When I am abroad, I always make it a rule never to criticize or attack the government of my own country. I make up for lost time when I come home.
- Winston Churchill
Notable Quotables
Anyone who wants to change the world should be more humble.
- Peter Thiel
In the U.S., HBO is a very aggressive service.
- Reed Hastings
If something is important enough, even if the odds are against you, you should still do it.
- Elon Musk
Success seems to be largely a matter of hanging on after others have let go.
- William Feather
But no parties could live under such labels as Petitioners and Abhorrers. Instead of naming themselves they named each other. The term “Whig” had described a sour, bigoted, canting, money-grubbing Scots Presbyterian. Irish Papist bandits ravaging estates and manor-houses had been called “Tories”.
- Winston Churchill
It seems like when I was growing up there was more compromise, wanting to work with each other, and I think all of them – all of the lawmakers – have hearts to do what’s right, and they all are passionate about it.
- Joel Olsteen
Even today few businessmen understand that research, to be productive, has to be the “disorganizer,” the creator of a different future and the enemy of today. In most industrial laboratories, “defensive research” aimed at perpetuating today, predominates.
- Peter Drucker
Politics is almost as exciting as war, and quite as dangerous. In war you can only be killed once, but in politics many times.
- Winston Churchill
And yet the real success goes to those who obsess. The focus that leads you through the Dip to the other side is rewarded by a marketplace in search of the best in the world.
- Seth Godin
Happens to every guy sometimes this does.
- Yoda
When York’s son, hitherto Earl of March, learned that his father’s cause had devolved upon him he did not shrink. He fell upon the Earl of Wiltshire and the Welsh Lancastrians, and on February 2, 1461, at the Battle of Mortimer’s Cross, near Hereford, he beat and broke.
- Winston Churchill
Before you take on the media, you have to know something about The Pitch.
- Michael Levine
New customers are silver…loyal customers are gold.
- Anonymous
You have to learn to follow your heart. You can’t let other people pressure you into being something that you’re not. If you want God’s favor in your life, you must be the person He made you to be, not the person your boss wants you to be, not even the person your parents or your husband wants you to be. You can’t let outside expectations keep you from following your own heart.
- Joel Olsteen
Here’s to the crazy ones…The ones who see things differently. They push thehuman race forward. And while some may see them as thecrazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.
- Steve Jobs
Is it really necessary to work like a slave to live like a millionaire?
- Timothy Ferriss
Maintain a pragmatic approach, keep up with the multitude of trials and strive to remain its level of attainment in order for achieving sound performance and scaling new heights.
- Cheng Yu-tung
We decided that instead of avoiding our competitors, or waiting for them to come to us, we would meet them head-on. It was one of the smartest strategic decisions we ever made. In fact, if our story doesn’t prove anything else about the free market system, it erases any doubt that spirited competition is good for business – not just for customers, but the companies which have to compete with one another too. Our competitors have honed and sharpened us to an edge we wouldn’t have with out them. We wouldn’t be nearly as good as we are today without Kmart, and I think they would admit we’ve made them a better retailer. One reason Sears fell so far off the pace is that they wouldn’t admit for the longest time that Wal-Mart and Kmart were their real competition. They ignored both of us, and we both blew right by them.
- Sam Walton
Top academic institutions are wonderful, but there are unrecognized benefits to not coming out of one. Grads from top schools are funneled into high-income 80-hour-per-week jobs, and 15–30 years of soul-crushing work has been accepted as the default path. How do I know? I’ve been there.
- Timothy Ferriss
With the right pitch, you’ll get no argument. This is where the salesmanship comes in…It requires of you a substantial degree of self-confidence to pull it off, but your belief in your own project will help you muster that.
- Michael Levine
I also have in mind that seemingly wealthy, but most terribly impoverished class of all, who have accumulated dross, but know not how to use it, or get rid of it, and thus have forged their own golden or silver fetters. —HENRY DAVID THOREAU (1817–1862)
- Timothy Ferriss
If Jesus were here today, he wouldn’t be riding around on a donkey. He’d be taking a plane, he’d be using the media.
