Notable Quotables

He declared he never stepped in front of the footlights without first saying to himself over and over: I love my audience. I love my audience.

- Dale Carnegie

The more you are grateful for what you have the more you will have to be grateful for.

- Zig Ziglar

When you are committed to doing what’s right, you are sowing seeds for God’s blessings. You will never go wrong by taking the high road and doing more that is required.

- Joel Olsteen

Successful storytelling builds brand equity, and businesses with high brand equity don’t need to draw as much attention to themselves and their achievements as those that are still establishing their value to the customer.

- Gary Vaynerchuk

Success seems to be largely a matter of hanging on after others have let go.

- William Feather

To remain a credible leader, I must always work first, hardest, and longest on changing myself. This is neither easy nor natural, but it is essential.

- John C. Maxwell

Sometimes God gives instructions that go against conventional wisdom, such as treating people kindly when they’re hateful. Who really wants to do that? Instructions like that my not always make sense, so that’s why I need to trust and obey the One who inspired them.

- George Foreman

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

Customers today are strongly value oriented. But just what does that mean? Customers tell us that value means the results they receive in relation to the total costs (both the price and other costs to customers incurred in acquiring the service).

- Gary W. Lo

You can’t have a mid-life crisis in the airline industry because every day is a crisis.

- Herb Kelleher

Tell your child, your spouse, or your employee that he or she is stupid or dumb at a certain thing, has no gift for it, and is doing it all wrong, and you have destroyed almost every incentive to try to improve.

- Dale Carnegie

Many people who I respected were disappointed when I started ‘Wine Library TV.’ They thought I was dumbing down wine, but I always knew I was one of the biggest producers of new wine drinkers in the world, and people are realizing it now.

- Gary Vaynerchuk

It’s a nice reader, but there’s nothing on the iPad I look at and say, ‘Oh, I wish Microsoft had done it.

- Bill Gates

One way to become creative is to discipline yourself to generate bad ideas. The worse the better. Do it a lot and magically you’ll discover that good ones slip through.

- Seth Godin

Getting over the war was biggest adversity I have ever faced.

- Jack Nadel

When you live for others’ opinions, you are dead. I don’t want to live thinking about how I’ll be remembered.

- Carlos Slim Helu

When someone does a small task beautifully, their whole environment is affected by it.

- Jerry Seinfeld

Letting the wrong people hang around is unfair to all the right people, as they inevitably find themselves compensating for the inadequacies of the wrong people. Worse, it can drive away the best people. Strong performers are intrinsically motivated by performance, and when they see their efforts impeded by carrying extra weight, they eventually become frustrated.

- James C. Collins

I am surprised by how not-adopted the video reply has been. What keeps other people from doing it, I think, is that they think a video comes across as ‘I’m cool, look at how many e-mails I get.’ That perception doesn’t scare me, because I know who I am.

- Gary Vaynerchuk

Your net worth to the world is usually determined by what remains after your bad habits are subtracted from your good ones.

- Benjamin Franklin

We have a big opportunity in China. We think the number of stores here can rival the number in North America.

- Howard Schultz

I wish to God that Apple and Google were partners in the future.

- Steve Wozniak

Every culture has a myth of decline from some golden age, and almost all peoples throughout history have been pessimists. Even today pessimism still dominates huge parts of the world. An indefinite pessimist looks out onto a bleak future, but he has no idea what to do about it. This describes Europe since the early 1970s, when the continent succumbed to undirected bureaucratic drift. Today the whole Eurozone is in slow-motion crisis, and nobody is in charge. The European Central Bank doesn’t stand for anything but improvisation: the U.S. Treasury prints “In God We Trust” on the dollar; the ECB might as well print “Kick the Can Down the Road” on the euro. Europeans just react to events as they happen and hope things don’t get worse.

- Peter Thiel

THE MOST CONTENTIOUS question in business is whether success comes from luck or skill.

- Peter Thiel

Land on Mars, a round-trip ticket – half a million dollars. It can be done.

- Elon Musk

Inaction breeds doubt and fear. Action breeds confidence and courage. If you want to conquer fear, do not sit home and think about it. Go out and get busy.

- Dale Carnegie

I DECLARE that God has a great plan for my life. He is directing my steps. And even though I may not always understand how, I know my situation is not a surprise to God. He will work out every detail to my advantage. In His perfect timing, everything will turn out right. This is my declaration.

- Joel Olsteen

Once the habit is ingrained and you become the starter, the center of the circle, you will find more and more things to notice, to instigate, and to initiate. Momentum builds and you get better at generating it. If you go to bed at night knowing that people are expecting you to initiate things all day the next day, you’ll wake up with a list. And as you create a culture of people who are always seeking to connect and improve and poke, the bar gets raised. What might be considered a board-level decision at one of your competitors’ companies gets done as a matter of course. What might be reserved for a manager’s intervention gets handled at the customer level, saving you time and money (and generating customer joy). This incredibly prosaic idea, the very simple act of initiating, is actually profoundly transformative. Forward motion is a defensible business asset.

