Most of the exercise I get is from standing and walking all day from one laboratory table to another. I derive more benefit and entertainment from this than some of my friends and competitors get from playing games like golf.
- Thomas Edison
Notable Quotables
Stealing Coach Wooden’s sets of three, I have come up with a formula for success no matter what kind of business you happen to be in: 1) Make sure you have the right people around you; 2) Have fun and drive results by recognizing the achievements of others; and 3) Be a passionate learner, and pass on what you know to others. Not only will this make you a success in business, but it will make you a success in life.
- David Novak
Why does a 67-year-old guy who got his start running an athletic shoe company think he can enter a field famous for gobbling up fortunes.
- Phil Knight
I like the word ‘autopilot’ more than I like the word ‘self-driving.’ ‘Self-driving’ sounds like it’s going to do something you don’t want it to do. ‘Autopilot’ is a good thing to have in planes, and we should have it in cars.
- Elon Musk
I do not like to repeat successes, I like to go on to other things.
- Walt Disney
A difficult time can be more readily endured if we retain the conviction that our existence holds a purpose, a cause to pursue, a person to love, a goal to achieve.
- John C. Maxwell
Your workforce is your most valuable asset. The knowledge and skills they have represent the fuel that drives the engine of business – and you can leverage that knowledge.
- Harvey Mackay
The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool.
- Richard P. Feynman
Reviewing what you have learned and learning anew, you are fit to be a teacher.
- Confucius
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
When one person yells the other should listen. When two people yell, there’s no communication.
- Dale Carnegie
Bolsheviks create their own difficulties which they successfully overcame later.
- Winston Churchill
At the same time, we invested more than €4 billion, in property, plant and equipment, software, and research and development. The capital expenditure ratio is again expected to be around 6 percent in the current fiscal year.
- Elmar Degenhart
An old battleax of a woman said to Winston Churchill, “If you were my husband I would put poison in your tea.” Churchill’s response, “Ma’am if you were my wife I would drink it.
- Winston Churchill
Our mail product, Hotmail, is the market leader globally.
- Steve Ballmer
Success is a lousy teacher. It seduces smart people into thinking they can’t lose.
- Bill Gates
If you think back to the beginning of cell phones, laptops or really any new technology, it’s always expensive.
- Elon Musk
Ahhh! Yoda’s little friend you seek!
- Yoda
No comment’ is a splendid expression. I am using it again and again.
- Winston Churchill
In order to become rich, you need to learn to build systems that can work without you. .
- Robert Kiyosaki
Nobody wanted to gamble on that first Wal-Mart. I think Bud put in 3 percent, and Don Whitaker – whom I had hired to manage the store from TG&Y store out in Abilene, Texas, and I had to put up 95 percent of the dollars. Helen and I had to sign all the notes along with me, and her statement allowed us to borrow more than I could alone. We pledges houses and property, everything we had.. But in those days we were always borrowed to the hilt. We were about to go into the discount business for real now. And from the time those doggone Wal-Marts opened until almost today, it has been a little challenging.
- Sam Walton
The Internet is the Viagra of big business.
- Jack Welch
My message is that God is a good God.
- Joel Olsteen
Among the world’s 500 largest companies, not one has completely relied on its own growth to develop.
- Wang Jianlin
It turns out that all Netflix streaming peak on Saturday night can fit inside a single fiber optic, which is the size of one human hair.
- Reed Hastings
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
It’s not going to happen alone.
- Jack Dorsey
In absorbing companies, Rockefeller was secretive and asked them to continue operating under their original names and not divulge their Standard Oil Ownership. They were instructed to retain their original stationary, keep secret accounts, and not allude on paper to their Cleveland connection.
- Ron Chernow
When I was 17 I read a quote that went something like If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you’ll most certainly be right. It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself, If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today? And whenever the answer has been no for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something. Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important thing I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life, because almost everything–all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure–these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose.
- Steve Jobs
Facing a market which awaited exploration and development, the Group decided to become a pioneer in its economic reform by taking up the responsibility to engage in the development of the Mainland.
- Cheng Yu-tung
Decisiveness is a characteristic of high performing men and women. Almost any decision is better than no decision at all.
- Brian Tracy
I’ve run into people in my life who were so dramatic; people who are so extreme and so frustrating to be around that you end up thinking about them and talking about them for literally years after your experience with them is over. I’ve had that happen to me, and I’ve seen it happen to other people. I find it fascinating.
- Steve Martin
A movement is thrilling. It’s the work of many people, all connected, all seeking something better.
- Seth Godin
The lessons of history would suggest that civilisations move in cycles. You can track that back quite far – the Babylonians, the Sumerians, followed by the Egyptians, the Romans, China. We’re obviously in a very upward cycle right now, and hopefully that remains the case. But it may not.
- Elon Musk
It’s hard to beat a person who never gives up.
