Notable Quotables

I think we are living in a time where the consumer has lots of choices, whether it’s coffee, newspapers or whatever it is. And there is parity in the market place, and as a result of that, the consumer is beginning to make decisions, not just on what things cost and the convenience of it.

- Howard Schultz

I thought of a remark . . . that the United States is like a ‘gigantic boiler. Once the fire is lighted under it there is no limit to the power it can generate.’ Being saturated and satiated with emotion and sensation, I went to bed and slept the sleep of the saved and thankful.

- Winston Churchill

Visibility remains limited, and this should come as no surprise, given that our customers’ visibility is limited.

- John Chambers

Social entrepreneurs aim to combine the best of both worlds and “do well by doing good.” Usually they end up doing neither.

- Peter Thiel

Too often the strong, silent man is silent only because he does not know what to say, and is reputed strong only because he has remained silent.

- Winston Churchill

Antitrust is the way that the government promotes markets when there are market failures. It has nothing to do with the idea of free information.

- Bill Gates

So if you aspire to be a good conversationalist, be an attentive listener. To be interesting, be interested.

- Dale Carnegie

I’ve always taught that a poor economy is the best opportunity for salespeople because the naysayers and grumblers have already given up, leaving more territory, more opportunities to be successful than in a good economy when virtually all salespeople are out there, giving it their best.

- Zig Ziglar

…The greatest shortage in our society is an instinct to produce. To create solutions and hustle them out the door. To touch the humanity inside and connect to the humans in the marketplace.

- Seth Godin

My favorite things in life don’t cost any money. It’s really clear that the most precious resource we all have is time.

- Steve Jobs

Permission marketing turns strangers into friends and friends into loyal customers. It’s not just about entertainment – it’s about education. Permission marketing is curriculum marketing.

- Seth Godin

I know of nothing more despicable and pathetic than a man who devotes all the hours of the waking day to the making of money for money’s sake.

- John D. Rockefeller

[On his son Matt dying in 2004 in a scuba diving accident] It aged me much faster than anything you can imagine…

- Phil Knight

Best wine if you’re stranded on a deserted island? 1982 Salon Champagne.

- Gary Vaynerchuk

Work is a process, and any process needs to be controlled. To make work productive, therefore, requires building the appropriate controls into the process of work.

- Peter Drucker

Change isn’t made by asking permission. Change is made by asking forgiveness, later.

- Seth Godin

Gold is a kind of mortar and offers a form of capital preservation. We’re still bullish about gold.

- Lee Shau Kee

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

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

Unfortunately, the highly curious student is a small percentage of the kids.

- Bill Gates

In some ways, running a successful business is a bit like coaching a football team. The fundamentals of football are blocking and tackling. The fundamentals of a business are it’s governing policies andprocesses. To carry out the metaphor, touchdowns are profits. The best business idea in the world cannot survive bad execution. So when you sit down to develop your workflow, internal policies, and business structure, be merciless, probe for weaknesses and assume that the worst will happen. – Jack Nadel (Author&Entrepreneur)

- Jack Nadel

And so I believe that God plays this enormous role in my life. And I believe that it’s my obligation to give back and to follow the rules that were set. And it also gives me an enormous sense of my own place and an enormous sense of stability.

- Ronald Perelman

What a computer is to me is the most remarkable tool that we have ever come up with. It’s the equivalent of a bicycle for our minds.

- Steve Jobs

Obstacles can’t stop you. Problems can’t stop you. Most of all, other people can’t stop you. Only you can stop you.

- J. Gitomer

If you cannot persuade people to do things, you simply will not be a success because you are not an island unto yourself. Everything in life is about persuading people to do what you want them to do.

- David Robinson

Control, control, you must learn control!

- Yoda

A squirrel dying in your front yard may be more relevant to your interests right now than people dying in Africa.

- Mark Zuckerberg

Someday, man will harness the rise and fall of the tides, imprison the power of the sun, and release atomic power.

- Thomas Edison

To invent, you need a good imagination and a pile of junk.

- Thomas Edison

But the vast majority of books ever written are not accessible to anyone except the most tenacious researchers at premier academic libraries. Books written after 1923 quickly disappear into a literary black hole.

- Sergey Brin

We are set in our ways, bound by our perspectives and stuck in our thinking.

