Notable Quotables

There is no right or wrong way of giving. People in Los Angeles have made major contributions in different ways to the city: Eli Broad to art. David Geffen to hospitals. I’m not judgmental.

- Patrick Soon-Shiong

The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. Intelligence plus character – that is the goal of true education.

- Martin Luther King Jr.

Occasionally he stumbled over the truth, but hastily picked himself up and hurried on as if nothing had happened.

- Winston Churchill

Man will occasionally stumble upon the truth but most times he will pick himself up and continue on.

- Winston Churchill

Look, I’m a passionate entrepreneur. I’m like fire and brimstone sometimes. And so there are times when I’ll go—I’ll get too into the weeds and too into the debate, because I’m so passionate about it.

- Travis Kalanick

Every adversity, every failure, every heartache carries with it the seed of an equal or greater benefit

- Napoleon Hill

Zero to One is about how to build companies that create new things. It draws on everything I’ve learned directly as a co-founder of PayPal and Palantir and then an investor in hundreds of startups, including Facebook and SpaceX.

- Peter Thiel

A decision without an alternative is a desperate gambler’s throw.

- Peter Drucker

I get energy from one-on-one conversations most often, and I lose energy from group conversations most often.

- Reid Hoffman

You can look at the situation and feel victimized. Or you can look at it and be excited about conquering the challenges and opportunities it presents.

- Jack Welch

The bigger your list, the greater your options. That doesn’t mean you contact everyone on your list each time you send out a press release. You pick and choose who gets what, and block out long-term strategy as you go.

- Michael Levine

I would rather have people think we’re confused than let our competitors know what we’re going to do.

- Larry Page

Breathe. Let go. And remind yourself that this very moment is the only one you know you have for sure.

- Oprah Winfrey

In almost every job now, people use software and work with information to enable their organisation to operate more effectively.

- Bill Gates

Celebrate your successes. Find some humor in your failures

- Sam Walton

Trying to predict the future is like trying to drive down a country road at night with no lights while looking out the back window.

- Peter Drucker

When I was in college I did a lot of stupid things and I don’t want to make an excuse for that. Some of the things that people accuse me of are true, some of them aren’t. There are pranks, IMs.

- Mark Zuckerberg

Most answers to the contrarian question are different ways of seeing the present, good answers are as close as we can come to looking into the future.

- Peter Thiel

There is joy in work. There is no happiness except in the realization that we have accomplished something.

- Henry Ford

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit together at the table of brotherhood.

- Martin Luther King Jr.

When the value of the company clearly has fallen below what its assets are worth, having a shareholder who says, ‘Let’s get a better board’ can be helpful.

- Ben Horowitz

The London property market has excellent investment opportunities.

- Wang Jianlin

Keep a good attitude and do the right thing even when it’s hard. When you do that you are passing the test. And God promises you your marked moments are on their way.

- Joel Olsteen

I like going to Burning Man, for example. An environment where people can try new things. I think as technologists we should have some safe places where we can try out new things and figure out the effect on society. What’s the effect on people, without having to deploy it to the whole world.

- Larry Page

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

Hitler is a monster of wickedness, insatiable in his lust for blood and plunder. Not content with having all Europe under his heel, or else terrorized into various forms of abject submission, he must now carry his work of butchery and desolation among the vast multitudes of Russia and of Asia. The terrible military machine, which we and the rest of the civilized world so foolishly, so supinely, so insensately allowed the Nazi gangsters to build up year by year from almost nothing, cannot stand idle lest it rust or fall to pieces. It must be in continual motion, grinding up human lives and trampling down the homes and the rights of hundreds of millions of men. Moreover it must be fed, not only with flesh but with oil.

- Winston Churchill

Thus the sovereign voluntary path to cheerfulness, if our cheerfulness be lost, is to sit up cheerfully and to act and speak as if cheerfulness were already there. …

- Dale Carnegie

The biggest part of my job now is to quickly develop successors, and around the world I am working to develop new business leaders in the company.

- Tadashi Yanai

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 too 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 too 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

The big secret in life is that there is no big secret. Whatever your goal, you can get there if you’re willing to work.

- Oprah Winfrey

I have an excellent memory, a most excellent memory.

- Bill Gates

My mission is not to forbid French art. If the quality is there, I buy; if the quality isn’t there, I don’t.

