The challenge is to focus on the work, not on the fear that comes from doing the work.
- Seth Godin
Notable Quotables
As we said, even the best venture investors have a portfolio, but investors who understand the power law make as few investments as possible.
- Peter Thiel
Most people believe that results matter. The idea that results matter is one that you have to keep letting go of. And most of the time, I believe it.
- Russell Simmons
His genius he was quite content in one brief sentence to define; Of inspiration one percent, of perspiration, ninety nine.
- Thomas Edison
Don’t go in and tell somebody else how to run their business.
- Carl Icahn
Success comes from doing the hard part. When the hard part is all you’ve got, you’re more likely to do it.And this is precisely why it’s difficult to focus. Because focusing means acknowledging that you just signed up for the hard part.
- Seth Godin
All labor that uplifts humanity has dignity and importance and should be undertaken with painstaking excellence.
- Martin Luther King Jr.
Blackjack is very scientific. There’s always a right answer and a wrong answer. Do you take a card, increase your bet, bet big or bet small. There’s absolutely a right and wrong answer.
- Charles Ergen
You know, people talk about this being an uncertain time. You know, all time is uncertain. I mean, it was uncertain back in – in 2007, we just didn’t know it was uncertain. It was – uncertain on September 10th, 2001. It was uncertain on October 18th, 1987, you just didn’t know it.
- Warren Buffett
The Chinese government still would like to see U.S. Internet companies explore the Chinese market, providing they are willing to abide by Chinese law. I think companies like Facebook should think about the Chinese market.
- Robin Li
If you want to increase your success rate, double your rate of failure.
- Thomas J Watson
The U.S., especially Hollywood, is so strong for film production.
- Wang Jianlin
Do it, and then you will feel motivated to do it.
- Zig Ziglar
Contrary to popular belief, the price of real estate does go down on occasion.
- Robert Kiyosaki
The future is here. It’s just not widely distributed yet.
- William Gibson
The entrepreneur builds an enterprise, the technician builds a job.
- Michael Gerber
Some people don’t like change, but you need to embrace change if the alternative is disaster.
- Elon Musk
Have you ever heard of Gmail? Ever used it? If so, it’s not because Gmail ran a lot of TV ads (they didn’t). It’s because the manifesto of free email got to you.
- Seth Godin
You don’t overcome challenges by making them smaller but by making yourself bigger.
- John C. Maxwell
Jim Collins, in his bestselling book Good to Great, demonstrates through massive research and comprehensive analysis that when it comes to CEO succession, internal candidates dramatically outperform external candidates. The core reason is knowledge. Knowledge of technology, prior decisions, culture, personnel, and more tends to be far more difficult to acquire than the skills required to manage a larger organization.
- Ben Horowitz
If my life has had a theme, I suppose it has been a typical American theme in that, for most of it, I have been looking for happiness and success.
- Zig Ziglar
I remember thinking quite logically that I didn’t want to spoil my children with wealth and so that I would create a foundation, but not knowing exactly what it would focus on.
- Bill Gates
In life and in business, you need to be good-hearted and trustworthy, and to have integrity. This is the way to build long-term relationships. It is also important to be optimistic and to look at challenges as opportunities.
- Henry Sy
When you’re in comedy, people always come up and say, ‘Oh, it must be so hard.’ It really isn’t hard unless you’re not good at it. If you can do it, its really kind of fun and easy.
- Jerry Seinfeld
I didn’t follow up on the exchanges we had on Time Warner Cable (TWC) that were mentioned in the media because we were not ready.
- Patrick Drahi
What’s dangerous is not to evolve.
- Jeff Bezos
The opportunity of a lifetime is to pick yourself. Quit waiting to get picked; quit waiting for someone to give you permission; quit waiting for someone to say you are officially qualified and pick yourself. It doesn’t mean you have to be an entrepreneur or a freelancer, but it does mean you stand up and say, ‘I have something to say. I know how to do something. I’m doing it. If you want me to do it with you, raise your hand.
- Seth Godin
Your workforce is your most valuable asset. The knowledge and skills they have represent the fuel that drives the engine of business – and you can leverage that knowledge.
- Harvey Mackay
The best way a mentor can prepare another leader is to expose him or her to other great people.
- John C. Maxwell
the more ‘Yeses’ we can, at the very outset, induce, the more likely we are to succeed in capturing the attention for our ultimate proposal.
- Dale Carnegie
You’ve been destined to live in victory, destined to overcome, destined to leave your mark on this generation.
- Joel Olsteen
It’s important that the company be a family, that people feel that they’re part of the company, and that the company is like a family to them. When you treat people that way, you get better productivity.
- Larry Page
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
Look we gave this thing a good run. We both know it’s not working out. Let’s wrap this thing up.
