Notable Quotables

If salespeople don’t probe well for background information, they don’t know how to launch the presentation.

- Jerry Vass

If failure is not an option, then neither is success.

- Seth Godin

Look yourself in the mirror and ask yourself, what do I want to do everyday for the rest of my life…do that.

- Gary Vaynerchuk

At the margin, they’ll be biased to claim value in the near term, not help you create more in the future. That’s why hiring consultants doesn’t work. Part-time employees don’t work. Even working remotely should be avoided,

- Peter Thiel

Those who keep the peace of their inner selves in the midst of the tumult of the modern city are immune from nervous diseases.

- Dale Carnegie

I was the night foreman of a galvanizing factory, which is hot and smelly and dirty and miserable.

- Ronald Perelman

One challenge is the Peter Principle. Coined by Dr. Laurence J. Peter and Raymond Hull in their 1969 book of that name, the Peter Principle holds that in a hierarchy, members are promoted so long as they work competently. Sooner or later they are promoted to a position at which they are no longer competent (their “level of incompetence”), and there they remain being unable to earn further promotions.

- Ben Horowitz

The only way to get the best of an argument is to avoid it.

- Dale Carnegie

All Rhodes Scholars had a great future in their past.

- Peter Thiel

To build a successful business, you must start small and dream big.

- Aliko Dangote

I think my greatest moment in business was when the first Southwest airplane arrived after four years of litigation, and I walked up to it and I kissed that baby on the lips and I cried.

- Herb Kelleher

Talking about music is like dancing about architecture.

- Steve Martin

My natural inclination to be improv rather than an educated character serves me well.

- Gary Vaynerchuk

When you face adversity, you need to remind yourself that whatever is trying to defeat you could very well be what God will use to promote you.

- Joel Olsteen

Sooner or later, you will see a China-based company that really has a global impact, and I think Baidu has a chance to become one of those companies. We should be able to compete on a global basis.

- Robin Li

The most important thing to understand is that the job of a big company executive is very different from the job of a small company executive. When I was managing thousands of people at Hewlett-Packard after the sale of Opsware, there was an incredible number of incoming demands on my time. Everyone wanted a piece of me. Little companies wanted to partner with me or sell themselves to me, people in my organization needed approvals, other business units needed my help, customers wanted my attention, and so forth. As a result, I spent most of my time optimizing and tuning the existing business. Most of the work that I did was “incoming.” In fact, most skilled big company executives will tell you that if you have more than three new initiatives in a quarter, you are trying to do too much. As a result, big company executives tend to be interrupt-driven. In contrast, when you are a startup executive, nothing happens unless you make it happen. In the early days of a company, you have to take eight to ten new initiatives a day or the company will stand still. There is no inertia that’s putting the company in motion. Without massive input from you, the company will stay at rest.

- Ben Horowitz

Exceptionally hard decisions can deplete your energy to the point at which you finally cave in. If you mentally crumble and degenerate into negative thinking, you’ll magnify the problem to the point where it can haunt you.

- John C. Maxwell

Play the game for more than you can afford to lose . . . only then will you learn the game.

- Zig Ziglar

If all my bridge coach ever told me was that I was ‘satisfactory,’ I would have no hope of ever getting better. How would I know who was the best? How would I know what I was doing differently?

- Bill Gates

Concentrate all your thoughts upon the work at hand. The sun’s rays do not burn until brought to a focus.

- Alexander Graham Bell

The interesting thing about cloud computing is that we’ve redefined cloud computing to include everything that we already do. … The computer industry is the only industry that is more fashion-driven than women’s fashion. Maybe I’m an idiot, but I have no idea what anyone is talking about. What is it? It’s complete gibberish. It’s insane. When is this idiocy going to stop?

- Larry Ellison

WHATEVER YOU DO, DO IT WITH ALL YOUR MIGHT Work at it, if necessary, early and late, in season and out of season, not leaving a stone unturned, and never deferring for a single hour that which can be done just as well now. The old proverb is full of truth and meaning, “Whatever is worth doing at all, is worth doing well.” Many a man acquires a fortune by doing his business thoroughly, while his neighbor remains poor for life, because he only half does it. Ambition, energy, industry, perseverance, are indispensable requisites for success in business. Fortune always favors the brave, and never helps a man who does not help himself.

- P.T. Barnum

We also now believe that this slowdown in capital spending could extend beyond two quarters.

- John Chambers

I shall pass this way but once. Therefore any good that I can do or any kindness that I can show-let me do it now. Let me not defer nor neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again.

- Dale Carnegie

I don’t focus on the critics. Everyone who is making any difference in any field has critics. As long as I feel like I’m doing what I’m supposed to be doing, then I don’t worry about it.

- Joel Olsteen

There is no such thing as failure. Failure is just life trying to move us in another direction.

