Notable Quotables

Do it, and then you will feel motivated to do it.

- Zig Ziglar

Berkshire’s record would have been terrible if Warren didn’t keep learning.

- Charlie Munger

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.

- Aristotle

I was about twenty and the Beatles were meditating and I heard about it and they had a center in New York and I came to the center and I learned about it.

- Ray Dalio

An employer has no business with a man’s personality. Employment is a specific contract calling for a specific performance, and nothing else. Any attempt by an employer to go beyond this is usurpation. It is an immoral as well as illegal intrusion of privacy.

- Peter Drucker

I read Google News and use NetNewsWire to keep up with general and tech news.

- Steve Wozniak

Little phrases such as ‘I’m sorry to trouble you,’ ‘Would you be so kind as to –?’ ‘Won’t you please?’ ‘Would you mind?’ ‘Thank you’ – little courtesies like these oil the cogs of the monotonous grind of everyday life – and incidentally, they are the hallmark of good breeding.

- Dale Carnegie

You may be at a crossroads in your life. You may have issues to deal with; people you need to forgive. You can go one of the two ways. You can ignore what you now know to be true and keep burying that bitterness in your life, pushing it deeper and allowing it to poison and contaminate you and those around you. Or you can make a much better choice by getting it out in the open and asking God to help you to totally forgive and let it all go.

- Joel Olsteen

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

Once you go from 10 people to 100, you already don’t know who everyone is. So at that stage you might as well keep growing, to get the advantages of scale.

- Sergey Brin

My main purpose in life is to make enough money to create ever more inventions…. The dove is my emblem…. I want to save and advance human life, not destroy it…. I am proud of the fact that I have never invented weapons to kill….

- Thomas Edison

Sound character provides the power with which a person may ride the emergencies of life instead of being overwhelmed by them. Failure is… the highway to success.

- Og Mandino

Long ago, Ben Graham taught me that ‘Price is what you pay; value is what you get.’ Whether we’re talking about socks or stocks, I like buying quality merchandise when it is marked down.

- Warren Buffett

Lots of people will give you advice… and depending upon how well they know you, the advice might be valid or not so valid.

- Abigail Johnson

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

Nike is not about going to a ball game. It’s a business.

- Phil Knight

Poke the box How do computer programmers learn their art? Is there a step-by-step process that guarantees you’ll get good? All great programmers learn the same way. They poke the box. They code something and see what the computer does. They change it and see what the computer does. They repeat the process again and again until they figure out how the box works. The box might be a computer or it might be a market or it might be a customer or it might be your boss. It’s a puzzle, one that can be solved in only one way—by poking.

- Seth Godin

I do not like to repeat successes, I like to go on to other things.

- Walt Disney

Good business leaders create a vision, articulate the vision, passionately own the vision, and relentlessly drive it to completion.

- Jack Welch

One of the things I say to people is: Imagine if we succeeded.

- Ben Horowitz

What’s right about America is that although we have a mess of problems, we have great capacity – intellect and resources – to do some thing about them.

- Henry Ford

A friendship founded on business is better than a business founded on friendship.

- John D. Rockefeller

When you are the first person whose beliefs are different from what everyone else believes, you are basically saying, ‘I’m right and everyone else is wrong.’ That’s a very unpleasant position to be in. It’s at once exhilaration and the same time an invitation to be attacked.

- Larry Ellison

Look – this is the terror of being a founder & CEO. It is all your fault. Every decision, every person you hire, every dumb thing you buy or do – ultimately, you’re at the end.

- Ben Horowitz

Understanding science and pushing the boundaries of science is what makes me immensely satisfied.

- Bill Gates

Sometimes adversity is what you need to face in order to become successful.

- Zig Ziglar

You have to be responsible when you’re running an organization, and firing people who are your friends is part of that responsibility.

- Ben Horowitz

For those that have fixed exchange-rate regimes, you will need a greater amount of foreign reserves. That’s the case in Belize, it’s the case in the Eastern Caribbean zone and it’s also the case in Barbados. In those cases, the level of reserve coverage is one of credit weakness. Where you have a bit more flexibility in the exchange rate ? for instance, Jamaica ? you would require a smaller amount of international reserves.

