There is no sure path to success, but the surest path to failure is trying to please everyone.
- Timothy Ferriss
Notable Quotables
I’d be happy to provide advice if anybody asked me no matter who the President is.
- Michael Bloomberg
You will get all you want in life if you help enough other people get what they want.
- Zig Ziglar
When screening engineers from other companies, its smart to value engineers from great companies more than those from mediocre companies.
- Ben Horowitz
There is no such thing as Something for nothing.
- Napoleon Hill
Since when has the world of computer software design been about what people want? This is a simple question of evolution. The day is quickly coming when every knee will bow down to a silicon fist, and you will all beg your binary gods for mercy.
- Bill Gates
Some people keep God in a Sunday morning box and say, ‘Hey, I did my religious duty.’ That’s fine, but the scripture says to pray without ceasing. And I think that means all through the day you’re talking to God. Even if it’s in your thoughts.
- Joel Olsteen
Larger-than-life, celebrity leaders who ride in from the outside are negatively correlated with taking a company from good to great. Ten of eleven good-to-great CEOs came from inside the company, whereas the comparison companies tried outside CEOs six times more often.
- James C. Collins
Greatness is not a function of circumstance. Greatness, it turns out, is largely a matter of conscious choice, and discipline.
- James C. Collins
Should you find yourself in a chronically leaking boat, energy devoted to changing vessels is likely to be more productive than energy devoted to patching leaks.
- Warren Buffett
There seems to be some perverse human characteristic that likes to make easy things difficult.
- Warren Buffett
As a company grows, communication becomes its biggest challenge. If the employees fundamentally trust the CEO, then communication will be vastly more efficient than if they don’t.
- Ben Horowitz
Refuse to accept partial completeness.
- Timothy Ferriss
Hong Kong has gone through many ups and downs in the past. Unavoidably, one needs to go through the lowest point before reaching the peak again.
- Cheng Yu-tung
I can understand wanting to have millions of dollars; there’s a certain freedom, meaningful freedom, that comes with that.
- Bill Gates
I also have in mind that seemingly wealthy, but most terribly impoverished class of all, who have accumulated dross, but know not how to use it, or get rid of it, and thus have forged their own golden or silver fetters. —HENRY DAVID THOREAU (1817–1862)
- Timothy Ferriss
The evidence is inarguable that Australia is becoming too expensive and too uncompetitive to do export-oriented business. Africans want to work, and its workers are willing to work for less than $2 per day. Such statistics make me worry for this country’s future. We are becoming a high-cost and high-risk nation for investment.
- Gina Rinehart
Comparing Apple to Netflix is like comparing apples to oranges, especially if the oranges made so many mistakes that people stopped eating oranges and just went back to Blockbuster.
- Reed Hastings
By my count, more business leaders have failed and derailed because of arrogance than any other character flaw.
- Harvey Mackay
To me, the idea and expectation that the day is slowly and surely coming when we will be able to honestly say we are our brother’s keeper and not his oppressor is very beautiful .
- Thomas Edison
Level 5 leaders channel their ego needs away from themselves and into the larger goal of building a great company. It’s not that Level 5 leaders have no ego or self-interest. Indeed, they are incredibly ambitious—but their ambition is first and foremost for the institution, not themselves.
- James C. Collins
Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will.
- Mahatma Gandhi
If you want people to know how much you care, show them how much you remember. Learn their names and use them often. It’s an important skill to develop.
- Harvey Mackay
All successful people men and women are big dreamers. They imagine what their future could be, ideal in every respect, and then they work every day toward their distant vision, that goal or purpose.
- Brian Tracy
Don’t kill competition. Competition is healthy for businesses. It keeps you – the entrepreneur – on your toes.
- Aliko Dangote
Saying yes makes you fail to meet expectations of theobligation.
- David Nilssen
While the uncertainties that the economic climate holds are a challenge for all companies, we are confident that by drawing from the strengths of our people, as well as on our core values of quality, initiative, trust and creativity, we will maintain our focus and strategic direction.