- Joel Olsteen
you can measure the size of a person by what makes him or her angry.
- Dale Carnegie
The most valuable companies in the future won’t ask what problems can be solved with computers alone. Instead, they’ll ask: how can computers help humans solve hard problems?
- Peter Thiel
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
I can go into restaurants and a whole table will get up and clap if they recognize me, because they love Fox News. Other places – or even the same place – people will turn the other way.
- Rupert Murdoch
People in general, and knowledge workers in particular, grow according to the demands they make on themselves. They grow according to what they consider to be achievement and attainment. If they demand little of themselves, they will remain stunted. If they demand a good deal of themselves, they will grow to giant stature—without any more effort than is expended by the nonachievers.
- Peter Drucker
People don’t care about what someone says about you in a movie – or even what you say, right? They care about what you build. And if you can make something that makes people’s life better, then that’s something that’s really good.
- Mark Zuckerberg
Humor can often be effective and with this style, it’s emphasized. Appeal to the journalist’s heightened sense of the unusual. Stunts, sideshows, ancillary themes are put to work here.
- Michael Levine
Most of us have far more courage than we ever dreamed we possessed.
- Dale Carnegie
My education was interrupted only by my schooling.
- Winston Churchill
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
The seed of a bamboo tree is planted, fertilized and watered. Nothing happens for the first year. There´s no sign of growth. Not even a hint. The same thing happens – or doesn´t happen – the second year. And then the third year. The tree is carefully watered and fertilized each year, but nothing shows. No growth. No anything. For eight years it can continue. Eight years! Then – after the eight years of fertilizing and watering have passed, with nothing to show for it – the bamboo tree suddently sprouts and grows thirty feet in three months!
- Zig Ziglar
Don’t make excuses, don’t blame the past. The rest of your life can be the best of your life!
- Joel Olsteen
Kremlin political intrigues are comparable to a bulldog fight under a rug. An outsider only hears the growling, and when he sees the bones fly out from beneath it is obvious who won.
- Winston Churchill
Hip-hop is a voice for voiceless poor people.
- Russell Simmons
The craftsman and the artist say, “Here, I made this.” The workingman is asked to follow instructions.
- Seth Godin
We need to put ourselves in the shoes of our customers. That is my new battle cry. Live and breathe Starbucks the way our customers do.
- Howard Schultz
Jim Collins, in his bestselling book Good to Great, demonstrates through massive research and comprehensive analysis that when it comes to CEO succession, internal candidates dramatically outperform external candidates. The core reason is knowledge. Knowledge of technology, prior decisions, culture, personnel, and more tends to be far more difficult to acquire than the skills required to manage a larger organization.
- Ben Horowitz
Speculation is only a word covering the making of money out of the manipulation of prices, instead of supplying goods and services.
- Henry Ford
You need editors, not brand managers,who will push the envelope to make [a brand media property] go forward.
- Seth Godin
Now that we have run out of money we have to think.
- Winston Churchill
Facebook is inherently viral. There are lots of sites that include a contact importer, and for lots of them it doesn’t really make sense. For Facebook it fits so well. It wasn’t until a few years in that we started building some tools that made it easier to import friends to the site. That was a huge thing that spiked growth.
- Mark Zuckerberg
The people of Southwest have always been my pride, my joy and my love. Their indomitable dedication and esprit de corps have taken Southwest from a three-airplane dream to a 500-airplane reality.
- Herb Kelleher
We often hear military experts inculcate the doctrine of giving priority to the decisive theatre. There is a lot in this. But in war this principle, like all others, is governed by facts and circumstances; otherwise strategy would be too easy. It would become a drill-book and not an art; it would depend upon rules and not on an instructed and fortunate judgment of the proportions of an ever-changing scene.
- Winston Churchill
One must never forget when misfortunes come that it is quite possible they are saving one from something much worse; or that when you make some great mistake, it may very easily serve you better than the best-advised decision. Life is a whole, and luck is a whole, and no part of them can be separated from the rest.
- Winston Churchill
We can’t wait for Washington. Business leaders are going to have to galvanize their own constituencies and do everything they can to demonstrate confidence in the economy, and I think that can be contagious.