- Francois Pinault

Leaders lead when they take positions, when they connect with their tribes, and when they help the tribe connect to itself.

- Seth Godin

I think it makes sense to believe in God, but exactly what decision in your life you make differently because of it, I don’t know.

- Bill Gates

So we really need jobs now. We have to take jobs away from other countries because other countries are taking our jobs. There is practically not a country that does business with the United States that isn’t making – let’s call it a very big profit. I mean China is going to make $300 billion on us at least this year.

- Donald Trump

Realize that true happiness lies within you. Waste no time and effort searching for peace and contentment and joy in the world outside. Remember that there is no happiness in having or in getting, but only in giving. Reach out. Share. Smile. Hug. Happiness is a perfume you cannot pour on others without getting a few drops on yourself.

- Og Mandino

Excellence isn’t achieved without inspiration and perspiration. You’ve got to have both.

- George Foreman

I’ve found that many of the greatest ideas surface in bars because that’s where many people cultivate inspiration.

- Herb Kelleher

Our investment in more than 100 projects in China’s property, infrastructure and other sectors makes us one of the country’s largest investors.

- Cheng Yu-tung

I do a little thing about the way people shake the sweetener packet. You know, like they’re all excited. I want to get all the granules down to one end. I love all these rituals.

- Jerry Seinfeld

Hatred is never ended by hatred but by love.

- Buddha

My saddlebags are why Spanx exist! Now that I have a baby I also have a muffin top.

- Sara Blakely

I’m on the Facebook board now. Little did they know that I thought Facebook was really stupid when I first heard about it back in 2005.

- Reed Hastings

all information and interruptions that are irrelevant, unimportant, or unactionable.

- Timothy Ferriss

Once we finished Christmas Rappin’ we began shopping it around town. There was interest, but no one was biting. The industry’s attitude was that Rapper’s Delight despite its U.S. sales and international appeal was an unrepeatable fluke. We identified Polygram which had a great roster of funk and R&B acts (Kool and the Gang, the Gap Band, Parliament) as the best place for Kurtis, so we made up a gang of test pressings and took them to clubs all over the city. Response in the street from DJs and club goers was great. So to hype up PolyGram we placed fake orders for the record into their system by telling retailers and wholesalers to order the 12 inch through PolyGram. PolyGram didn’t own it yet, but we created an appetite for Christmas Rappin that led them to buy it…So in the fall of 1979 Kurtis Blow signed with Mercury Records a division of Polygram Records, making him the first rapper on a major label…Christmas eve 1979 was the first time that I heard Christmas Rappin’ on the radio; I was upstairs at my family’s house. Frankie Crocker the biggest radio DJ in New York played it on WBLS.

- Russell Simmons

Control your own destiny or someone else will.

- Jack Welch

Every day were saying, ‘How can we keep this customer happy?’ How can we get ahead in innovation by doing this, because if we don’t, somebody else will.

- Bill Gates

Service for the Right Reasons: To Save the Whales, or Kill Them and Feed the Children? Morality is simply the attitude we adopt toward people we personally dislike.

- Oscar Wilde

Most of us have never felt at a disadvantage because we did not receive any inheritance. About 80 percent of us are first-generation affluent.

- Thomas J Stanley

A Good Mentor… Is Direct Yet Supportive. It’s no use if a mentor softens his language to make you feel good aboutyourself. A good mentor is direct yet supportive. Even difficult messages can be delivered in a supportive way. The best mentors offer practical, timely advice and encourage you to take action.

- Rod Ebrahimi

I have an obligation to use what I know to try to bring real, usable medical science to every doctor and bedside and patient.

- Patrick Soon-Shiong

A company is stronger if it is bound by love rather than by fear.

- Herb Kelleher

The U.S. has done a great job improving productivity. We’re making a lot more steel in Dearborn with fewer people. The unions have accepted much better work rules.

- Alexei Mordashov

The dangers of unchecked bureauracy are a constant thorn in the CEO’s side.

- Jack Welch

Learn from the past, but don’t live there. Build on what you know so that you don’t repeat mistakes. Resolve to learn something new every day. Because every 24 hours, you have the opportunity to have the best day of your company’s life.

- Harvey Mackay

We are very happy to be reporting that our pro-forma earnings passed the $1 billion mark for the first time.

