Notable Quotables

Did we not all grow up saying we had to have four glasses of whole milk a day for healthy bones? It’s ridiculous. It’s liquid cholesterol.

- Stephen Wynn

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

You can look at the situation and feel victimized. Or you can look at it and be excited about conquering the challenges and opportunities it presents.

- Jack Welch

Our culture is friendly and intense, but if push comes to shove we’ll settle for intense.

- Jeff Bezos

It’s OK to have your eggs in one basket as long as you control what happens to that basket.

- Elon Musk

Once you create and dominate a niche market, then you should gradually expand into related and slightly broader markets. Amazon shows how it can be done. Jeff Bezos’s founding vision was to dominate all of online retail, but he very deliberately started with books. There were millions of books to catalog, but they all had roughly the same shape, they were easy to ship, and some of the most rarely sold books—those least profitable for any retail store to keep in stock—also drew the most enthusiastic customers. Amazon became the dominant solution for anyone located far from a bookstore or seeking something unusual. Amazon then had two options: expand the number of people who read books, or expand to adjacent markets. They chose the latter, starting with the most similar markets: CDs, videos, and software. Amazon continued to add categories gradually until it had become the world’s general store. The name itself brilliantly encapsulated the company’s scaling strategy.

- Peter Thiel

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

The thing about hip-hop is that it’s from the underground, ideas from the underbelly, from people who have mostly been locked out, who have not been recognized.

- Russell Simmons

Always remember, that I have taken more out of alcohol than alcohol has taken out of me.

- Winston Churchill

Tesla is here to stay and keep fighting for the electric car revolution.

- Elon Musk

Every employee in a company depends on the C.E.O. to make fast, high-quality decisions.

- Ben Horowitz

You can’t build any kind of organization if you’re not going to surround yourself with people who have experience and skill base beyond your own.

- Howard Schultz

A definite view, by contrast, favors firm convictions. Instead of pursuing many-sided mediocrity and calling it “well-roundedness,” a definite person determines the one best thing to do and then does it. Instead of working tirelessly to make herself indistinguishable, she strives to be great at something substantive—to be a monopoly of one. This is not what young people do today, because everyone around them has long since lost faith in a definite world. No one gets into Stanford by excelling at just one thing, unless that thing happens to involve throwing or catching a leather ball.

- Peter Thiel

There is no way of making a business successful that can vie with the policy of promoting those who render exceptional service.

- Andrew Carnegie

My kids probably started drinking coffee in their late teens.

- Howard Schultz

People say the most important thing is building a world-class team.

- Ben Horowitz

Encouragement to others is something everyone can give. Somebody needs what you have to give. It may not be your money, it may be your time. It may be your listening ear. It may be your arms to encourage. It may be your smile to uplift. Who knows?

- Joel Olsteen

I don’t know what’s the matter with people: they don’t learn by understanding, they learn by some other way—by rote or something. Their knowledge is so fragile!

- Richard P. Feynman

Fact is, the first 100 years of our country’s history were about who could build the biggest, most efficient farm. And the second century focused on the race to build factories. Welcome to the third century, folks. The third century is about ideas.

- Seth Godin

The ideas I stand for are not mine. I borrowed them from Socrates. I swiped them from Chesterfield. I stole them from Jesus. And I put them in a book. If you don’t like their rules, whose would you use?

- Dale Carnegie

Do not let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do.

- John Wooden

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

Big pay and little responsibility are circumstances seldom found together.

- Napoleon Hill

Reading, after a certain age, diverts the mind too much from its creative pursuits. Any man who reads too much and uses his own brain too little falls into lazy habits of thinking.

- Albert Einstein

business to be paid a salary of over a million dollars a year.

- Dale Carnegie

Mr. Ford’s most rapid strides became noticable from the time he became a personal friend of Thomas A. Edison, and you will begin to understand what the influence of one mind upon another can accomplish.

- Napoleon Hill

Throughout this quarter of a century, the entrepreneurial outlook, versatility and vision of our employees have remained the crucial elements of our success…

- Cheng Yu-tung

We can’t wait for Washington. Business leaders are going to have to galvanize their own constituencies and do everything they can to demonstrate confidence in the economy, and I think that can be contagious.

- Howard Schultz

I think every Internet user likes personalization.

- Ma Huateng

All money means to me is a pride in accomplishment.

- Ray Kroc

It doesn’t hurt to ask Actually, it does hurt. It does hurt to ask the wrong way, to ask without preparation, to ask without permission. It hurts because you never get another chance to ask right.

- Seth Godin

If I’d had some set idea of a finish line, don’t you think I would have crossed it years ago?

- Bill Gates

It’s hard for me to imagine how a $50 million marketing campaign is ever appropriate for any business to launch an ideavirus. If you need to interrupt that many people, you’re doing something wrong.