- Babe Ruth
We may not always agree with every one of our neighbors. That’s life. And it’s part of living in such a diverse and dense city. But we also recognize that part of being a New Yorker is living with your neighbors in mutual respect and tolerance. It was exactly that spirit of openness and acceptance that was attacked on 9/11, 2001.
- Michael Bloomberg
In Germany they had no kings. They developed them in Britain from leaders who claimed descent from the ancient gods.
- Winston Churchill
It’s extremely difficult to find smart people willing to start useful projects. Because sometimes what you start doesn’t work. The fact that it doesn’t work every time should give you confidence, because it means you’re doing something that frightens others.
- Seth Godin
We shall see how the counsels of prudence and restraint may become the prime agents of mortal danger, how the middle course adopted from desires for safety and a quiet life may be found to lead direct to the bull’s-eye of disaster.
- Winston Churchill
As a founder, your first job is to get the first things right, because you cannot build a great company on a flawed foundation.
- Peter Thiel
One of my lifelong practices is to pay my obligations on time, especially my suppliers. Even in my early years as retailer, I didn’t delay my payments to suppliers, because I tell my kids that we have to be considerate to suppliers and think of their own hinyong or how they have to protect their sense of trustworthiness with others.
- Henry Sy
Far better to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows not victory, nor defeat.
- James C. Collins
It’s pretty chilly by southern California standards.
- Ed Clark
You may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated. In fact, it may be necessary to encounter the defeats, so you can know who you are, what you can rise from, how you can still come out of it.
- Maya Angelou
We have the best flat land, you can grow anything in the cheapest possible way; turning Nigeria around is not really that difficult. Nigeria is really the best place to invest, it is one of the places to make money; all over the world it (Nigeria) is the best kept secret actually in terms of investment.
- Aliko Dangote
There are a lot of things that go into creating success. I don’t like to do just the things I like to do. I like to do things that cause the company to succeed. I don’t spend a lot of time doing my favorite activities.
- Michael Dell
I don’t want people in China to have deep pockets but shallow minds.
- Jack Ma
The United States, and other advanced nations, will someday be able to produce instruments of death so terrible the world will be in abject terror of itself and its ability to end civilization…. Such war-making weapons should be developed – but only for purposes of discovery and experimentation.
- Thomas Edison
One thing I resent is the slur that I just support political candidates because of the business.
- Rupert Murdoch
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
If you’re looking for an abdominal exercise well-suited to power development without bulk, look no further than the Janda sit-up.
- Timothy Ferriss
I cannot forecast to you the action of Russia. It is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma; but perhaps there is a key. That key is Russian national interest.
- Winston Churchill
I’ve always believed that businesses should be good citizens…
- Phil Knight
Great vision without great people is irrelevant.
- Jim Collins
Whether you think that you can, or that you can’t, you are usually right.
- Henry Ford
If I have seen further it is because I have stood on the shoulders of giants.
- Sir Isaac Newton
There are GMO skeptics more in Europe maybe than in other places, but not exclusively.
- Bill Gates
Opportunity does not knock, it presents itself when you beat down the door.
- Kyle Chandler
The greatest decision of all time, as far as any American citizen is concerned was reached in Philadelphia, July 4th 1776, when 56 men signed their names to a document, which they well knew would bring freedom to all Americans, or leave every one of the fifty-six hanging from the gallows. On July 4th 1776 Thomas Jefferson stood before the Assembly and fearlessly read the most momentus Decision ever placed upon paper.
- Napoleon Hill
We, too, need to be patient, especially when it comes to reaching new goals.
- George Foreman
It is never too late to be what you might have been.
- George Eliot
Good relations with the Wookiees, I have.
- Yoda
Count your blessings—not your troubles!
- Dale Carnegie
The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires.
- William Arthur Ward
Twenty years and $40 billion. They seem like good round numbers.
- Michael Dell
1. Why is it foolish to launch a new business with millions of dollars in TV ads?2. Are the market leaders in every industry more vulnerable to sudden successes by the competition than ever before?3. Should book publishers issue the paperback edition of a book before the hardcover?4. What’s the single most important asset a company can create—and what is the simple thing that can kill it?5. Every ad needs to do one of two things to succeed…yet most ads do neither. What’s the right strategy?6. Does the Net create a dynamic that fundamentally changes the way everything is marketed?7. How can every business…big and small…use ideavirus marketing to succeed?
- Seth Godin
I think my story says that, when women are given the chance and the opportunity, that we can achieve a lot. We deliver.
- Sara Blakely
The power of the Executive to cast a man into prison without formulating any charge known to the law and particularly to deny him the judgement of his peers is in the highest degree odious and is the foundation of all totalitarian government whether Nazi or Communist.
- Winston Churchill
Much about success is just the result of simply the ability to follow up, follow through, and finish what we started.
