Notable Quotables

Marketing is a contest for people’s attention.

- Seth Godin

When the negative thoughts come – and they will, they come to all of us – it’s not enough to just not dwell on it… You’ve got to replace it with a positive thought.

- Joel Olsteen

Economists copied their mathematics from the work of 19th-century physicists: they see individuals and businesses as interchangeable atoms, not as unique creators.

- Peter Thiel

The rumours of the demise of the U.S. manufacturing industry are greatly exaggerated.

- Elon Musk

Nowhere are the benefits of closer economic ties more pronounced than in Mainland China and Hong Kong. The two places have their own advantages. One has the manpower, natural resources and manufacturing might, while the other has the management skills and marketing know-how.

- Cheng Yu-tung

I love comedy. That’s what got me into the arts. I don’t even know how to categorize myself anymore.

- Steve Martin

Dr. Carl Jung said: During the past thirty years, people from all the civilized countries of the earth have consulted me. I have treated many hundreds of patients. Among all my patients in the second half of hie, that is to say, over thirty-five, there has not been one whose problem in the last resort was not that of finding a religious outlook on life. It is safe to say that every one of them fell ill because he had lost that which the living religions of every age have given to their followers, and none of them has been really healed who did not regain his religious outlook.

- Dale Carnegie

Eradications are special. Zero is a magic number. You either do what it takes to get to zero and you’re glad you did it; or you get close, give up and it goes back to where it was before, in which case you wasted all that credibility, activity, money that could have been applied to other things.

- Bill Gates

The one essential character trait of any leader is personal integrity.

- David Novak

There is a winner in you. You were created to be successful, to accomplish your goals, to leave your mark on this generation. You have greatness in you. The key is to get it out.

- Joel Olsteen

Some say Google is God. Others say Google is Satan. But if they think Google is too powerful, remember that with search engines unlike other companies, all it takes is a single click to go to another search engine.

- Sergey Brin

We wouldn’t survive if people didn’t trust us.

- Sergey Brin

So the rare individual who unselfishly tries to serve others has an enormous advantage.

- Dale Carnegie

My motivation for all my companies has been to be involved in something that I thought would have a significant impact on the world.

- Elon Musk

What we know about the destination resort business is clearly established. But it’s all about one thing, and one thing only. All of the razzmatazz and jazz we hear about facilities and everything else doesn’t amount to a hill of beans. It’s customer experience that determines the longevity and endurance of these enterprises.

- Stephen Wynn

I may be over the top on this, but I just don’t want to like my competitors. I want my people to believe that whenever he and our other competitors succeed, we will be less able to do all the things we want to do.

- Phil Knight

The top salesperson in the organization probably missed more sales than 90% of the sales people on the team, but they also made more calls than the others made.

- Zig Ziglar

Investing in courage and determination was an easy decision for me.

- Ben Horowitz

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

Properly understood, technology is the one way for us to escape competition in a globalizing world. As computers become more and more powerful, they won’t be substitutes for humans: they’ll be complements.

- Peter Thiel

Hire sales people who are really smart problem solvers, but lack courage, hunger and competitiveness, and your company will go out of business.

- Ben Horowitz

In the years to come, that lure of partnership helped us attract a lot of good managers, but I don’t believe that we ever had one who bought more stock than Willard. And of course he feels pretty good about it today. – Sam Walton (on human resources, hiring, early history of Wal-Mart)

- Sam Walton

As long as you’re going to be thinking anyway, think big.

- Donald Trump

The War was decided in the first twenty days of fighting, and all that happened afterwards consisted in battles which, however formidable and devastating, were but desperate and vain appeals against the decision of Fate.

- Winston Churchill

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

- Joel Olsteen

I got my first computer in the 6th grade or so. As soon as I got it, I was interested in finding out how it worked and how the programs worked and then figuring out how to write programs at just deeper and deeper levels within the system.

- Mark Zuckerberg

In 2008, people who invested in hedge funds needed capital badly, but many of the funds would not return their money. However, I gave money back to any investor who requested it. It was the bottom of the market and a pretty tough time.

- Carl Icahn

With an export-driven economy, Hong Kong is unavoidably affected by any hiccup in the outside world.

- Cheng Yu-tung

I’m a Silicon Valley guy. I just think people from Silicon Valley can do anything.

