Thank you is probably the most important thing that a leader can say.
- David Novak
Notable Quotables
We do benefit from the fact that once we say we’re going to do it, people believe we can do it, because we have the resources. Google helps in that way: There aren’t many funding mechanisms like that.
- Larry Page
Reckless he is. Matters are worse.
- Yoda
In the 1960s, if you were a blue collar worker or uneducated, and you had an injury on the job, the company basically dismissed you.
- Howard Schultz
Some questions that I’ve found to be very effective in one-on-ones: If we could improve in any way, how would we do it? What’s the number-one problem with our organization? Why? What’s not fun about working here? Who is really kicking ass in the company? Whom do you admire? If you were me, what changes would you make? What don’t you like about the product? What’s the biggest opportunity that we’re missing out on? What are we not doing that we should be doing? Are you happy working here?
- Ben Horowitz
There comes a time when you ought to start doing what you want. Take a job that you love. You will jump out of bed in the morning. I think you are out of your mind if you keep taking jobs that you don’t like because you think it will look good on your resume. Isn’t that a little like saving up sex for your old age?
- Warren Buffett
But it’s possible the orbits of the asteroids today show some memory of having had a planet in the asteroid belt.
- John Chambers
The single reason for a salesperson’s existence is to get the Buyer’s commitment. Just how poor are salespeople at their jobs? In a study of professional sales people (those who sell full time), 50% failed to ask for the buyer’s commitment to buy.
- Jerry Vass
Indeed, if there is any one secret” to an enduring great company, it is the ability to manage continuity and change—a discipline that must be consciously practiced, even by the most visionary of companies.
- James C. Collins
Google’s done a super good job on search. Apple’s done a great job on the iPod.
- Bill Gates
One of the main reasons that we lose our enthusiasm in life is because we become ungrateful..we let what was once a miracle become common to us. We get so accustomed to his goodness it becomes a routine..
- Joel Olsteen
From the Renaissance and the Enlightenment to the mid-20th century, luck was something to be mastered, dominated, and controlled; everyone agreed that you should do what you could, not focus on what you couldn’t. Ralph Waldo Emerson captured this ethos when he wrote: “Shallow men believe in luck, believe in circumstances.… Strong men believe in cause and effect.
- Peter Thiel
Japanese tend to put sales and market share first. They make many products with the aim of raising sales. But then profits decline, and companies find themselves falling into debt… I changed the mindset at Canon by getting people to realize that profits come first.
- Fujio Mitarai
Poisonous people do not deserve your time. To think otherwise is masochistic. The best way to approach a potential break is simple: Confide in them honestly but tactfully and explain your concerns. If they bite back, your conclusions have been confirmed. Drop them like any other bad habit. If they promise to change, first spend at least two weeks apart to develop other positive influences in your life and diminish psychological dependency. The next trial period should have a set duration and consist of pass-or-fail criteria. If this approach is too confrontational for you, just politely refuse to interact with them. Be in the middle of something when the call comes, and have a prior commitment when the invitation to hang out comes. Once you see the benefits of decreased time with these people, it will be easier to stop communication altogether.
- Timothy Ferriss
Hard times may have held you down, but they will not last forever. When all is said and done, you will be better off than before.
- Joel Olsteen
When you acknowledge God, He will go before you and make the crooked places straight.
- Joel Olsteen
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
Monopoly is therefore not a pathology or an exception. Monopoly is the condition of every successful business.
- Peter Thiel
Show me a thoroughly satisfied man and I will show you a failure.
- Thomas Edison
Men, women, and children who cannot live on gravity alone need something to satisfy their gayer, lighter moods and hours, and he who ministers to this want is, in my opinion, in a business established by the Creator of our nature. If he worthily fulfills his mission and amuses without corrupting, he need never feel that he has lived in vain.
- P.T. Barnum
I do not think that there is any other quality so essential to success of any kind as the quality of perseverance. It overcomes almost everything, even nature.
- John D. Rockefeller
Trees will improve property values, take pollutants out of the air, help with water runoff.
- Michael Bloomberg
Why not invest your assets in the companies you really like? As Mae West said, ‘Too much of a good thing can be wonderful’.
- Warren Buffett
You want to have a future where you’re expecting things to be better, not one where you’re expecting things to be worse.
- Elon Musk
I look at Facebook as being more conscientious about operator concerns, we are not 100 percent there, but we are finding consensus.
- Jon Fredrik Baksaas
The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function.
- James C. Collins
How you see your future is much more important than what happened in your past.
- Zig Ziglar
We remain confident about the market opportunity ahead of us over the next three to five years.
- John Chambers
Nothing else can quite substitute for a few well-chosen, well-timed, sincere words of praise. They’re absolutely free and worth a fortune.
- Sam Walton
Trust is the glue of life. It’s the most essential ingredient in effective communication. It’s the foundational principle that holds all relationships.
- Stephen R. Covey
Don’t Hire People Like Yourself.
- Forrest Ray
People have really gotten comfortable not only sharing more information and different kinds, but more openly and with more people – and that social norm is just something that has evolved over time.