- John Chambers

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

Don’t wait for the right answer and the golden path to present themselves.This is precisely why you’re stuck. Starting without seeing the end is difficult, so we often wait until we see the end, scanning relentlessly for the right way, the best way and the perfect way.The way to get unstuck is to start down the wrong path, right now.Step by step, page by page, interaction by interaction. As you start moving, you can’t help but improve, can’t help but incrementally find yourself getting back toward your north star.You might not end up with perfect, but it’s significantly more valuable than being stuck.Don’t just start. Continue. Ship. Repeat.

- Seth Godin

I want to fight poverty and ignorance and give opportunity to those people who are locked out

- Russell Simmons

I’m not sure blogs are necessarily the best place to get a pulse on anything. People want to blog for a variety of reasons, and that may or may not be representative.

- Steve Ballmer

My husband is such a healthy eater. Except when it comes to sweets. He never consumes anything except fruit until noon. And then from noon on he might have some brown rice and some tofu, and then, come eight or nine at night, he orders three mud-pie double-chocolate pieces of cake and eats all three of them.

- Sara Blakely

Simply changing one three-letter word can often spell the difference between failure and success in changing people without giving offense or arousing resentment. Many people begin their criticism with sincere praise followed by the word but” and ending with a critical statement. For example, in trying to change a child’s careless attitude toward studies, we might say, We’re really proud of you, Johnnie, for raising your grades this term. But if you had worked harder on your algebra, the results would have been better.” In this case, Johnnie might feel encouraged until he heard the word but.” He might then question the sincerity of the original praise. To him, the praise seemed only to be a contrived lead-in to a critical inference of failure. Credibility would be strained, and we probably would not achieve our objectives of changing Johnnie’s attitude toward his studies. This could be easily overcome by changing the word but” to and.” We’re really proud of you, Johnnie, for raising your grades this term, and by continuing the same conscientious efforts next term, your algebra grade can be up with all the others.

- Dale Carnegie

What consumerism really is, at its worst is getting people to buy things that don’t actually improve their lives.

- Jeff Bezos

I don’t think you should spend your life praying for things, but I do believe you should thank God for what He’s given you… but I think the scripture teaches us that we can pray for our dreams, pray for the big things… he’s not a small God; this God is incredible.

- Joel Olsteen

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

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

If all my bridge coach ever told me was that I was ‘satisfactory,’ I would have no hope of ever getting better. How would I know who was the best? How would I know what I was doing differently?

- Bill Gates

Leading, not following We’ve been trained to follow. In fact, the very nature of training has following built right into it. We follow instructions. We follow the rules. We follow the leader. The challenge in a six-billion person world is that we don’t have a shortage of followers. Followers are easy to find, and the tools for compliance are more powerful (but less useful) than ever. Now the economy is demanding leaders. Human beings who can engage in what it really means to be a person—to forge connections, to see a path and to make a difference.

- Seth Godin

We believed we could build a better search. We had a simple idea that not all pages are created equal. Some are more important.

- Sergey Brin

Nuclear energy, in terms of an overall safety record, is better than other energy.

- Bill Gates

I’m born into the cycle of giving that we’re all born into, and I recognize it. So just because something is a good business, I’m not a business guy. I’m a creative guy.

- Russell Simmons

People have come to me over the years and said to me: ‘I admire the culture of Starbucks. Can you come give a speech and help us turn our culture around?’ I wish it were that easy. Turning a culture around is very difficult to do because it’s based on a series of many, many decisions, and the organization is framed by those decisions.

- Howard Schultz

I have no interest in going to Egypt and seeing the pyramids. I’m just not that kind of dude.

- Gary Vaynerchuk

There’s been so much corruption and so much cronyism in the taxi industry and so much regulatory capture, that if you ask for permission upfront for something that’s already legal, you’ll never get it.

- Travis Kalanick

The way to become rich is to put all your eggs in one basket and then watch that basket.

- Andrew Carnegie

Results? Why, man, I have gotten lots of results! If I find 10,000 ways something won’t work, I haven’t failed. I am not discouraged, because every wrong attempt discarded is often a step forward….

- Thomas Edison

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

You were not created to just get by with an average, unrewarding, or unfulfilling life. God created you to leave your mark on this generation.

- Joel Olsteen

I am looking for a lot of men who have an infinite capacity to not know what can’t be done.

- Henry Ford

I started getting more and more active around immigration reform because this was such a waste of lives, such a waste of potential, such a waste for our country not to have the human capital that we developed – geared toward improving our entire society.

- Laurene Powell Jobs

Peter Drucker once observed that the drive for mergers and acquisitions comes less from sound reasoning and more from the fact that doing deals is a much more exciting way to spend your day than doing actual work.

