Anytime you look at anything that’s considered artistic, there’s a commercial world around it: the ballet, opera, any kind of music. It can’t exist without it.
- Steve Martin
Notable Quotables
Develop success from failures. Discouragement and failure are two of the surest stepping stones to success.
- Dale Carnegie
The key to a good one-on-one meeting is the understanding that it is the employee’s meeting rather than the manager’s meeting. This is the free-form meeting for all the pressing issues, brilliant ideas, and chronic frustrations that do not fit neatly into status reports, email, and other less personal and intimate mechanisms.
- Ben Horowitz
[On the Nike name in 2011] I quite like it now.
- Phil Knight
Art is never defect-free. Things that are remarkable never meet spec, because that would make them standardized, not worth talking about.
- Seth Godin
God has amazing things in your future.
- Joel Olsteen
It takes up enough of my time and interest just working on comedy. I just enjoy it and love doing it.
- Jerry Seinfeld
Answer me this: would you work harder to earn $100 or avoid losing $100? The smiley optimist says the former, but if research from the Center for Experimental Social Science at New York University is any indication, fear of loss is the home-run winner. Experimental groups given $15 and then told the $15 would be rescinded if they lost a subsequent auction routinely overbid the most. Groups offered $15 if they won weren’t nearly as committed.
- Timothy Ferriss
During the past financial year, development properties sold by the Group amounted to approximately HK$3,592 million in total attributable sales proceeds, representing around 1,700 units…
- Lee Shau Kee
Lack of direction, not lack of time, is the problem. We all have twenty-four hour days.
- Zig Ziglar
There is tremendous stress these days on liking people, helping people, getting along with people, as qualifications for a manager. These alone are never enough. In every successful organization there is one boss who does not like people, who does not help them, and who does not get along with them. Cold, unpleasant, demanding, he often teaches and develops more men than anyone else. He commands more respect than the most likable man ever could. He demands exacting workmanship of himself as well as of his men. He sets high standards and expects that they will be lived up to. He considers only what is right and never who is right. And though often himself a man of brilliance, he never rates intellectual brilliance above integrity in others. The manager who lacks these qualities of character—no matter how likable, helpful, or amiable, no matter even how competent or brilliant—is a menace and should be adjudged “unfit to be a manager and a gentleman.
- Peter Drucker
Consider the idea that charisma can be as much a liability as an asset. Your strength of personality can sow the seeds of problems, when people filter the brutal facts from you.
- James C. Collins
You must make a decision that you are going to move on. It wont happen automatically. You will have to rise up and say, ‘I don’t care how hard this is, I don’t care how disappointed I am, I’m not going to let this get the best of me. I’m moving on with my life.
- Joel Olsteen
I believe that sex is one of the most beautiful, natural, wholesome things that money can buy.
- Steve Martin
During their lifetimes, every man and woman will stumble across a great opportunity. Sadly, most of them will simply pick themselves up, dust themselves down and carry on as if nothing ever happened.
- Winston Churchill
Of all the things I’ve done, the most vital is coordinating those who work with me and aiming their efforts at a certain goal.
- Walt Disney
The doctors actually told my family there was a five percent chance of me living.
- Ed Clark
Be humble.
- Jack Dorsey
Leaders think like a revolutionary not a bureaucrat.
- Napoleon Hill
I never get the accountants in before I start up a business. It’s done on gut feeling, especially if I can see that they are taking the mickey out of the consumer.
- Richard Branson
I despise research. I think it’s a crutch.
- Howard Schultz
My philosophy is that not only are you responsible for your life, but doing the best at this moment puts you in the best place for the next moment.
- Oprah Winfrey
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
I don’t think it’s a good idea to plan to sell a company.
- Elon Musk
It is not enough that we do our best, sometimes we must do what is required.
- Winston Churchill
Whether I’m at the office, at home, or on the road, I always have a stack of books I’m looking forward to reading.
- Bill Gates
I can go into restaurants and a whole table will get up and clap if they recognize me, because they love Fox News. Other places – or even the same place – people will turn the other way.
- Rupert Murdoch
Well, I don’t think there’s any need for people to focus on my career.
- Bill Gates
The ideas I stand for are not mine. I borrowed them from Socrates. I swiped them from Chesterfield. I stole them from Jesus. And I put them in a book. If you don’t like their rules, whose would you use?
- Dale Carnegie
Beware of geeks bearing formulas.
- Warren Buffett
Online I see people committing ‘social media suicide’ all the time by one of two ways. Firstly by responding to all criticism, meaning you’re never going to find time to complete important milestones of your own, and by responding to things that don’t warrant a response.
- Tim Ferris
More business decisions occur over lunch and dinner than any other time, yet no MBA courses are given on the subject.
- Peter Drucker
Sometimes you need faith and victory spoken over your life. Words have created power. When you receive them into your spirit, they can ignite seeds of increase on the inside.
- Joel Olsteen
I own a home in Kyoto, Japan actually on the temple on grounds in Nanzenji that is going to become a Japanese art museum.
- Larry Ellison
Rich people have small TVs and big libraries, and poor people have small libraries and big TVs.