- Joel Olsteen

Decisiveness is a characteristic of high performing men and women. Almost any decision is better than no decision at all.

- Brian Tracy

True happiness… is not attained through self-gratification, but through fidelity to a worthy purpose.

- Helen Keller

What’s important at the grocery store is just as important in engines or medical systems. If the customer isn’t satisfied, if the stuff is getting stale, if the shelf isn’t right, or if the offerings aren’t right, it’s the same thing. You manage it like a small organization. You don’t get hung up on zeros.

- Jack Welch

Encouragement to others is something everyone can give. Somebody needs what you have to give. It may not be your money, it may be your time. It may be your listening ear. It may be your arms to encourage. It may be your smile to uplift. Who knows?

- Joel Olsteen

If you want success, if you want wisdom, if you want to be prosperous and healthy, you’re going to have to do more than meditate and believe; you must boldly declare words of faith and victory over yourself and your family.

- Joel Olsteen

I’m an entrepreneur. I’m not a politician.

- Robin Li

If we could do high-speed rail in California just half a notch above what they’ve done on the Shanghai line in China, and if we had a straight path from L.A. to San Francisco, as well as the milk run, at least that would be progress.

- Elon Musk

Nine times out of ten, an argument ends with each of the contestants more firmly convinced than ever that he is absolutely right.

- Dale Carnegie

Desire is the starting point of all achievement, not a hope, not a wish, but a keen pulsating desire which transcends everything.

- Napoleon Hill

If you love your work, you’ll be out there every day trying to do it the best you possibly can, and pretty soon everybody around will catch the passion from you—like a fever.

- Sam Walton

The tool that’s most associated with the recent progress against malaria is the long-lasting bed net. Bed nets are a fantastic innovation. But we can do even better. We can invent new ways to control the mosquitoes that carry the malaria parasite.

- Bill Gates

“Appreciate everything your associates do for the business. 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

People have no confidence that Washington, both sides of aisle, are coming together to try and do what’s right for the economy.

- Michael Bloomberg

Surround yourself with only people who are going to lift you higher.

- Oprah Winfrey

We’ve had three big ideas at Amazon that we’ve stuck with for 18 years, and they’re the reason we’re successful: Put the customer first. Invent. And be patient.

- Jeff Bezos

Levi Strauss headed for the gold fields of California to strike it rich in mining. However, he was not a good miner, so he instead began sewing pants out of canvas for the miners who were successful. Today I think most of the world has heard of Levi’s pants.

- Robert Kiyosaki

The greatest thing about being a comedian is knowing other comedians. And you get to talk to them. Its the most fun.

- Jerry Seinfeld

People really criticize professional athletes going into the Olympics. People don’t like change. A bunch of people don’t like the Olympics now because we’ve added skateboarding… We’re modernizing the sport.

- Larry Ellison

Even working remotely should be avoided, because misalignment can creep in whenever colleagues aren’t together full-time, in the same place, every day.

- Peter Thiel

While the uncertainties that the economic climate holds are a challenge for all companies, we are confident that by drawing from the strengths of our people, as well as on our core values of quality, initiative, trust and creativity, we will maintain our focus and strategic direction.

- Cheng Yu-tung

I wish I could do a lot of things different. I’m not going to tell you what they are, but if I had a list of all my films right now, I’d go, ‘Okay, I’ll cross that one out and cross that one out and cross that one out and cross that one out.’ Really. But I’ve made over 40 films. How can I not have some losers in there?

- Steve Martin

When my sister and I came along, my father’s political life was completely over. He ran for president the year I was born. So that was the end of it. He had been congressman first, then governor, before all that. So when we came along, he was running the Dayton newspaper.

- Anne Cox Chambers

When enough people care about autism or diabetes or global warming, it helps everyone, even if only a tiny fraction actively participate.

- Seth Godin

Berkshire’s record would have been terrible if Warren didn’t keep learning.

- Charlie Munger

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

As much as I love crisp, clean whites, there’s always a time for rich but balanced Chardonnays with oak, especially at Thanksgiving.

- Gary Vaynerchuk

This office is smaller than the last one I had. I’m not trying to impress people. I want to be close to them.

- Stephen Wynn

God wants us to live consistently, He wants us to enjoy every single day of our lives.