- Howard Schultz
L.A. is only where you live, because otherwise it’s just a sprawling mass of everything, and I think if you live in L.A., you get a little network of places you go, and people you see, and when you leave town, you do miss those places and your friends.
- Steve Martin
Patience is a virtue, and I’m learning patience. It’s a tough lesson.
- Elon Musk
A leader has the vision and conviction that a dream can be achieved. He inspires the power and energy to get it done.
- Ralph Lauren
I enjoy myself a lot but I derive my joy from working. I believe in hard work and one of my business success secret is hard work.
- Aliko Dangote
This is not to imply that we agree on everything because we don’t. Nor does it mean there are no arguments because there are. It does mean there is never any maliciousness or bitterness in our differences. It does mean each is willing to admit a mistake and apologize if he or she is wrong. It means we enjoy each other and love each other enough to put the other one first. We never part company or go to sleep without settling our differences and reaffirming our love. We’re both grateful that God has let us spend enough years together to develop a relationship and discover what real love is all about. Our prayer is that God will permit us to have many more years together before we start our walk though eternity—together.
- Zig Ziglar
Many leaders of big organizations, I think, don’t believe that change is possible. But if you look at history, things do change, and if your business is static, you’re likely to have issues.
- Larry Page
We have to find our way back to a definite future.
- Peter Thiel
If there is a Swedish style, I cannot identify it.
- Stefan Persson
Self-control – the man who cannot control himself can never control others. Self-control sets a mighty example for one’s followers, which the more intelligent will emulate.
- Napoleon Hill
At the point when adding people into the company feels like more work than the work that you can offload to the new employees, the defensive lineman has run around you and you probably need to start giving ground grudgingly.
- Ben Horowitz
Every day we have plenty of opportunities to get angry, stressed or offended. But what you’re doing when you indulge these negative emotions is giving something outside yourself power over your happiness. You can choose to not let little things upset you.
- Joel Olsteen
I had already started the learning process by organizing a tour of some of the best companies out there to find out exactly what it was that made them great. I went back to the Partners’ Council and asked them to help me study the best practices of the best companies we could find. We would then use then findings to strengthen our company.
- David Novak
God is a good God, and He gives good things to his children. No matter who has denigrated you or how much pain you’ve experienced in life, no matter how many setbacks you have suffered, you cannot allow yourself to accept that as the way life is supposed to be. No, God has better things in store for you. You must reprogram your mind with God’s word; change that negative, defeated self-image, and start seeing yourself as winning, coming out on top. Start seeing that marriage as restored. See your business as flourishing. See your children as enjoying the good things of God. You must see it through your eyes of faith, and then it will begin to happen.
- Joel Olsteen
Two men looked out from prison bars, One saw the mud, the other saw the stars.
- Dale Carnegie
It’s possible – you can never know – that the universe exists only for me. If so, it’s sure going well for me, I must admit.
- Bill Gates
One of the greatest casualties of the war in Vietnam is the Great Society… shot down on the battlefield of Vietnam.
- Martin Luther King Jr.
Music, even with these dial-up connections you have to the Internet, is very practical to download.
- Bill Gates
The first Apple was just a culmination of my whole life.
- Steve Wozniak
I can’t stress enough the essential nature of really hearing what someone has to say even if it is totally contradictory to your own beliefs, and I wish this was a lesson I only had to learn once.
- David Novak
For the first time we’re allowing developers who don’t work at Facebook to develop applications just as if they were. That’s a big deal because it means that all developers have a new way of doing business if they choose to take advantage of it. There are whole companies that are forming whose only product is a Facebook Platform application.
- Mark Zuckerberg
What we want to watch is whether this is a short-term bump or not.
- John Chambers
People don’t want to believe that technology is broken. Pharmaceuticals, robotics, artificial intelligence, nanotechnology – all these areas where the progress has been a lot more limited than people think. And the question is why.
- Peter Thiel
Any time is a good time to start a company.
- Ron Conway
You cannot perform in a manner inconsistent with the way you see yourself.
