Notable Quotables

The end product of the shorter deadline is almost inevitable of equal or higher quality due to greater focus.

- Timothy Ferriss

In some parts of life, like mathematics and science, yeah, I was a genius. I would top all the top scores you could ever measure it by.

- Steve Wozniak

I totally understand that people are upset about it and I think that is a reasonable point of view to take.

- Sergey Brin

In order to lead a country or a company, you’ve got to get everybody on the same page and you’ve got to be able to have a vision of where you’re going. America can’t have a vision of health care for everybody, green economy, regulations – can’t have a bunch of piece-meal activities. It’s got to have a vision.

- Jack Welch

Luke: What’s in there? Yoda: Only what you take with you.

- Yoda

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’re a Wal-Mart of a Meijer you can draw the shoppers without using signs to advertise your specials, … But when you’re a little guy, you really depend on those signs.

- Michael Ward

I really believed that I said then, and I still do. But we figured out a way to grow, and stay profitable, and there was no logical place to stop. The way I approached managing the business, I always tried to maintain a sense of hands-on, personal supervision – usually flying around to take a look at our stores on a regular basis. But from the very beginning, even on my paper routes in college, I have also been a delegator, trying to hire the best possible people to manage the stores. That’s been the case since back in Newport….We’re big now. We’re really big. That’s not something I like to focus on. I always wanted to be the best retailer in the world, not necessarily the biggest…(being big poses opportunities), but being big also poses big dangers. It has ruined many a fine company – including some giant retailers – who started out strong and got bloated or out of touch or were slow to react to the needs of their customers. Here’s the point: the biggest Wal-Mart gets, the more essential it is that we think small. Because that is exactly how we have become a big corporation.

- Sam Walton

Initiative and starting are about neither of these. They are about “let’s see” and “try.” If there’s no clear right answer, perhaps the thing you ought to do is something new. Something new is often the right path when the world is complicated.

- Seth Godin

Through the Force, things you will see. Other places. The future…the past. Old friends long gone.

- Yoda

Everything tends towards catastrophe and collapse. I am interested, geared up and happy. Is it not horrible to be built like that?

- Winston Churchill

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

- Phil Knight

20% of what you do accounts for 80% of your results

- Brian Tracy

Don’t criticize them, they are just what we would be under similar circumstances.

- Dale Carnegie

To win big, you sometimes have to take big risks.

- Bill Gates

You know what your problem is, it’s that you haven’t seen enough movies – all of life’s riddles are answered in the movies.

- Steve Martin

The Net is not television. It is the finest direct-marketing mechanism in the history of mankind. It is direct mail with free stamps, and it allows you to create richer and deeper relationships than you’ve ever been able to create before.

- Seth Godin

Not only must you be an artist, must you be generous, and must you be able to see where you can help but you must also be aware. Aware of where your skills are welcomed.

- Seth Godin

Dreamline Questions:What are you good at?What could you be the best at?What makes you happy?What excites you?What makes you feel accomplished and good about yourself?What are you most proud of having accomplished in your life? Can you repeat this or further develop it?What do you enjoy sharing or experiencing with other people?

- Timothy Ferriss

I worked with many departments in China to organise a ‘One million farmer’ programme. The scheme trained them to learn professional skills.

- Lee Shau Kee

Use every customer point of contact to weave stories about who you are and what your brand stands for.

- Gary Vaynerchuk

By getting your customers to agree with you in small steps along the way, you have a better chance of reaching agreement when it’s time to do business.

- Harvey Mackay

Dell’s a company that has changed the IT landscape in making PCs and servers more affordable. There’s enormous opportunities to make IT more accessible to tens of millions of companies, kind of democratizing the ability for companies to gain access to IT.

- Michael Dell

I saw a report yesterday. There’s so much oil, all over the world, they don’t know where to dump it. And Saudi Arabia says, ‘Oh, there’s too much oil.’ They – they came back yesterday. Did you see the report? They want to reduce oil production. Do you think they’re our friends? They’re not our friends.

- Donald Trump

There seems to be some perverse human characteristic that likes to make easy things difficult.

- Warren Buffett

I am convinced that in order for you, as a patient, to be protected, it has to be transparent, evidence-based, objective information. Not self-serving information. Not pharma-driven information. Not ad-driven information. It is transparent, objective, evidence-based information.

- Patrick Soon-Shiong

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

There are two types of people in the world. One type is known as leaders and the other as followers. Decide at the outset whether you intend to become a leader in your chose calling or remain a follower. The difference in compensation is vast. The follwer cannot reasonably expect the compensation to which a leader is entitled, although many followers make the mistake of expecting such pay.

- Napoleon Hill

I find out what the world needs. Then I go ahead and try to invent it.

