Notable Quotables

Failure is nature’s plan to prepare you for great responsibilities.

- Napoleon Hill

You think Yoda stops teaching, just because his student does not want to hear? A teacher Yoda is. Yoda teaches like drunkards drink, like killers kill.

- Yoda

I’m a Silicon Valley guy. I just think people from Silicon Valley can do anything.

- Elon Musk

I won’t do something unless I can get at least two or three good laughs out of it. If I can’t, it’s not gonna make the team.

- Jerry Seinfeld

Now when I consider investing in a startup, I study the founding teams. Technical abilities and complementary skill sets matter, but how well the founders know each other and how well they work together matter just as much. Founders should share a prehistory before they start a company together—otherwise they’re just rolling dice.

- Peter Thiel

Don’t complain about the snow on your neighbor’s roof when your own doorstep is unclean.

- Confucius

What separates people is not the presence or absence of difficulty, but how they deal with the inevitable difficulties of life.

- Admiral Jim Stockdale

We subpoenaed him for the SAP trial and he was on the lam. The HP board sent him to Bolivia to talk to customers. Then they sent him to Mongolia to talk to customers, just out of reach of the federal subpoenas … the board figured out [later]: we should have left Leo in Mongolia.

- Larry Ellison

Eventually we’ll be able to sequence the human genome and replicate how nature did intelligence in a carbon-based system.

- Bill Gates

The golden years become lower-middle-class life revisited. That’s a bittersweet ending.

- Timothy Ferriss

Surround yourself with people who are smarter than you. Pick people who are interested in what you’re interested in.

- Russell Simmons

Innovation comes from long-term thinking and iterative execution.

- Reid Hoffman

A prisoner of war is a man who tries to kill you and fails, and then asks you not to kill him.

- Winston Churchill

I’m personally a moderate and a registered independent, so I’m not strongly Democratic or strongly Republican.

- Elon Musk

In order to lead a country or a company, you’ve got to get everybody on the same page and you’ve got to be able to have a vision of where you’re going. America can’t have a vision of health care for everybody, green economy, regulations – can’t have a bunch of piece-meal activities. It’s got to have a vision.

- Jack Welch

Play the game for more than you can afford to lose… only then will you learn the game.

- Winston Churchill

No one has done a study on this, as far as I can tell, but I think Facebook might be the first place where a large number of people have come out. We didn’t create that – society was generally ready for that. I think this is just part of the general trend that we talked about, about society being more open, and I think that’s good.

- Mark Zuckerberg

If something’s important enough, you should try. Even if you – the probable outcome is failure.

- Elon Musk

Giving away money to the right cause, with a leveraged effect and your own involvement in how it is spent, will ‘give you peace of mind.’

- Lee Shau Kee

When obstacles arise, you change your direction to reach your goal; you do not change your decision to get there.

- Zig Ziglar

I had been trained by him. I knew him. I loved him. I simply never took it personally. If I had anything to say about it, he was not going to leave.

- Phil Knight

We’ve fallen into a trap of ever-widening orbits of contact, and there is a total disregard for the present moment.

- Jerry Seinfeld

Be there for your kids. Later, when you need them, they’ll be there for you.

- Zig Ziglar

One of the great things about building a tech company is the amazing people that you can hire.

- Ben Horowitz

Every morning brings new potential, but if you dwell on the misfortunes of the day before, you tend to overlook tremendous opportunities.

- Harvey Mackay

Creating value is not enough—you also need to capture some of the value you create.

- Peter Thiel

As the Readers’s Digest once said: ‘Many persons call a doctor when all they want is an audience.

- Dale Carnegie

I’ve come to see institutional decline like a staged disease: harder to detect but easier to cure in the early stages, easier to detect but harder to cure in the later stages. An institution can look strong on the outside but already be sick on the inside,”

- James C. Collins

Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time, for that is the stuff life is made of.

- Benjamin Franklin

Therefore, every startup should start with a very small market. Always err on the side of starting too small. The reason is simple: it’s easier to dominate a small market than a large one. If you think your initial market might be too big, it almost certainly is.

- Peter Thiel

We all prospect, and don’t even know we’re doing it. When you start the dating process, you are actually prospecting for the person you want to marry. When you’re interviewing employees, you are prospecting for someone who will best fit your needs.

- Zig Ziglar

One might think that the money value of an invention constitutes its reward to the man who loves his work. But… I continue to find my greatest pleasure, and so my reward, in the work that precedes what the world calls success.