- Seth Godin

Every monopoly is unique, but they usually share some combination of the following characteristics: proprietary technology, network effects, economies of scale, and branding.

- Peter Thiel

Love doesn’t sit there like a stone, it has to be made, like bread: remade all the time, made new.

- Og Mandino

Quality is remembered long after price is forgotten.

- Anonymous

Leaders must be close enough to relate to others, but far enough ahead to motivate them.

- John C. Maxwell

Most of my job and most of what I do is to mentor people. There are a lot of people I work with that I don’t have investments in.

- Ben Horowitz

IN A NUTSHELL SIX WAYS TO MAKE PEOPLE LIKE YOU PRINCIPLE 1 Become genuinely interested in other people. PRINCIPLE 2 Smile. PRINCIPLE 3 Remember that a person’s name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language. PRINCIPLE 4 Be a good listener. Encourage others to talk about themselves. PRINCIPLE 5 Talk in terms of the other person’s interests. PRINCIPLE 6 Make the other person feel important—and do it sincerely.

- Dale Carnegie

You might well remember that nothing can bring you success but yourself.

- Napoleon Hill

After its return to China, Hong Kong has become an inseparable part of this large country by exerting its business strengths to become a vital member of the country and developing its four pillar industries, namely finance, commerce, shipping and professional services.

- Cheng Yu-tung

Certainly, other people can pray for you, they can believe for you, they can quote the scripture to you, but you must exercise faith for yourself. If you are always depending on somebody else to keep you happy, somebody else to encourage you or to get you out of trouble, you will live in perpetual weakness and disappointment. You must make a decision that you are going to be a believer. Take charge of your life and decide, No matter what comes against me, I believe in God. I’m going to have a positive outlook for my life! Other people’s faith can indeed bolster yours. But your own faith will bring you a miracle much faster than anybody else’s. What you believe has a much greater impact on your life than what anybody else believes.

- Joel Olsteen

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

I know when one door closes God will open up another door. What was meant for my harm God will use to my advantage. I’m not only coming out, I will come out better off than I was before.

- Joel Olsteen

With integrity, you have nothing to fear, since you have nothing to hide. With integrity, you will do the right thing, so you will have no guilt.

- Zig Ziglar

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

It took thirty-eight years before 50 million people gained access to radios. It took television thirteen years to earn an audience that size. It took Instagram a year and a half.

- Gary Vaynerchuk

Entrepreneurs, by definition, shift resources from areas of low productivity and yield to areas of higher productivity and yield.

- Peter Drucker

You got to be rigorous in your appraisal system. The biggest cowards are managers who don’t let people know where they stand.

- Jack Welch

Too often we judge people based on our own backgrounds and experiences, but when you understand people’s stories, it’s easier to understand their demeanor.

- Joel Olsteen

Information is useless if it is not applied to something important or if you will forget it before you have a chance to apply it.

- Timothy Ferriss

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

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

You never know when a moment and a few sincere words can have an impact on a life.

- Zig Ziglar

We can’t wait for Washington. Business leaders are going to have to galvanize their own constituencies and do everything they can to demonstrate confidence in the economy, and I think that can be contagious.

- Howard Schultz

Owners don’t fire all the players. They fire the leader and bring in someone they hope the players will buy into.

- Napoleon Hill

The way to stay ahead was through product innovation. We happened to be great at it.

- Phil Knight

If you don’t love what you’re doing with unbridled passion and enthusiasm, you’re not going to succeed when you hit obstacles.

- Howard Schultz

Publicity is absolutely critical. A good PR story is infinitely more effective than a front page ad.

- Richard Branson

The Western world loves liberalisation, provided it doesn’t affect them.

- Azim Premji

Remember happiness doesn’t depend upon who you are or what you have it depends solely on what you think.

- Dale Carnegie

Every employee in a company depends on the C.E.O. to make fast, high-quality decisions.

- Ben Horowitz

Let the good work go on. We must ever remember we are refining oil for the poor man and he must have it cheap and good.

- Ron Chernow

The entrepreneur community, there’s a certain kind of founder, they call them a ‘lone wolf.’ I probably fit in that category.

- Travis Kalanick

The key to success is to get out into the store and listen to what the associates have to say.

- Sam Walton

There will be no pissing on partners in the shower.

- Phil Knight

Our main business is not to see what lies dimly at a distance, but to do what lies clearly at hand.

- Dale Carnegie

You can start right where you stand and apply the habit of going the extra mile by rendering more service and better service than you are now being paid for.

