Notable Quotables

Everything we did we were setting the tone for the world.

- Steve Wozniak

You must unlearn what you have learned.

- Yoda

Nothing remains permanent in the world, change is just the eternal fact.

- Cheng Yu-tung

This notion that it is up to each person to innovate in some way flies in the face of the industrial age, but you know what, the industrial age is over.

- Seth Godin

Wide diversification is only required when investors do not understand what they are doing.

- Warren Buffett

Stepping back from almost any situation with an underperformer, it’s always easy to see the solution. They need to move on—sooner rather than later. Up close, however, organizations tend to draw out departures, as people fret about the employee’s emotional reaction to being let go. Oftentimes, managers feel guilty about putting a friend out of work, or remorseful they didn’t give candid enough feedback along the way, or both.

- Jack Welch

It is alarming and also nauseating to see Mr. Gandhi, an Inner Temple lawyer, now become a seditious fakir of a type well known in the East, striding half-naked up the steps of the Viceregal Palace, while he is still organizing and conducting a defiant campaign of civil disobedience, to parley on equal terms with the representative of the King-Emperor.

- Winston Churchill

I believe that the biggest problem that humanity faces is an ego sensitivity to finding out whether one is right or wrong and identifying what one’s strengths and weaknesses are.

- Ray Dalio

I’ve worked very hard, but my life’s always been fun.

- Reed Hastings

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

- Tony Hsieh

One of the most powerful forms of communication that affects a business is one over which you have little control (after the conversation has already begun): The communication from your existing customers to your potential customers. At CASHFLOW Technologies, Inc. we attribute a large part of our success to our customers telling other people about us. The power of this word-of-mouth advertising is immeasurable.

- Robert Kiyosaki

Appreciate everything your associates do for the business.

- Sam Walton

Taxes are not good things, but if you want services, somebody’s got to pay for them so they’re a necessary evil.

- Michael Bloomberg

Save someone’s face once and your influence with him rises. Save his face every time you can, and there is practically nothing he won’t do for you.

- Dale Carnegie

When nine hundred years old you reach, look as good, you will not, hmmmm?

- Yoda

But if you expect an indefinite future ruled by randomness, you’ll give up on trying to master it.

- Peter Thiel

Measuring requires, first and foremost, analytical ability. But it also demands that measurement be used to make self-control possible rather than abused to control people from the outside and above—that is, to dominate them. It is the common violation of this principle that largely explains why measurement is the weakest area in the work of the manager today. As long as measurements are abused as a tool of control (for instance, as when measurements are used, as a weapon of an internal secret police that supplies audits and critical appraisals of a manager’s performance to the boss without even sending a carbon copy to the manager himself) measuring will remain the weakest area in the manager’s performance.

- Peter Drucker

You cannot create a piece of art merely for money. Doing it as part of commerce so denudes art of wonder that it ceases to be art.

- Seth Godin

The culture was strong enough to transcend the original company.

- Peter Thiel

F-E-A-R has two meanings: ‘Forget Everything And Run’ or ‘Face Everything And Rise.’ The choice is yours.

- Zig Ziglar

The future of publishing is about having connections to readers and the knowledge of what those readers want.

- Seth Godin

When you deal with change, you have a couple choices: you can lead it and make the rules, or you can be a fast follower, or you can be a slow follower.

- Charles Ergen

Concentration is my motto – first honesty, then industry, then concentration.

- Andrew Carnegie

In my own experience as a C.E.O., I would find myself laying awake at 3 A.M. asking questions about my business, and there weren’t management books out there that could help me.

- Ben Horowitz

We all must recognize that homeland security funds should be allocated by threat and no other reason.

- Michael Bloomberg

Perfect is an illusion, one that was created to maintain the status quo. The Six Sigma charade is largely about hiding from change, because change is never perfect. Change means reinvention, and until something is reinvented, we have no idea what the spec is.

- Seth Godin

If you go to a bad movie, it’s two hours. If you’re in a bad movie, it’s two years.

- Jerry Seinfeld

It’s too easy, as a team grows, to put up with a few B players, and they then attract a few more B players, and soon you will even have some C players. A players like to work only with other A players, which means you can’t indulge B players.

- Steve Jobs

[In January 2011] We take a cut of every transaction. So we charge 2.75 percent and 15 cents on the transaction. Which we then pay the credit card companies out of. So the user only has to pay that 2.75 percent. They don’t pay any credit card fees. They don’t have to have a setup charged. They don’t have to pay for the hardware or even the software.

- Jack Dorsey

Profit in business comes from repeat customers; customers that boast about your product and service, and that bring friends with them.

