.

- Timothy Ferriss

I am quite serious when I say that I do not believe there are, on the whole earth besides, so many intensified bores as in these United States. No man can form an adequate idea of the real meaning of the word, without coming here.

- Warren Buffett

There are really two things that have to occur in order for a new technology to be affordable to the mass market. One is you need economies of scale. The other is you need to iterate on the design. You need to go through a few versions.

- Elon Musk

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

- Peter Thiel

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

- David Novak

My parents were the same in the pulpit as they were at home. I think that’s where a lot of preachers’ kids get off base sometimes. Because they don’t see the same things at both places.

- Joel Olsteen

I grew up in a house where my father encouraged my brother and me to fail. I specifically remember coming home and saying, ‘Dad, Dad, I tried out for this or that and I was horrible,’ and he would high-five me and say, ‘Way to go.’

- Sara Blakely

Focus on something the customer wants, and then deliver it. “ 14. “Many of our best opportunities were created out of necessity.

- Sam Walton

We knew that Lyft was going to raise a ton of money. And we are going [to their investors], Just so you know, we’re going to be fund-raising after this, so before you decide whether you want to invest in them, just make sure you know that we are going to be fund-raising immediately after.

- Travis Kalanick

At the end of the day, effective mission statements balance the possible and the impossible. They give people a clear sense of the direction to profitability and the inspiration to feel they are part of something big and important.

- Jack Welch

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

People forget already how much utility they get out of the Internet – how much utility they get out of e-mail, how much utility they get out of even simple things like brochureware online.

- Jeff Bezos

This is no war of chieftains or of princes, of dynasties or national ambition; it is a war of peoples and of causes. There are vast numbers, not only in this Island but in every land, who will render faithful service in this war, but whose names will never be known, whose deeds will never be recorded. This is a War of the Unknown Warriors.

- Winston Churchill

If you believe in quality, you can’t just tell everybody We believe in quality! You’ve got to pay bonuses based on quality. You’ve got to let everyone in the organization know that they are being judged on quality.

- Jack Welch

Twitter was around communication and visualizing what was happening in the world in real-time. Square was allowing everyone to accept the form of payment people have in their pocket today, which is a credit card.

- Jack Dorsey

When I was a CEO, the books on management that I read weren’t very much help after the first few months on the job. They were all designed to give you directions on how not to screw up your company.

- Ben Horowitz

People rarely succeed unless they have fun in what they are doing.

- Dale Carnegie

The only thing I understand deeply, because in my teens I was thinking about it, and every year of my life, is software. So I’ll never be hands-on on anything except software.

- Bill Gates

Some libertarians say, ‘Well, if people work harder, they can make more money.’ But, you know, my mother is a nurse and I am a venture capitalist. I think no matter how great a nurse she is, she wouldn’t earn a one-thousandth of what I can make, if that.

- Ben Horowitz

On my desk I have three screens, synchronized to form a single desktop. I can drag items from one screen to the next. Once you have that large display area, you’ll never go back, because it has a direct impact on productivity.

- Bill Gates

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

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

I am not interested in power for power’s sake, but I’m interested in power that is moral, that is right and that is good.

- Martin Luther King Jr.

The show business has all phases and grades of dignity, from the exhibition of a monkey to the exposition of that highest art in music or the drama which secures for the gifted artists a world-wide fame princes well might envy.

- P.T. Barnum

All progress is precarious, and the solution of one problem brings us face to face with another problem.

- Martin Luther King Jr.

We’re extremely adroit at hiding our fear. Most of our lives in public are spent papering over, rationalizing, and otherwise denying our fear. We go to war because we’re afraid, and we often go to spiritual events for the very same reason.

- Seth Godin

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

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

Don’t romance Wall Street. You don’t want investors who are only concerned about the quarter, or who are working on their exit strategy from day one. You want shareholders to own you forever. If we have no trading at all, I consider that a tremendous accomplishment.

- Warren Buffett

The relationships we have with people are extremely important to success on and off the job.

- Zig Ziglar

One reason I encourage people to blog is that the act of doing it stretches your available vocabulary and hones a new voice.

- Seth Godin

A word of encouragement from a teacher to a child can change a life. A word of encouragement from a spouse can save a marriage. A word of encouragement from a leader can inspire a person to reach her potential.

