Linux is a cancer that attaches itself in an intellectual property sense to everything it touches.
- Steve Ballmer
Notable Quotables
Media companies focused on things like creating great stories whereas technology companies focused on creating a better way of doing things. We began to think about new ideas and about forming a new company.
- Ben Horowitz
I think that the economics of book publishing favor hits with long book runs. You make all your money on the last bunch of books, not the first.
- Seth Godin
We shall see how the counsels of prudence and restraint may become the prime agents of mortal danger, how the middle course adopted from desires for safety and a quiet life may be found to lead direct to the bull’s-eye of disaster.
- Winston Churchill
I’m a strange mixture of my mother’s curiosity; my father, who grew up the son of the manse in a Presbyterian family, who had a tremendous sense of duty and responsibility; and my mother’s father, who was always in trouble with gambling debts.
- Rupert Murdoch
I am ready to meet my Maker. Whether my Maker is prepared for the ordeal of meeting me is another matter.
- Winston Churchill
There’s an old saying: To lead yourself, use your head; to lead others, use your heart. That’s the nature of the Law of Connection. Always touch a person’s heart before you ask for a hand.
- Michael Levine
The fishing is best where the fewest go, and the collective insecurity of the world makes it easy for people to hit home runs while everyone else is aiming for base hits. There is just less competition for bigger goals.
- Timothy Ferriss
The good-to-great companies made a habit of putting their best people on their best opportunities, not their biggest problems. The comparison companies had a penchant for doing just the opposite, failing to grasp the fact that managing your problems can only make you good, whereas building your opportunities is the only way to become great. There is an important.
- James C. Collins
Later on, Rockefeller learned to camouflage his business anxiety behind a studied calm, but during these years it ws often graphically displayed. Clark remembered one daring venture when the firm wagered its entire capital on a large grain shipment to Buffalo. With foolish, atypical imprudence, Rockefeller suggested that they skip the insurance and pocket the $150.00 premium; Gardner and Clark reluctantly acquiesced. That night, a terrible storm blew across Lake Erie, and when Gardner came to the office the next morning, a frightfully pale Rockefeller paced the floor in agitation. Let’s take out insurance right away, he said, We still have time – if the boat hasn’t been wrecked by now. Gardner ran off to pay the premium. By the time he got back, Rockefeller was waving a telegram announcing the ship’s safe arrival in Buffalo. Whether unnerved by the episode or upset at having paid the unnecessary premium, Rockefeller went home ill that afternoon.
- Ron Chernow
At an end your rule is, and not short enought it was!
- Yoda
Too few people in computer science are aware of some of the informational challenges in biology and their implications for the world. We can store an incredible amount of data very cheaply
- Sergey Brin
I am always ready to learn although I do not always like being taught.
- Winston Churchill
The time will never be right to start. Today is your day. Study successful people, do what they do, and you too will be successful.
- Clay Clark
It almost goes without saying that the team needs diversity of skills. Can you imagine a hockey team of goalies? Or a football team of quarterbacks? It doesn’t make sense. In the same way, organizations require diverse talents to succeed, each player taking his part.
- John Maxwell
The danger of the Web is that you can go from idea to public announcement in under ten minutes.
- Seth Godin
The skill sets it takes to be a successful entrepreneur, a successful marketer, or a relevant celebrity is a different skill set than you needed ten years ago, even though that was the skill set that mattered for decades.
- Gary Vaynerchuk
Life’s too short to fight the forces of change. Life’s too short to hate what you do all day. Life’s way too short to make mediocre stuff.
- Seth Godin
I am quite serious when I say that I do not believe there are, on the whole earth besides, so many intensified bores as in these United States. No man can form an adequate idea of the real meaning of the word, without coming here.
- Warren Buffett
One day President Roosevelt told me that he was asking publicly for suggestions about what the war should be called. I said at once ‘The Unnecessary War’.
- Winston Churchill
Right now, with social networks and other tools on the Internet, all of these 500 million people have a way to say what they’re thinking and have their voice be heard.
- Mark Zuckerberg
I’ve been to Disneyland, like, 10 times. I’m getting really tired of Disneyland.
- Elon Musk
In the end, the customer doesn’t know, or care, if you are small or large as an organization. She or he only focuses on the garmenthanging on the rail in the store.
- Giorgio Armani
[On Twitter and Japan] We’ve had massive success in Japan… In Japan, it’s not 140 characters, it’s 140 words. So you could write a little mini-novel. This is a whole story in the universe.
- Jack Dorsey
Heretics are the new leaders. The ones who challenge the status quo, who get out in front of their tribes, who create movements.
- Seth Godin
The knowledge worker is not poverty-prone. He is in danger of alienation, to use the fashionable word for boredom, frustration, and silent despair.
- Peter Drucker
My saddlebags are why Spanx exist! Now that I have a baby I also have a muffin top.
- Sara Blakely
Law has become a business. Health care has become a business. Unfortunately, politics has also become a business. That really undermines society.