- James C. Collins

We got to know a lot of investors and know what they like and don’t like. Through many co-investments opportunities, we have built trust among these investors. So when it came to investing in Xiaomi, things were a lot easier.

- Lei Jun

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

- Reid Hoffman

Most people do not listen with the intent to understand, they listen with the intent to reply.

- Stephen R. Covey

Most poor people live in the poorest countries.

- Bill Gates

Twitter was not started because we started a company. Twitter was started because we had a good idea, and it started out of a failed company. That can happen out of any company today.

- Jack Dorsey

Try to maximize the number of people that can benefit from an individual contribution.

- Lee Shau Kee

Men like a ref decision because they just want to get back to the game.

- Jerry Seinfeld

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

A brand is something that has a clear-cut identity among consumers, which a company creates by sending out a clear, consistent message over a period of years until it achieves a critical mass of marketing.

- Phil Knight

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

To grasp and hold a vision, that is the very essence of successful leadership—not only on the movie set where I learned it, but everywhere.

- Ronald Reagan

I was never the smartest guy in the room. From the first person I hired, I was never the smartest guy in the room. And that’s a big deal. And if you’re going to be a leader – if you’re a leader and you’re the smartest guy in the world – in the room, you’ve got real problems.

- Jack Welch

the more ‘Yeses’ we can, at the very outset, induce, the more likely we are to succeed in capturing the attention for our ultimate proposal.

- Dale Carnegie

If it scares you, it might be a good thing to try.

- Seth Godin

It’s disappointing, but it’s still a really good book. I’m glad Kenny did it, and I’m glad it’s going to get out. … I still endorse the book. I think everybody should buy it. I think he did a great job on a very complicated topic.

- Phil Knight

My principal business consists of giving commercial value to the brilliant, but misdirected, ideas of others…. Accordingly, I never pick up an item without thinking of how I might improve it.

- Thomas Edison

But as an entrepreneur you have to feel like you can jump out of an aeroplane because you’re confident that you’ll catch a bird flying by. It’s an act of stupidity, and most entrepreneurs go splat because the bird doesn’t come by, but a few times it does.

- Reed Hastings

You jump off a cliff and you assemble an airplane on the way down.

- Reid Hoffman

All of my friends who have younger siblings who are going to college or high school – my number one piece of advice is: You should learn how to program.

- Mark Zuckerberg

I said, ‘I’m not asking your permission, I’m just telling you, I need someone to look up to. You’re my new hero.’

- Phil Knight

Note to self: It’s a good idea to ask, “What am I not doing?”

- Ben Horowitz

As we look ahead into the next century, leaders will be those who empower others.

- Bill Gates

Most kids cannot ask questions. They can memorize, but they cannot learn.

- Terry Fischer

There’s always a wine bully. The one person who did read the ‘Wine Spectator,’ who tells you what to drink and why the ’97 is better than the ’98. I want to punch the wine bully in the face. I want to make sure this generation of wine drinkers isn’t elitist and snotty. I want it to be about family and bringing people together.

- Gary Vaynerchuk

It will be disastrous when a leader or manager shows up with one attitude one day and treats people with a different attitude the next day.

- Zig Ziglar

How you see your future is much more important than what happened in your past.

- Zig Ziglar

Most people who fail in their dream fail not from lack of ability but from lack of commitment.

- Zig Ziglar

We remain confident about the market opportunity ahead of us over the next three to five years.

- John Chambers

Did you know that nearly one in three children live apart from their biological dads? Those kids are two to three times more likely to grow up in poverty, to suffer in school, and to have health and behavioral problems.

- Tony Dungy

Most people have bosses who hire them to fill a slot in the work chart and to do what they are told. And most people who are doing what they are told feel safe, it feels reliable.

- Seth Godin

When you learn to listen to your fear, you’ve found a compass that can show you what matters.

- Seth Godin

It is fatal to know too much at the outcome: boredom comes as quickly to the traveler who knows his route as to the novelist who is overcertain of his plot.

- Paul Theroux

At Netflix, we think you have to build a sense of responsibility where people care about the enterprise. Hard work, like long hours at the office, doesn’t matter as much to us. We care about great work.

- Reed Hastings

Entrepreneurs must think in specifics with laser-like precision.

- Jack Nadel

I think I will always have a connection to young people, to try to bring their voices to the polls, bring their voices wherever they can make a difference.

- Russell Simmons

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