- Mark Zuckerberg
Churchill used words for different purposes: to argue for moral and political causes, to advocate courses of action in the social, national and international spheres, and to tell the story of his own life and that of Britain and its place in the world.
- Winston Churchill
I started, actually, to make my first animated cartoon in 1920. Of course, they were very crude things then and I used sort of little puppet things.
- Walt Disney
We, we – as I say, ,we go in and shake up other industries and I think, you know, we do it differently and I think that indutjrises are not quite the same as a result of Virgin attacking the market.
- Richard Branson
The lizard isn’t listening and the lizard doesn’t care.
- Seth Godin
All of the women on The Apprentice flirted with me – consciously or unconsciously. That’s to be expected.
- Donald Trump
On the Internet you get continuous innovation, so every year the streams are a little better.
- Reed Hastings
I think if you’re an entrepreneur, you’ve got to dream big and then dream bigger.
- Howard Schultz
The most important thing in communication is to hear what isn’t being said.
- Peter Drucker
The year I was born, 1955, the first big disease-eradication program in the world was declared for malaria. After about a decade of work, they realized that, at least in the tropical areas, they did not have the tools to get it done.
- Bill Gates
Whatever the mind of man creates, should be controlled by man’s character.
- Thomas Edison
Initiative and starting are about neither of these. They are about “let’s see” and “try.” If there’s no clear right answer, perhaps the thing you ought to do is something new. Something new is often the right path when the world is complicated.
- Seth Godin
Microsoft is not about greed. It’s about innovation and fairness.
- Bill Gates
Hire sales people who are really smart problem solvers, but lack courage, hunger and competitiveness, and your company will go out of business.
- Ben Horowitz
There are only two kinds of employees that I’ve run across in 30 years. There are ones that get results, and ones that make excuses. If you’re in that second camp, you’re not going to like Dish.
- Charles Ergen
Once we realize that imperfect understanding is the human condition there is no shame in being wrong, only in failing to correct our mistakes.
- George Soros
At its zenith Sears accounted for more than 2 percent of all retail sales in the United States. It pioneered several innovations critical to the success of today’s most admired retailers: for example, supply chain management, store brands, catalogue retailing, and credit card sales. The esteem in which Sears’ management was held shows in this 1964 excerpt from Fortune: “How did Sears do it? In a way, the most arresting aspect of its story is that there was no gimmick. Sears opened no big bag of tricks, shot off no skyrockets. Instead, it looked as though everybody in its organization simply did the right thing, easily and naturally. And their cumulative effect was to create an extraordinary powerhouse of a company.
- Clayton M. Christensen
There’s this myth that has been exacerbated by others that Starbucks means a $4 cup of coffee, which is not true.
- Howard Schultz
Drones overall will be more impactful than I think people recognize, in positive ways to help society.
- Bill Gates
Not if anything to say about it I have.
- Yoda
Somebody once said that in looking for people to hire, you look for three qualities: integrity, intelligence, and energy. And if you don’t have the first, the other two will kill you. You think about it; it’s true. If you hire somebody without [integrity], you really want them to be dumb and lazy.
- Warren Buffett
Your story needs to move people’s spirits and build their goodwill, so that when you finally do ask them to buy from you, they feel like you’ve given them so much it would be almost rude to refuse.
- Gary Vaynerchuk
Consensus decisions about executives almost always sway the process away from strength and toward lack of weakness.
- Ben Horowitz
You don’t build a business –you build people– and then people build the business.
- Zig Ziglar
Enforce functional training by withholding new employee requisitions. As Andy Grove writes, there are only two ways for a manager to improve the output of an employee: motivation and training. Therefore, training should be the most basic requirement for all managers in your organization. An effective way to enforce this requirement is by withholding new employee requisitions from managers until they’ve developed a training program for the TBH, “To Be Hired.”
- Ben Horowitz
The ultimate connection is when you are connected to the creator of the universe.
- Joel Olsteen
I believe that sex is one of the most beautiful, natural, wholesome things that money can buy.
- Steve Martin
And here is the prime condition of success, the great secret. Concentrate your energy, thoughts and capital exclusively upon the business in which you are engaged in. Having begun in one line, resolve to fight it out on that line; to lead in it. Adopt every improvement, have the best machinery and know the most about it.
- Andrew Carnegie
All companies of any size have to continue to push to make sure you get the right leaders, the right team, the right people to be fast acting, and fast moving in the marketplace. We’ve got great leaders, and we continue to attract and promote great new leaders.
- Steve Ballmer
War is a game that is played with a smile. If you can’t smile, grin. If you can’t grin, keep out of the way till you can.
- Winston Churchill
I would say the most satisfying thing actually is watching my three children each pick up on their own interests and work many more hours per week than most people that have jobs at trying to intelligently give away that money in fields that they particularly care about.
- Warren Buffett
I’m in the shoe business. Look at these things. They’re called Tigers. I faked out the company. I’m the US distributor. Come with me.
- Phil Knight
My whole life had been designing computers I could never build.
- Steve Wozniak
The point is that you can’t be too greedy.