- Seth Godin

Quoting from Chapter 2 of the Sayings Of Confucius, ‘At 30, I stood firm; at 40, I had no more doubts.’ Time has its role to play in one’s behavior and how one conducts himself in society. With the passage of time, we master our lives better and become more refined and polished, step by step. At the age of 30, one can overcome difficulties. By the age of 40, one has thorough appreciation of and insights into the world and becomes firmly self-assured without being carried away by all those irregularities in life.

- Cheng Yu-tung

Yields will rise with prices, and this will generate steady income.

- Lee Shau Kee

I think the move by Mr. Greenspan was welcomed by everyone here.

- Jack Welch

Patience is a virtue, and I’m learning patience. It’s a tough lesson.

- Elon Musk

When you catch a glimpse of your potential, that’s when passion is born.

- Zig Ziglar

Shareholder activism works when activists understand something about the characteristics of the business that the board doesn’t.

- Ben Horowitz

I don’t want to be liked. I want to be respected.

- Jack Ma

I love cities, and I love city governments in particular. But in politics it would have taken me 8 years from implementing a policy before I would get to see the feedback. With programming I could model the same policies and see the impact immediately. Technology is a far more efficient way to test.

- Jack Dorsey

I can go into restaurants and a whole table will get up and clap if they recognize me, because they love Fox News. Other places – or even the same place – people will turn the other way.

- Rupert Murdoch

The earnings from Hong Kong and China Gas and rental property portfolio serve as a solid base for the Group’s sustainable growth.

- Lee Shau Kee

In a crowded marketplace, fitting in is failing. In a busy marketplace, not standing out is the same as being invisible.

- Seth Godin

One of the things I say to people is: Imagine if we succeeded.

- Ben Horowitz

And then you take a look at Spaces, there is this great innovation that came out of nowhere. We have the number one blogging site in the world because of the innovation that’s there.

- Steve Ballmer

Frankly speaking, I decided to become a businessman at the moment when I understood that it is possible, because I grew up in a country where it was not possible. There existed even a special article in the penal code of the Soviet Union which punished entrepreneurial activity.

- Vladimir Potanin

Employers only handle the money – it is the customer who pays the wages.

- Henry Ford

There is a good saying to the effect that when a new book appears one should read an old one.

- Winston Churchill

A lot of the things that will really improve the world fortunately aren’t dependent on Washington doing something different.

- Bill Gates

Good executives never put off until tomorrow what they can get someone else to do today.

- John C. Maxwell

When times are bad is when you want to build! Why wait for things to pick up so everything will cost more?

- Ray Kroc

Creating ideas that spread and connecting the disconnected are the two pillars of our new society, and both of them require the posture of the artist.

- Seth Godin

The most obvious market segment in email-based payments was the millions of emigrants still using Western Union to wire money to their families back home. Our product made that effortless, but the transactions were too infrequent.

- Peter Thiel

Remember, when you were made a leader you weren’t given a crown, you were given a responsibility to bring out the best in others. For that, your people need to trust you. And they will, as long as you demonstrate candor, give credit, and stay real.

- Jack Welch

The world is facing a new networked, digital lifestyle, and we will ensure that Canon remains ahead of the game.

- Fujio Mitarai

U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt has been described as founder of the Bull Moose Party, the man who led his troops up San Juan Hill in the Spanish-American War, a big game hunter, family man, civic servant and a host of other things.

- Zig Ziglar

How you look, talk, and market your business is what should be keeping everyone busy.

- Bryan Smith

Creating value is not enough—you also need to capture some of the value you create.

- Peter Thiel

Your business has to work when it’s small in order to survive to the point where it gets big.

- Seth Godin

The United States invariably does the right thing, after having exhausted every other alternative.

- Winston Churchill

We see no indications in the marketplace that the radical Internet business transformation in practices like customer service, supply-chain management, employee training, empowerment, and e-commerce that is taking place around the world today is slowing — in fact, we believe it is accelerating globally.

- John Chambers

I would make them all learn English: and then I would let the clever ones learn Latin as an honour, and Greek as a treat.

- Winston Churchill

Not life, but good life, is to be chiefly valued.

- Socrates

Salvation and Christ’s love is a gift. You don’t earn it. You’ve got to receive that gift.

- Joel Olsteen

This isn’t stealing this is standing on the shoulders of giants.

- David Novak

All companies of any size have to continue to push to make sure you get the right leaders, the right team, the right people to be fast acting, and fast moving in the marketplace. We’ve got great leaders, and we continue to attract and promote great new leaders.

- Steve Ballmer

The three most charismatic leaders in this century inflicted more suffering on the human race than almost any trio in history: Hitler, Stalin, and Mao. What matters is not the leader’s charisma. What matters is the leader’s mission.

- Peter Drucker

Secret, shall I tell you? Grand Master of Jedi Order am I. Won this job in a raffle I did, think you? “How did you know, how did you know, Master Yoda?” Master Yoda knows these things. His job it is.

