Russia is not a homogenous country, it’s a very fragmented country.
- Alexei Mordashov
Notable Quotables
As a freshman, I had to make one hell of an adjustment. I had to go from being a good high school competitor to a locker room with three Olympians in Dellinger, Bailey, and Grelle. Four, if you count Burley coming in my senior year. If you ask where Nike came from, I would say it came from a kid who had that world-class shock administered at age seventeen by Bill Bowerman.
- Phil Knight
Nine tenths of wisdom consists in being wise in time.
- Theodore Roosevelt
Planning is arrogant and inflexible. Instead you should try things out.
- Peter Thiel
The United States, and other advanced nations, will someday be able to produce instruments of death so terrible the world will be in abject terror of itself and its ability to end civilization…. Such war-making weapons should be developed – but only for purposes of discovery and experimentation.
- Thomas Edison
Very important people have told me that they prefer good listeners to good talkers, but the ability to listen seems rarer than almost any other good trait.
- Dale Carnegie
Bad psychoanalysis would say I enjoyed pleasing people, working really hard and pleasing people, which is probably related to my father in some way. But I really liked working hard. When I worked at Disneyland, I’d do 12 hours straight and go home thrilled.
- Steve Martin
Deciding what not to do is as important as deciding what to do.
- Steve Jobs
You must go through the process before you get the product.
- Paul Pressey
For all of the most important things, the timing always sucks. Waiting for a good time to quit your job? The stars will never align and the traffic lights of life will never all be green at the same time. The universe doesn’t conspire against you, but it doesn’t go out of its way to line up the pins either. Conditions are never perfect. ‘Someday’ is a disease that will take your dreams to the grave with you. Pro and con lists are just as bad. If it’s important to you and you want to do it ‘eventually’, just do it and correct course along the way.
- Timothy Ferriss
When men are fighting for their lives they are not often disposed to be complimentary to those who are trying to kill them.
- Winston Churchill
Dividers seek to make themselves look or feel better by making others feel worse. They damage relationships, fracture teams and organizations, and create havoc in people’s lives.”
- John C. Maxwell
To jaw-jaw is always better than to war-war.
- Winston Churchill
I’m a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it.
- Thomas Jefferson
You have to get all agreements in writing.
- Jack Nadel
My model for business is The Beatles. They were four guys who kept each other’s kind of negative tendencies in check. They balanced each other and the total was greater than the sum of the parts. That’s how I see business: great things in business are never done by one person, they’re done by a team of people.
- Steve Jobs
That was annoying but not entirely unexpected. It’s not a huge shock, given what’s going on down there.
- Ed Clark
There are only two kinds of employees that I’ve run across in 30 years. There are ones that get results, and ones that make excuses. If you’re in that second camp, you’re not going to like Dish.
- Charles Ergen
Ability may get you to the top, but it takes character to keep you there.
- John Wooden
An open society is a society which allows its members the greatest possible degree of freedom in pursuing their interests compatible with the interests of others.
- George Soros
I wanted to be a sailor, I wanted to sail the world, to navigate it.
- Jack Dorsey
What separates people is not the presence or absence of difficulty, but how they deal with the inevitable difficulties of life.
- Admiral Jim Stockdale
The work relationship has to be based on mutual respect. Psychological despotism is basically contemptuous—far more contemptuous than the traditional Theory X. It does not assume that people are lazy and resist work, but it assumes that the manager is healthy while everybody else is sick. It assumes that the manager is strong while everybody else is weak. It assumes that the manager knows while everybody else is ignorant. It assumes that the manager is right, whereas everybody else is stupid. These are the assumptions of foolish arrogance.
- Peter Drucker
The only real security that a man can have in this world is a reserve of knowledge, experience and ability.
- Henry Ford
I think our main real estate effort should be directed at getting out in front of expansion and letting the population build out to us.
- Sam Walton
The Minden prospect originated this past summer through a large acreage acquisition from a major oil company and Cabot now controls 3,500 acres over the area. We are pleased with our initial results and will remain active in this area throughout 2006. On forty-acre spacing, the prospect has the potential for 80 plus locations.
- Dan Dinges
Journalists should think of themselves as outside the Establishment, and owners can’t be too worried about what they’re told at their country clubs.
- Rupert Murdoch
Nothing is more costly, nothing is more sterile, than vengeance.
- Winston Churchill
Throw it all up on the wall and see what sticks.
- Timothy Ferriss
I think Starbucks created a platform and, ultimately, a runway for many other companies to emulate. I suspect if we had not achieved what we have, there would have been many regional brands that would have succeeded. But I’m not sure there would have been a national brand of the scope of Starbucks.
- Howard Schultz
The service leaders hire one out of 50 applicants, sometimes one out of 100, but they’re very, very careful. You can’t afford not to be extremely choosy when you hire.