- John Chambers

Your first projects aren’t the greatest things in the world, and they may have no money value, they may go nowhere, but that is how you learn – you put so much effort into making something right if it is for yourself.

- Steve Wozniak

Success is not measured by what you do compared to what others do, it is measured by what you do with the ability God gave you.

- Zig Ziglar

The human brain is an incredible pattern-matching machine.

- Jeff Bezos

I think George Will is somebody that said recently that the Republicans will not lose, as a Republican, that the Republicans will not win the election. I think it was a terrible statement.

- Donald Trump

Only the Dark Lord of the Sith knows of our weakness. If informed the senate is, multiply our adversaries will.

- Yoda

Positional leaders ignore the fact that every person has hopes, dreams, desires, and goals of his own. And leaders must bring their vision and the aspirations of the people they lead together in a way that benefits everyone.”

- John C. Maxwell

The general upward trend in residential property prices seems to be continuing, with the luxury end of the residential market poised to show better performance in particular.

- Lee Shau Kee

If you ask me whether the future is better than today, I would say yes; but the people must be ready to pay for services and pay their taxes.

- Aliko Dangote

It’s my view that solar energy may be the ultimate solution for energy for most of the world. I believe, based on what little I know about it, that there is a possibility of a breakthrough.

- Donald Bren

When I was in college, I wanted to be involved in things that would change the world. Now I am.

- Elon Musk

Start believing today that things are going to change for the better. Your best days are still out in front of you.

- Joel Olsteen

I hate writing about personal stuff. I don’t have a Facebook page. I don’t use my Twitter account. I am familiar with both, but I don’t use them.

- Elon Musk

…[if you] use discrimination in the selection of your Master Mind group, your objective will have been half-way reached, even before you begin to recognize it.

- Napoleon Hill

It’s not what you’ve got. It’s what you use that makes a difference.

- Zig Ziglar

I aim to be pretty – I gave up dressing to be sexy in the eighties.

- Sara Blakely

Every pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity, but every optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.

- Winston Churchill

However, for equity to create commitment rather than conflict, you must allocate it very carefully. Giving everyone equal shares is usually a mistake: every individual has different talents and responsibilities as well as different opportunity costs, so equal amounts will seem arbitrary and unfair from the start. On the other hand, granting different amounts up front is just as sure to seem unfair. Resentment at this stage can kill a company, but there’s no ownership formula to perfectly avoid it.

- Peter Thiel

An individual artist needs only a thousand true fans in her tribe. It’s enough.

- Seth Godin

I’m so optimistic, I’d go after Moby Dick in a rowboat and take the tartar sauce with me.

- Zig Ziglar

The smartest business decision you can make is to hire qualified people. Bringing the right people on board saves you thousands, and your business will run smoothly and efficiently.

- Brian Tracy

After Scour, I started a company called Red Swoosh. The idea was to take those litigants who sued us for a huge amount of money and turn them into customers with the same technology. I wanted to get them to pay me. It was a revenge business.

- Travis Kalanick

A product needs to be sufficiently innovative to distinguish itself from the pack, but not so forward thinking as to alienate the user.

- Reid Hoffman

Cisco’s collaboration with AT&T and GI will result in a New World network that will fundamentally change the way communications services are delivered to the consumer market.

- John Chambers

Ironically, the biggest obstacle to putting a training program in place is the perception that it will take too much time. Keep in mind that there is no investment that you can make that will do more to improve productivity in your company. Therefore, being too busy to train is the moral equivalent of being too hungry to eat. Furthermore, it’s not that hard to create basic training courses.

- Ben Horowitz

When you expect your employees to act like adults, they generally do. If you treat them like children, then get ready for your company to turn into one big Barney episode.

- Ben Horowitz

There are few words which are used more loosely than the word “Civilization.” What does it mean? It means a society based upon the opinion of civilians. It means that violence, the rule of warriors and despotic chiefs, the conditions of camps and warfare, of riot and tyranny, give place to parliaments where laws are made, and independent courts of justice in which over long periods those laws are maintained. That is Civilization—and in its soil grow continually freedom, comfort, and culture. When Civilization reigns, in any country, a wider and less harassed life is afforded to the masses of the people. The traditions of the past are cherished, and the inheritance bequeathed to us by former wise or valiant men becomes a rich estate to be enjoyed and used by all.

- Winston Churchill

The culture was strong enough to transcend the original company.

- Peter Thiel

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