Notable Quotables

Nothing sedates rationality like large doses of effortless money

- Warren Buffett

Computers already have enough power to outperform people in activities we used to think of as distinctively human. In 1997, IBM’s Deep Blue defeated world chess champion Garry Kasparov. Jeopardy!’s best-ever contestant, Ken Jennings, succumbed to IBM’s Watson in 2011. And Google’s self-driving cars are already on California roads today. Dale Earnhardt Jr. needn’t feel threatened by them, but the Guardian worries (on behalf of the millions of chauffeurs and cabbies in the world) that self-driving cars “could drive the next wave of unemployment.

- Peter Thiel

When Sam feels a certain way, he is relentless. He will just wear you out. He will bring up an idea, and we’ll discuss it and then decide maybe that it’s not something we should be doing right now or ever. Fine. Case closed. But as long as he is convinced that it is the right thing, it just keep coming up week after week – until finally everybody capitulates and says, well it’s easier to do it than to keep fighting this fight. I guess it could be called management by wearing you down.

- David Glass

I was not naturally talented. I didn’t sing, dance or act, though working around that minor detail made me inventive.

- Steve Martin

As long as you’re green, you’re growing. As soon as you’re ripe, you start to rot.

- Ray Kroc

Media companies focused on things like creating great stories whereas technology companies focused on creating a better way of doing things. We began to think about new ideas and about forming a new company.

- Ben Horowitz

Hong Kong is uniquely positioned as the best place to integrate with the fast-growing Pearl River Delta Region and to capitalize on the opening up of China’s economy and markets.

- Cheng Yu-tung

If you don’t let people flourish in their jobs, why are they going to stay?

- Joel Olsteen

It is a hard thing to let go of mistakes we’ve made and sins. God wants us to do that because He knows the guilt and the condemnation will keep us from becoming who He has created us to be.

- Joel Olsteen

An organization’s ability to learn, and translate that learning into action rapidly, is the ultimate competitive advantage.

- Jack Welch

All your ideas may be solid or even good .. But you have to Actually EXECUTE on them for them to matter.

- Gary Vaynerchuk

The economy in Hong Kong remained on a declining path. Occurrence of the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (‘SARS’) in March this year led to a sharp drop in consumer spending and an increasing unemployment rate. The decline in the economy resulted in downward adjustment in the property market.

- Lee Shau Kee

The binders, the charts, the grids may seem formidable, but the meetings themselves are built around informality, trust, emotion and humor.

- Jack Welch

Back, you know, a few generations ago, people didn’t have a way to share information and express their opinions efficiently to a lot of people. But now they do. Right now, with social networks and other tools on the Internet, all of these 500 million people have a way to say what they’re thinking and have their voice be heard.

- Mark Zuckerberg

I was working with stem cells as part of a NASA programme. We realised that the science of stem-cell proliferation was also fundamental to cancer cells when cancer enters the phase of metastasis.

- Patrick Soon-Shiong

Form the habit of systematic saving by putting aside a definite percentage of your income. Money in the bank gives one a very safe foundation of courage…

- Napoleon Hill

This is a strange Christmas Eve,”Churchill told the the crowd of several hundred gathered at the mansion’s garden.”Almost the whole world is locked in deadly struggle, and with the most terrible weapons which science can devise the nations advance upon each other.

- Winston Churchill

The indefiniteness of finance can be bizarre. Think about what happens when successful entrepreneurs sell their company. What do they do with the money? In a financialized world, it unfolds like this: • The founders don’t know what to do with it, so they give it to a large bank. • The bankers don’t know what to do with it.

- Peter Thiel

Your best days are not behind you. They’re in front of you.

- Joel Olsteen

Before Alamein we never had a victory. After Alamein we never had a defeat.

- Winston Churchill

Gold is a kind of mortar and offers a form of capital preservation. We’re still bullish about gold.

- Lee Shau Kee

In terms of doing work and in terms of learning and evolving as a person, you just grow more when you get more people’s perspectives… I really try and live the mission of the company and… keep everything else in my life extremely simple.

- Mark Zuckerberg

The warrior mentality, the very fight to survive, is truly what created our culture.

- Herb Kelleher

Learn to do common things uncommonly well, we must always keep in mind that anything that helps fill the dinner pail is valuable.

- George Washington Carver

Always treat your employees exactly as you want them to treat your best customers.

- Stephen R. Covey

I would argue heavily that the time that has been allocated to social used to come from television, and people are benefitting from it. People who are saying, ‘Aw, you’re spending all your time on Facebook, or all your time on Twitter,’ I’d like to understand what the person used to do with that time.

- Gary Vaynerchuk

Pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work.

- Aristotle

One of [Bill] Bowerman’s more legendary innovations is the Waffle outsole, which he discovered by pouring rubber into a waffle iron.

- Phil Knight

Worrying is a waste of time. Worrying gets in the way of solving problems.

- Robert Kiyosaki

The secret of getting ahead is getting started.

- Mark Twain

I made a conscious decision not to tell anyone in my life. Now I tell people–don’t tell anyone your idea until you have invested enough of yourself in it that you are not going to turn back. When a person has an idea at that conception moment, it is the most vulnerable–one negative comment could knock you off course.