- Elon Musk

Anatomy of a MovementSenator Bill Bradley defines a movement as having three elements: (1) A narrative that tells a story about who we are and the future we’re trying to build. (2) A connection between and among the leader and the tribe. (3) Something to do – the fewer limits the better. Too often organizations fail to do anything but the third.

- Seth Godin

PATIENCE YOU MUST HAVE my young padawan.

- Yoda

The lifeblood of job creation in America is small business, but they can’t get access to credit.

- Howard Schultz

I have 2 million Twitter followers. Some of those people are also yogis and activists and people who really go out and make a difference. I do as much as I can with my voice. It’s effortless in some cases. I try to remind everybody that they have that kind of voice.

- Russell Simmons

You are safer here tonight than you would be on the streets of any other city in the world.

- Michael Bloomberg

You know, I love all kinds of activism. I certainly think blacks deserve to have something whether it is affirmative action or an opportunity that should be opened up to them. But at the same time I believe that people of color are not the only poor people in America and all over the world.

- Russell Simmons

Remembering you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose.

- Steve Jobs

The strongest oak of the forest is not the one that is protected from the storm and hidden from the sun. It’s the one that stands in the open where it is compelled to struggle for its existence against the winds and rains and the scorching sun.

- Napoleon Hill

I could’ve just walked away but I never could have forgiven myself to allow Starbucks to drift into mediocrity or not be relevant. I just couldn’t be a bystander.

- Howard Schultz

Fulfilling the vision of the Irvine Ranch master plan has been a lifetime dedication and lifetime passion, and I am hopeful the heritage of our Irvine stewardship will live on in many new ways.

- Donald Bren

Learning is truly a value, growth for every employee is a real objective, mistakes aren’t always fatal, and there are lots of people around whom you can reach out to for coaching and mentoring.

- Jack Welch

ZERO TO ONE 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

My first job. Ah, the memories. I’m hired for minimum wage as the cleaner at an ice cream parlor and quickly realize that the big boss’s methods duplicate effort. I do it my way, finish in one hour instead of eight, and spend the rest of the time reading kung-fu magazines and practicing karate kicks outside. I am fired in a record three days, left with the parting comment, Maybe someday you’ll understand the value of hard work.” It seems I still don’t.

- Timothy Ferriss

I probably have traveled and walked into more variety stores than anybody in America.

- Sam Walton

I’ve built a lot of my success off finding these truly gifted people and not settling for B and C players, but really going for the A players…I found that when you get enough A players together, when you go through the incredible work to find five of these A players, they really like working with each other. Because they’ve never had a chance to do that before. And they don’t want to work with B and C players and so it becomes self-policing and they only want to hire more A players. And so you build up these pockets of A players, and it propagates.

- Steve Jobs

Always have something to say. The man who has something to say and who is known never to speak unless he has, is sure to be listened to.

- Dale Carnegie

The dove is my emblem…. I want to save and advance human life, not destroy it…. I am proud of the fact that I never invented weapons to kill…

- Thomas Edison

I DECLARE breakthroughs are coming in my life, sudden bursts of God’s goodness. Not a trickle. Not a stream. But a flood of God’s power. A flood of healing. A flood of wisdom. A flood of favor. I am a breakthrough person and I choose to live breakthrough minded. I am expecting God to overwhelm me with His goodness and amaze me with His favor. This is my declaration.

- Joel Olsteen

You’re asking somebody who has a wife and is really happily married, ‘So, what’s your next wife going to be like?’ And I’m like, ‘What?

- Travis Kalanick

Remember: There is a direct correlation between an increased sphere of comfort and getting what you want.

- Timothy Ferriss

Unleash the power of people. No involvement means no committment.

- David Novak

Use what you have to run toward your best – that’s how I now live my life.

- Oprah Winfrey

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

Ultimately, it comes down to taste. It comes down to trying to expose yourself to the best things that humans have done and then try to bring those things into what you’re doing. Picasso had a saying: good artists copy, great artists steal. And we have always been shameless about stealing great ideas, and I think part of what made the Macintosh great was that the people working on it were musicians and poets and artists and zoologists and historians who also happened to be the best computer scientists in the world.

- Steve Jobs

I think that business book reporting, it’s all Jim Collins, it’s the story of victory; it’s success bias over and over again.

