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
Notable Quotables
Truly wonderful the mind of a child is.
- Yoda
If I am gone tommorrow am I happy with my life?
- Stacy Thorn
Hard disks have disappointed me more than most technologies.
- Steve Wozniak
What you receive is directly connected to what you believe.
- Joel Olsteen
The future is here. It’s just not widely distributed yet.
- William Gibson
Don’t be intimidated as you design your pitch. The fact is that nobody will come to you at first. You must be the aggressor, or you will not be heard.
- Michael Levine
It is very likely that Hong Kong has reached the end of the tunnel and the bright sunshine is not far from us.
- Cheng Yu-tung
Drones overall will be more impactful than I think people recognize, in positive ways to help society.
- Bill Gates
I look at every business and ask, How long can this last? How can I identify the status quo and change it?
- Sheldon Adelson
A corporation’s primary goal is to make money. Government’s primary role is to take a big chunk of that money and give it to others.
- Larry Ellison
The greatest day in your life and mine is when we take total responsibility for our attitudes. That’s the day we truly grow up.
- John C. Maxwell
Although we can’t predict the future, our orders for the first weeks of this quarter are in line with the expectations we discussed in our fourth quarter earnings call.
- John Chambers
Don’t take anyone for granted.
- Jack Dorsey
What General Weygand called the Battle of France is over. I expect that the Battle of Britain is about to begin. Upon this battle depends the survival of Christian civilization. Upon it depends our own British life, and the long continuity of our institutions and our Empire. The whole fury and might of the enemy must very soon be turned on us. Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this Island or lose the war. If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be free and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands. But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science. Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that, if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, ‘This was their finest hour.
- Winston Churchill
The choice to be excellent begins with aligning your thoughts and words with the intention to require more from yourself.
- Oprah Winfrey
We are pleased to report the 33rd consecutive quarter of revenue and earnings growth. We are especially pleased with the balanced growth rate across almost all countries in both Europe and the Americas.
- John Chambers
Disneyland is a work of love. We didn’t go into Disneyland just with the idea of making money.
- Walt Disney
NO PURCHASE SHOULD EVER BE MADE IN A BUSINESS UNLESS IT IS JUSTIFIED BY AN INCREASE IN SALES.
- Robert Kiyosaki
A decade and a half ago an ‘Esquire’ magazine reporter, noting our advertising played up the heros as aspects of great atheletes asked the question, who is your hero? My answer was simple. My college track coach and partner, Bill Bowerman. He had won four national championships, coached more sub four minute milers than anyone when he retired. He was the 1972 Olympic coach yet he insisted he was not a track coach. He was a professor of competitive response.
- Phil Knight
God, You said You would restore health unto me and heal me of my wounds. You said I would live and not die. You said what is impossible with men is possible with God. When you pray.
- Joel Olsteen
The final test of a leader is that he leaves behind him in other men the conviction and the will to carry on.
- Walter Lippmann
Every time you make the hard, correct decision you become a bit more courageous, and every time you make the easy, wrong decision you become a bit more cowardly. If you are CEO, these choices will lead to a courageous or cowardly company.
- Ben Horowitz
The goal is to be able to live your life the way Michael Jordan played basketball, or Marvin Gaye sang a song. To be able to feel the way you feel when you laugh at a joke, but to feel that way all the time.
- Russell Simmons
The Value of a Smile at Christmas It costs nothing, but creates much. It enriches those who receive, without impoverishing those who give. It happens in a flash and the memory of it sometimes lasts forever. None are so rich they can get along without it, and none so poor but are richer for its benefits. It creates happiness in the home, fosters good will in a business, and is the countersign of friends.
- Dale Carnegie
Patience, persistence and perspiration make an unbeatable combination for success.
- Napoleon Hill
STARTUP THINKING New technology tends to come from new ventures—startups. From the Founding Fathers in politics to the Royal Society in science to Fairchild Semiconductor’s “traitorous eight” in business, small groups of people bound together by a sense of mission have changed the world for the better. The easiest explanation for this is negative: it’s hard to develop new things in big organizations, and it’s even harder to do it by yourself. Bureaucratic hierarchies move slowly, and entrenched interests shy away from risk. In the most dysfunctional organizations, signaling that work is being done becomes a better strategy for career advancement than actually doing work (if this describes your company, you should quit now). At the other extreme, a lone genius might create a classic work of art or literature, but he could never create an entire industry. Startups operate on the principle that you need to work with other people to get stuff done, but you also need to stay small enough so that you actually can. Positively defined, a startup is the largest group of people you can convince of a plan to build a different future. A new company’s most important strength is new thinking: even more important than nimbleness, small size affords space to think. This book is about the questions you must ask and answer to succeed in the business of doing new things: what follows is not a manual or a record of knowledge but an exercise in thinking. Because that is what a startup has to do: question received ideas and rethink business from scratch.
- Peter Thiel
All honor’s wounds are self-inflicted.
