Notable Quotables

I readily absorb ideas from every source, frequently starting where the last person left off.

- Thomas Edison

Don’t simply settle for what your parents had. You can go further than that. You can do more, have more, be more.

- Joel Olsteen

We are continuing to see a number of signs that could be interpreted with the appropriate caveats as optimistic.

- John Chambers

Thomas Edison had only three months of schooling during his entire life. He did not lack education, neither did he die poor. Henry Ford had less than a sixth grade schooling but he has managed to do pretty well for himself financially.

- Napoleon Hill

Marc: “Do you know the best thing about startups?” Ben: “What?” Marc: “You only ever experience two emotions: euphoria and terror. And I find that lack of sleep enhances them both.”

- Ben Horowitz

Zero to One is about how to build companies that create new things. It draws on everything I’ve learned directly as a co-founder of PayPal and Palantir and then an investor in hundreds of startups, including Facebook and SpaceX.

- Peter Thiel

You can’t grow long-term if you can’t eat short-term. Anybody can manage short. Anybody can manage long. Balancing those two things is what management is.

- Jack Welch

Inflation is taking up the poverty line, and poverty is not just economic but defined by way of health and education.

- Azim Premji

Television is NOT real life. In real life people actually have to leave the coffee shop and go to jobs.

- Bill Gates

[On exporting sports shoes from Japan to the US]The best hope for exports lay with Onitsuka Company. So I made a cold call on them.

- Phil Knight

It’s easy to get negative because you get beat down. You go through a few disappointments and it’s easy to stay in that negative frame of mind. Choosing to be positive and having a grateful attitude is a whole cliche, but your attitude is going to determine how you’re going to live your life.

- Joel Olsteen

A woodpecker can tap twenty times on a thousand trees and get nowhere, but stay busy. Or he can tap twenty-thousand times on one tree and get dinner.

- Seth Godin

NO PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT OR EMPLOYEE FEEDBACK PROCESS Your company now employs twenty-five people and you know that you should formalize the performance management process, but you don’t want to pay the price. You worry that doing so will make it feel like a “big company.” Moreover, you do not want your employees to be offended by the feedback, because you can’t afford to lose anyone right now. And people are happy, so why rock the boat? Why not take on a little management debt? The first noticeable payments will be due when somebody performs below expectations: CEO: “He was good when we hired him; what happened?” Manager: “He’s not doing the things that we need him to do.” CEO: “Did we clearly tell him that?” Manager: “Maybe not clearly . . .” However, the larger payment will be a silent tax. Companies execute well when everybody is on the same page and everybody is constantly improving. In a vacuum of feedback, there is almost no chance that your company will perform optimally across either dimension. Directions with no corrections will seem fuzzy and obtuse. People rarely improve weakness they are unaware of. The ultimate price you will pay for not giving feedback: systematically crappy company performance.

- Ben Horowitz

Another noteworthy aspect is the strong free cash flow of more than €2 billion. This enabled us to reduce net indebtedness to its lowest level since 2006.

- Elmar Degenhart

I am so disturbed by kids who spend all day playing videogames.

- Larry Ellison

No man is ever whipped, until he quits in his own mind…A winner never quits and quitter never wins. No follower of this philosphy can reasonably expect accumulate a fortune without experience temporary defeat.

- Napoleon Hill

At the end, the acquisition of wealth is ignoble in the extreme. I assume that you save and long for wealth only as a means of enabling you the better to do some good in your day and generation.

- Andrew Carnegie

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

All money means to me is a pride in accomplishment.

- Ray Kroc

What we do not see, what most of us never suspect of existing, is the silent but irresistible power which comes to the rescue of those who fight on in the face of discouragement.

- Napoleon Hill

Experience taught me a few things. One is to listen to your gut, no matter how good something sounds on paper. The second is that you’re generally better off sticking with what you know. And the third is that sometimes your best investments are the ones you don’t make.

- Donald Trump

Money motivates neither the best people nor the best in people.

- Dee Hock

You cannot hang out with negative people and expect to live a positive life.

- Joel Olsteen

America is the spirit of human exploration distilled.