- Thomas Edison

I usually describe myself as an engineer. That’s basically what I’ve been doing since I was a kid.

- Elon Musk

When you focus on being a blessing, God makes sure that you are always blessed in abundance.

- Joel Olsteen

The rumours of the demise of the U.S. manufacturing industry are greatly exaggerated.

- Elon Musk

The elevator to success is not running, you must climb the stairs.

- Zig Ziglar

Be careful with whom you associate, especially when you feel emotionally vulnerable, because negative people can steal the dream right out of your heart.

- Joel Olsteen

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

Law of Clarity – If you can’t explain what you sell to a ten-year old child then you don’t know what you sell.

- Jerry Vass

We occasionally stumble over the truth but most of us pick ourselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened.

- Winston Churchill

The truth is incontrovertible. Malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it, but in the end, there it is.

- Winston Churchill

Success-minded people have no trouble at all following proven instructions. We all would be happy to follow a map if the map came with a guarantee. There is no guarantee, though. There are no maps. They’ve all been taken, and their value is not what it used to be, because your competitors have maps, too. The opportunity lies in pursuing your curiosity instead. Curiosity is not allergic to failure. Curiosity drives us to the haunted house because the thrills lie in what we don’t expect, not in what’s safe. Curiosity can start us down the path to shipping, to bringing things to the world, to examining them, refining them, and repeating the process again (and again).

- Seth Godin

I think everything I have done in my life, my reasons at the time were right no matter how things worked out.

- Steve Wozniak

A motivated employee treats the customer well. The customer is happy, so (he keeps) coming back, which pleases the shareholder.

- Herb Kelleher

I think that’s the single best piece of advice: constantly think about how you could be doing things better and questioning yourself.

- Elon Musk

We have set the course for the future and are very happy about a successful generational change at the top of the company.

- Stefan Quandt

Money doesn’t change you, it reveals who you are when you no longer have to be nice.

- Timothy Ferriss

Don’t wait for the right answer and the golden path to present themselves.This is precisely why you’re stuck. Starting without seeing the end is difficult, so we often wait until we see the end, scanning relentlessly for the right way, the best way and the perfect way.The way to get unstuck is to start down the wrong path, right now.Step by step, page by page, interaction by interaction. As you start moving, you can’t help but improve, can’t help but incrementally find yourself getting back toward your north star.You might not end up with perfect, but it’s significantly more valuable than being stuck.Don’t just start. Continue. Ship. Repeat.

- Seth Godin

When you start a company, it’s a singular focus. You have the wind at your back.

- Howard Schultz

I produced Run DMC. I produced some early records, lots of records early on.

- Russell Simmons

Trump has been very influential in helping me expand by vision. Sometimes I talk to Donald two or three times a day, and he’s taught me many things. The best thing was a story he tells me about buying a building. When he built Trump Tower he also bought the rights to use the Tiffany name on the building. It was gonna be Tiffany Tower. He late father said, Yeah right. When you change your name to Tiffany, you call it Tiffany Tower. But for now, you call it Trump. Over a period of years whenever he was in trouble, his name and his promotion of himself as a brand are what saved him. I keep that lesson in mind. I remember how connecting Def Comedy Jam to Def Jam records helped both entities – associating HBO with an established hip-hop brand helped get the show on the air, while linking the label to a hot TV show helped the label survive a cold period.

- Russell Simmons

Surround yourself with people who want the best for you and the people you love!

- Zig Ziglar

The real story of Facebook is just that we’ve worked so hard for all this time. I mean, the real story is actually probably pretty boring, right? I mean, we just sat at our computers for six years and coded.

- Mark Zuckerberg

Socialism is the philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy.

- Winston Churchill

You may have heard of Black Friday and Cyber Monday. There’s another day you might want to know about: Giving Tuesday. The idea is pretty straightforward. On the Tuesday after Thanksgiving, shoppers take a break from their gift-buying and donate what they can to charity.

- Bill Gates

All achievements, all earned riches, have their beginning in an idea.

- Napoleon Hill

If you want to reach the top, don’t run over others. Likely, the only way you’ll reach the top is to be carried there by others.

- John C. Maxwell

Risk more than others think is safe. Dream more than others think is practical.

- Howard Schultz

We have two turbines in our company: One is engineering, and the other is operations. And so our business people are on equal footing with our engineering and technology culture. Cars are moving because of what we do, so there’s an imperative to go beyond just the technology.

- Travis Kalanick

I was taken by the power that savoring a simple cup of coffee can have to connect people and create community.