- Andrew Carnegie
It is equally important that diversification is an ongoing process.
- Cheng Yu-tung
It’s the little things that are vital. Little things make big things happen.
- John Wooden
I can’t imagine a day without coffee. I can’t imagine!
- Howard Schultz
It is not the strongest of the species that survive, or the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.
- Charles Darwin
The air of the English is down-to-earth. They care about details; there’s a tradition, but there’s also a counter-culture: the younger generation versus the older generation and so on. But then that’s well blended into a happy balance and crystallised into common sense.
- Tadashi Yanai
We can never own property (because of property taxes) we can just control it (by renting it from the government by paying taxes).
- Robert Kiyosaki
Be happy with who God made you to be, and quit wishing you were something different.
- Joel Olsteen
I’m an investor in a number of biotech companies, partly because of my incredible enthusiasm for the great innovations they will bring.
- Bill Gates
The leaders who offer blood, toil, tears and sweat always get more out of their followers than those who offer safety and a good time. When it comes to the pinch, human beings are heroic.
- George Orwell
Out the right product is the innovator’s job, not the customer’s job.
- Ben Horowitz
With vision and foresight, thorough consideration, careful planning and steadfast commitment, the New World Group will continue to maintain its ambitious yet healthy investment strategy to grow together with the nation and strive for greater success in the future.
- Cheng Yu-tung
The problem in my life and other people’s lives is not the absence of knowing what to do but the absence of doing it.
- Peter Drucker
Out of clutter, find simplicity.
- Albert Einstein
An early lesson I learned in my career was that whenever a large organization attempts to do anything, it always comes down to a single person who can delay the entire project.
- Ben Horowitz
Fascinatingly, as companies begin to struggle, the third category always seems to grow much faster than the first. In addition, the sudden wave of “semi-performance-related attrition” usually happens in companies that claim to have a “super-high talent bar.” How do all these superstar employees suddenly go from great to crap?
- Ben Horowitz
Even if producing CO2 was good for the environment, given that we’re going to run out of hydrocarbons, we need to find some sustainable means of operating.
- Elon Musk
There’s plenty of room at the top but not enough room to sit down.
- Zig Ziglar
Mitt – what I speak to Mitt Romney about is jobs. What I speak to Mitt Romney about is China, because he’s got a great view on China and how they’re trying to destroy our country by taking our jobs and making our product and manipulating their currency, so that it makes it almost impossible for our companies to compete.
- Donald Trump
I think one of the great dangers here is going and categorizing anybody from one religion as a terrorist. That’s not true… That would let the terrorists win. That’s what they want us to do.
- Michael Bloomberg
Surround yourself with people who want the best for you and the people you love!
- Zig Ziglar
The U.S. automotive industry has been selling cars the same way for over 100 years, and there are many laws in place to govern exactly how that is to be accomplished.
- Elon Musk
If your message is not getting heard, then it doesn’t much matter what it is…Breaking through the clutter is such a powerful concept that even when it’s done badly it can still work. Once I graduated from college I needed a job quickly. I was applying to advertising agencies, so rather than send out a typical one-page resume, I made up this dinky little brochure. It had my picture on the front and on the back a little poem I had written about why someone should hire me… – David Novak CEO of Yum! Brands
- David Novak
Projections are just bullshit. They’re just guesses.
- Jason Fried
Never surrender opportunity for security.
- Branch Rickey
Mine, or I will help you not!
- Yoda
If you want a successful business, your people must feel that you are working for them—not that they are working for you.
- Sam Walton
The idea flow from the human spirit is absolutely unlimited. All you have to do is tap into that well. I don’t like to use the word efficiency. It’s creativity. It’s a belief that every person counts.
- Jack Welch
This is my Bible. I am what it says I am. I have what it says I have. I can do what it says I can do.
- Joel Olsteen
I say, don’t try to fight your own battles because God will do it.
- Joel Olsteen
The purpose of business is to create and keep a customer.
- Peter Drucker
‘I don’t know’ has become ‘I don’t know yet’.
- Bill Gates
A lot of the evil in the world is actually not intentional. A lot of people in the financial system did a lot of damage without intending to.
- George Soros
Thee may be some concern about rising inflation, shortage of labour and increased trade protectionism but the economy is generally in good shape.
- Cheng Yu-tung
There is a real magic in enthusiasm. It spells the difference between mediocrity and accomplishment.
- Norman Vincent Peale
When we began Starbucks, what I wanted to try to do was to create a set of values, guiding principles, and culture.
- Howard Schultz
When people come to Twitter and they want to express something in the world, the technology fades away. It’s them writing a simple message and them knowing that people are going to see it.
- Jack Dorsey
Don’t worry about failure, you only have to be right once.
- Drew Houston
We hire people who want to make the best things in the world.
- Steve Jobs
You have to know what sparks the light in you so that you, in your own way, can illuminate the world.
- Oprah Winfrey
I have been very fortunate to be successful in business, and I believe that it is right that people who have this type of wealth should give something back into society.