- George Soros
If you’re not one or two in the market, you don’t make money. The market leaders make the money.
- Jack Welch
Success is walking from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm.
- Winston Churchill
No accurate thinker will judge another person by that which the other person’s enemies say about him.
- Napoleon Hill
I was born in Africa. I came to California because it’s really where new technologies can be brought to fruition, and I don’t see a viable competitor.
- Elon Musk
Bloodshed, gentlemen, no doubt is lamentable. I have seen some of it–more perhaps than many of those who talk about it with such levity. But there are worse things than bloodshed, even on an extreme scale. . . . The trampling down of law and order which, under the conditions of a civilised state, assure life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness–all this would be worse than bloodshed.
- Winston Churchill
The only way to get ahead is to find errors in conventional wisdom.
- Larry Ellison
Success is about being where we are supposed to be and doing what we need to be doing.
- David Robinson
The quality of our integration will be judged, not by the ultimate costs in hitting our targets, but instead by the level of service we give to our clients throughout the process. That’s kind of my 8-to-5 job. My 5-to-8 job is what’s the next move? Where else in health care do we see inefficiencies, that we see a splintered system with tremendous cost overruns?
- George Paz
There is no education like adversity.
- Benjamin Disraeli
I think Steve Jobs is my idol.
- Ma Huateng
Half the battle is selling music, not singing it. It’s the image, not what you sing.
- Rod Stewart
I always saw myself wanting to do something deemed successful and good at the same time.
- Howard Schultz
If you are a big company, a big website, and lots of users come to your website, you will have attacks, and you have to deal with that. It just cannot be a reason to take actions to exit certain markets.
- Robin Li
The spirit of Southwest Airlines is exuberant, it’s caring, it’s dedicated, it’s diligent, it’s fun, it’s rewarding, it’s a joy.
- Herb Kelleher
What chance does a five-foot-seven billionaire Jew who’s divorced really have of becoming president?
- Michael Bloomberg
A record isn’t like a movie – you can get it together pretty fast.
- Steve Martin
While a definitely optimistic future would need engineers to design underwater cities and settlements in space, an indefinitely optimistic future calls for more bankers and lawyers.
- Peter Thiel
Great and good are seldom the same man.
- Winston Churchill
He was contradicting everything he’d taught us about not running sick and making it worse. I knew it was just to make me acknowledge that his word was law, no matter how arbitrary. But that didn’t make it any easier to take. I was so mad I ran a personal record.
- Phil Knight
Being a good company is an end in itself.
- Ben Horowitz
Don’t waste your time trying to win people over that can never be won over.
- Joel Olsteen
We now accept the fact that learning is a lifelong process of keeping abreast of change. And the most pressing task is to teach people how to learn.
- Peter Drucker
The way to achieve happiness is to try for perfection that is impossible to achieve, and spend the rest of your life trying to achieve it.
- Winston Churchill
When two partners always agree, one of them is not necessary. If there is some point you haven’t thought about, be thankful if it is brought to your attention.
- Dale Carnegie
It will be disastrous when a leader or manager shows up with one attitude one day and treats people with a different attitude the next day.
- Zig Ziglar
I believe that everyone is the keeper of a dream – and by tuning into one another’s secret hopes, we can become better friends, better partners, better parents, and better lovers.
- Oprah Winfrey
It is the people who control the Government, not the Government the people.
- Winston Churchill
I’ve become an animal rights activist.
- Stephen Wynn
Companies are like countries in this way. Bad decisions made early on—if you choose the wrong partners or hire the wrong people, for example—are very hard to correct after they are made. It may take a crisis on the order of bankruptcy before anybody will even try to correct them. As a founder, your first job is to get the first things right, because you cannot build a great company on a flawed foundation.
- Peter Thiel
Magnesium and calcium are easiest to consume in pill form, and 500 milligrams of magnesium taken prior to bed will also improve sleep.
- Timothy Ferriss
College students can become extremely skilled at a few specialties, but many never learn what to do with those skills in the wider world.
- Peter Thiel
I am not a product of my circumstances. I am a product of my decisions.
- Stephen R. Covey
There are very few people who really appreciate my shows. People come to the show and they pay and they enjoy it, but I don’t really think most people really understand what they’ve seen.
- Jerry Seinfeld
When you marry operating excellence with innovation, you multiply the value of your creativity.
- James C. Collins
I did stand-up comedy for 18 years. Ten of those years were spent learning, four years were spent refining, and four years were spent in wild success. I was seeking comic originality, and fame fell on me as a byproduct. The course was more plodding than heroic.
- Steve Martin
During the epidemic period of SARS, the Group purchased large quantities of disinfectant materials for donation to the local communities.
- Lee Shau Kee
The most talented do not always end up as celebrities, and those with less talent often do. Upsets are written into our history and occur around us every day.
- John C. Maxwell
The fact is, everyone is in sales.
- Jay Abraham
When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.
