Notable Quotables

The potential financial reward for building the ‘next Windows’ is so great that there will never be a shortage of new technologies seeking to challenge it.

- Bill Gates

There are two synergistic approaches for increasing productivity that are inversions of each other: 1. Limit tasks to the important to shorten work time (80/20). 2. Shorten work time to limit tasks to the important (Parkinson’s Law). The best solution is to use both together: Identify the few critical tasks that contribute most to income and schedule them with very short and clear deadlines.

- Timothy Ferriss

If you don’t set a baseline standard for what you’ll accept in life, you’ll find it’s easy to slip into behaviors and attitudes or a quality of life that’s far below what you deserve.

- Anthony Robbins

The economy in Hong Kong remained on a declining path. Occurrence of the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (‘SARS’) in March this year led to a sharp drop in consumer spending and an increasing unemployment rate. The decline in the economy resulted in downward adjustment in the property market.

- Lee Shau Kee

It’s what we wrestle with every single day. The intersection of comfort, danger, and safety. The balancing act between vulnerability and shame. The opportunity (or the risk) to do art. The willingness to take responsibility for caring enough to make a difference and to have a point of view.

- Seth Godin

President Bush is endangering our safety, hurting our vital interests, and undermining American values.

- George Soros

If David our CEO, devotes so much of his time to this, then all this stuff about teamwork and learning how to be a great leader must be pretty important.

- David Novak

If you hire people just because they can do a job, they’ll work for your money. But if you hire people who believe what you believe, they’ll work for you with blood and sweat and tears.

- Simon Sinek

I wanted to be an editor or a journalist, I wasn’t really interested in being an entrepreneur, but I soon found I had to become an entrepreneur in order to keep my magazine going.

- Richard Branson

For now, if the Hong Kong environment doesn’t change, then in the long term, investing in Hong Kong is best.

- Lee Shau Kee

Levi Strauss headed for the gold fields of California to strike it rich in mining. However, he was not a good miner, so he instead began sewing pants out of canvas for the miners who were successful. Today I think most of the world has heard of Levi’s pants.

- Robert Kiyosaki

You have to learn to follow your heart. You can’t let other people pressure you into being something that you’re not. If you want God’s favor in your life, you must be the person He made you to be, not the person your boss wants you to be, not even the person your parents or your husband wants you to be. You can’t let outside expectations keep you from following your own heart.

- Joel Olsteen

In almost every job now, people use software and work with information to enable their organisation to operate more effectively.

- Bill Gates

It it impossible to comprehend Rockefeller’s breathtaking ascent without realizing that he always moved into battle backed by adundant cash. Whether riding out downturns or coasting on booms, he kept plentiful reserves and won many bidding contests simply because his war chest was deeper. Rockefeller vividly described the way he had hastily enlisted the aid of bankers to snap up one rifinery: It required many hundreds of thousands of dollars and in cash, securities would not answer. I received the message at about noon, and had to get off on the 3 o’clock train. I drove from bank to bank asking each president or cashier, whomever I could find first, to get ready for me all the funds he could possibly lay hands on. I told them I would be back to get the money later. I rounded up all of our banks in the city, and made a secondary journey to get the money, and kept going until I secured the necessary amount. With this I was off on the 3 o’clock train and closed the transaction.

- Ron Chernow

My father died during open-heart surgery on March 29 of my senior year in college. I was getting set to go to law school. I remember sitting in the waiting room when the doctor walked in. I said to myself, The worst possible thing just happened. What will you do?

- Stephen Wynn

I often see teams that maniacally focus on their metrics around customer acquisition and retention. This usually works well for customer acquisition, but not so well for retention. Why? For many products, metrics often describe the customer acquisition goal in enough detail to provide sufficient management guidance. In contrast, the metrics for customer retention do not provide enough color to be a complete management tool. As a result, many young companies overemphasize retention metrics and do not spend enough time going deep enough on the actual user experience. This generally results in a frantic numbers chase that does not end in a great product.

- Ben Horowitz

Don’t make excuses, don’t blame the past. The rest of your life can be the best of your life!

- Joel Olsteen

Most people who fail in their dream fail not from lack of ability but from lack of commitment.

- Zig Ziglar

We are not trying to entertain the critics. I’ll take my chances with the public.

- Walt Disney

The internet population is going up and up. I am confident that this will be a huge market.

- Robin Li

Entrepreneurship, then, is behavior rather than personality trait. And its foundation lies in concept and theory rather than in intuition.

- Peter Drucker

I will be liken to the rain drop which washes away the mountain; the ant that devours a tiger; the star which brightens the earth; the slave who builds a pyramid. I will build my castle one brick at a time for I know that small attemps, repeated will complete my undertaking.

- Og Mandino

As soon as we associate reading with a test, we’ve missed the point.

- Seth Godin

Its easy to have principles when you’re rich. The important thing is to have principles when you’re poor.

- Ray Kroc

Always treat your employees exactly as you want them to treat your best customers.

