People don’t want lots and lots of single purpose devices. They do not want to have to learn how to set up something for photos, another thing for music, another thing for video.
- Bill Gates
Notable Quotables
There are two ways to extend a business. Take inventory of what you’re good at and extend out from your skills. Or determine what your customers need and work backward, even if it requires learning new skills. Kindle is an example of working backward.
- Jeff Bezos
The people who work within these industries or public services know that there are basic flaws. But they are almost forced to ignore them and to concentrate instead on patching here, improving there, fighting the fire or caulking that crack. They are thus unable to take the innovation seriously, let alone to try to compete with it. They do not, as a rule, even notice it until it has grown so big as to encroach on their industry or service, by which time it has become irreversible. In the meantime, the innovators have the field to themselves.
- Peter Drucker
It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning.
- Henry Ford
all information and interruptions that are irrelevant, unimportant, or unactionable.
- Timothy Ferriss
If a man will devote his time to securing facts in an impartial, objective way, his worries will usually evaporate in the light of knowledge.
- Dale Carnegie
The path of least resistance makes all rivers, and some men, crooked.
- Napoleon Hill
This is no war of chieftains or of princes, of dynasties or national ambition; it is a war of peoples and of causes. There are vast numbers, not only in this Island but in every land, who will render faithful service in this war, but whose names will never be known, whose deeds will never be recorded. This is a War of the Unknown Warriors.
- Winston Churchill
It is a well known fact that Henry Ford began his business career under the handicap of poverty, illiteracy, and ignorance. It is an equally well known fact that, within the inconceivably short period of ten years, Mr. Ford mastered these three handicaps, and that within twenty-five years he made himself one of the richest men in America. Connect with this fact, the additional knowledge that Mr. Ford’s most rapid strides became noticeable, from the time he became a personal friend of Thomas A. Edison, and you will begin to understand what the influence of one mind upon another can accomplish.
- Napoleon Hill
Speculation is only a word covering the making of money out of the manipulation of prices, instead of supplying goods and services.
- Henry Ford
We don’t know exactly how it will work. Advertisers want greater access, better accountability.
- Sergey Brin
No place epitomizes the American experience and the American spirit more than New York City.
- Michael Bloomberg
Definiteness of purpose is the starting point from which one must begin. He recognized, too that definiteness of purpose of takes on animation, life, and power when backed by a burning desire to translate that purpose into its material equivalent. – Napoleon Hill (on leadership and vision)
- Napoleon Hill
It is possible to know all there is to know about a subject—medicine, for example—but if you don’t have M.D. at the end of your name, few will listen. The M.D. is what I term a credibility indicator.” The so-called expert with the most credibility indicators, whether acronyms or affiliations, is often the most successful in the marketplace, even if other candidates have more in-depth knowledge. This is a matter of superior positioning, not deception.
- Timothy Ferriss
The Habit of Saving does not mean that you shall limit your earning capacity, it means just the opposite – that you shall apply this law so that it not only conserves that which you earn, in a systematic manner, but it also places you in the way of greater opportunity and gives you the vision, the self-confidence, the imagination, the enthusiasm, the initiative and leadership actually to increase your earning capacity.
- Napoleon Hill
Sometimes the road less traveled is less traveled for a reason.
- Jerry Seinfeld
There is one thing I would break up over, and that is if she caught me with another woman. I won’t stand for that.
- Steve Martin
Some great people are leaders and others are more lucky, in the right place at the right time. I’d put myself in the latter category. But I’d never call myself a normal designer of anything.
- Steve Wozniak
Dreams grow if you grow.
- Zig Ziglar
The truth is, I had always wanted to be a comedian, but I really didn’t have that kind of personality, and it’s a terrifying thing to say.
- Jerry Seinfeld
Beverages have to be created. And they’re created by looking at what trend is in, say, the fashion industry – what color’s hot right now.
- Howard Schultz
The market … demands a signal from you that you’re serious, powerful, accepted, and safe.
- Seth Godin
In the journey of entrepreneurship, tenacity of purpose is supreme.