- Harvey Mackay
It’s better to have a hundred people that love you, than a million people that sort of like you.
- Paul Graham
Not good — great.
- Jack Welch
The thing I lose patience with the most is the clock. Its hands move too fast.
- Thomas Edison
Maturity is often more absurd than youth and very frequently is most unjust to youth.
- Thomas Edison
A lot of people assume that creating software is purely a solitary activity where you sit in an office with the door closed all day and write lots of code.
- Bill Gates
This is not a book for the wild-haired crazies your company keeps in a corner. It is a book for you, your boss, and your employees, because the best future available to us is a future where you contriubute your true self and your best work. Are you up for that?
- Seth Godin
Entrepreneurs are always biased to understate the scale of competition, but that is the biggest mistake a startup can make.
- Peter Thiel
Try to build bridges of understanding. Don’t build higher barriers of misunderstanding.
- Dale Carnegie
My vision is for a fully reusable rocket transport system between Earth and Mars that is able to re-fuel on Mars – this is very important – so you don’t have to carry the return fuel when you go there.
- Elon Musk
I was an executive running a pretty substantial group before becoming CEO, and I had no idea what it was like. When something goes wrong, people say, ‘It’s all your fault.’ Your reaction is, ‘It’s not my fault.’ But what do you mean? I was the founder, I hired everybody in the company, I was managing it.
- Ben Horowitz
I described the CEO job as knowing what to do and getting the company to do what you want. Designing a proper company culture will help you get your company to do what you want in certain important areas for a very long time.
- Ben Horowitz
Don’t complain about the snow on your neighbor’s roof when your own doorstep is unclean.
- Confucius
Happiness is found in doing, not merely possessing.
- Napoleon Hill
Broadly speaking, the short words are the best, and the old words best of all.
- Winston Churchill
In reality it is the focus on the first three D’s that ultimately gains you the data, and the dollars you need to become very, very rich…in other words the dollars are derived from having a dream, being dedicated, and having the drive to win.
- Robert Kiyosaki
Every day is a gift from God. There’s no guarantee of tomorrow, so that tells me to see the good in this day to make the most of it.
- Joel Olsteen
You have to respect your parents. They are giving you an at-bat. If you’re an entrepreneur and go into the family business, you want to grow fast. Patience is important. But respect the other party… My dad and I pulled it off because we really respect each other.
- Gary Vaynerchuk
But you are the average of the five people you associate with most, so do not underestimate the effects of your pessimistic, unambitious, or disorganized friends. If someone isn’t making you stronger, they’re making you weaker.
- Timothy Ferriss
Effective people know when to stop assessing and make a tough call, even without total information. Little is worse than a manager who can’t cut bait.
- Jack Welch
Like biological evolution, ‘survival of the fittest’ during the course of reformation is to adapt to changes in the surrounding environment and make changes accordingly.
- Cheng Yu-tung
My rule of life prescribed as an absolutely sacred rite smoking cigars and also the drinking of alcohol before, after and if need be during all meals and in the intervals between them.
- Winston Churchill
Get the right people on the bus and get the wrong people off of the bus.
- Jim Collins
Doing something unimportant well does not make it important.
- Timothy Ferriss
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
Being surrounded by educated people makes democracy stronger, and it benefits our entire economy.
- Seth Godin
I am upset with the effect that both of these issues have had on the public,
- Michael Gerber
So now, having learned from machines, organizations are applying the same logic to people. Letting people in the organization use their best judgment turns out to be faster and cheaper—but only if you hire the right people and reward them for having the right attitude.
- Seth Godin
The person who seeks all their applause from outside has their happiness in another’s keeping.
- Dale Carnegie
A woodpecker can tap twenty times on a thousand trees and get nowhere, but stay busy. Or he can tap twenty-thousand times on one tree and get dinner.
- Seth Godin
There are two mistakes one can make along the road to truth. Not going all the way, and not starting.
- Siddhartha Gautama
I’m not going to run for president. No way, no how.
- Michael Bloomberg
From my experience, there are so many regulations for investing in the United States that they become an impediment, a barrier to investing.
- Michael Otto
The chef that grew up with the grandma who cooks tends to always beat the chef that went to the culinary institute. It’s in the blood.
- Gary Vaynerchuk
Success is doing what you want, where you want, when you want, with whom you want and as much as you want.
- Tony Robbins
If parents pass enthusiasm along to their children, they will leave them an estate of incalculable value….
- Thomas Edison
I consider my ability to arouse enthusiasm among my people the greatest asset I possess, and the way to develop the best that is in a person is by appreciation and encouragement. There is nothing else that so kills the ambitions of a person as criticisms from superiors. I never criticize anyone. I believe in giving a person incentive to work. So I am anxious to praise but loath to find fault. If I like anything, I am hearty in my approbation and lavish in my praise.