- Elon Musk

If you are a prospective entrepreneur with the desire to start and build a visionary company but have not yet taken the plunge because you don’t have a great idea,” we encourage you to lift from your shoulders the burden of the great-idea myth. Indeed, the evidence suggests that it might be better to not obsess on finding a great idea before launching a company. Why? Because the great-idea approach shifts your attention away from seeing the company as your ultimate creation.

- James C. Collins

I seldom read anything that is not of a factual nature because I want to invest my time wisely in the things that will improve my life. Don’t misunderstand; there is nothing wrong with reading purely for the joy of it. Novels have their place, but biographies of famous men and women contain information that can change lives.

- Zig Ziglar

The first step is to establish that something is possible, then probability will occur.

- Elon Musk

Investors should remember that excitement and expenses are their enemies. And if they insist on trying to time their participation in equities, they should try to be fearful when others are greedy and greedy only when others are fearful.

- Warren Buffett

One of the things that I’m really proud of is that I have really good timing. It’s very easy for me to see what’s coming up and it’s no coincidence that I went headfirst into wine and then headfirst into new media – none at all.

- Gary Vaynerchuk

It takes the same effort to think small than to think big. But to think big frees you from the insignificant details.

- Jorge Paulo Lemann

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

Schools have figured this out. They need shortcuts in order to successfully process millions of students a year, and they’ve discovered that fear is a great shortcut on the way to teaching compliance.

- Seth Godin

We’d love to be involved with the creation of something very special, something quite large and something quite exciting.

- Richard Branson

If you sell business-to-business, get a letter off to your client within an hour or two of your meeting…Start with something personal from the meeting and include a compliment.

- Chet Holmes

What General Weygand called the Battle of France is over. I expect that the Battle of Britain is about to begin. Upon this battle depends the survival of Christian civilization. Upon it depends our own British life, and the long continuity of our institutions and our Empire. The whole fury and might of the enemy must very soon be turned on us. Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this Island or lose the war. If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be free and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands. But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science. Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that, if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, ‘This was their finest hour.

- Winston Churchill

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

- Lee Shau Kee

Take every opportunity to inject self-confidence into those who have earned it. Use ample praise, the more specific the better.

- Jack Welch

Leadership involves finding a parade and getting in front of it.

- John Naisbitt

A Prius is not a true hybrid, really. The current Prius is, like, 2 percent electric. It’s a gasoline car with slightly better mileage.

- Elon Musk

My greatest strength as a consultant is to be ignorant and ask a few questions.

- Peter Drucker

For good or for ill, air mastery is today the supreme expression of military power and fleets and armies, however vital and important, must accept a subordinate rank.

- Winston Churchill

Tomorrow becomes never. No matter how small the task, take the first step now!

- Timothy Ferriss

If you want to be happy, set a goal that commands your thoughts, liberates your energy, and inspires your hopes.

- Andrew Carnegie

I’m considered homophobic and crazy about these things and old fashioned. But I think that the family – father, mother, children – is fundamental to our civilisation.

- Rupert Murdoch

I built a conglomerate and emerged the richest black man in the world in 2008 but it didn’t happen overnight, it took me 30 years.

- Aliko Dangote

Whenever you see a successful business, someone once made a courageous decision.

- Peter Drucker

all information and interruptions that are irrelevant, unimportant, or unactionable.

- Timothy Ferriss

You must capture and keep the heart of the original and supremely able man before his brain can do its best.

- Andrew Carnegie

He will give you strength for every battle, wisdom for every decision, peace that passes understanding. God will vindicate you for the wrongs that have been done. He will pay you back for unfair situations. He promised He will not only bring your dreams to pass but He will give you even the secret desires of your heart. Dare to trust Him. Come back to that place of peace. Quit being worried, stressed out, wondering if it will happen. God has you in the palm of His hand. He has never once failed before, and the good news is He is not about to start now.

- Joel Olsteen

Rewards await you if you stay steadfast in your faith.

- Joel Olsteen

My drive into high tech doesn’t involve a lot of people – just me and a very small team.

- Raymond Kwok

Every morning brings new potential, but if you dwell on the misfortunes of the day before, you tend to overlook tremendous opportunities.