- Cheng Yu-tung
Approach each customer with the idea of helping them solve a problem or achieve a goal, not of selling a product or service.
- Brian Tracy
Los mitos y los sueños proceden del mismo lugar… Un mito es el sueño de una sociedad.
- Joseph Campbell
Abundance and scarcity In a society where value is created by the manufacture of goods or the allocation of limited resources, it’s not a surprise that organizations seek scarcity. We hesitate to share, because if I give you this, then I don’t have it any more. We erect barriers and create rules to make it difficult for some people to have access to these limited resources. While we don’t set out to become miserly, it’s an economic instinct, because what’s yours is no long mine. Even though we give lip service to sharing when kids show up for kindergarten classes, most of school is organized around the same ideas. We rank students, we cut players from the roster, we grade on a curve. Success, we teach, is scarce. Our new economy, though, is based on abundance, the abundance that comes from ideas and access. If I benefit when everyone knows my idea, then the more people I give the idea to, the better we all do. If I benefit when I earn a reputation leading, connecting and creating positive change, then I’ll benefit if I can offer these insights to anyone who can benefit from them. With an abundance mindset, we intentionally create goods that can be shared. It’s not based on our traditional factory-based economy, but it works now (in fact, it’s just about all that works)… engaging with the mesh, building communities that benefit from sharing resources instead of destroying them is a strategy that scales. With an abundance mindset, we create ideas and services that do better when people share.
- Seth Godin
Nobody is going to delegate a lot of power to a secretary that they can’t control.
- Michael Bloomberg
Those who do not know how to fight worry die young.
- Dale Carnegie
All successful people ‘think on paper.’
- Brian Tracy
We have more than six and one-half times the level of wealth of our non-millionaire neighbors, but, in our neighborhood, these nonmillionaires outnumber us better than three to one. Could it be that they have chosen to trade wealth for acquiring high-status material possessions?
- Thomas J Stanley
Buoyant consumer confidence will continue to underpin retial spending and hence rental growth for shopping centres. The office market is expected to perform well on the back of tight supply being met by keen demand from companies looking for expansion opportunities.
- Lee Shau Kee
Most business people today are not going to invest in the uncertainty that exists in America.
- Howard Schultz
The killer app that got the world ready for appliances was the light bulb. So the light bulb is what wired the world. And they weren’t thinking about appliances when they wired the world. They were really thinking about – they weren’t putting electricity into the home. They were putting lighting into the home.
- Jeff Bezos
I believe we are in a world where innovation in stuff was outlawed. It was basically outlawed in the last 40 years – part of it was environmentalism, part of it was risk aversion.
- Peter Thiel
Speed is of the essence in responding to a crisis situation, and our focus is squarely on mobilizing resources to help in the relief and rebuilding efforts, while also helping customers and employees recover.
- John Chambers
Digital reading will completely take over. It’s lightweight and it’s fantastic for sharing. Over time it will take over.
- Bill Gates
If you can’t sleep, then get up and do something instead of lying there worrying. It’s the worry that gets you, not the lack of sleep.
- Dale Carnegie
The single reason for a salesperson’s existence is to get the Buyer’s commitment. Just how poor are salespeople at their jobs? In a study of professional sales people (those who sell full time), 50% failed to ask for the buyer’s commitment to buy.
- Jerry Vass
When you do things the right way, you have nothing to lose because you have nothing to fear.
- Zig Ziglar
Moving first is a tactic, not a goal.
- Peter Thiel
[That was the case Wednesday night, when Cisco executives talked about results for the fiscal second quarter (which closed on Jan. 26). Chambers and chief financial officer Larry Carter spoke only about the next quarter, when revenue growth from the second fiscal quarter is expected to be nil or in the low single digits.] Our visibility is still very limited, … If there’s one lesson we’ve learned over the past year, it’s how quickly things can change.