- Oprah Winfrey

The more we thought, the more they all sounded boring compared to Apple. You didn’t have to have a real specific reason for choosing a name when you were a little tiny company of two people; you choose any name you want.

- Steve Wozniak

But innovation and change make inordinate time demands on the executive. All one can think and do in a short time is to think what one already knows and to do as one has always done.

- Peter Drucker

When I hear people debate the ROI of social media? It makes me remember why so many business fail. Most businesses are not playing the marathon. They’re playing the sprint. They’re not worried about lifetime value and retention. They’re worried about short-term goals.

- Gary Vaynerchuk

If you complain you will remain, if you praise you will be raised.

- Joel Olsteen

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

If you always do what you’ve always done, you’re always going to get what you’ve always gotten.

- Zig Ziglar

I think it’s fair to say that personal computers have become the most empowering tool we’ve ever created. They’re tools of communication, they’re tools of creativity, and they can be shaped by their user.

- Bill Gates

In periods where there is no leadership, society stands still. Progress occurs when courageous, skillful leaders seize the opportunity to change things for the better.

- Harry Truman

Most People have a desire to look for the exception instead of the desire to become exceptional.

- John C. Maxwell

Since we happened to be good at shoes, we thought we could be successful with casual shoes. But we got our brains beat out.

- Phil Knight

My saddlebags are why Spanx exist! Now that I have a baby I also have a muffin top.

- Sara Blakely

The rest of their generation was left behind, but the wealthy Boomers who shape public opinion today see little reason to question their naïve optimism.

- Peter Thiel

I believe in Judaism, I was raised a Jew, I’m happy to be one – or proud to be one.

- Michael Bloomberg

When you acknowledge God, He will go before you and make the crooked places straight.

- Joel Olsteen

Every moment in business happens only once. The next Bill Gates will not build an operating system. The next Larry Page or Sergey Brin won’t make a search engine. And the next Mark Zuckerberg won’t create a social network. If you are copying these guys, you aren’t learning from them.

- Peter Thiel

Funny is the world I live in. You’re funny, I’m interested. You’re not funny, I’m not interested.

- Jerry Seinfeld

God wants to use you in spite of your weaknesses. Of God chose to use perfect people only, He’d have no one to use.

- Joel Olsteen

In Hong Kong, the property business has always been very competitive, so we have to think of ways to get an edge over our competitors.

- Raymond Kwok

I think I meant that, given the circumstances of my childhood, I had the illusion that it’s easier to be alone. To have your relationships be casual and also to pose as a solitary person, because it was more romantic. You know, I was raised on the idea of the ramblin’ man and the loner.

- Steve Martin

Make no mistake about why these babies are here – they are here to replace us.

- Jerry Seinfeld

The good-will of a business which is losing money is not worth much.

- Ron Chernow

Tolstoy opens Anna Karenina by observing: “All happy families are alike”, each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” Business is the opposite. All happy companies are different: each one earns a monopoly by solving a unique problem. All failed companies are the same: they failed to escape competition.

- Peter Thiel

Present my story and the difficulties that I have faced. As an entrepreneur, a CEO.

- Ben Horowitz

I try to make myself happy, no, because I know that if I’m not happy, my colleagues are not happy and my shareholders are not happy and my customers are not happy.

- Jack Ma

In 1984, the Sino-British talks on the future of Hong Kong triggered a confidence crisis. Daunted by the uncertainties over the colony’s future, most developers shied away from construction projects that took considerable time to complete. In that year the Group recognized what the community needed and actively responded to the government’s call for a landmark convention and exhibition venue of international standard to be built in Hong Kong. The Group turned out to be the only developer willing to take financial and operating risks on a long-term basis, thereby laying a solid foundation for Hong Kong to host international conventions and exhibitions. Coupled with its excellent services, Hong Kong soon secured world-wide recognition as an ideal spot of conferences and exhibitions.

- Cheng Yu-tung

It costs nothing, but creates much. It enriches those who receive, without impoverishing those who give. It happens in a flash and the memory of it sometimes lasts forever. None are so rich they can get along without it, and none so poor but are richer for its benefits. It creates happiness in the home, fosters good will in a business, and is the countersign of friends. It is rest to the weary, daylight to the discouraged, sunshine to the sad, and Nature’s best antidote for trouble. Yet it cannot be bought, begged, borrowed, or stolen, for it is something that is no earthly good to anybody till it is given away.

- Dale Carnegie

Ah, horrible war, amazing medley of the glorious and the squalid, the pitiful and the sublime, if modern men of light and leading saw your face closer, simple folk would see it hardly ever.

- Winston Churchill

Properties that were sold by the Group during this financial year amounted to approximately HK$15.6 billion, comprising around 8,000 residential units.

- Lee Shau Kee

Great leaders are almost always great simplifiers, who can cut through argument, debate and doubt to offer a solution everybody can understand.