- Alisher Usmanov
The question is not, ‘Do you have a problem?’ The question is, ‘Does the problem have you? ‘
- Joel Olsteen
Jobs’s return to Apple 12 years later shows how the most important task in business—the creation of new value—cannot be reduced to a formula and applied by professionals.
- Peter Thiel
You don’t need a big close, as many sales reps believe. You risk losing your customer when you save all the good stuff for the end. Keep the customer actively involved throughout your presentation, and watch your results improve.
- Harvey Mackay
Your faith is very important. I have done the math, and you are going to be dead a whole lot longer that you will be alive.
- Zig Ziglar
The depth of your spirit will determine the height of your success.
- Zig Ziglar
Digital reading will completely take over. It’s lightweight and it’s fantastic for sharing. Over time it will take over.
- Bill Gates
My big advantage was to have my father accept me as first-generation.
- Mukesh Ambani
Young men starting in life should avoid running into debt. There is scarcely anything that drags a person down like debt. It is a slavish position to get ill, yet we find many a young man, hardly out of his “teens,” running in debt. He meets a chum and says, “Look at this: I have got trusted for a new suit of clothes.” He seems to look upon the clothes as so much given to him; well, it frequently is so, but, if he succeeds in paying and then gets trusted again, he is adopting a habit which will keep him in poverty through life. Debt robs a man of his self-respect, and makes him almost despise himself.
- P.T. Barnum
My blogging life is basically goalless. I like the zen nature of that, and paradoxically, it improves results.
- Seth Godin
People who read the tabloids deserve to be lied to.
- Jerry Seinfeld
Today people who hold cash equivalents feel comfortable. They shouldn’t. They have opted for a terrible long-term asset, one that pays virtually nothing and is certain to depreciate in value.
- Warren Buffett
As a general rule, everyone you involve with your company should be involved full-time. Sometimes you’ll have to break this rule; it usually makes sense to hire outside lawyers and accountants, for example. However, anyone who doesn’t own stock options or draw a regular salary from your company is fundamentally misaligned.
- Peter Thiel
Unrestrained competition can drive people into actions that they would otherwise regret.
- George Soros
It may look like the difficulty is going to defeat you. But you need to keep telling yourself, This sickness can’t take my life.” This cancer can’t defeat me.” No bad break, no disappointment, no accident can shorten one second of my divine destiny.
- Joel Olsteen
SLOW DANCE Have you ever watched kids On a merry-go-round? Or listened to the rain Slapping on the ground? Ever followed a butterfly’s erratic flight? Or gazed at the sun into the fading night? You better slow down. Don’t dance so fast. Time is short. The music won’t last. Do you run through each day On the fly? When you ask: How are you? Do you hear the reply? When the day is done, do you lie in your bed With the next hundred chores Running through your head? You’d better slow down. Don’t dance so fast. Time is short. The music won’t last. Ever told your child, We’ll do it tomorrow? And in your haste, Not see his sorrow? Ever lost touch, Let a good friendship die Cause you never had time To call and say, Hi”? You’d better slow down. Don’t dance so fast. Time is short. The music won’t last. When you run so fast to get somewhere You miss half the fun of getting there. When you worry and hurry through your day, It is like an unopened gift thrown away. Life is not a race. Do take it slower. Hear the music Before the song is over.
- Timothy Ferriss
A change is as good as a rest.
- Winston Churchill
Well, the odds must be against anybody being able to fly around the world in a balloon on the first attempt. All of us who are attempting to go around the world in balloons are effectively flying in experimental craft because these craft cannot be tested.
- Richard Branson
Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men.
- Martin Luther King Jr.
The key to success is to get out into the store and listen to what the associates have to say.
- Sam Walton
If you set your goals ridiculously high and it’s a failure, you will fail above everyone else’s success.
- James Cameron
My kids probably started drinking coffee in their late teens.
- Howard Schultz
Man, alone, has the power to transform his thoughts into physical reality; man, alone, can dream and make his dreams come true.
- Napoleon Hill
The only thing we know about the future is that it will be different.
- Peter Drucker
Going the extra mile is the action of rendering more and better service than that for which you are presently paid. When you go the extra mile, the Law of Compensation comes into play.
- Napoleon Hill
Fear is faith in reverse.
- Zig Ziglar
Life is a self-fulfilling prophecy
- Chris Humphrey
Every company starts only once.
- Peter Thiel
Out-innovating them is the way to beat China. And to do everything that we do in this country to support innovative policy, that drives innovation and new products and more jobs and creates jobs. You can’t – you can’t put a wall up around here. We tried that in the ’30s. It didn’t work.
- Jack Welch
People going nowhere want company.
- Brian Tracy
Many of life’s failures are experienced by people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.
- Thomas Edison
Anything that we have to learn to do we learn by the actual doing of it
- Aristotle
While formal schooling is an important advantage, it is not a guarantee of success nor is its absence a fatal handicap.
- Ray Kroc