- Stephen R. Covey

Men of age object too much, consult too long, adventure too little, repent too soon, and seldom drive business home to the full period, but content themselves with a mediocrity of success.

- Dale Carnegie

I actually think every individual is now an entrepreneur, whether they recognize it or not.

- Reid Hoffman

Many marriages would be better if the husband and wife clearly understood that they’re on the same side.

- Zig Ziglar

Right now I’m just delighted to be alive and to have had a nice long bath.

- Richard Branson

Disruption is like an earthquake. Disruption has no purpose. It has not values. It has no organizing principle. It has no direction and it has no leadership… This is not what we want to bring into the world. What we want to bring into the world is revolution.

- Jack Dorsey

If geek means you’re willing to study things, and if you think science and engineering matter, I plead guilty. If your culture doesn’t like geeks, you are in real trouble.

- Bill Gates

Andy Andrews is the best speaker I have ever seen.

- Zig Ziglar

To change somebody’s behavior, change the level of respect she receives by giving her a fine reputation to live up to. Act as though the trait you are trying to influence is already one of the person’s outstanding characteristics.

- Dale Carnegie

The maxim, “Nothing prevails but perfection,” may be spelled PARALYSIS.

- Winston Churchill

On my grandfather’s tombstone, you will find his favorite Marx quote: “Life is struggle.” I believe that within that quote lies the most important lesson in entrepreneurship: Embrace the struggle.

- Ben Horowitz

When I was a comic in the 1980s, I was on the road somewhere every day, and I’d get back to the hotel, and it was Carson and Letterman, and I looked forward to that all day.

- Jerry Seinfeld

I think people instinctively know that their job is to give service and that they are part of a community. It had a great impact on me when my father walked the picket lines and I walked with him during the civil rights movement.

- Russell Simmons

Man, alone, has the power to transform his thoughts into physical reality; man, alone, can dream and make his dreams come true.

- Napoleon Hill

Crankiness is at the essence of all comedy. My wife and I were discussing the different types of cranky. There’s entertaining cranky, annoying cranky, angry cranky.

- Jerry Seinfeld

I think the positive competition between states in India is one of the most positive dynamics that the country has.

- Bill Gates

The two most important requirements for major success are: first, being in the right place at the right time, and second, doing something about it.

- Ray Kroc

Too many companies think they want to do a video blog to sell merchandise, but if you turn your site into QVC, you lose. I have an audience that trusts me. It’s about building a global brand – not selling four more bottles of Pinot Grigio.

- Gary Vaynerchuk

It’s the poorer people in tropical zones who will get really hit by climate change – as well as some ecosystems, which nobody wants to see disappear.

- Bill Gates

Starbucks has stores in America in many, many communities that are governed by many, many different municipalities. Starbucks cannot dictate to a municipality in Cincinnati or Kansas City or Sacramento how or why or when there should be a recycling program.

- Howard Schultz

Historians will record 1998 as a time when the impossible happened in Asia

- Cheng Yu-tung

If you’ve got time to lean, you’ve got time to clean.

- Ray Kroc

The employees who share innovative ideas may also be the folks who have some hidden talents that would help incorporate their suggestions.

- Harvey Mackay

It is no ordindary desire that survives disappointment, discouragement, temporary defeat, criticism, and the constant reminding of waste of time. It is a burning desire an obsession! – Napoleon Hill (on leadership)

- Napoleon Hill

Being a leader gives you charisma. If you look and study the leaders who have succeeded, that’s where charisma comes from, from the leading.

- Seth Godin

Enemy submarines are to be called U-Boats. The term submarine is to be reserved for Allied under water vessels. U-Boats are those dastardly villains who sink our ships, while submarines are those gallant and noble craft which sink theirs.

- Winston Churchill

Forty is when you actually begin even deserving to be on stage telling people what you think.

- Jerry Seinfeld

There is something about the outside of a horse that is good for the inside of a man.

- Winston Churchill

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

Two out of every five people on Earth today owe their lives to the higher crop outputs that fertilizer has made possible.

- Bill Gates

When everything seems to be going against you, remember that the airplane takes off against the wind, not with it.

- Henry Ford

A bookstore is one of the only pieces of evidence we have that people are still thinking.

- Jerry Seinfeld

The best way to prepare [to be a programmer] is to write programs, and to study great programs that other people have written. In my case, I went to the garbage cans at the Computer Science Center and fished out listings of their operating system.

- Bill Gates

I am proud of the fact that I never invented weapons to kill.

- Thomas Edison

The great football coach John Madden was once asked whether he would tolerate a player like Terrell Owens on his team. Owens was both one of the most talented players in the game and one of the biggest jerks. Madden answered, “If you hold the bus for everyone on the team, then you’ll be so late you’ll miss the game, so you can’t do that. The bus must leave on time. However, sometimes you’ll have a player that’s so good that you hold the bus for him, but only him.