- Harvey Mackay

My main purpose in life is to make enough money to create ever more inventions…. The dove is my emblem…. I want to save and advance human life, not destroy it…. I am proud of the fact that I have never invented weapons to kill….

- Thomas Edison

I think that the first thing is you should have a strategic asset allocation mix that assumes that you don’t know what the future is going to hold.

- Ray Dalio

A man must be big enough to admit his mistakes, smart enough to profit from them, and strong enough to correct them.

- John C. Maxwell

Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.

- Winston Churchill

Up until the time I was 14 years old, I was sure that I was going to be a big-league baseball player. But that dream came to a rude awakening when I got cut from my high school baseball team.

- Phil Knight

CREATIVE MONOPOLY means new products that benefit everybody and sustainable profits for the creator. Competition means no profits for anybody, no meaningful differentiation, and a struggle for survival.

- Peter Thiel

No business can stay in business without customers. How you treat – or mistreat – them determines how long your doors stay open.

- Harvey Mackay

[In June 2011] We’re focused on building a product and a business. Going public is an instrument and tool to help sustain the company. In the future, there may be an IPO, but I don’t know what the timing is.

- Jack Dorsey

The service leaders hire one out of 50 applicants, sometimes one out of 100, but they’re very, very careful. You can’t afford not to be extremely choosy when you hire.

- Harvey Mackay

BLAMING IDIOTS FOR interruptions is like blaming clowns for scaring children—they can’t help it. It’s their nature. Then again, I had (who am I kidding—and have), on occasion, been known to create interruptions out of thin air. If you’re anything like me, that makes us both occasional idiots. Learn to recognize and fight the interruption impulse. This is infinitely easier when you have a set of rules, responses, and routines to follow.

- Timothy Ferriss

With every obstacle that has happened to me in my life, my brain immediately says, ‘Where is the hidden blessing?’ In starting a business and growing a business, every day is learning how to manage obstacles.

- Sara Blakely

I have been up against tough competition all my life. I wouldn’t know how to get along with it.

- Walt Disney

What we want to watch is whether this is a short-term bump or not.

- John Chambers

There are men in the world who derive as stern an exaltation from the proximity of disaster and ruin, as others from success.

- Winston Churchill

Forty to 60 I would say is your prime. That’s when you know the most, you’ve seen the most, you understand the most, and you still have some physical energy.

- Jerry Seinfeld

When you go through difficult times, make sure you pass the test. Don’t be stubborn and hardheaded. Recognize that God is refining you, knocking off some of your rough edges. Stand strong and fight the good fight of faith. God has called each of us to be champions; you are destined to win. If you will work with God and keep a good attitude, then no matter what comes against you, the bible says that all things – not just the good things in life, but all things – work together for your good.

- Joel Olsteen

We think when God speaks to us, there’s going to be a boom out of Heaven or we’re going to get some chill bumps, but I really believe God’s talking to us all the time. He’s talking to us right in here. I call it our heart, our conscience, but it’s the Holy Spirit talking to us.

- Joel Olsteen

Canada sets aside 36 percent of their visas for people with skills they think their country needs. We set aside six percent. We educate the doctors, and then don’t give ’em a green card.

- Michael Bloomberg

Your workforce is your most valuable asset. The knowledge and skills they have represent the fuel that drives the engine of business – and you can leverage that knowledge.

- Harvey Mackay

You know what your problem is, it’s that you haven’t seen enough movies – all of life’s riddles are answered in the movies.