- Aliko Dangote
How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. The effects are apparent in many countries. Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live. A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property – either as a child, a wife, or a concubine – must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men. Thousands become the brave and loyal soldiers of the faith: all know how to die but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science, the science against which it had vainly struggled, the civilisation of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilisation of ancient Rome.
- Winston Churchill
Anti-aging is an extremely under-explored field
- Peter Thiel
You can be a control freak only when you have weak people around you.
- Ronald Perelman
There’s no reason why the future should happen only at Stanford, or in college, or in Silicon Valley.
- Peter Thiel
Delight in smooth sounding platitudes, refusal to face unpleasant facts … genuine love of peace and pathetic belief that love can be its sole foundation … the utter devotion of the Liberals to sentiment apart from reality …though free from wickedness or evil design, played a definite part in the unleashing upon the world of horrors and miseries [WWII]
- Winston Churchill
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
I’m a pretty conservative guy. But for some reason in business, I have always been pretty driven to buck the system, to innovate, to take things beyond where we’ve been. On the one hand, in the community, I really am an establishment kind of guy; on the other hand, in the marketplace, I have always been a maverick who enjoys shaking things up and creating a little anarchy. And sometimes the establishments made me mad…
- Sam Walton
Anything you’re interested in the world – whether it be Charlie Rose or JetBlue or a public figure or your local coffee shop – they’re on Twitter and broadcasting what is interesting to them.
- Jack Dorsey
If your product requires advertising or salespeople to sell it, it’s not good enough: technology is primarily about product development, not distribution. Bubble-era advertising was obviously wasteful, so the only sustainable growth is viral growth.
- Peter Thiel
As it happened, we did extraordinarily well with our Newport Wal-Mart, and it wasn’t too long before the old Ben Franklin store I had run on Front Street had to close its doors. You can’t say we ran that guy – the landlord’s son – out of business. His customers were the ones who shut him down. They voted with their feet. Quite a few smaller stores have gone out of business during the time of Wal-Mart’s growth. Some people have tried to turn it into this big controversy, sort of a Save the Small-Town Merchants deal, like they were whales or whooping cranes of something that has the right to be protected…If you become a large-scale success it’s Katie bar the door. Suddenly, you make a very convenient villian because everybody seems to love shooting at who’s on top.
- Sam Walton
wouldn’t that person be even more amazing if, instead of telling the time, he or she built a clock that could tell the time forever, even after he or she was dead and gone?
- James C. Collins
You are victors, not victims!
- Joel Olsteen
I think the definition of a book is changing.
- Jeff Bezos
I don’t like to beat people down. They need to be lifted up.
- Joel Olsteen
Boy, those French: they have a different word for everything!
- Steve Martin
One reason I encourage people to blog is that the act of doing it stretches your available vocabulary and hones a new voice.
- Seth Godin
Another noteworthy aspect is the strong free cash flow of more than €2 billion. This enabled us to reduce net indebtedness to its lowest level since 2006.
- Elmar Degenhart
Our people, our shareholders, me, Bill Gates, we expect to change the world in every way, to succeed wildly at everything we touch, to have the broadest impact of any company in the world.
- Steve Ballmer
There was a moment when I was watching Martin Lawrence and Will Smith in ‘Badboys’ that I felt, you know, inspired. I don’t know if I was proud, because so many people do the work. Everyone’s part of a team that develops over the years and gives people chances. There have been some good moments watching people develop.
- Russell Simmons
The best way to prepare [to be a programmer] is to write programs, and to study great programs that other people have written. In my case, I went to the garbage cans at the Computer Science Center and fished out listings of their operating system.
- Bill Gates
Where my reason, imagination or interest were not engaged, I would not or I could not learn.
- Winston Churchill
you can measure the size of a person by what makes him or her angry.
- Dale Carnegie
What is the 20% of my belongings that I use 80% of the time? Eliminate the other 80% in clothing, magazines, books, and all else. Be ruthless – you can always repurchase things you can’t live without.
- Timothy Ferriss
My wife thinks she’s better than me at puzzles. I haven’t given in on that one yet.
- Bill Gates
Well… I graduated from the business school of Northumberland University in Newcastle.
- Alexei Mordashov
When obstacles arise, you change your direction to reach your goal; you do not change your decision to get there.