- Jack Welch
The success we are now taking in is the natural outcome of our adhesion to our principles to start with: an enterprise shall take care of the people’s livelihood, through thick and thin; an enterprise shall help the people overcome all difficulties to savor the fruit to be borne on the motherland, come rain or shine.
- Cheng Yu-tung
I’m a catalyst for change. You can’t be an outsider and be successful over 30 years without leaving a certain amount of scar tissue around the place.
- Rupert Murdoch
Growth demands a temporary surrender of security. It may mean giving up familiar but limiting patterns, safe but unrewarding work, values no longer believed in, and relationships that have lost their meaning.
- John C. Maxwell
In America, when you bring an idea to market, you usually have several months before competition pops up, allowing you to capture significant market share. In China, you can have hundreds of competitors within the first hours of going live. Ideas are not important in China – execution is.
- Ma Huateng
We, too, need to be patient, especially when it comes to reaching new goals.
- George Foreman
It takes up enough of my time and interest just working on comedy. I just enjoy it and love doing it.
- Jerry Seinfeld
I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.
- Thomas Edison
You guarantee a good meal by picking the recipes well, not by following recipes well.
- Timothy Ferriss
Ability may get you to the top, but it takes character to keep you there.
- John Wooden
If you believe in quality, you can’t just tell everybody We believe in quality! You’ve got to pay bonuses based on quality. You’ve got to let everyone in the organization know that they are being judged on quality.
- Jack Welch
I was leading a lot of idea and the vision for where the product was going. Ev [Evan Williams] was funding and supporting what we were doing. He put the shelter over our heads. And Biz [Stone] was just an amazingly creative guy.
- Jack Dorsey
For myself I am an optimist – it does not seem to be much use to be anything else.
- Winston Churchill
Nothing good ever happens after 9:00 PM.
- Andy Pearson
Though the external environment is still fraught with uncertainties, mainland China, which has been less affected by the global financial tsunami, is expected to keep growing from strength to strength despite fine tuning of its moderately loose monetary policy on concerns of overheating in the property sector and inflation risk.
- Lee Shau Kee
“High expectations are the key to everything.”
- Sam Walton
You’d believe that a patient with hypertension, if you know you have hypertension or diabetes, you would take your drug every day. The compliance rate is more like 30% or 40%. Which means that 60% of patients don’t take their drugs, and they actually go into these crises, end up in the hospital.
- Patrick Soon-Shiong
Men must be taught as if you taught them not And things unknown proposed as things forgot.
- Dale Carnegie
Be reactionary. React to what the market wants. And the market wants one-on-one real time engagement. Now that we have the tools to engage, I’m going to continue fighting for the end user.
- Gary Vaynerchuk
Life is actually far better than it is in the movies. And it takes longer.
- Seth Godin
King Alfred’s Book of Laws, or Dooms, as set out in the existing laws of Kent, Wessex, and Mercia, attempted to blend the Mosaic code with Christian principles and old Germanic customs. He inverted the Golden Rule. Instead of “Do unto others as you would that they should do unto you”, he adopted the less ambitious principle, “What ye will that other men should not do to you, that do ye not to other men”, with the comment, “By bearing this precept in mind a judge can do justice to all men; he needs no other law-books. Let him think of himself as the plaintiff, and consider what judgment would satisfy him.” The King, in his preamble, explained modestly that “I have not dared to presume to set down in writing many laws of my own, for I cannot tell what will meet with the approval of our successors.
- Winston Churchill
Experience is something you don’t get until just after you need it.
- Steven Wright
The doctors actually told my family there was a five percent chance of me living.
- Ed Clark
I try to use my voice. I know that celebrity is valuable, and people do listen.
- Russell Simmons
You can’t just let nature run wild.
- Walt Disney
Be willing to make the mistakes and realizing that something can happen later – the patience are some of the things I would advise.
- Jack Dorsey
Why is this mediocre? We love to point out how broken our systems are. We enjoy getting angry at hotels or government agencies or airlines that are so obviously doing a poor job. Idiots! But we almost never look at merely mediocre products and wonder why they aren’t great. Mediocre services or products do what they’re supposed to, but have set the bar so low that it’s hardly worth the energy to cross the street to buy them. A resolute generic sameness pervades this mediocrity. Why isn’t every restaurant meal a fabulous buy for the money? Why isn’t every tax dollar spent with the intensity and focus it could be spent with? It seems as though we are willing to accept mediocre as long as the product, the service, or the organization isn’t totally broken.
- Seth Godin
Allow endings.
- Jack Dorsey
I don’t know of any Internet service that opens on a regional basis.
- Reed Hastings
I didn’t try to copy my dad or fit into the pressure or the mold that everybody tried to make me fit into.
- Joel Olsteen
People who smile tend to manage, teach and sell more effectively, and to raise happier children.