- Howard Schultz

[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

Given how few young people actually read the newspaper, it’s a good thing they’ll be reading a newspaper on a screen.

- Bill Gates

I do not like to repeat successes, I like to go on to other things.

- Walt Disney

First comes thought; then organization of that thought, into ideas and plans; then transformation of those plans into reality. The beginning, as you will observe, is in your imagination.

- Napoleon Hill

The kind of environment that we developed Google in, the reason that we were able to develop a search engine, is the web was so open. Once you get too many rules, that will stifle innovation.

- Sergey Brin

The most beautiful people I’ve known are those who have known trials, have known struggles, have known loss, and have found their way out of the depths.

- Elisabeth Kübler-Ross

If you want to increase your success rate, double your rate of failure.

- Thomas J Watson

There are a terrible lot of lies going around the world, and the worst of it is half of them are true.

- Winston Churchill

You’ve got to listen to what God’s telling you and not to what other people may tell you. People will try to talk you out of the dream in your heart.

- Joel Olsteen

I’ve always been very happy. I’ve always been easy going and I’ve always been very encouraging, it’s just my personality.

- Joel Olsteen

Well, sometimes you just don’t like somebody.

- Henry Ford

Too many people are living below their privileges. It’s because their vision has been clouded by past mistakes, disappointments, or how they were raised. They don’t feel like royalty. They don’t think they could be successful and really accomplish what God has put in their hearts. But I believe today, as I’m speaking faith into you, something is happening on the inside.

- Joel Olsteen

Les tengo buenas noticias: Usted no se tiene que mantener a la par de nadie. Usted puede correr su propia carrera y ser un individuo. Dios le ha dado la gracia para hacer lo que Él le ha llamado a hacer y no le ha dado la gracia para hacer lo que todos los demás están haciendo. Usted no tiene que ser la mejor mamá del mundo, sólo sea la mejor mamá que usted puede ser. Posiblemente, yo nunca seré el mejor pastor del mundo. Quizá no seré el mejor esposo ni el mejor padre, pero he decidido ser lo mejor que yo puedo ser y no me sentiré mal conmigo. Si otra persona puede hacer lo que hago mejor que yo, que bueno, yo no estoy en una competencia ni me estoy comparando con nadie. A mi manera de pensar, ¡yo soy el mejor! Y sé que estoy haciendo lo mejor que puedo. Eso es lo que nos enseña la Escritura. Dice: Así que, cada uno someta a prueba su propia obra…1.

- Joel Olsteen

Danger: if you meet it promptly and without flinching, you will reduce the danger by half. Never run away from anything. Never!

- Winston Churchill

We have secured the rigs necessary to complete our program, a program that focuses on more development activity and less risk. The current forecasted activity level calls for 391 wells, with increased activity in each region including expanded drilling on each of the acquisition plays purchased in 2005.

- Dan Dinges

I’ve worked very hard, but my life’s always been fun.

- Reed Hastings

Look yourself in the mirror and ask yourself, what do I want to do everyday for the rest of my life…do that.

- Gary Vaynerchuk

The executives who ignited the transformations from good to great did not first figure out where to drive the bus and then get people to take it there. No, they first got the right people on the bus (and the wrong people off the bus) and then figured out where to drive it.

- James C. Collins

I believe that when you think of the negative, and you get up discouraged – ‘There’s nothing good in my future’ – I really believe it almost ties the hands of God. God works where there’s an attitude of faith. I believe faith is all about hope.

- Joel Olsteen

The basis of our partnership strategy and our partnership approach: We build the social technology. They provide the music.

- Mark Zuckerberg

The book ‘Do You!’ is about your inner voice. And when you connect to that voice then you – then the freedom comes. And we’re only here to be happy. So happy makes money. Money doesn’t make happy.

- Russell Simmons

To build a successful business, you must start small and dream big.

- Aliko Dangote

In fact, when I look at it today, I realize that so much of what we did in the beginning was really poorly done. But we managed to sell our merchandise as low as we possibly could, and that kept us right-side-up for the first 10 years – that and consistently improving sales in these smaller markets by buildling up our relationship with the customers. The ideas was simple: when customers thought of Wal-Mart, they should think of low prices and satisfaction guaranteed.

- Sam Walton

Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it’s time to pause and reflect.

- Timothy Ferriss

Feedback

Let us know what's going on.

Get Started

Your first month is ONLY $1!

You will be redirected to your dashboard in a moment.

Fill out the information below to cancel your subscription