- Zig Ziglar
It is going to be a little, if you will, laboratory for sustainability in businesses of small scale
- Larry Ellison
They that soar too high, often fall hard, making a low and level Dwelling preferable. The tallest Trees are most in the Power of the Winds, and Ambitious Men of the Blasts of Fortune. Buildings have need of a good Foundation, that lie so much exposed to the Weather.
- Dale Carnegie
If you look at the purported dangers of salt or fat, there is no consensus of support in scientific literature. So I would ask first: ‘Is it possible to have an informed government that actually follows the science?’ From what I’ve seen, it’s not likely.
- Timothy Ferriss
Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishment.
- Jim Rohn
You can take from every experience what it has to offer you. And you cannot be defeated if you just keep taking one breath followed by another.
- Oprah Winfrey
I love building technology, I love programming. I love building teams. And I also love building beautiful things.
- Jack Dorsey
I feel there’s an existential angst among young people. I didn’t have that. They see enormous mountains, where I only saw one little hill to climb.
- Sergey Brin
Your job is not to judge. Your job is not to figure out if someone deserves something. Your job is to lift the fallen, to restore the broken, and to heal the hurting.
- Joel Olsteen
I never lie, so if somebody asked me a question, I told them.
- Michael Bloomberg
Luck is a dividend of sweat. The more you sweat, the luckier you get.
- Ray Kroc
Mrs. Carnegie and I had dinner at a friend’s house in Chicago. While carving the meat, he did something wrong. I didn’t notice it; and I wouldn’t have cared even if I had noticed it. But his wife saw it and jumped down his throat right in front of us. John,” she cried, watch what you are doing! Can’t you ever learn to serve properly!” Then she said to us: He is always making mistakes. He just doesn’t try.” Maybe he didn’t try to carve; but I certainly give him credit for trying to live with her for twenty years. Frankly, I would rather have eaten a couple of hot dogs with mustard—in an atmosphere of peace—than to have dined on Peking duck and shark fins while listening to her scolding.
- Dale Carnegie
A right delayed is a right denied.
- Martin Luther King Jr.
If we all did the things we are capable of doing, we would literally astound ourselves.
- Thomas Edison
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
Vision without execution is just hallucination.
- Henry Ford
So far as the religion of the day is concerned, it is a damned fake … Religion is all bunk.
- Thomas Edison
Danger: if you meet it promptly and without flinching, you will reduce the danger by half. Never run away from anything. Never!
- Winston Churchill
It isn’t until you come to a spiritual understanding of who you are – not necessarily a religious feeling, but deep down, the spirit within – that you can begin to take control.
- Oprah Winfrey
The idea of Twitter started with me working in dispatch since I was 15 years old, where taxi cabs or firetrucks would broadcast where they were and what they were doing.
- Jack Dorsey
They must be plans for learning rather than plans for implementation.
- Clayton M. Christensen
You cannot let where you are today cause you to get stuck. I’m going to be my best right now. That’s what faith is all about.
- Joel Olsteen
I believe that God breathed life into every person and that every person is made in the image of God and you have accept them as they are, on their journey. I’m not here to preach hate or push people down.
- Joel Olsteen
Normal is fading away. Governments and industries and schools like normal, because it’s easier, it scales and it’s profitable. But people don’t like it – we want to be who we are, not who some marketer tells us to be.
- Seth Godin
Despite the office rent in Hong Kong generally declining, the Group’s rental is resilient as the major rental properties owned by the Group are retail shopping properties situated in the new towns and mass transportation network.
- Lee Shau Kee
We are dealing with creatures of emotion, creatures bristling with prejudices and motivated by pride and vanity.
- Dale Carnegie
Do all you can to make your dreams come true.
- Joel Olsteen
So, if you look at what’s common among some of the companies I have, including the Four Seasons, NewsCorp, George V, the Plaza, these are all irreplaceable brands in their own fields.
- Prince Al Waleed Bin Talal Alsaud
The strongest oak of the forest is not the one that is protected from the storm and hidden from the sun. It’s the one that stands in the open where it is compelled to struggle for its existence against the winds and rains and the scorching sun.
- Napoleon Hill
Short words are best, and old words when short are best of all.
- Winston Churchill
I could never have imagined that firing 67 people on national television would actually make me more popular, especially with the younger generation.
- Donald Trump
The market’s going to move with tremendous speed. If there is such a thing as a killer app, video is it.
- John Chambers
The final test of a leader is that he leaves behind him in other men the conviction and the will to carry on.
- Walter Lippmann
That which becomes acceptable becomes inevitable.
- Michael Levine
I’d learned the hard way that when hiring executives, one should follow Colin Powell’s instructions and hire for strength rather than lack of weakness.
- Ben Horowitz
If that was true of Emerson, isn’t it
- Dale Carnegie
The ballplayer who loses his head can’t keep his cool, is worse than no ballplayer at all.
- Lou Gehrig
People may hear your words, but they feel your attitude.
- John C. Maxwell
Each Wal-Mart store should reflect the values of its customers and support the vision they hold for their community.