- Sara Blakely

I believe in motivating with humor. … – David Novak CEO OF Yum! Brands

- David Novak

President Obama is riding the wrong horse on energy.

- Harold Hamm

I enjoy the hunt much more than the ‘good life’ after the victory.

- Carl Icahn

I never did anything by accident, nor did any of my inventions come by accident; they came by work.

- Thomas Edison

We’re better than the rest of the country but we shouldn’t believe it too much.

- Peter Thiel

Arguing over process has become a way to endlessly defer making concrete plans for a better future.

- Peter Thiel

We all need a check up from the neck up to avoid stinkin’ thinkin’ which ultimately leads to hardening of the attitude.

- Zig Ziglar

So much of what we call management consists of making it difficult for people to work.

- Peter Drucker

A goal without real consequences is wishful thinking. Good follow-through doesn’t depend on the right intentions. It depends on the right incentives.

- Timothy Ferriss

Really advanced civilization is based on advances in energy.

- Bill Gates

I consider my ability to arouse enthusiasm among my people,” said Schwab, 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.

- Dale Carnegie

I don’t know about you, but most of my exchanges with cashiers are not that meaningful.

- Jeff Bezos

I think of L.A. as truly the melting pot. It’s basically a mini-country unto itself.

- Patrick Soon-Shiong

I have been up against tough competition all my life. I wouldn’t know how to get along with it.

- Walt Disney

It is very important to grasp that Level 5 leadership is not just about humility and modesty. It is equally about ferocious resolve, an almost stoic determination to do whatever needs to be done to make the company great.

- James C. Collins

Improvement is to invent something completely new.

- Peter Thiel

I used to have this debate with Steve Jobs, and he would always say, ‘You guys are doing too much stuff.’ He did a good job of doing one or two things really well. We’d like to have a bigger impact on the world by doing more things.

- Larry Page

Outsiders are fascinated by the great fortunes being made inside China, but they pay less attention to the wealthy Chinese trying hard to get their money out of the country. Poorer Chinese just save everything they can and hope it will be enough. Every class of people in China takes the future deadly seriously.

- Peter Thiel

By improving health, empowering women, population growth comes down.

- Bill Gates

The bigger we get as a company, the more important it becomes for us to shift responsibility and authority toward the front lines, toward the department manager who’s stocking the shelves and talking to the customer. When we were much smaller, I probably wasn’t as quick to catch on to this idea as I do should have been. But as an avid student of management theory, back in the mid-seventies I started reading the work of W. Edwards Deming, the famous statistician who taught so much to the Japanese about improving their productivity and competitiveness.

- Sam Walton

Do not assume anything Obi-Wan. Clear your mind must be if you are to discover the real villains behind this plot.

- Yoda

With limited time or opportunity to experiment, we intentionally narrow our choices to those at the top.

- Seth Godin

Most governments are pragmatic, most people are logical. There are pockets of extremism in Israel, in the U.S. and in the Muslim world. But we have to fight them with reason, with logic and with compassion.

- Prince Al Waleed Bin Talal Alsaud

Policosanol: 20–25 mg Alpha-lipoic acid: 100–300 mg (I take 300 mg with each meal, but some people experience acid reflux symptoms with more than 100 mg) Green tea flavanols (decaffeinated with at least 325 mg EGCG): 325 mg Garlic extract: 200 mg

- Timothy Ferriss

When evaluating the results, we should not overlook the fact that there was, in some cases, very weak growth in Europe, Russia, and South America. There were also significant exchange rate fluctuations. In addition, the mild winter at the end of 2014 had a negative impact on the winter tire business in Europe. The driving force behind the sales development once again came from China and North America. In light of this, it is remarkable that profit after taxes of just under €2.4 billion or €11.88 per share could be achieved.

- Elmar Degenhart

TweetDeck is a very interesting client, because it presents a view that no other client in the world presents, which is this multicolumn, massive amounts of information in one pane. And people really, really enjoy that.

- Jack Dorsey

We think we’re going to be especially strong in platform where we have our two platform brands: our database brand is the Oracle Database 12c, and our programming language brand is this thing called Java.

- Larry Ellison

If God says I’m highly favored, then I will not talk myself out of it. I believe I’m highly favored. If God says the impossible can happen, then I believe the impossible will happen.