- Zig Ziglar
I don’t like formal gardens. I like wild nature. It’s just the wilderness instinct in me, I guess.
- Walt Disney
The buyer needs to talk at least 70% of the time.
- Clay Clark
The more you like yourself, the less you are like anyone else, which makes you unique.
- Walt Disney
Sunseeker is well placed to take full advantage of opportunities in China, one of the world’s fastest growing luxury yacht markets.
- Wang Jianlin
I knew I could only play Cyrano if he were Americanized. I had no intention of writing the script myself. I was afraid of it. You’re playing with fire when you tamper with a classic. So I went looking for a writer. But it was such a personal idea, and anyone I would give it to would make it his own. It’s hard to ask Neil Simon to write your idea.
- Steve Martin
I am convinced that in order for you, as a patient, to be protected, it has to be transparent, evidence-based, objective information. Not self-serving information. Not pharma-driven information. Not ad-driven information. It is transparent, objective, evidence-based information.
- Patrick Soon-Shiong
After putting economics aside, I found that there were two primary reasons why people quit: They hated their manager; generally the employees were appalled by the lack of guidance, career development, and feedback they were receiving. They weren’t learning anything: The company wasn’t investing resources in helping employees develop new skills.
- Ben Horowitz
When life gives you lemons make lemonade!!
- Dale Carnegie
We’ve only been wealthy in this country for 70 years. Who said we ought to have all this? Is it ordained?
- Jack Welch
Desire is what takes the hot water of mediocrity and turns it into the steam of outstanding success.
- Zig Ziglar
When you look at a company that’s already succeeded or is at the very top of its game, it isn’t necessarily when it’s executing well. It tends to be peacetime – you’ve defeated the competition, you have the highest margins, the highest multiple.
- Ben Horowitz
Even god doesn’t propose to judge a man till his last days, why should you and I?
- Dale Carnegie
The epidemic So many people are frozen in the face of uncertainty and paralyzed at the thought of shipping work that matters that one might think that the fear is hardwired into us. It is. Scientists can identify precisely where your lizard brain lives. This is your prehistoric early brain, the same brain that’s in the lizard or the deer. Filled with fear, intent on reproduction. Steven Pressfield gives the voice of the lizard brain a name: he calls it the resistance. And the resistance is talking to you as you read this, urging you to compromise, to not be an troublemaker, to avoid rash moves. For many of us, the resistance is always chattering away, frequently sabotaging our best opportunities and ruining our best chance to do great work. Naming it helps you befriend it, and befriending it helps you ignore it.
- Seth Godin
Politicians make decisions in favor of their interest groups or their supporters back in their hometowns.
- Tadashi Yanai
When someone we love is having difficulty and is giving us a bad time, it’s better to explore the cause than to criticize the action.
- Zig Ziglar
Every person who wins in any undertaking must be willing to cut all sources of retreat. Only by doing so can one be sure of maintaining that state of mind known as a burning desire to win — essential to success.
- Napoleon Hill
The best solution is to use both together: Identify the few critical tasks that contribute most to income and schedule them with very short and clear deadlines.
- Timothy Ferriss
My role has been to pick good people and give them the maximum authority and responsibility.
- Sam Walton
People rarely succeed unless they have fun in what they are doing.
- Dale Carnegie
We’ve all been guilty at one point or another in our careers of boasting of perfect hindsight. It’s a terrible sin. If you don’t make sure your questions and concerns are acted upon, it doesn’t count.
- Jack Welch
Let your motto then always be ‘Excelsior’, for by living up to it there is no such word as fail.
- P.T. Barnum
Getting over the war was biggest adversity I have ever faced.
- Jack Nadel
A preposition is a terrible thing to end a sentence with.
- Winston Churchill
It would be nice to design a real briefcase – you open it up and it’s your computer but it also stores your books.
- Steve Wozniak
Visibility remains limited, and this should come as no surprise, given that our customers’ visibility is limited.
- John Chambers
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
I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.
- Martin Luther King Jr.
If my mind can conceive it and my heart can believe it, then I can achieve it.
- Muhammad Ali