- Sam Walton
In general, the apparel industry isn’t about continual process improvement or making the perfect piece of denim; it’s about chasing trends.
- Tadashi Yanai
Excellence is the best deterrent to racism or sexism.
- Oprah Winfrey
[On Twitter] This company is bigger than any individual.
- Jack Dorsey
There is no elevator to success…you have to take the stairs.
- Zig Ziglar
Greatness is not a function of circumstance. Greatness, it turns out, is largely a matter of conscious choice, and discipline.
- James C. Collins
The [Henderson] Group possesses substantial recurrent income.
- Lee Shau Kee
The number of residential units which have been booked in the financial statements of the Group in the period under review totalled 5,800 and amounted to approximately HK$14 billion in aggregate value.
- Lee Shau Kee
I’m healthy as can be – not an ache or a pain. A lot of my prayer is thanking the Lord that I am healthy. I pray for long life and good health.
- Joel Olsteen
Many people fail to make a favourable impression because they don’t listen attentively.
- Isaac F. Marcosson
I was working probably at the age of 10, when I had my first paper route. I had every different kind of job you could possibly imagine as a young kid.
- Howard Schultz
Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great.
- Mark Twain
The best executive is the one who has sense enough to pick good men to do what he wants done, and self-restraint to keep form meddling with them while they do it.
- Theodore Roosevelt
On balance, I am a supporter of the minimum wage going up. We’ve got to be very careful what we wish for because some employers – and there could be a lot of them – will be scared away from hiring new people or creating incremental hours for part-time people as a result of that wage going up.
- Howard Schultz
Don’t do anything that you wouldn’t feel comfortable reading about in the newspaper the next day.
- Joel Olsteen
The thing that motivates me is a very common form of motivation. And that is, with other folks counting on me, it’s so easy to be motivated.
- Jeff Bezos
When unsavvy observers see a nonprofit organization with dozens of people on its board, they think: “Look how many great people are committed to this organization! It must be extremely well run.” Actually, a huge board will exercise no effective oversight at all; it merely provides cover for whatever microdictator actually runs the organization.
- Peter Thiel
Stand-up is hard. Or to keep it at a certain level is hard: I have no writers but me.
- Jerry Seinfeld
We’re not in the fashion business, as the Wall Street Journal wrote the other day. We’re in the sports business, and there’s a big difference.
- Phil Knight
Self-discipline begins with the mastery of your thoughts. If you don’t control what you think you can’t control what you do. Simply, self-discipline enables you to think first and act afterward.
- Napoleon Hill
I think it’s funny to be delicate with subjects that are explosive.
- Jerry Seinfeld
The task of the leader is to get his people from where they are to where they have not been.
- Henry Kissinger
I start where the last man left off.
- Thomas Edison
You cannot tailor make your situation in life, but you can tailor make your attitudes to those situations.
- Zig Ziglar
Hay una divinidad que forja nuestros fines, por mucho que queramos alterarlos.
- Dale Carnegie
He listened closely to what people said and filed away as much information as he could, repeating valuable information to himself until it was memorized. There was humility in this eagerness to learn. As he said, It is very important to remember what other people tell you, not so much what you yourself already know.
- Ron Chernow
An extreme representative of this view is Ted Kaczynski, infamously known as the Unabomber. Kaczynski was a child prodigy who enrolled at Harvard at 16. He went on to get a PhD in math and become a professor at UC Berkeley. But you’ve only ever heard of him because of the 17-year terror campaign he waged with pipe bombs against professors, technologists, and businesspeople. In late 1995, the authorities didn’t know who or where the Unabomber was. The biggest clue was a 35,000-word manifesto that Kaczynski had written and anonymously mailed to the press. The FBI asked some prominent newspapers to publish it, hoping for a break in the case. It worked: Kaczynski’s brother recognized his writing style and turned him in. You might expect that writing style to have shown obvious signs of insanity, but the manifesto is eerily cogent. Kaczynski claimed that in order to be happy, every individual “needs to have goals whose attainment requires effort, and needs to succeed in attaining at least some of his goals.” He divided human goals into three groups: 1. Goals that can be satisfied with minimal effort; 2. Goals that can be satisfied with serious effort; and 3. Goals that cannot be satisfied, no matter how much effort one makes. This is the classic trichotomy of the easy, the hard, and the impossible. Kaczynski argued that modern people are depressed because all the world’s hard problems have already been solved. What’s left to do is either easy or impossible, and pursuing those tasks is deeply unsatisfying. What you can do, even a child can do; what you can’t do, even Einstein couldn’t have done. So Kaczynski’s idea was to destroy existing institutions, get rid of all technology, and let people start over and work on hard problems anew. Kaczynski’s methods were crazy, but his loss of faith in the technological frontier is all around us. Consider the trivial but revealing hallmarks of urban hipsterdom: faux vintage photography, the handlebar mustache, and vinyl record players all hark back to an earlier time when people were still optimistic about the future. If everything worth doing has already been done, you may as well feign an allergy to achievement and become a barista.
- Peter Thiel
Write your life story as if it has already happened and live it out using your faith in yourself, and in the reality that you are embracing.
- Clay Clark