- Zig Ziglar
We’re really going after truly creating sustainability of a disease-free state, creating a complete system for managing cancer patients for life, so that you can manage from onset of disease all the way through.
- Patrick Soon-Shiong
Kickstarter isn’t a profit center, it’s an organizer and an instigator.
- Seth Godin
When you do the things you need to do when you need to do them, the day will come when you can do the things you want to do when you want to do them.
- Zig Ziglar
It’s not what happens to you that matters, it’s how you respond to what happens to you that makes a difference.
- Zig Ziglar
I have never known a concern to make a decided success that did not do good, honest work, and even in these days of fiercest competition, when everything would seem to be a matter of price, there lies still at the root of great business success the very much more important factor of quality. The eff …
- Andrew Carnegie
It’s easier for our software to compete with Linux when there’s piracy than when there’s not.
- Bill Gates
The Field of Dreams conceit is especially popular in Silicon Valley, where engineers are biased toward building cool stuff rather than selling it. But customers will not come just because you build it. You have to make that happen, and it’s harder than it looks.
- Peter Thiel
Always render more and better service than is expected of you, no matter what your task may be.
- Og Mandino
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
MARCH 25 From Glory to Glory But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord. 2 CORINTHIANS 3:18 KJV THE SCRIPTURE SAYS we are God’s workmanship” (Ephesians 2:10), which implies that you are a work in progress.” Throughout our lives, God is continually shaping us into the people He wants us to be. The key to future success is to not be discouraged about your past or present while you are in the process of being completed.” God loves you unconditionally. You may not understand everything you are going through right now. But hold your head high, knowing that God is in control and He has a great plan and purpose for your life. Your dreams may not have turned out exactly as you’d hoped, but the Bible says that God’s ways are better and higher than our ways.
- Joel Olsteen
Bottom line is, I didn’t return to Apple to make a fortune. I’ve been very lucky in my life and already have one. When I was 25, my net worth was $100 million or so. I decided then that I wasn’t going to let it ruin my life. There’s no way you could ever spend it all, and I don’t view wealth as something that validates my intelligence.
- Steve Jobs
Just as the process of repealing national alcohol prohibition began with individual states repealing their own prohibition laws, so individual states must now take the initiative with respect to repealing marijuana prohibition laws.
- George Soros
No matter what any of us has—and how grateful we are for what we have—no one has it all.
- Sheryl Sandberg
Automotive franchise laws were put in place decades ago to prevent a manufacturer from unfairly opening stores in direct competition with an existing franchise dealer that had already invested time, money and effort to open and promote their business.
- Elon Musk
Risk more than others think is safe. Dream more than others think is practical.
- Howard Schultz
People at McDonald’s get trained for their positions, but people with far more complicated jobs don’t. It makes no sense. Would you want to stand on the line of the untrained person at McDonald’s? Would you want to use the software written by the engineer who was never told how the rest of the code worked? A lot of companies think their employees are so smart that they require no training. That’s silly.
- Ben Horowitz
The clothes you wear influence you; thereby they form a part of your environment. Soiled or shabby clothes depress you and lower your self-confidence, while clean, modest and refined clothes give you a sort of inner feeling of courage that causes you to quicken your step as you walk
- Napoleon Hill
Faith in your new apprentice, misplaced may be. As is your faith in the dark side of the Force.
- Yoda
People ask the difference between a leader and a boss. The leader leads, and the boss drives.
- Theodore Roosevelt
Freedom does not come automatically, it is achieved. And it is not gained in a single bound
- Rollo May
I do think a founder has special permission to make sweeping changes across an organization.
- Michael Dell
We used to think that everything started in the lab. Now we realize that everything spins off the consumer.
- Phil Knight
Exceed your customer’s expectations. If you do, they’ll come back over and over. Give them what they want – and a little more.
- Sam Walton
I kind of thought that stand-up comedy would suffer from the Internet because people seem to know more about the craft of stand-up than ever before. I thought it would seem trite. Kind of like if you know more about magicians, you wouldn’t love them.
- Jerry Seinfeld
[On the first twitter tweet] The first tweet that was actually written by a human was by me and it was inviting co-workers.