- Colin Powell

We hold nearly 20 percent of our household’s wealth in transaction securities such as publicly traded stocks and mutual funds. But we rarely sell our equity investments. We hold even more in our pension plans. On average, 21 percent of our household’s wealth is in our private businesses.

- Thomas J Stanley

This is why so many small and medium-sized businesses don’t use tools that bigger firms take for granted. It’s not that small business proprietors are unusually backward or that good tools don’t exist: distribution is the hidden bottleneck.

- Peter Thiel

Well we know that people in Austrailia love the idea of both Impulse and Virgin Blue getting up and adding a bit of competition, and it’s fun to be able to deliver it.

- Richard Branson

People don’t want to embrace culture shifts because it’s not going to happen in the next 20 minutes.

- Gary Vaynerchuk

Science investigates religion interprets. Science gives man knowledge which is power religion gives man wisdom which is control.

- Martin Luther King Jr.

The internet is becoming the town square for the global village of tomorrow.

- Bill Gates

If you set your goals ridiculously high and it’s a failure, you will fail above everyone else’s success.

- James Cameron

Good leadership consists of showing average people how to do the work of superior people.

- John D. Rockefeller

The difficult task is to marry relentless discipline with creativity, neither letting discipline inhibit creativity nor letting creativity erode discipline.

- James C. Collins

If something is expensive to develop, and somebody’s not going to get paid, it won’t get developed. So you decide: Do you want software to be written, or not?

- Bill Gates

I guess Mr. Walton just had a personality that drew people in. He would yell at you from a block away, you know. He would just yell at everybody he saw, and that’s the reason so many liked him and did business in his store. It was like he brought in business by his being so friendly. (on role of managing partner)

- Inez Threet

I ask every participant to think about who their personal business mentors have been and why. I tell them my own business hero was Andy Pearson and I give them a few Andy stories to illustrate why. Then we break into groups of about twenty to go around in a circle and have each person talk about the person who has mean the most to him…We reconvene in the larger group and discuss some of the traits that were exhibited by the mentors; integrity, passion, inspiration, a positive outlook, and so on. A lot of people said it was someone who, helped me realize what I could achieve or really cared about me as a person. Then I try to get them to go a little deeper. I say, Now suppose that you were a fly on the wall, looking down on this room ten years from now. What would you like people to be saying about you? How would you feel if someone were saying that you were the person who had the greatest impact on his or her professional life?

- David Novak

Let us accept the natural order in which we move. Let us reconcile ourselves to the mysterious rhythm of our destinies, such as they must be in this world of space and time. Let us treasure our joys but not bewail our sorrows. The glory of light cannot exist without its shadows. Life is a whole, and good and ill must be accepted together. The journey has been enjoyable and well worth making – once.

- Winston Churchill

Unless you choose to do great things with it, it makes no difference how much you are rewarded, or how much power you have.

- Oprah Winfrey

So at that stage you might as well keep growing, to get the advantages of scale.

- Sergey Brin

Happiness doesn’t depend on outward conditions. It depends on inner conditions. It isn’t what you have or who you are or where you are or what you are doing that makes you happy or unhappy. It is what you think about it.

- Dale Carnegie

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

I’ve always been at the intersection of computers and whatever they can revolutionize.

- Jeff Bezos

If you ask me what I worry about every morning when I wake up, it’s that I don’t understand future mainstream Internet users’ habits.

- Ma Huateng

Men sometimes stumble over the truth, but often pick themselves up and hurry off as though nothing had happened.

- Winston Churchill

I’m just like so many women – I was frustrated, I had these white pants that I had spent a lot of money on, and you get home and you think, ‘What am I really supposed to wear under this?’ So it was a frustrated consumer moment.

- Sara Blakely

Some people find fault like there is a reward for it.

- Zig Ziglar

The success of the Overseas Chinese is the result of bad times in China itself. The Chinese who left the mother country had to struggle, and that became a culture of its own, passed on from father to son through each generation. Because we have no social security, the Overseas Chinese habit is to save a lot and make a lot of friends.

- Lee Shau Kee

The great thing about fact-based decisions is that they overrule the hierarchy.

- Jeff Bezos

Of the billionaires I have known, money just brings out the basic traits in them. If they were jerks before they had money, they are simply jerks with a billion dollars.

- Warren Buffett

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

An idealist is a person who helps other people to be prosperous.

- Henry Ford

Realize that true happiness lies within you. Waste no time and effort searching for peace and contentment and joy in the world outside. Remember that there is no happiness in having or in getting, but only in giving. Reach out. Share. Smile. Hug. Happiness is a perfume you cannot pour on others without getting a few drops on yourself.

- Og Mandino

Respect your parents. What they tell you is true. Hard work, dedication and faith will get you anything. Imagination will drive itself. You can get anything you want, but you have to have faith behind all your ideas. Stick to your goals and have an undying faith.

- Russell Simmons

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