- Joel Olsteen

PEACETIME CEO/WARTIME CEO Peacetime CEO knows that proper protocol leads to winning. Wartime CEO violates protocol in order to win. Peacetime CEO focuses on the big picture and empowers her people to make detailed decisions. Wartime CEO cares about a speck of dust on a gnat’s ass if it interferes with the prime directive. Peacetime CEO builds scalable, high-volume recruiting machines. Wartime CEO does that, but also builds HR organizations that can execute layoffs. Peacetime CEO spends time defining the culture. Wartime CEO lets the war define the culture. Peacetime CEO always has a contingency plan. Wartime CEO knows that sometimes you gotta roll a hard six. Peacetime CEO knows what to do with a big advantage. Wartime CEO is paranoid. Peacetime CEO strives not to use profanity. Wartime CEO sometimes uses profanity purposefully. Peacetime CEO thinks of the competition as other ships in a big ocean that may never engage. Wartime CEO thinks the competition is sneaking into her house and trying to kidnap her children. Peacetime CEO aims to expand the market. Wartime CEO aims to win the market. Peacetime CEO strives to tolerate deviations from the plan when coupled with effort and creativity. Wartime CEO is completely intolerant. Peacetime CEO does not raise her voice. Wartime CEO rarely speaks in a normal tone. Peacetime CEO works to minimize conflict. Wartime CEO heightens the contradictions. Peacetime CEO strives for broad-based buy-in. Wartime CEO neither indulges consensus building nor tolerates disagreements. Peacetime CEO sets big, hairy, audacious goals. Wartime CEO is too busy fighting the enemy to read management books written by consultants who have never managed a fruit stand. Peacetime CEO trains her employees to ensure satisfaction and career development. Wartime CEO trains her employees so they don’t get their asses shot off in the battle. Peacetime CEO has rules like “We’re going to exit all businesses where we’re not number one or two.” Wartime CEO often has no businesses that are number one or two and therefore does not have the luxury of following that rule.

- Ben Horowitz

In Silicon Valley, you get this feeling that you have to be out here. But it’s not the only place to be. If I were starting now, I would have stayed in Boston. [Silicon Valley] is a little short-term focused and that bothers me.

- Mark Zuckerberg

The third way is less common and certainly less of a layup—a culture of integrity, meaning a culture of honesty, transparency, fairness, and strict adherence to rules and regulations. In such cultures, there can be no head fakes or winks. People who break the rules do not leave the company for “personal reasons” or to “spend more time with their families.” They are hanged—publicly—and the reasons are made painfully clear to everyone.

- Jack Welch

If you neglect to recharge a battery, it dies. And if you run full speed ahead without stopping for water, you lose momentum to finish the race.

- Oprah Winfrey

As a company it is always better for us to work with more customers than fewer customers. The more people that we serve, the more money that we will make.

- Napoleon Hill

The best job goes to the person who can get it done without passing the buck or coming back with excuses.

- Napoleon Hill

We were guerilla marketers, and we still are, a little bit.

- Phil Knight

I believe the government of the United States should re-examine its policies in the Middle East and adopt a more balanced stance toward the Palestinian cause.

- Prince Al Waleed Bin Talal Alsaud

There’s a time that may come in an organization where leading by influence is not enough. When things are not going the way they need to go, there’s a time when one has to step up… to set the organization back on the right direction.

- Abigail Johnson

Do you know why the nose of the bull dog is sloped backwards? So it can keep on breathing without ever letting go.

- Winston Churchill

Gratitude is the healthiest of all human emotions. The more you express gratitude for what you have, the more likely you will have even more to express gratitude for.

- Zig Ziglar

When we had seventy-five stores in Arkansas, seventy-five in Missouri, eighty in Oklahoma, whatever, people knew who we were, and everybody except the merchants who weren’t discounting looked forward to our coming to their town.

- Sam Walton

We don’t get a chance to do that many things, and every one should be really excellent. Because this is our life. Life is brief, and then you die, you know? And we’ve all chosen to do this with our lives. So it better be damn good. It better be worth it.

- Steve Jobs

There is no accountability today… no willingness to focus on big ideas.

- Michael Bloomberg

The guerrilla is obsessed with benefits. Whenever offering a product or service, she focuses on how it will benefit the consumer and builds everything—the product, the delivery, the marketing—around that benefit.

- Jay Conrad Levinson

By 2018, an estimated 63 percent of all new U.S. jobs will require workers with an education beyond high school. For our young people to get those jobs, they first need to graduate from high school ready to start a postsecondary education.

- Bill Gates

You will get all you want in life if you help enough other people get what they want.

- Zig Ziglar

The hazards of imitative competition may partially explain why individuals with an Asperger’s-like social ineptitude seem to be at an advantage in Silicon Valley today.

- Peter Thiel

You can live your life angry, bitter, mad at somebody or even guilty, not letting go of your own mistakes, but you won’t receive the good things God has in store.

- Joel Olsteen

The main thing that’s missing in energy is an incentive to create things that are zero-CO2-emitting and that have the right scale and reliability characteristics.

- Bill Gates

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

Good executives never put off until tomorrow what they can get someone else to do today.

- John C. Maxwell

If we say it long enough eventually we’re going to reap a harvest. We’re going to get exactly what we’re saying.

- Joel Olsteen

Taking care of your employees is extremely important and very, very visible.

- Larry Ellison

Sooner or later, many idealists transform themselves into disheartened realists who mistakenly believe that giving up is the same thing as being realistic.

- Seth Godin

I tell people that we must have the courage to share what we feel, but no one follows me.

- Tadashi Yanai

I knew that if I failed I wouldn’t regret that, but I knew the one thing I might regret is not trying.

- Jeff Bezos

Share your profits with all your associates, and treat them as partners. In turn, they will treat you as a partner, and together you will all perform beyond your wildest expectations.

- Sam Walton

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