- Donald Trump
You know, there is always times where you feel discouraged and things coming against you, but I don’t know if I ever wanted to throw in the towel.
- Joel Olsteen
Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.’ You won’t believe what you can accomplish by attempting the impossible with the courage to repeatedly fail better.
- Timothy Ferriss
I have found from costly experience that it is much easier to analyze the facts after writing them down. In fact, merely writing the facts on a piece of paper and stating our problem clearly goes a long way toward helping us reach a sensible decision. As Charles Kettering puts it: A problem well stated is a problem half solved.
- Dale Carnegie
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
When you stop planning and preparing . . . you stop winning.
- Zig Ziglar
Americans believe cotton is best, but we’ve invented new fabrics that will change your lifestyle.
- Tadashi Yanai
The Government simply cannot make up their mind or they cannot get the prime minister to make up his mind. So they go on in strange paradox, decided only to be undecided, resolved to be irresolute, adamant for drift, solid for fluidity, all powerful for impotency. And so we go on preparing more months more years precious perhaps vital for the greatness of Britain for the locusts to eat. – Speaking in the Address in Reply debate, after giving some specific instances of Germany’s war preparedness.
- Winston Churchill
You have to motivate yourself with challenges. That’s how you know you’re still alive.
- Jerry Seinfeld
The Internet is the Viagra of big business.
- Jack Welch
Indefinite attitudes to the future explain what’s most dysfunctional in our world today. Process trumps substance: when people lack concrete plans to carry out, they use formal rules to assemble a portfolio of various options. This describes Americans today. In middle school, we’re encouraged to start hoarding “extracurricular activities.” In high school, ambitious students compete even harder to appear omnicompetent. By the time a student gets to college, he’s spent a decade curating a bewilderingly diverse résumé to prepare for a completely unknowable future. Come what may, he’s ready—for nothing in particular.
- Peter Thiel
In a climate of tight budgets, reduced workforces and stiff competition, internal training can be a great substitute for costly offsite workshops and conferences.
- Harvey Mackay
If we were motivated by money, we would have sold the company a long time ago and ended up on a beach.
- Larry Page
I never thought much about success early on. I only thought about being a comedian – or just being in show business, is really more accurate.
- Steve Martin
It’s not the situation, but whether we react negative or respond positive to the situation that is important.
- Zig Ziglar
Start calling yourself healed, happy, whole, blessed, and prosperous. Stop talking to God about how big your mountains are, and start talking to your mountains about how big your God is!
- Joel Olsteen
Key to helping poor is to not be poor.
- Abraham Lincoln
There’s no reason in 2014, to do shit you hate. NONE.
- Gary Vaynerchuk
Leadership is solving problems. The day soldiers stop bringing you their problems is the day you have stopped leading them. They have either lost confidence that you can help or concluded you do not care. Either case is a failure of leadership.
- Colin Powell
Vertical progress is harder to imagine because it requires doing something nobody else has ever done.
- Peter Thiel
We’re not going to outgrow our need for information.
- Seth Godin
In order to deal with all the medical cost demands and other challenges in the U.S., as we look to raise that revenue, the rich will have to pay slightly more. That’s quite clear.
- Bill Gates
I like all kinds of music. I listen to Abigail Washburn, the Punch Brothers, and Marc Johnson, the great clawhammer player. I also listen a lot to Sirius Radio, there’s a lot of bluegrass there.
- Steve Martin
This is the sort of bloody nonsense up with which I will not put!
- Winston Churchill
Unless a man enters upon the vocation intended for him by nature, and best suited to his peculiar genius, he cannot succeed. I am glad to believe that the majority of persons do find their right vocation.
- P.T. Barnum
‘I don’t know’ has become ‘I don’t know yet’.
- Bill Gates
The Arab League tells us to go in and take out Qaddafi. We’ve spent billions of dollars already with respect to the Arab League. Billions of dollars, because they told us to do it. Why aren’t they paying for it? They don’t like Qaddafi, Qaddafi’s been a terrible thorn in their side.
- Donald Trump
The best thinking has been done in solitude. The worst has been done in turmoil.
- Thomas Edison
You can make a positive out of the most negative if you work at it hard enough.
- Sam Walton
Your purpose is to make your audience see what you saw, hear what you heard, feel what you felt. Relevant detail, couched in concrete, colorful language, is the best way to recreate the incident as it happened and to picture it for the audience.
- Dale Carnegie
I do think – as self-serving as it sounds – that I was the right person, given the very, very strong headwind we had from the economy and our own issues, to come back and rewrite the future of the company.
- Howard Schultz
I don’t care about revenues.
- Jack Ma
My theory is 98 percent of all human endeavor is killing time.
- Jerry Seinfeld
Interestingly, self-employed people make up less than 20 percent of the workers in America but account for two-thirds of the millionaires. Also, three out of four of us who are self-employed consider ourselves to be entrepreneurs.
- The Millionaire Next Door
I knew, of course, that I had nothing to worry about—personally, at least. But.
- Dale Carnegie
Often people fail to start or complete a task because they don’t see any connection between what they’re doing and what they really want to accomplish in life.
- John C. Maxwell