- Steve Martin

…What I have denied and what my reason compels me to deny, is the existence of a Being throned above us as a god, directing our mundane affairs in detail, regarding us as individuals, punishing us, rewarding us as human judges might. When the churches learn to take this rational view of things, when they become true schools of ethics and stop teaching fables, they will be more effective than they are to-day… If they would turn all that ability to teaching this one thing – the fact that honesty is best, that selfishness and lies of any sort must surely fail to produce happiness – they would accomplish actual things. Religious faiths and creeds have greatly hampered our development. They have absorbed and wasted some fine intellects. That creeds are getting to be less and less important to the average mind with every passing year is a good sign, I think, although I do not wish to talk about what is commonly called theology. The criticisms which have been hurled at me have not worried me. A man cannot control his beliefs. If he is honest in his frank expression of them, that is all that can in justice be required of him. Professor Thomson and a thousand others do not in the least agree with me. His criticism of me, as I read it, charged that because I doubted the soul’s immortality, or ‘personality,’ as he called it, my mind must be abnormal, ‘pathological,’ in other, words, diseased… I try to say exactly what I honestly believe to be the truth, and more than that no man can do. I honestly believe that creedists have built up a mighty structure of inaccuracy, based, curiously, on those fundamental truths which I, with every honest man, must not alone admit but earnestly acclaim. I have been working on the same lines for many years. I have tried to go as far as possible toward the bottom of each subject I have studied. I have not reached my conclusions through study of traditions; I have reached them through the study of hard fact. I cannot see that unproved theories or sentiment should be permitted to have influence in the building of conviction upon matters so important. Science proves its theories or it rejects them. I have never seen the slightest scientific proof of the religious theories of heaven and hell, of future life for individuals, or of a personal God. I earnestly believe that I am right; I cannot help believing as I do… I cannot accept as final any theory which is not provable. The theories of the theologians cannot be proved. Proof, proof! That is what I always have been after; that is what my mind requires before it can accept a theory as fact. Some things are provable, some things disprovable, some things are doubtful. All the problems which perplex us, now, will, soon or late, be solved, and solved beyond a question through scientific investigation. The thing which most impresses me about theology is that it does not seem to be investigating. It seems to be asserting, merely, without actual study. …Moral teaching is the thing we need most in this world, and many of these men could be great moral teachers if they would but give their whole time to it, and to scientific search for the rock-bottom truth, instead of wasting it upon expounding theories of theology which are not in the first place firmly based. What we need is search for fundamentals, not reiteration of traditions born in days when men knew even less than we do now.

- Thomas Edison

Everything man creates or acquires begins in the form of desire, that desire is taken on the first lap of its journey, from the abstract to the concrete, into the workshop of the imagination, where plans for its transition are created and organized.

- Napoleon Hill

Once you’ve engaged with an organization or a relationship or a community, you owe it to your team to start. To initiate. To be the one who makes something happen. To do less is to steal from them. If you hide your spark, bury your ideas, keep your questions and notions from the team, you have hurt them as badly as if you had stolen a laptop and fenced it on eBay.

- Seth Godin

The door to a balanced success opens wide on the hinges of hope and encouragement.

- Zig Ziglar

We have merely scratched the surface of the store of knowledge which will come to us. I believe that we are now, a-tremble on the verge of vast discoveries – discoveries so wondrously important they will upset the present trend of human thought and start it along completely new lines .

- Thomas Edison

Our underwear used to just be cotton, but we wanted to see if we could create something out of synthetics.

- Tadashi Yanai

We ride roughshod over the feelings of others, getting our own way, finding fault, issuing threats, criticising a child or an employee in front of others, without even considering the hurt to the other person’s pride. Whereas a few minutes’ thought, a considerate word or two, a genuine understanding of the other person’s attitude, would go so far toward alleviating the sting!

- Dale Carnegie

Be nice to nerds. Chances are you’ll end up working for one.

- Bill Gates

One thing that most comic artists avoid is showing decisions. They show action, sure, and they show results, but they don’t show (because it’s difficult to show) the hero or the villain making a choice.

- Seth Godin

There is no right or wrong way of giving. People in Los Angeles have made major contributions in different ways to the city: Eli Broad to art. David Geffen to hospitals. I’m not judgmental.

- Patrick Soon-Shiong

It is expected that Mainland China’s entry to the World Trade Organisation will materialise in the near future and the country will see further growth in its economy unfolding at a faster pace.

- Lee Shau Kee

Only buy something that you’d be perfectly happy to hold if the market shut down for 10 years.

- Warren Buffett

Well, today the Grammys is much much better than the Oscars. I think the differences in the shows are that the Grammys are much wilder. The Oscars is much more people in the industry. And people dress wilder, I think, at the Grammys.

- Steve Martin

The legacy of Steve Jobs and the strength of Steve Jobs is that he established a company that’s clearly firing on all cylinders and clicking very well.

- Prince Al Waleed Bin Talal Alsaud

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

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

- Winston Churchill

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