- Charles M. Schwab
Great organizations demand a high level of commitment by the people involved.
- Bill Gates
I think that our fundamental belief is that for us growth is a way of life and we have to grow at all times.
- Mukesh Ambani
The [Henderson] Group possesses substantial recurrent income.
- Lee Shau Kee
One reason why birds and horses are not unhappy is because they are not trying to impress other birds and horses.
- Dale Carnegie
If you run a company, you will experience overwhelming psychological pressure to be overly positive. Stand up to the pressure, face your fear, and tell it like it is.
- Ben Horowitz
You are at the top when: You have made friends with your past, are focused on the present, and are optimistic about your future.
- Zig Ziglar
God accepts you. God approves you. And He has something better in store.
- Joel Olsteen
Arouse in the other person an eager want. He who can do this has the whole world with him. He who cannot walks a lonely way.
- Dale Carnegie
If you ask where Nike came from, I would say it came from a kid who had that world-class shock administered at age seventeen by Bill Bowerman.
- Phil Knight
Many of the truths that we cling to depend on our point of view.
- Yoda
A beautiful deleveraging balances the three options. In other words, there is a certain amount of austerity, there is a certain amount of debt restructuring, and there is a certain amount of printing of money. When done in the right mix, it isn’t dramatic.
- Ray Dalio
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
Being overwhelmed is often as unproductive as doing nothing, and is far more unpleasant. Being selective – doing less – is the path of the productive. Focus on the important few and ignore the rest.
- Timothy Ferriss
The tragedy is that society (your school, your boss, your government, your family) keeps drumming the genius part out. The problem is that our culture has engaged in a Faustian bargain, in which we trade our genius and artistry for apparent stability.
- Seth Godin
When you start a company, it’s a singular focus. You have the wind at your back.
- Howard Schultz
Using people to leverage a refined process multiplies production, using people as a solution to a poor process multiplies problems.
- Timothy Ferriss
When you believe in a thing, believe in it all the way, implicitly and unquestionable.
- Walt Disney
Sometimes adversity is what you need to face in order to become successful.
- Zig Ziglar
The basis of persistence is the power of will. Men who accumulate, great fortunes are generally known as cold-blooded and sometimes ruthless. Often they are misunderstood. What they have is willpower, which they mix with persistence and place back of their desires to insure that attainment of their objectives. Henry Ford was generally misunderstood to be ruthless and cold-blooded. This misconception grew out of Ford’s habit of following through in all of his plans with PERSISTENCE…few carry on despite all opposition until they attain their goal. Those few are the Fords, Carnegies, Rockefellers and Edisons.
- Napoleon Hill
You will get all you want in life if you help enough other people get what they want.
- Zig Ziglar
Well, Howard Stern has been doing his impression of me for years. It doesn’t really bother me.
- Jerry Seinfeld
The stark differences between man and machine mean that gains from working with computers are much higher than gains from trade with other people. We don’t trade with computers any more than we trade with livestock or lamps. And that’s the point: computers are tools, not rivals.
- Peter Thiel
Future public education will require involvement and collaboration among various local, civic, private and nonprofit entities, a concept I like to refer to as ‘community entrepreneurship.’
- Donald Bren
I think when you’re very dedicated to something and you’re engaged fully, you become a giver.
- Russell Simmons
Habits like blogging often and regularly, writing down the way you think, being clear about what you think are effective tactics, ignoring the burbling crowd and not eating bacon. All of these are useful habits.
- Seth Godin
Those people who develop the ability to continuously acquire new and better forms of knowledge that they can apply to their work and to their lives will be the movers and shakers in our society for the indefinite future.
- Brian Tracy
An individual artist needs only a thousand true fans in her tribe. It’s enough.
- Seth Godin
Every one of my positions cuts – out half the country. I’m pro-choice, I’m pro-gay rights, I’m pro-immigration, I’m against guns, I believe in Darwin.
- Michael Bloomberg
Don’t worry that you can’t seem to come up with sure billion dollar winners at first. Just do projects for yourself for fun. You’ll get better and better.
- Steve Wozniak
One who starts a business without written plans of any kind, without a pro-forma or any concept of their overall profitability per customer, yet believes that if they work hard enough and give enough money away to those in need that eventually they will not be in need.
- Clay Clark
It’s not what I have, but it is who I am.
- Ben Meinhardt
20% of what you do accounts for 80% of your results
- Brian Tracy
Believe in your idea, trust your instincts, and don’t be afraid to fail. It took me two years from the time I had the idea for Spanx until the time I had a product in hand ready to sell into stores. I must have heard the word “no” a thousand times. If you believe in your idea 100%, don’t let anyone stop you! Not being afraid to fail is a key part of the success of Spanx.
- Sara Blakely