- W. Clement Stone

It is predicated on the assumption that you dislike what you are doing during the most physically capable years of your life. This is a nonstarter—nothing can justify that sacrifice.

- Timothy Ferriss

I resolved to stop accumulating and begin the infinitely more serious and difficult task of wise distribution.

- Andrew Carnegie

Inability to make decisions is one of the principal reasons executives fail. Deficiency in decision-making ranks much higher than lack of specific knowledge or technical know-how as an indicator of leadership failure.

- John C. Maxwell

Creative leaders inherently know when rules need to be challenged, and they can see when a more flexible approach should be taken.

- John C. Maxwell

The key to realizing a dream is to focus not on success but significance – and then even the small steps and little victories along your path will take on greater meaning.

- Oprah Winfrey

Leaders who fail to prune their pride will meet demise. That’s not a guess, it’s a guarantee. With pride, it’s not a matter of ‘if’ we will fall, but ‘when.’ There are no exceptions.

- John C. Maxwell

About the only thing ordinary salespeople agree upon is the idea that you must sell yourself first.

- Jerry Vass

For a successful entrepreneur it can mean extreme wealth. But with extreme wealth comes extreme responsibility. And the responsibility for me is to invest in creating new businesses, create jobs, employ people, and to put money aside to tackle issues where we can make a difference.

- Richard Branson

I can’t read a computer screen and never use a calculator. It’s all in my head and by hand.

- Simon Reuben

The premium single-cup segment is the fastest-growing business within the global coffee industry.

- Howard Schultz

I have had problems when I have had money, and I have had problems when I haven’t had money. I have learned that if you are going to have problems, it’s better to have money.

- Zig Ziglar

[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

I’m born into the cycle of giving that we’re all born into, and I recognize it. So just because something is a good business, I’m not a business guy. I’m a creative guy.

- Russell Simmons

Being called a huckster and a charlatan started several years ago, so that’s something I’m accustomed to. In most cases, it doesn’t bother me.

- Timothy Ferriss

It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you’ll do things differently.

- Warren Buffett

The slowdown in futures orders clearly signals that revenue growth in the second half of fiscal 1998 will be below our previous expectations. This is largely a result of the slowdown in the Asia Pacific market, where we now anticipate more moderate revenue growth in fiscal 1998 after increasing 84 percent on a constant dollar basis in fiscal 1997.

- Phil Knight

You’re dead if you aim only for kids. Adults are only kids grown up, anyway.

- Walt Disney

The clear, unmistakable sign of a bureaucrat is somebody who worries about whether he has a window.

- Herb Kelleher

If you always think about your dreams or goals, work steadfastly towards them and continue to challenge yourself, you will definitely be able to realise those dreams or goals.

- Tadashi Yanai

There are many different kinds of PCs. You have fixed, virtual, tablets, notebooks, ultrabooks, desktops, workstations. What you find in commercial PCs, business PCs, is that there’s a really long tail of usage on client devices.

- Michael Dell

It had been a ‘grow, grow, grow’ era, and some people, especially young people who’d never been through a downturn before, didn’t like being told to suddenly get very conservative. But I insisted we were facing a very risky environment

- Debra Cafaro

Before you were born, your parents weren’t as boring as they are now. They got that way from paying your bills, cleaning your clothes and listening to you talk about how cool you thought you are. So before you save the rain forest from the parasites of your parent’s generation, try delousing the closet in your own room.

- Bill Gates

You must take personal responsibility. You cannot change the circumstances, the seasons, or the wind, but you can change yourself. That is something you have charge of.

- Jim Rohn

30 MAJOR CAUSES OF FAILURE: – Napoleon Hill (on leadership and management)

- Napoleon Hill

I thought if I had a Twitter feed and say I had a following of a 100,000, that means 100,000 of them would be interested in my book. It was logical, but it didn’t turn out to be true. It turned out if I had a Twitter feed of a 100,000, four of them were interested in my book.

- Steve Martin

The Indian community in Canada has integrated much better than the Indian community in United States. They’ve become really Canadian at the same time as keeping all their Indian characters and customs and social groups.

- Azim Premji

Continuous effort – not strength or intelligence – is the key to unlocking our potential.

- Winston Churchill

I DECLARE Ephesians 3:20 over my life. God will do exceedingly, abundantly above all that I ask or think. Because I honor Him, His blessings will chase me down and overtake me. I will be in the right place at the right time. People will go out of their way to be good to me. I am surrounded by God’s favor. This is my declaration.

- Joel Olsteen

When you go through a disappointment, when you go through a loss, don’t stop on that page. Keep moving forward. There’s another chapter in front of you, but you have to be willing to walk into it.

- Joel Olsteen

Lack of direction, not lack of time, is the problem. We all have twenty-four hour days.