- Napoleon Hill

That was so much fun. It’s been such a neat experience racing with these guys.

- Ed Clark

Since all of them overestimated the competition, no one even showed up.

- Timothy Ferriss

Gentlemen, I’ve done many deals in my lifetime and through that process, I’ve developed a methodology, a way of doing things, a philosophy if you will. Within that philosophy, I have certain beliefs. I believe in artificial deadlines. I believe in playing one against the other. I believe in doing everything and anything short of illegal or immoral to get the damned deal done.

- Ben Horowitz

An association of men who will not quarrel with one another is a thing which has never yet existed, from the greatest confederacy of nations down to a town meeting

- Thomas Jefferson

I have heard, in such a way as to believe it, of your recently saying that both the army and the Government needed a dictator. Of course, it was not for this, but in spite of it, that I have given you command. Only those generals who gain successes can set up as dictators. What I now ask of you is military success and I will risk the dictatorship.

- Dale Carnegie

I couldn’t figure out what to wear under my clothes. The body shapers were too thick at the time.

- Sara Blakely

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

If you wait until all the lights are green before you leave home, you’ll never get started on your trip to the top.

- Zig Ziglar

In poor countries, we still need better ways to measure the effectiveness of the many government workers providing health services. They are the crucial link bringing tools such as vaccines and education to the people who need them most. How well trained are they? Are they showing up to work?

- Bill Gates

We’re at maybe 1% of what is possible. Despite the faster change, we’re still moving slow relative to the opportunities we have. I think a lot of that is because of the negativity… Every story I read is Google vs someone else. That’s boring. We should be focusing on building the things that don’t exist.

- Larry Page

I define anxiety as experiencing failure in advance…and if you have anxiety about initiating a project, then of course you will associate risk with failure.

- Seth Godin

Contrary to popular belief, my experience has shown me that the people who are exceptionally good in business aren’t so because of what they know but because of their insatiable need to know more.

- Michael Gerber

I’m not gonna give up, shut up, or let up… as a matter of fact, I’m just getting warmed up.

- Zig Ziglar

People talk about consumer confidence, but that is a misleading phrase. There are a number of factors that mean people just have less money. Mortgage rates are at a historic high for many people. The fuel price is another major contributory factor. We don’t see any particular reason why any of that will change for at least another six months or so. We reckon we can grow market share, but that will be through increasing selling space.

- Simon Wolfson

My own view is that every company requires a long-term view.

- Jeff Bezos

What I know is that if you do work that you love, and the work fulfills you, the rest will come.

- Oprah Winfrey

If I want a better-than-average career, I can’t simply ‘go with the flow’ and get it. Most people do just that: they wish for an outcome but make no intention-driven actions toward that outcome. If they would just do something most people would find that they get some version of the outcome they’re looking for. That’s been my secret. Stop wishing and start doing.

- Timothy Ferriss

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

- Napoleon Hill

The level of analysis that is done when you see laws created, whether it’s the city or state or federal level – it’s much more horse-trading than analysis.

- Michael Bloomberg

The Internet is the easiest thing to get into. To be an Internet retailer, you just get that URL.

- Bill Gates

Andy Andrews is the best speaker I have ever seen.

- Zig Ziglar

EVERY MOMENT IN BUSINESS happens only once. The next Bill Gates will not build an operating system. The next Larry Page or Sergey Brin won’t make a search engine. And the next Mark Zuckerberg won’t create a social network. If you are copying these guys, you aren’t learning from them.

- Peter Thiel

I used to have this debate with Steve Jobs, and he would always say, ‘You guys are doing too much stuff.’ He did a good job of doing one or two things really well. We’d like to have a bigger impact on the world by doing more things.

- Larry Page

Earn the right to be heard by listening to others. Seek to understand a situation before making judgments about it.

- John C. Maxwell

What material success does is provide you with the ability to concentrate on other things that really matter. And that is being able to make a difference, not only in your own life, but in other people’s lives.

- Oprah Winfrey

You can be committed to Church but not committed to Christ, but you cannot be committed to Christ and not committed to church.

- Joel Olsteen

Government isn’t that good at rapid advancement of technology. It tends to be better at funding basic research. To have things take off, you’ve got to have commercial companies do it.

- Elon Musk

We all sort of do want incentives for creative people to still exist at a certain level. You know, maybe rock stars shouldn’t make as much; who knows? But you want as much creativity to take place in the future as took place in the past.”-Bill Gates, Entrepreneur and founder of Microsoft

- Bill Gates

Until you are happy with who you are, you will never be happy because of what you have.

- Zig Ziglar

The jet stream is a very strong force and pushing a balloon into it is like pushing up against a brick wall, but once we got into it, we found that, remarkably, the balloon went whatever speed the wind went.

- Richard Branson

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