- Dale Carnegie
Great design = getting people to do what you want.
- Seth Godin
Creating a sense of urgency around change initiatives is especially hard to do. Human nature seems to be hardwired to adhor change, and people will do everything in their power to resist it. I once heard this explained to another Pepsi consultant. His philosophy was that in order to drive change, you need to create what he called, the burning platform. This burning-platform image was an oil rig in the North Sea that has caught fire and the only way to save yourself is to jump into the frigid water and swim to the lifeboat. You know the jump might kill you, but you jump anyway, not because you think it might be a good idea, but because you had no choice. That’s creating a sense of urgency.
- David Novak
God can do what humanoids cannot.
- Clay Clark
The ultimate search engine would basically understand everything in the world, and it would always give you the right thing. And we’re a long, long ways from that.
- Larry Page
The secret of leadership is simple: Do what you believe in. Paint a picture of the future. Go there.People will follow.
- Seth Godin
I told [John Kruesi] I was going to record talking, and then have the machine talk back. He thought it absurd. However, it was finished, the foil was put on; I then shouted ‘Mary had a little lamb’, etc. I adjusted the reproducer, and the machine reproduced it perfectly.
- Thomas Edison
Always render more and better service than is expected of you, no matter what your task may be.
- Og Mandino
For all their bitching about what’s holding them back, most people have a lot of trouble coming up with the defined dreams they’re being held from.
- Timothy Ferriss
We were always trying to look for people who could help us beyond what we were doing.
- Phil Knight
The engineer’s grail is a product great enough that “it sells itself.
- Peter Thiel
There are several styles of pitching, but all have two principles in common: they appeal personally to the individual being contacted, even if he or she is a stranger and they rely on logic to make a case.
- Michael Levine
Optimism is the most important human trait, because it allows us to evolve our ideas, to improve our situation, and to hope for a better tomorrow.
- Seth Godin
Customers won’t care about any particular technology unless it solves a particular problem in a superior way. And if you can’t monopolize a unique solution for a small market, you’ll be stuck with vicious competition.
- Peter Thiel
It’s God’s will for you to live in prosperity instead of poverty. It’s God’s will for you to pay your bills and not be in debt.
- Joel Olsteen
And people who take risk intelligently can usually actually make a lot more progress than people who don’t.
- Reid Hoffman
I think if you’re an entrepreneur, you’ve got to dream big and then dream bigger.
- Howard Schultz
A magnificent blueprint, a loyal team and a well-coordinated organization… the same applies from ruling a country to maintaining a family.
- Cheng Yu-tung
If you look at coffee, tea, food and juice, we think there are inherent opportunities. If you look at health bars or grab-and-go products that are in our stores, we think we can significantly enhance them and make them more widely available.
- Howard Schultz
Bordeaux would be naive not to recognize that Robert Parker was driving the brand equity. If the next generation doesn’t care about Chateau Pichon-Lalande, then you have a problem.
- Gary Vaynerchuk
I believe that God has put gifts and talents and ability on the inside of every one of us. When you develop that and you believe in yourself and you believe that you’re a person of influence and a person of purpose, I believe you can rise up out of any situation.
- Joel Osteen
Throughout this quarter of a century, the entrepreneurial outlook, versatility and vision of our employees have remained the crucial elements of our success…
- Cheng Yu-tung
I readily absorb ideas from every source, frequently starting where the last person left off.
- Thomas Edison
A man should never neglect his family business.
- Walt Disney
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
When you do the common things in life in an uncommon way, you will command the attention of the world
- George Washington Carver
It’s surreal to think that I own this beautiful island. It doesn’t feel like anyone can own Lanai. What it feels like to me is this really cool 21st-century engineering project, where I get to work with the people of Lanai to create a prosperous and sustainable Eden in the Pacific.
- Larry Ellison
Patience is a key element of success.
- 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
I’ve always been fascinated by cities and how they work.
- Jack Dorsey
The lower and individual’s ability to lead, the lower the lid on his potential.
- John Maxwell
Beginning today, treat everyone you meet as if they were going to be dead by midnight. Extend to them all the care, kindness and understanding you can muster, and do it with no thought of any reward. Your life will never be the same again.
- Og Mandino
For the year ended 31 December 2011, the Group sold 325 residential units in Hong Kong, generating attributable sales revenue of HK$8,308 million, a marked increase when compared with HK$4,842 million for the previous financial year.
- Lee Shau Kee
To improve is to change, to be perfect is to change often.
- Winston Churchill
Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.
- Winston Churchill
Be factual. Lying is really, really a bad idea, mostly because they’ll find you out. And then you’ll never get another item in that outlet for as long as they remember you, which will be forever.
- Michael Levine
It is no achievement to walk a tightrope laid flat on the floor.
- Ray Kroc