- Jack Dorsey
If a hurricane strikes, we can blame the president for not being there; we can blame Congress and FEMA; we can blame the state governments; but in the end, it’s the mayors and the local city governments that have to be prepared for emergencies and be prepared to act.
- Michael Bloomberg
Well, sometimes you just don’t like somebody.
- Henry Ford
MacDonald has the gift of compressing the largest amount of words into the smallest amount of thought.
- Winston Churchill
In ninth grade, I came up with a new form of rebellion. I hadn’t been getting good grades, but I decided to get all A’s without taking a book home. I didn’t go to math class, because I knew enough and had read ahead, and I placed within the top 10 people in the nation on an aptitude exam.
- Bill Gates
Mobile is a lot closer to TV than it is to desktop.
- Mark Zuckerberg
Whenever you see a successful business, someone once made a courageous decision.
- Peter Drucker
Bill Gates wants people to think he’s Edison, when he’s really Rockefeller. Referring to Gates as the smartest man in America isn’t right… wealth isn’t the same thing as intelligence.
- Larry Ellison
Bill Milliken is a big hero of mine.
- Anne Cox Chambers
There are no limitations to the mind except those we acknowledge.
- Napoleon Hill
Constantly probe the people who report to you, and encourage them to probe you.
- Ray Dalio
To each there comes in their lifetime a special moment when they are figuratively tapped on the shoulder and offered the chance to do a very special thing, unique to them and fitted to their talents. What a tragedy if that moment finds them unprepared or unqualified for that which could have been their finest hour.
- Winston Churchill
I wanted to be an artist. They see the world in a very different way.
- Jack Dorsey
People have been indoctrinated so completely by their jobs that they don’t want to know how something works, they’re willing to accept that perhaps the laws of nature don’t work as they expect, and by the way, can I have the remote?
- Seth Godin
The Beatles created something that never trailed off. What a gift that was to their fans. If you’re into the Beatles, you loved them from beginning to end.
- Jerry Seinfeld
We’re running the most dangerous experiment in history right now, which is to see how much carbon dioxide the atmosphere… can handle before there is an environmental catastrophe.
- Elon Musk
Legacy is a stupid thing! I don’t want a legacy.
- Bill Gates
My most brilliant achievement was my ability to be able to persuade my wife to marry me.
- Winston Churchill
Eventually, all companies are replaced.
- Bill Gates
Americans want students to get the best education possible. We want schools to prepare children to become good citizens and members of a prosperous American economy.
- Bill Gates
It is always wise to look ahead, but difficult to look further than you can see.
- Winston Churchill
Animation is different from other parts. Its language is the language of caricature, Our most difficult job was to develop the cartoon’s unnatural but seemingly natural anatomy for humans and animals.
- Walt Disney
If you’re going to build a lean enterprise, you can test and measure how often the company ships iterations, how often it fails, how often it is putting things in front of people that don’t work.
- Seth Godin
And it is change that always provides the opportunity for the new and different. Systematic innovation therefore consists in the purposeful and organized search for changes, and in the systematic analysis of the opportunities such changes might offer for economic or social innovation.
- Peter Drucker
Strength and growth come only through continuous effort and struggle…
- Napoleon Hill
I DECLARE Ephesians 3:20 over my life. God will do exceedingly, abundantly above all that I ask or think. Because I honor Him, His blessings will chase me down and overtake me. I will be in the right place at the right time. People will go out of their way to be good to me. I am surrounded by God’s favor. This is my declaration.
- Joel Olsteen
Once you create and dominate a niche market, then you should gradually expand into related and slightly broader markets. Amazon shows how it can be done. Jeff Bezos’s founding vision was to dominate all of online retail, but he very deliberately started with books. There were millions of books to catalog, but they all had roughly the same shape, they were easy to ship, and some of the most rarely sold books—those least profitable for any retail store to keep in stock—also drew the most enthusiastic customers. Amazon became the dominant solution for anyone located far from a bookstore or seeking something unusual. Amazon then had two options: expand the number of people who read books, or expand to adjacent markets. They chose the latter, starting with the most similar markets: CDs, videos, and software. Amazon continued to add categories gradually until it had become the world’s general store. The name itself brilliantly encapsulated the company’s scaling strategy.
- Peter Thiel