- Oprah Winfrey
To enjoy life, you don’t need fancy nonsense, but you do need to control your time and realize that most things just aren’t as serious as you make them out to be.
- Timothy Ferriss
There can be no deep disappointment where there is not deep love.
- Martin Luther King Jr.
I have the favor of God. I can do all things through Christ. I am blessed. I’m strong. I’m healthy.
- Joel Olsteen
Finding security in mediocrity is an exhausting process. You can work only so many hours, fret only so much. Being a slightly better typist or a slightly faster coder is insufficient. You’re always looking over your shoulder, always trying to be a little less mediocre than the guy next to you. It wears you out.
- Seth Godin
Sometimes you do have to fight. Where that’s true, you should fight and win. There is no middle ground: either don’t throw any punches, or strike hard and end it quickly.
- Peter Thiel
The most important thing in life is not to capitalize on your gains. Any fool can do that. The really important thing is to profit from your losses.
- Dale Carnegie
We are not trying to entertain the critics. I’ll take my chances with the public.
- Walt Disney
To do more for the world than the world does for you – that is success.
- Henry Ford
When you are full of pride on the inside, it makes you stiff, stubborn, and creates strife with others.
- John C. Maxwell
[Introducing himself to Sony co-founder Akio Morita] I have six of your TVs in my house.
- Phil Knight
Chaos in the midst of chaos isn’t funny, but chaos in the midst of order is.
- Steve Martin
I don’t think it’s a good idea to plan to sell a company.
- Elon Musk
To properly value a business, you also have to discount those future cash flows to their present worth, since a given amount of money today is worth more than the same amount in the future.
- Peter Thiel
Surround yourself with the right people
- Tony Hsieh
In ninth grade, I came up with a new form of rebellion. I hadn’t been getting good grades, but I decided to get all A’s without taking a book home. I didn’t go to math class, because I knew enough and had read ahead, and I placed within the top 10 people in the nation on an aptitude exam.
- Bill Gates
The secret of being miserable is to have the leisure to bother about whether you are happy or not.
- Dale Carnegie
It is always wise to look ahead, but difficult to look further than you can see.
- Winston Churchill
I’ve taken those pharmacists and asked them to reach out to doctors. Doctors still misprescribe very often. They leave gaps with care. People with asthma, they don’t take their inhalers, they wait until they’re sick, and by then, it’s too late. Now we’re already running up the bills and going to emergency rooms. We’re using our pharmacist to do the things they were educated to do, not to count pills. That’s not where the value is.
- George Paz
The important thing about mobile is, everybody has a computer in their pocket. The implications of so many people connected to the Internet all the time from the standpoint of education is incredible.
- Ben Horowitz
Young people, when they’re left alone, always want to have compassion, and they always want to give. They always want to help people who are less fortunate.
- Russell Simmons
Relationships are leverage. If you give value to someone else first, you have leverage.
- Gary Vaynerchuk
The tablet is not mainstream. Reading off the screen is not mainstream.
- Bill Gates
It’s lonely at the top. Ninety-nine percent of people in the world are convinced they are incapable of achieving great things, so they aim for the mediocre. The level of competition is thus fiercest for ‘realistic’ goals, paradoxically making them the most time and energy-consuming.
- Timothy Ferriss
One of my lifelong practices is to pay my obligations on time, especially my suppliers. Even in my early years as retailer, I didn’t delay my payments to suppliers, because I tell my kids that we have to be considerate to suppliers and think of their own hinyong or how they have to protect their sense of trustworthiness with others.
- Henry Sy
We learn by doing.
- Aristotle
Success is one thing you can’t pay for. You buy it on the installment plan and make payments every day.
- Zig Ziglar
The mistake that’s so easy to make is to get greedy as you choose your hive, to say, “this product is for everyone” or “anyone can benefit from this idea.” Well, there are seven billion people on the planet, so it’s unlikely your comment is correct; even if it is, there’s little chance that a virus would spread across a hive that big.
- Seth Godin
We subpoenaed him for the SAP trial and he was on the lam. The HP board sent him to Bolivia to talk to customers. Then they sent him to Mongolia to talk to customers, just out of reach of the federal subpoenas … the board figured out [later]: we should have left Leo in Mongolia.
- Larry Ellison
For 20-plus years I looked at thousands of storyboard for corporate and product ads, and I never allowed one advertisement on the air that I didn’t like.
- Jack Welch
Hosting the Oscars is much like making love to a woman. It’s something I only get to do when Billy Crystal is out of town.
- Steve Martin
We’ll be watching as the storm approaches. If we see a service area is about to be hit by high winds, we will literally have crews loaded and sitting in trucks, ready to go.
- Ed Clark
Company culture” doesn’t exist apart from the company itself: no company has a culture; every company is a culture. A startup is a team of people on a mission, and a good culture is just what that looks like on the inside.
- Peter Thiel
There are no shortcuts to knowledge, especially knowledge gained from personal experience. Following conventional wisdom and relying on shortcuts can be worse than knowing nothing at all.
- Ben Horowitz