- Ben Horowitz

The Roman world, like an aged man, wished to dwell in peace and tranquillity and to enjoy in philosophic detachment the good gifts which life has to bestow upon the more fortunate classes. But new ideas disturbed the internal conservatism, and outside the carefully guarded frontiers vast masses of hungry, savage men surged and schemed. The essence of the Roman peace was toleration of all religions and the acceptance of a universal system of government. Every generation after the middle of the second century saw an increasing weakening of the system and a gathering movement towards a uniform religion. Christianity asked again all the questions which the Roman world deemed answered for ever, and some that it had never thought of.

- Winston Churchill

The vision is really about empowering workers, giving them all the information about what’s going on so they can do a lot more than they’ve done in the past.

- Bill Gates

Nike is not about going to a ball game. It’s a business.

- Phil Knight

If humanity doesn’t land on Mars in my lifetime, I would be very disappointed.

- Elon Musk

To my mind the old masters are not art, their value is in their scarcity.

- Thomas Edison

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

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

I’m enamored with the art world. Anytime you look at anything that’s considered artistic, there’s a commercial world around it: the ballet, opera, any kind of music. It can’t exist without it.

- Steve Martin

If you don’t love what you’re doing with unbridled passion and enthusiasm, you’re not going to succeed when you hit obstacles.

- Howard Schultz

Success is one thing you can’t pay for. You buy it on the installment plan and make payments every day.

- Zig Ziglar

I really believe that you cannot use the stock market as a proxy for the economy.

- Howard Schultz

We think we’re going to be especially strong in platform where we have our two platform brands: our database brand is the Oracle Database 12c, and our programming language brand is this thing called Java.

- Larry Ellison

The common thread for everything I do is this idea of a Web-services architecture. What does that mean? It means taking components of software and systems and having them be self-describing, so that you can aim them, ask them what their capabilities are, and communicate with them using a standard protocol.

- Bill Gates

I tell college students, when you get to be my age you will be successful if the people who you hope to have love you, do love you.

- Warren Buffett

It is those who concentrate on but one thing at a time who advance in this world. The great man or woman is the one who never steps outside his or her specialty or foolishly dissipates his or her individuality.

- Og Mandino

When Pat Holt strings together a list of words not to overuse—“Actually, totally, absolutely, completely, continually, constantly, continuously, literally, really, unfortunately, ironically, incredibly, hopefully, finally”—she’s not being a stickler for formality and grammar. Instead she’s reminding us that words matter, that poor word use is just a red flag for someone who wants to ignore you.

- Seth Godin

Every failure brings with it the seed of an equivalent benefit.

- Napoleon Hill

I’m a positive person, so I don’t get bogged down with it. If you’re expecting that, if you wall in that, if you practice that, then you’ll attract what you fear.

- Denzel Washington

In the beginning, I was so chintzy I really didn’t pay my employees well.

- Sam Walton

To be interesting, be interested. Ask questions that other persons will enjoy answering. Encourage them to talk about themselves and their accomplishments.

- Dale Carnegie

Percentage margins don’t matter. What matters always is dollar margins: the actual dollar amount. Companies are valued not on their percentage margins, but on how many dollars they actually make, and a multiple of that.

- Jeff Bezos

All the great things are simple, and many can be expressed in a single word: freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope.

- Winston Churchill

We’ll make cloud computing announcements because, you know, if orange is the new pink, we’ll make orange blouses. I mean, I’m not gonna fight this thing … well, maybe we’ll do an ad. Uh, I don’t understand what we would do differently in the light of cloud computing, other than market … you know, change the wording on some of our ads.

- Larry Ellison

Winning is better than losing, but everybody loses when the war isn’t one worth fighting.

- Peter Thiel

Look at what caused people to make a lot of money and you will see that usually it is in proportion to their production of what the society wanted.

- Ray Dalio

The Hindus are some of the nicest people you’ll ever meet.

- Joel Olsteen

Businesses often forget the culture, and ultimately, they suffer for it because you can’t deliever good service from unhappy employees.

- Tony Hsieh

If you look – look at – I mean, look at what’s going on with your gasoline prices. They’re going to go to $5, $6, $7 and we don’t have anybody in Washington that calls OPEC and says, ‘Fellas, it’s time. It’s over. You’re not going to do it anymore.’

- Donald Trump

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