- John Chambers
Philanthropy should be voluntary.
- Bill Gates
In the simplest terms, a leader is one who knows where he wants to go, and gets up and goes.
- John Erskine
With vision and foresight, thorough consideration, careful planning and steadfast commitment, the New World Group will continue to maintain its ambitious yet healthy investment strategy to grow together with the nation and strive for greater success in the future.
- Cheng Yu-tung
To make knowledge productive, we will have to learn to see both forest and tree. We will have to learn to connect.
- Peter Drucker
[On a small business class taught at university by Frank Shallenberger] Shallenberger started by defining the type of person who was an entrepreneur, and I realized he was talking to me.
- Phil Knight
Always deliver more than expected.
- Larry Page
Capital isn’t scarce, vision is.
- Sam Walton
Abhor what is evil. Cling to what is good.
- Apostle Paul
Rivalry causes us to overemphasize old opportunities and slavishly copy what has worked in the past.
- Peter Thiel
I believe that visualization is one of the most powerful means of achieving personal goals.
- Harvey Mackay
A minute of thought is greater than an hour of talk.
- John C. Maxwell
Slow Dance: Have you ever watched kids, On a merry-go-round? Or listened to the rain, Slapping on the ground? Ever followed a butterfly’s erratic flight? Or gazed at the sun into the fading night? You better slow down. Don’t dance too fast. Time is short. The music won’t last. Do you run through each day, On the fly? When you ask: How are you? Do you hear the reply? When the day is done, do you lie in your bed, With the next hundred chores, Running through your head? You’d better slow down, Don’t dance too fast. Time is short, The music won’t last. Ever told your child we’ll do it tomorrow? And in your haste, Not see his sorrow? Ever lost touch, Let a good friendship die, Cause you never had time, To call and say Hi? You’d better slow down. Don’t dance so fast. Time is short. The music won’t last. When you run so fast to get somewhere, You miss half the fun of getting there. When you worry and hurry through your day, It is like an unopened gift thrown away. Life is not a race. Do take it slower. Hear the music, Before the song is over.
- Timothy Ferriss
Nothing tells in the long run like a good judgment, and no sound judgment can remain with the man whose mind is disturbed by the mercurial changes of the stock exchange. It places him under an influence akin to intoxication. What is not, he sees, and what he sees, is not.
- Andrew Carnegie
Consumers, we’re too busy to pay attention to advertising, but we’re desperate to find good stuff that solves our problems.
- Seth Godin
It is always more easy to discover and proclaim general principles than to apply them.
- 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
Colleges are the equivalent of the subprime mortgage lenders who…
- Brian Tracy
The purpose of bureaucracy is to compensate for incompetence and lack of discipline–a problem that largely goes away if you have the right people in the first place.
- James C. Collins
You make a living by what you get. You make a life by what you give.
- Winston Churchill
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
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
Exercise is better than any medicine I can take, exercise and sleep.
- Aliko Dangote
The world today is ruled by harassed politicians absorbed in getting into office or turning out the other man so that not much room is left for debating the great issues on their merits.
- Winston Churchill
We remain confident about the market opportunity ahead of us over the next three to five years.
- John Chambers
Everybody has a calling. And your real job in life is to figure out as soon as possible what that is, who you were meant to be, and to begin to honor that in the best way possible for yourself.
- Oprah Winfrey
What a computer is to me is the most remarkable tool that we have ever come up with. It’s the equivalent of a bicycle for our minds.
- Steve Jobs
Juggling is about throwing, not catching That’s why it’s so difficult to learn how to juggle. We’re conditioned to make the catch, to hurdle whatever is in our way to save the day, to—no matter what—not drop the ball. If you spend your time and energy and focus on catching, it’s inevitable that your throws will suffer. You’ll get plenty of positive feedback for the catches you make, but you’ll always be behind, because the throws you manage to make will be ever less useful. Paradoxically, if you get better at throwing, the catches take care of themselves. The only way to get better at throwing, though, is to throw.