- Zig Ziglar
In the real world outside economic theory, every business is successful exactly to the extent that it does something others cannot.
- Peter Thiel
It was the right thing to do.
- Phil Knight
Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.
- Mark Twain
An educated man is not, necessarily, one who has an abundance of general or specialized knowledge. An educated man is one who has so developed the faculties of his mind that he may acquire anything he wants, or its equivalent, without violating the rights of others.
- Napoleon Hill
Sometimes when you take strong stands, if you’re not called to do it, you’re dividing the audience you’re trying to reach.
- Joel Olsteen
To succeed consistently, good managers need to be skilled not just in choosing, training, and motivating the right people for the right job, but in choosing, building, and preparing the right organization for the job as well.
- Clayton M. Christensen
My theory is 98 percent of all human endeavor is killing time.
- Jerry Seinfeld
They must be plans for learning rather than plans for implementation.
- Clayton M. Christensen
If you look – look at – I mean, look at what’s going on with your gasoline prices. They’re going to go to $5, $6, $7 and we don’t have anybody in Washington that calls OPEC and says, ‘Fellas, it’s time. It’s over. You’re not going to do it anymore.’
- Donald Trump
The Cult of Done Bre Pettis wrote this manifesto on his blog: 1. There are three states of being. Not knowing, action and completion. 2. Accept that everything is a draft. It helps to get it done. 3. There is no editing stage. 4. Pretending you know what you’re doing is almost the same as knowing what you are doing, so accept that you know what you’re doing even if you don’t and do it. 5. Banish procrastination. If you wait more than a week to get an idea done, abandon it. 6. The point of being done is not to finish but to get other things done. 7. Once you’re done you can throw it away. 8. Laugh at perfection. It’s boring and keeps you from being done. 9. People without dirty hands are wrong. Doing something makes you right. 10. Failure counts as done. So do mistakes. 11. Destruction is a variant of done. 12. If you have an idea and publish it on the Internet, that counts as a ghost of done. 13. Done is the engine of more.
- Seth Godin
Habits like blogging often and regularly, writing down the way you think, being clear about what you think are effective tactics, ignoring the burbling crowd and not eating bacon. All of these are useful habits.
- Seth Godin
I don’t want any more concentration camps for animals that are cruelly treated, force-fed to fatten themselves up for our consumption.
- Stephen Wynn
Tell the audience what you’re going to say, say it; then tell them what you’ve said.
- Dale Carnegie
Science investigates religion interprets. Science gives man knowledge which is power religion gives man wisdom which is control.
- Martin Luther King Jr.
Even though I am nearly deaf, I seem to be gifted with a kind of inner hearing which enables me to detect sounds and noises that the listeners do not perceive.
- Thomas Edison
I believe the scripture says that being gay is a sin.
- Joel Olsteen
A lot of churches have not moved with the times.
- Joel Olsteen
If you want to understand what drives Cisco, look at our approach to customers. The manner in which we serve our customers defines our company values and demonstrates our priorities. Cisco is proud to be honored with this important certification that recognizes the foundation of our culture — the importance that we place on ensuring our customers are successful with Cisco technology.
- John Chambers
Expect to make some mistakes when you try new and different approaches. Sometimes colossal failures lead to spectacular successes.
- Harvey Mackay
The bigger your list, the greater your options. That doesn’t mean you contact everyone on your list each time you send out a press release. You pick and choose who gets what, and block out long-term strategy as you go.
- Michael Levine
Life is too short to be small.
- Benjamin Disraeli
No slovenly, careless person can become a successful leader. Leadership calls for respect. Followers will not respect a leader who does not grade high on all of the factors of a Pleasing Personality.
- Napoleon Hill
The outpouring of support from millions of people in the immediate aftermath of the earthquake in Haiti has been impressive.
- Bill Gates
I try to use my voice. I know that celebrity is valuable, and people do listen.
- Russell Simmons
No lover ever studied every whim of his mistress as I did those of President Roosevelt.
- Winston Churchill
About 80% of our locations are second-generation. In other words, the building used to be, say, a Wal-Mart that moved out to become a Super Wal-Mart, or a Kmart that closed. It seems that such a site becomes available almost every year in every city.
- David Green
There are seldom, if ever, any hopeless situations, but there are many people who lose hope in the face of some situations.
- Zig Ziglar
Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.
- Martin Luther King Jr.
Over the past 30 years, the nation has gradually opened up under such reform policies, which have presented enormous challenges and unlimited opportunities for the people and benefited the development of the nation all these years.
- Cheng Yu-tung
I am prepared to meet my Maker. Whether my Maker is prepared for the great ordeal of meeting me is another matter.
- Winston Churchill
If David our CEO, devotes so much of his time to this, then all this stuff about teamwork and learning how to be a great leader must be pretty important.
- David Novak