- Thomas Edison

The global economy has experienced considerable slowdown in recent times. However there has been one notable exception: China.

- Cheng Yu-tung

Before you can inspire with emotion, you must be swamped with it yourself. Before you can move their tears, your own must flow. To convince them, you must yourself, believe.

- Winston Churchill

Deciding what not to do is as important as deciding what to do.

- Steve Jobs

Don’t be cocky. Don’t be flashy. There’s always someone better than you.

- Tony Hsieh

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

What goes on in Europe concerns us greatly because, if Europe comes apart, the E.U. comes apart, then you’re going to have enormous impact on America, that’s a very big trading partner of ours, and people own securities around the world in this day and age.

- Michael Bloomberg

It’s all a risk. Always. That’s not true, actually. The only exception: it’s a certainty that there’s risk. The safer you play your plans for the future, the riskier it actually is. That’s because the world is certainly, definitely, and more than possibly changing.

- Seth Godin

There are people who are really good managers, people who can manage a big organization, and then there are people who are very analytic or focused on strategy. Those two types don’t usually tend to be in the same person. I would put myself much more in the latter camp.

- Mark Zuckerberg

Don’t do anything that you wouldn’t feel comfortable reading about in the newspaper the next day.

- Joel Olsteen

Money is like an arm or leg – use it or lose it.

- Henry Ford

I now eat four Brazil nuts and one tablespoon of almond butter first thing upon waking.

- Timothy Ferriss

When Ford sells a car, a dealer isn’t allowed to take out the engine and put a different one in. When a newsstand sells the Washington Post, no one can go to the newsstand and pay them to rip out the classified section and put their own classified section in – if they could, they would do so.

- Bill Gates

I’ve got the greatest job in the world. There’s no other job in government where cause and effect is so tightly coupled where you can make a difference every day in so many different ways and in so many different people’s lives. It’s a great challenge.

- Michael Bloomberg

I have ten marathons under my belt, including four New York races and one Boston.

- Harvey Mackay

The first sign of greatness is when a man does not attempt to look and act great. Before you can call yourself a man at all, Kipling assures us, you must not look too good nor talk too wise.

- Dale Carnegie

Acceptance of what has happened is the first step to overcoming the consequences of any misfortune.

- Dale Carnegie

We won’t change at all, … We feel consolidation will continue. We’re seeing more and more movement to fewer networking vendors.

- John Chambers

Consumers, we’re too busy to pay attention to advertising, but we’re desperate to find good stuff that solves our problems.

- Seth Godin

We were pretty schizophrenic. We were going to take on the world, but we couldn’t make payroll.

- Phil Knight

So the challenge, as you contemplate your next opportunity to be boring or remarkable, is to answer these two questions: (1) “If I get criticized for this, will I suffer any measurable impact? Will I lose my job, get hit upside the head with a softball bat, or lose important friendships?” If the only side effect of the criticism is that you will feel bad about the criticism, then you have to compare that bad feeling with the benefits you’ll get from actually doing something worth doing. Being remarkable is exciting, fun, profitable, and great for your career. Feeling bad wears off. And then, once you’ve compared the bad feeling and the benefits, and you’ve sold yourself on taking the remarkable path, answer this one: (2) How can I create something that critics will criticize?

- Seth Godin

The fuel cell is just a fundamentally inferior way of delivering electrical energy to an electric motor than batteries.

- Elon Musk

The prevailing low mortgage rate, reasonable affordability and the low completion volumes for private-residential units in the coming few years should lend support to the local residential property market.

- Lee Shau Kee

We have built a company with a business mix and operating system that will allow us to deliver record results in any foreseeable economic climate, … We have just completed a very successful management transition and I’ve never been more confident about the company’s future.

- Jack Welch

No matter how many times you get knocked down, keep getting back up. God sees your resolve. He sees your determination. And when you do everything you can do, that’s when God will step in and do what you can’t do.

- Joel Olsteen

People are the key to success or extraordinary success.

- Azim Premji

Let’s realize that the person we are going to correct and condemn will probably justify himself or herself, and condemn us in return; or, like the gentle Taft, will say: I don’t see how I could have done any differently from what I have.

- Dale Carnegie

The great defense against the air menace is to attack the enemy’s aircraft as near as possible to their point of departure.

- Winston Churchill

Sales is what you do in person, one on one. Marketing is sales done via a system. Most (Self-Employed) S quadrant businesspeople are very good at one-on-one sales. For them to make the transition to the B quadrant, they need to learn how to sell through a system which is called marketing.

- Robert Kiyosaki

We believe the competitive and economic environment will remain very challenging in the year ahead. Whilst we think we have the opportunity to make improvements to some of our ranges, we are still budgeting on the basis of negative like-for-like retail sales for the year.

- Simon Wolfson

Velocity and drive comes from your desire to achieve.