- John C. Maxwell

The productivity now at universities is terrible. Tenure is a terrible idea. It keeps them around forever and they don’t have to work hard.

- Jack Welch

This I do know beyond any doubt, Regardless of what you are doing, if you PUMP LONG AND HARD ENOUGH and ENTHUSIASTICALLY ENOUGH, sooner or later the EFFORT will bring forth the REWARD.

- Zig Ziglar

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

The competitor to be feared is one who never bothers about you at all, but goes on making his own business better all the time.

- Henry Ford

Opportunity does not knock, it presents itself when you beat down the door.

- Kyle Chandler

It it impossible to comprehend Rockefeller’s breathtaking ascent without realizing that he always moved into battle backed by adundant cash. Whether riding out downturns or coasting on booms, he kept plentiful reserves and won many bidding contests simply because his war chest was deeper. Rockefeller vividly described the way he had hastily enlisted the aid of bankers to snap up one rifinery: It required many hundreds of thousands of dollars and in cash, securities would not answer. I received the message at about noon, and had to get off on the 3 o’clock train. I drove from bank to bank asking each president or cashier, whomever I could find first, to get ready for me all the funds he could possibly lay hands on. I told them I would be back to get the money later. I rounded up all of our banks in the city, and made a secondary journey to get the money, and kept going until I secured the necessary amount. With this I was off on the 3 o’clock train and closed the transaction.

- Ron Chernow

F-E-A-R has two meanings: ‘Forget Everything And Run’ or ‘Face Everything And Rise.’ The choice is yours.

- Zig Ziglar

In the old world, you devoted 30% of your time to building a great service and 70% of your time to shouting about it. In the new world, that inverts.

- Jeff Bezos

The “non-profit” institution neither supplies goods or services not controls. Its “product” is neither a pair of shoes nor an effective regulation. Its product is a changed human being. The non-profit institutions are human-change agents. Their “product” is a cured patient, a child that learns, a young man or woman grown into a self-respecting adult; a changed human life altogether.

- Peter Drucker

Not every Apple product makes a big enough difference to me to get instantly, although many do.

- Steve Wozniak

Leadership is not about titles, positions or flowcharts. It is about one life influencing another.

- John C. Maxwell

A leader is one who sees more than others see, who sees farther than others see and who sees before others see.

- Leroy Eimes

I DECLARE breakthroughs are coming in my life, sudden bursts of God’s goodness. Not a trickle. Not a stream. But a flood of God’s power. A flood of healing. A flood of wisdom. A flood of favor. I am a breakthrough person and I choose to live breakthrough minded. I am expecting God to overwhelm me with His goodness and amaze me with His favor. This is my declaration.

- Joel Olsteen

Cleantech shows the result: hundreds of undifferentiated products all in the name of one overbroad goal.

- Peter Thiel

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

- Jerry Seinfeld

If you concentrate on what you have, you will always end up having more. If you focus on what you don’t have, you will never, ever have enough.

- Oprah Winfrey

Treatment without prevention is simply unsustainable.

- Bill Gates

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

The most practical, beautiful, workable philosophy in the world won’t work if you won’t.

- Zig Ziglar

If you want to conquer fear, don’t sit at home and think about it. Go out and get busy.

- Dale Carnegie

I’m going to save my public voice largely for the issues where I have some depth.

- Bill Gates

It also makes clear that it is her meeting and will take as much or as little time as she needs. During the meeting, since it’s the employee’s meeting, the manager should do 10 percent of the talking and 90 percent of the listening. Note that this is the opposite of most one-on-ones.

- Ben Horowitz

People are poor judges of importance and inflate minutiae to fill time and feel important.

- Timothy Ferriss

John D. Rockefeller said that he found friendships based on business to be far more long lasting and profitable than the reverse. I think there’s something to that. A company can end up being very Confucian, where the good of the individual is subjugated to the good of the whole.

- Ben Horowitz

I came to the conclusion that we should aspire to increase the scope and scale of human consciousness in order to better understand what questions to ask. Really, the only thing that makes sense is to strive for greater collective enlightenment.

- Elon Musk

An individual artist needs only a thousand true fans in her tribe. It’s enough.

- Seth Godin

It’s not enough to do good things. You have to let people know what you’re doing.

- Phil Knight

Satan knows, if you are against YOURSELF you will never fulfill your destiny. :(

- Joel Olsteen

When you have exhausted all possibilities, remember this – you haven’t.