- Seth Godin
Over Deliver and you will soon be over-paid
- Napoleon Hill
We were trading things before we were using language to communicate.
- Jack Dorsey
Much about success is just the result of simply the ability to follow up, follow through, and finish what we started.
- Zig Ziglar
Play long enough and you might get lucky. In the technology game, tomorrow looks nothing like today. If you survive long enough to see tomorrow, it may bring you the answer that seems so impossible today.
- Ben Horowitz
I have a list of the hardest, most challenging problems that our company needs to solve and I start at the top and work my way down. And I have a list of the coolest most fascinating things that we can invent and I start at the top of the list and I work my way down.
- Travis Kalanick
The biggest part of my job now is to quickly develop successors, and around the world I am working to develop new business leaders in the company.
- Tadashi Yanai
My best friend is the one who brings out the best in me.
- Henry Ford
The intersection of law, politics, and technology is going to force a lot of good thinking.
- Bill Gates
The team with the best players wins.
- Jack Welch
How can you squander even one more day not taking advantage of the greatest shifts of our generation? How dare you settle for less when the world has made it so easy for you to be remarkable?
- Seth Godin
I wasn’t satisfied just to earn a good living. I was looking to make a statement.
- Donald Trump
Actions speak louder than words, and a smile says, ‘I like you. You make me happy. I am glad to see you.’ That is why dogs make such a hit. They are so glad to see us that they almost jump out of their skins. So, naturally, we are glad to see them.
- Dale Carnegie
Good product managers crisply define the target, the “what” (as opposed to the “how”), and manage the delivery of the “what.” Bad product managers feel best about themselves when they figure out “how.” Good product managers communicate crisply to engineering in writing as well as verbally. Good product managers don’t give direction informally. Good product managers gather information informally.
- Ben Horowitz
Success seems to be largely a matter of hanging on after others have let go.
- William Feather
This is Day 1 for the Internet and, if we execute well, for Amazon.com. Today, online commerce saves customers money and precious time. Tomorrow, through personalization, online commerce will accelerate the very process of discovery. Amazon.com uses the Internet to create real value for its customers and, by doing so, hopes to create an enduring franchise, even in established and large markets.
- Jeff Bezos
If you neglect to recharge a battery, it dies. And if you run full speed ahead without stopping for water, you lose momentum to finish the race.
- Oprah Winfrey
Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.
- Mark Twain
If that doesn’t seem dominant enough, consider the fact that the word “google” is now an official entry in the Oxford English Dictionary—as a verb.
- Peter Thiel
Opportunities come infrequently. When it rains gold, put out the bucket, not the thimble
- Warren Buffett
We’re on our way to Greece, in the hands of a confused, foolish government. It’s got to stop. It’s got to stop.
- Stephen Wynn
Ability may get you to the top, but it takes character to keep you there.
- John Wooden
History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people.
- Martin Luther King Jr.
I’ve found that luck is quite predictable. If you want more luck, take more chances. Be more active. Show up more often.
- Brian Tracy
Even if you’re on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit there.
- David Novak
Making it good at scale means admitting that it must be different and embracing the changes that you’ll need to make to keep things from falling apart.
- Ben Horowitz
As Americans we do not recognize the jurisdiction of the Hague Tribunal. We only follow court orders from the Chinese judiciary
- Sergey Brin
Maybe you’ve invested a lot of time, effort, money, emotion, and energy in a relationship; you did your best to make it work out. But for some reason, things got off course. And now you feel as though you have been robbed. When we focus on or disappointments, we stop God from ringing fresh new blessing into our lives.
- Joel Olsteen
Beginning today, treat everyone you meet as if they were going to be dead by midnight. Extend to them all the care, kindness and understanding you can muster, and do it with no thought of any reward. Your life will never be the same again.
- Og Mandino