- Yoda

Non-violence leads to the highest ethics, which is the goal of all evolution. Until we stop harming all other living beings, we are still savages.

- Thomas Edison

We’re extremely adroit at hiding our fear. Most of our lives in public are spent papering over, rationalizing, and otherwise denying our fear. We go to war because we’re afraid, and we often go to spiritual events for the very same reason.

- Seth Godin

We gradually came to the realization that we were hurting not just ourselves but the Chinese people.

- Sergey Brin

[In January 2011] I think Twitter is so unique that we must stay independent.

- Jack Dorsey

A movement is thrilling. It’s the work of many people, all connected, all seeking something better.

- Seth Godin

The plot is certainly sensational, but it hardly represents what actually happened. It is difficult to believe that the European emigrants by whom America has been populated took away with them all the virtues and left behind them all the vices of the races from which they had sprung; or that a few generations of residence on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean is sufficient to create an order of beings definitely superior in morals, in culture, and in humanity to their prototypes in Europe. The American.

- Winston Churchill

That was annoying but not entirely unexpected. It’s not a huge shock, given what’s going on down there.

- Ed Clark

If you only do things where you know the answer in advance, your company goes away.

- Jeff Bezos

You will know (the good from the bad) when you are calm, at peace. Passive. A Jedi uses the Force for knowledge and defense, never for attack.

- Yoda

Good advertising should give the reader essential facts about the product or company advertised and should do so engagingly without trickery or hogwash.

- Leo Burnett

The foundations and the intent of the Affordable Care Act are laudable. The way it’s being implemented is a disaster.

- Patrick Soon-Shiong

THE HABIT OF DOING MORE THAN PAID FOR – One of the penalties of leadership is the necessity of willingness, upon the part of the leader, to do more than he requires of his followers.

- Napoleon Hill

I don’t believe in saturation. We’re thinking and talking worldwide.

- Ray Kroc

Every single important thing we do is something we didn’t use to be good at, and in fact, might be something we used to fear.

- Seth Godin

What a great thrill it will be for fans of all generations to see these NASCAR superheroes together again at Atlanta Motor Speedway. With 405 victories between them, each and every one played an integral role in making NASCAR the tremendous success it is today.

- Ed Clark

When I first joined the Irvine Company, I realized that less than 11,000 acres were designated as open space in the original master plan, and that just didn’t seem adequate to me. So, I began the lengthy process working with public and community organizations to add more open space.

- Donald Bren

One of my favorite perks was picking out an issue and doing what I called a deep dive. It’s spotting a challenge where you think you can make a difference…one that looks like it would be fun, and then throwing the weight of your position behind it. Some might justifiably call it meddling….I followed up on all of them with a passion and a mania that often veered toward the lunatic fringe…To make the initiatives work, it took a passionate all-consuming commitment from the top. Beyond passion, there was alot of rigor…Making initiates successful is all about focus and passionate commitment. The drumbeat must be relentlessness. Every leadership action must demonstrate total committment to the initiative….I was an outrageous champion of everything that we did from our early need to face reality and change the culture to our major initiatives that reshaped the company. Whenever I had an idea or message that I wanted to drive into the organization, I could never say it enough. I repeated it over and over, at every meeting and review for years, until I could almost gag on the words.

- Jack Welch

You know, we love stories and we love narrative; we love to get lost in an author’s world.

- Jeff Bezos

The reality is gas prices should be much more expensive then they are because we’re not incorporating the true damage to the environment and the hidden costs of mining oil and transporting it to the U.S. Whenever you have an unpriced externality, you have a bit of a market failure, to the degree that eternality remains unpriced.

- Elon Musk

In a litigation-happy society, clear agreements often prevent small disagreements from becoming big ones.

- Harvey Mackay

And you know, I’ve had great fun turning quite a lot of different industries on their head and making sure those industries will never be the same again, because Virgin went in and took them on.

- Richard Branson

The Cult of Done Bre Pettis wrote this manifesto on his blog: 1. There are three states of being. Not knowing, action and completion. 2. Accept that everything is a draft. It helps to get it done. 3. There is no editing stage. 4. Pretending you know what you’re doing is almost the same as knowing what you are doing, so accept that you know what you’re doing even if you don’t and do it. 5. Banish procrastination. If you wait more than a week to get an idea done, abandon it. 6. The point of being done is not to finish but to get other things done. 7. Once you’re done you can throw it away. 8. Laugh at perfection. It’s boring and keeps you from being done. 9. People without dirty hands are wrong. Doing something makes you right. 10. Failure counts as done. So do mistakes. 11. Destruction is a variant of done. 12. If you have an idea and publish it on the Internet, that counts as a ghost of done. 13. Done is the engine of more.

- Seth Godin

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