- Jim Cathcart

You can’t win an argument. You can’t because if you lose it, you lose it; and if you win it, you lose it.

- Dale Carnegie

To make a ton of steel on and half tons of iron stone has to be mined, transported by rail a hundred miles to the Lakes, carried by boat hundreds of miles, transferred to cars, transported by rail 150 miles to Pittsburgh; one and a half tons of coal must be mined and manufactured into coke and carried 50 (odd) miles by rail; and one ton of limestone mined and carried 150 miles to Pittsburgh. How then could steel be manufactured and sold without loss at 3 pounds for 2 cents. This, I confess seemed to me incredible, and little less than miraculous, but it was so.

- Andrew Carnegie

People who sell advertising are called “account executives.” People who sell customers work in “business development.” People who sell companies are “investment bankers.” And people who sell themselves are called “politicians.” There’s a reason for these redescriptions: none of us wants to be reminded when we’re being sold.

- Peter Thiel

When you’ve got a strong enough why, you can always find the how.

- Zig Ziglar

To my mind the old masters are not art, their value is in their scarcity.

- Thomas Edison

Everyone is going to binge on a diet, for instance, so plan for it, schedule it, and contain the damage.

- Timothy Ferriss

It truly levels the playing field and puts all the emphasis on the content. And all the emphasis on the merit of the idea.

- Jack Dorsey

It says in Romans 5:17, We are to reign in life as kings.” When God looks at us He doesn’t see us defeated, barely getting by, or just taking the leftover positions. Not at all. God sees you as a king. He sees you as a queen. You have His royal blood flowing through your veins. You and I are supposed to reign in life. Do you know what that word reign means? It means, time in power.” God said we’re to reign how long? In life. That means as long as you’re alive that is your time in power. You don’t have a two-year term like a mayor, a four-year term like a president. Your term is to reign every single day, to be victorious, to rise to new levels, to accomplish great things.

- Joel Olsteen

And if I were the president, I’d go out there and I’d emphasize the things I have done, and I’d say, ‘Some things haven’t worked, and I’m sorry about that, but I keep trying.’ And I’m – and I think the president is a very viable candidate, and you’re going to have a real horse race here no matter who the Republican nominee is.

- Michael Bloomberg

You walk into a retail store, whatever it is, and if there’s a sense of entertainment and excitement and electricity, you wanna be there.

- Howard Schultz

Marc: “Do you know the best thing about startups?” Ben: “What?” Marc: “You only ever experience two emotions: euphoria and terror. And I find that lack of sleep enhances them both.”

- Ben Horowitz

It is a fine thing to be honest, but it is also very important to be right.

- Winston Churchill

In the game of life, before you get anything out, you must put something in!

- Zig Ziglar

It is not necessary to do extraordinary things to get extraordinary results.

- Warren Buffett

Not long ago somebody showed me an article written for a local magazine in 1960. IT was called Success Story of the Year, and it described how we had built up an empire of nine variety stores. Then it quoted me as saying that we probably wouldn’t grow much more because I believed in personally supervising the nine-store group, and I thought any more stores would be unwieldy to manager without additional supervisors. So what the heck happened? How did we ever get to be the largest retailer in the world with a philosophy like that?

- Sam Walton

The Global Fund is a central player in the progress being achieved on HIV, TB and malaria. It channels resources to help countries fight these diseases. I believe in its impact because I have seen it firsthand.

- Bill Gates

If one dream dies, dream another dream. If you get knocked down, get back up and go again.

- Joel Olsteen

The higher the level of leadership people want to reach, the greater the sacrifices they will have to make?

- John Maxwell

The CIA will only hire people with impeccable credentials to be a translator. ‘Impeccable credentials’ means you’ve never lived outside the United States.

- Michael Bloomberg

The indefiniteness of finance can be bizarre. Think about what happens when successful entrepreneurs sell their company. What do they do with the money? In a financialized world, it unfolds like this: • The founders don’t know what to do with it, so they give it to a large bank. • The bankers don’t know what to do with it.

- Peter Thiel

Before everything else, getting ready is the secret of success.

- Henry Ford

Nothing would be more fatal than for the Government of States to get in the hands of experts. Expert knowledge is limited knowledge, and the unlimited ignorance of the plain man who knows where it hurts is a safer guide than any rigorous direction of a specialized character.

- Winston Churchill

We’re trying to identify the key influencers and make them distribution points.

- Jack Dorsey

Forty to 60 I would say is your prime. That’s when you know the most, you’ve seen the most, you understand the most, and you still have some physical energy.

- Jerry Seinfeld

Determine your destiny or somebody else will.

- Jack Welch

The challenge is to focus on the work, not on the fear that comes from doing the work.

- Seth Godin

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