- Zig Ziglar

Life is actually far better than it is in the movies. And it takes longer.

- Seth Godin

Surplus wealth is a sacred trust which its possessor is bound to administer in his lifetime for the good of the community.

- Andrew Carnegie

I do think a lot of people are trying to do important things still, and I think it is really a great thing that entrepreneurship is getting easier. When I started, it was just much harder to begin a company.

- Ben Horowitz

What I’m trying to do is, is to make a significant difference in space flight. And help make space flight accessible to almost anyone.

- Elon Musk

The worse a situation becomes the less it takes to turn it around, the bigger the upside.

- George Soros

It turned out there was alot to learn about running a store. And, of course, what really drove Sam was that competition across the street – John Dunham over at the Sterling Store. Sam was always over there checking on John. Always. Looking at his prices, looking at his displays, looking at what was going on. He was always looking for a way to do a better job. I don’t remember the details, but I remember some kind of panty-price-war they got into. Later on, long after we left Newport, and John had retired, we would seem him and he would laugh about Sam always being in his store. But I’m sure it aggravate him quite a bit early on. John had never had good competition before Sam. Helen Walton (Sam’s Wife): That Newport store was really the beginning of where Walmart is today. We did everything. We would wash windows, sweep floors, trim windows. We did all the stockroom work checked the freight in. Everything it took to run a store. We had to keep expenses to a minimum. That is where it started, year ago. Our money was made by controlling expenses. That, and Sam always being ingeniious. He never stopped trying to do something different. One thing, though I never forgave him for making me clean out that damned ice cream machine…

- Bud Walton

Wonder what your customer really wants? Ask. Don’t tell.

- Lisa Stone

I believe the returns on investment in the poor are just as exciting as successes achieved in the business arena, and they are even more meaningful!

- Bill Gates

The rich are always going to say that, you know, just give us more money and we’ll go out and spend more and then it will all trickle down to the rest of you. But that has not worked the last 10 years, and I hope the American public is catching on.

- Warren Buffett

My new favorite word is ‘awkward.’…The reason we need to be in search of awkward is that awkward is the barrier between us and excellence, between where we are and the remarkable. If it were easy, everyone would have done it already, and it wouldn’t be worth the effort.

- Seth Godin

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

Animation offers a medium of story telling and visual entertainment which can bring pleasure and information to people of all ages everywhere in the world.

- Walt Disney

I actually thought that it would be a little confusing during the same period of your life to be in one meeting when you’re trying to make money, and then go to another meeting where you’re giving it away. I mean is it gonna erode your ability, you know, to make money? Are you gonna somehow get confused about what you’re trying to do?

- Bill Gates

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

Great CEOs face the pain. They deal with the sleepless nights, the cold sweats, and what my friend the great Alfred Chuang (legendary cofounder and CEO of BEA Systems) calls “the torture.” Whenever I meet a successful CEO, I ask them how they did it. Mediocre CEOs point to their brilliant strategic moves or their intuitive business sense or a variety of other self-congratulatory explanations. The great CEOs tend to be remarkably consistent in their answers. They all say, “I didn’t quit.

- Ben Horowitz

You can make something big when young that will carry you through life. Look at all the big startups like Microsoft, Apple, Google, Facebook, Twitter, etc. They were all started by very young people who stumbled on something of unseen value. You’ll know it when you hit a home run.

- Steve Wozniak

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

As technology continues to virtualize money, brick ‘n mortar banks have become as superfluous as traditional bookstores.

- Reid Hoffman

Great companies have high cultures of accountability, it comes with this culture of criticism I was talking about before, and I think our culture is strong on that.

- Steve Ballmer

And we are never too old to study the Bible. Each time the lessons are studied comes some new meaning, some new thought which will make us better.

- John D. Rockefeller

My biggest concern is that America is drifting towards mediocrity and that people don’t recognize – and by people I’m meaning Washington – don’t recognize the sense of urgency and the fact that I don’t think this is a crisis anymore. I think it’s an emergency.

- Howard Schultz

Persistent people are able to visualize the idea of light at the end of the tunnel when others can’t see it.

- Seth Godin

The main rule to me is to honor God with your life. To life a life of integrity. Not be selfish. You know, help others. But that’s really the essence of the Christian faith.

- Joel Olsteen

Literature is one of the most interesting and significant expressions of humanity.

- P.T. Barnum

We occasionally stumble over the truth but most of us pick ourselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened.

- Winston Churchill

Most people have never thought through how they’re going to allocate their time. You need to make a decision in advance.

- Clayton M. Christensen

What I know is that if you do work that you love, and the work fulfills you, the rest will come.

- Oprah Winfrey

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