- Ben Horowitz

You do things when the opportunities come along. I’ve had periods in my life when I’ve had a bundle of ideas come along, and I’ve had long dry spells. If I get an idea next week, I’ll do something. If not, I won’t do a damn thing.

- Warren Buffett

I was trying to convince all these men to try to make a product that they didn’t even wear! Or if they did wear them, they were not admitting it! There was the problem right there. No wonder their hosiery was so uncomfortable.

- Sara Blakely

One reason I encourage people to blog is that the act of doing it stretches your available vocabulary and hones a new voice.

- Seth Godin

Today, not starting is far, far worse than being wrong. If you start, you’ve got a shot at evolving and adjusting to turn your wrong into a right. But if you don’t start, you never get a chance.

- Seth Godin

You cannot climb the ladder of success dressed in the costume of failure.

- Zig Ziglar

This first time through has been hectic, but I expect it to be more stream-lined next year.

- Jack Taylor

I like sports, and I enjoy playing basketball and lifting weights.

- Joel Olsteen

This is not a book for the wild-haired crazies your company keeps in a corner. It is a book for you, your boss, and your employees, because the best future available to us is a future where you contriubute your true self and your best work. Are you up for that?

- Seth Godin

I spent a disproportionate amount of my time in a car in L.A. I’m 35 years old. If you add up the hours spent in cars, it would be years.

- Travis Kalanick

I feel very strongly that SpaceX would not have been able to get started, nor would we have made the progress that we have, without the help of NASA.

- Elon Musk

If you argue and rankle and contradict, you may achieve a victory sometimes; but it will be an empty victory because you will never get your opponent’s good will.

- Dale Carnegie

Motivation is a fire from within. If someone else tries to light that fire under you, chances are it will burn very briefly.

- Stephen R. Covey

The average occupancy rate of the core investment properties of the group was maintained at a high level of 96%.

- Lee Shau Kee

I’m skeptical of a lot of what falls under the rubric of education…. People are on these tracks. They are getting these credentials and it’s very unclear how viable they are in many cases.

- Peter Thiel

I think it is a sad day for the company and we are going to miss him. But, typically of him, he has planned his own succession immaculately. We will have a dinner and a nice party for him.

- Simon Wolfson

I think that both parties should declare the debt limit as a political weapon of mass destruction which can’t be used. I mean, it is silly to have a country that has 237 years building up its reputation and then have people threaten to tear it down because they’re not getting some other matter.

- Warren Buffett

How do leaders serve their people? They may pay good wages and treat employees with respect.

- John C. Maxwell

When your dream is bigger than you are, you only have two choices: give up or get help.

- John C. Maxwell

Thank God for what He’s already done in your life. Thank Him for the victories in your past. Thank Him for how far He’s already brought you. And then take it one step further. Thank Him in advance for the victories He has planned ahead for you. Thank Him for the new doors He’s opening. Thank Him for the situations He’s turning around. Thank Him for the favor He has in your future. If you do that, you will feel a new joy rising up on the inside. You will feel your faith increase. You won’t have that victim mentality; you will have a victor mentality. One thing I’ve learned is you cannot praise and stay defeated at the same time. You cannot give God thanks and stay down and discouraged. Put on the Garment of Praise.

- Joel Olsteen

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

- Patrick Soon-Shiong

It’s disappointing, but it’s still a really good book. I’m glad Kenny did it, and I’m glad it’s going to get out. … I still endorse the book. I think everybody should buy it. I think he did a great job on a very complicated topic.

- Phil Knight

I’m trying to change the culture in New York City, that’s hard enough!

- Michael Bloomberg

The big value of the founder running the company is really two things: the knowledge and the commitment.

- Ben Horowitz

My first large-scale community development opportunity was the formation of the Mission Viejo Co. – a partnership with the O’Neill Family, who owned Rancho Mission Viejo. As the young president of the company, I had the responsibility for master planning, master building and implementing the new community’s development plans.

- Donald Bren

In all the difficult decisions that I made through the course of running Loudcloud and Opsware, I never once felt brave. In fact, I often felt scared to death. I never lost those feelings, but after much practice, I learned to ignore them. That learning process might also be called the courage development process.

- Ben Horowitz

The most necessary task of civilization is to teach people how to think. It should be the primary purpose of our public schools. The mind of a child is naturally active, it develops through exercise. Give a child plenty of exercise, for body and brain. The trouble with our way of educating is that it does not give elasticity to the mind. It casts the brain into a mold. It insists that the child must accept. It does not encourage original thought or reasoning, and it lays more stress on memory than observation.

- Thomas Edison

My goal was never to just create a company. A lot of people misinterpret that, as if I don’t care about revenue or profit or any of those things. But what not being just a company means to me is not being just that – building something that actually makes a really big change in the world.

- Mark Zuckerberg

Feedback

Let us know what's going on.

Get Started

Your first month is ONLY $1!

You will be redirected to your dashboard in a moment.

Fill out the information below to cancel your subscription