- Joel Olsteen

The patterns of success and failure we see among firms faced with sustaining and disruptive technology change are a natural or systematic result of good managerial decisions. That is, in fact, why disruptive technologies confront innovators with such a dilemma. Working harder, being smarter, investing more aggressively, and listening more astutely to customers are all solutions to the problems posed by new sustaining technologies. But these paradigms of sound management are useless—even counterproductive, in many instances—when dealing with disruptive technology.

- Clayton M. Christensen

Humor is the great thing, the saving thing. The minute it crops up, all our irritations and resentments slip away, and a sunny spirit takes their place.

- Mark Twain

Steve really took over the project when I had a plane crash and wasn’t there. He took over the project, and it was really my own opinion — only my opinion — that he wanted to compete with the Lisa group that had kicked him out.

- Steve Wozniak

‘You have to come to your closed doors before you get to your open doors… What if you knew you had to go through 32 closed doors before you got to your open door? Well, then you’d come to closed door number eight and you’d think, ‘Great, I got another one out of the way’… Keep moving forward.’

- Joel Olsteen

Globally, business and government leaders are beginning to dramatically transform their traditional business models into Internet economy business models, … Customers are increasingly seeking Cisco’s expertise to help them through this transformation.

- John Chambers

The librarian isn’t a clerk who happens to work in a library. A librarian is a data hound, a guide, a sherpa and a teacher. The librarian is the interface between reams of data and the untrained but motivated user.

- Seth Godin

What I love about New York is just the electricity I feel right away.

- Jack Dorsey

Think like a queen. A queen is not afraid to fail. Failure is another steppingstone to greatness.

- Oprah Winfrey

In the 1960s, if you introduced a new product to America, 90% of the people who viewed it for the first time believed in the corporate promise. Then 40 years later if you performed the same exercise, less than 10% of the public believed it was true. The fracturing of trust is based on the fact that the consumer has been let down.

- Howard Schultz

I think it’s quite great to set yourself a big challenge, and then you’ve got another reason for keeping fit.

- Richard Branson

The first ten minutes of sorting through clothing was like choosing which child of mine should live or die.

- Timothy Ferriss

I notice a difference from the moment I meditate.

- Ray Dalio

If all we do with these tools is teach compliance and consumption, that’s all we’re going to get. School can and must do more than train the factory workers of tomorrow.

- Seth Godin

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

- Walt Disney

When I feel particularly tired at the end of the day, or when irritability proves that my nerves are tired, I know beyond question that it has been an inefficient day both as to quantity and quality.

- Dale Carnegie

No matter who you are, you need two kinds of friends in your life. The first kind is one you can call when something good happens, and you need someone who will be excited for you. Not a fake excitement veiling envy, but a real excitement. You need someone who will actually be more excited for you than he would be if it had happened to him. The second kind of friend is somebody you can call when things go horribly wrong—when your life is on the line and you only have one phone call. Who is it going to be? Bill Campbell is both of those friends.

- Ben Horowitz

There is no man living that can not do more than he thinks he can.

- Henry Ford

Be thankful for what you have; you’ll end up having more. If you concentrate on what you don’t have, you will never, ever have enough.

- Oprah Winfrey

You do things when the opportunities come along. I’ve had periods in my life when I’ve had a bundle of ideas come along, and I’ve had long dry spells. If I get an idea next week, I’ll do something. If not, I won’t do a damn thing.

- Warren Buffett

For me, my father was, and still is, a symbol of qualified persons in the Ministry of Foreign Trade under Soviet conditions.

- Vladimir Potanin

I am someone who tweets about what I have for breakfast, what I have for lunch, what I have for dinner, and for 99.99999 percent of the world, it’s useless. It’s meaningless. But for my mother, she loves it.

- Jack Dorsey

Innovation is a good thing. The human condition – put aside bioterrorism and a few footnotes – is improving because of innovation.

- Bill Gates

The Effective Executive itself is not a book on what people at the top do or should do. It is addressed to everyone who, as a knowledge worker, is responsible for actions and decisions which are meant to contribute to the performance capacity of his organization

- Peter Drucker

College students can become extremely skilled at a few specialties, but many never learn what to do with those skills in the wider world.

- 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

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