- Thomas Edison

The average occupancy rate of the core investment properties of the group was maintained at a high level of 96%.

- Lee Shau Kee

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

TAKE CARE OF THE PEOPLE, THE PRODUCTS, AND THE PROFITS—IN THAT ORDER.

- Ben Horowitz

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

You won’t get anything unless you have the vision to imagine it.

- John Lennon

One day a friend came by the job site and asked them separately what they were doing. The first said, Aw, we’re just laying brick. We’ve been doing this for thirty years. It’s so boring. One brick on top of the other.” Then the friend asked the second bricklayer. He just lit up. Why, we’re building a magnificent skyscraper,” he said. This structure is going to stand tall for generations to come. I’m just so excited that I could be a part of it.” Each bricklayer’s happiness or lack of it was based on their perspective. You can be laying a brick or you can be building a beautiful skyscraper. The choice is up to you. You can go to work each day and just punch in on the clock and dread being there and do as little as possible. Or you can show up with enthusiasm and give it your best, knowing that you’re making the world a better place.

- Joel Olsteen

Creating a sense of urgency around change initiatives is especially hard to do. Human nature seems to be hardwired to adhor change, and people will do everything in their power to resist it. I once heard this explained to another Pepsi consultant. His philosophy was that in order to drive change, you need to create what he called, the burning platform. This burning-platform image was an oil rig in the North Sea that has caught fire and the only way to save yourself is to jump into the frigid water and swim to the lifeboat. You know the jump might kill you, but you jump anyway, not because you think it might be a good idea, but because you had no choice. That’s creating a sense of urgency.

- David Novak

One thing that most comic artists avoid is showing decisions. They show action, sure, and they show results, but they don’t show (because it’s difficult to show) the hero or the villain making a choice.

- Seth Godin

When people get at each other’s throat, the rich and the poor and the Left and the Right and so on, and you have a basic breakdown, that becomes very threatening.

- Ray Dalio

To all of us comes that moment in life when we are literally tapped on the shoulder to do a very special thing unique to ourselves and our talents. What a pity if that moment finds us unprepared.

- Winston Churchill

If you are a big company, a big website, and lots of users come to your website, you will have attacks, and you have to deal with that. It just cannot be a reason to take actions to exit certain markets.

- Robin Li

The idea of Twitter started with me working in dispatch since I was 15 years old, where taxi cabs or firetrucks would broadcast where they were and what they were doing.

- Jack Dorsey

The interesting thing about cloud computing is that we’ve redefined cloud computing to include everything that we already do. … The computer industry is the only industry that is more fashion-driven than women’s fashion. Maybe I’m an idiot, but I have no idea what anyone is talking about. What is it? It’s complete gibberish. It’s insane. When is this idiocy going to stop?

- Larry Ellison

Clear your mind must be, if you are to find the villains behind this plot.

- Yoda

I had a feeling once about Mathematics – that I saw it all. Depth beyond depth was revealed to me – the Byss and Abyss. I saw – as one might see the transit of Venus or even the Lord Mayor’s Show – a quantity passing through infinity and changing its sign from plus to minus. I saw exactly why it happened and why the tergiversation was inevitable but it was after dinner and I let it go.

- Winston Churchill

You don’t drown by falling into water. You only drown if you stay there.

- Zig Ziglar

The outside perception and inside perception of Microsoft are so different. The view of Microsoft inside Microsoft is always kind of an underdog thing.

- Bill Gates

The common question that gets asked in business is, ‘why?’ That’s a good question, but an equally valid question is, ‘why not?’

- Jeff Bezos

The first dollar is the most you will get if you don’t love what you are doing.

- Ray Kroc

Faith in the endgame helps you live through the months or years of buildup.

- James C. Collins

Be careful about virtual relationships with artificially intelligent pieces of software.

- Larry Ellison

Live creatively, friends. . . . Make a careful exploration of who you are and the work you have been given, and then sink yourself into that. Don’t be impressed with yourself. Don’t compare yourself with others” (Galatians 6:1, 4).

- Zig Ziglar

When I hear Mitt Romney say that he believes that Jesus is the Son of God, that He’s the Christ, raised from the dead, that He’s his savior – that’s good enough for me.

- Joel Olsteen

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