By my count, more business leaders have failed and derailed because of arrogance than any other character flaw.
- Harvey Mackay
Notable Quotables
Don’t wait. The time will never be just right.
- Napoleon Hill
Over time, yes, countries will need to look at specific GMO products like they look at drugs today, where they don’t approve them all. They look hard at the safety and the testing. And they make sure that the benefits far outweigh any of the downsides.
- Bill Gates
Freedom does not come automatically, it is achieved. And it is not gained in a single bound
- Rollo May
Hi-tech is best managed by younger people.
- Lee Shau Kee
It is not your aptitude but your ATTITUDE that decides your altitude in life.
- Zig Ziglar
I’m trying to construct a world that maximises the probability that SpaceX continues its mission without me.
- Elon Musk
Among the world’s 500 largest companies, not one has completely relied on its own growth to develop.
- Wang Jianlin
The record results for the third quarter once again demonstrate the ability of GE’s diverse mix of leading global businesses to deliver top-line growth, increased margins and strong cash generation.
- Jack Welch
The future of Windows is to let the computer see, listen and even learn.
- Bill Gates
You can live your life angry, bitter, mad at somebody or even guilty, not letting go of your own mistakes, but you won’t receive the good things God has in store.
- Joel Olsteen
A good speech should be like a woman’s skirt, long enough to cover the subject and short enough to create interest.
- Winston Churchill
The fallout from the US sub-prime issue, turbulence on global financial markets and the resulting credit tightening, slow-down in the global economies and increasing inflationary pressure all threaten to pose a drag on the economic growth in Hong Kong.
- Lee Shau Kee
It’s difficult for any single company to develop all the applications and services.
- Ma Huateng
You need to be in the position where it is the cost of the fuel that actually matters and not the cost of building the rocket in the first place.
- Elon Musk
My role has been to pick good people and give them the maximum authority and responsibility.
- Sam Walton
Risk more than others think is safe. Dream more than others think is practical.
- Howard Schultz
Intolerance.
- Napoleon Hill
I don’t want to be liked. I want to be respected.
- Jack Ma
We were always trying to look for people who could help us beyond what we were doing.
- Phil Knight
Yes, they broke the law, but we can’t deport them. Let’s get over this pointing fingers and do something about that, whether it – they have to pay a fine, learn to speak English, the history, you can do that. And then you have to give visas for the skills we need.
- Michael Bloomberg
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
I tried to build a company my father would have been proud to work for, that he would have looked back on and said, ‘That’s the company that honoured me, even though I don’t have an education’. I wanted to build a company that had a conscience.
- Howard Schultz
The oil patch pays good. They’re decent jobs paying between 50 and 70 thousand a year. Fracking has a big impact on the oil consumption in the United States.
- Harold Hamm
Most of a tech company’s value will come at least 10 to 15 years in the future.
- Peter Thiel
When you are full of pride on the inside, it makes you stiff, stubborn, and creates strife with others.
- John C. Maxwell
The difference between a stranger sending you a message that you might be interested in at a very low volume level, no repetition, just sending it to very few people, and that being done as spam – those things get close enough that you want to be careful never to filter out something that’s legitimate.
- Bill Gates
For myself I am an optimist – it does not seem to be much use to be anything else.
- Winston Churchill
I think Bible principles are principles for life.
- Joel Olsteen
The time to look for a new job is when you don’t need one. The time to switch jobs is before it feels comfortable.
- Seth Godin
The things you’re not doing are the things you should actually be focused on.
- Ben Horowitz
It is the individual who is not interested in his fellow men who has the greatest difficulties in life and provides the greatest injury to others.
- Dale Carnegie
The final test of a leader is that he leaves behind him in other men the conviction and the will to carry on.
- Walter Lippmann
It’s Never Over ’till it’s over! Never Give Up! Never.
- Winston Churchill
Desire is the catalyst that enables a person with average ability to compete and win against others with more natural talent.
- Zig Ziglar
A dream is just a dream. A goal is a dream with a plan and a deadline.
- Harvey Mackay
I am a huge bull on this country. We will not have a double-dip recession at all. I see our businesses coming back almost across the board.
- Warren Buffett
Networking is one of the most valuable uses of your time in terms of return—and not just in monetary terms.
- Business Insider.com
If a job doesn’t excite you on some level—just because of the stuff of it—don’t settle.
- Jack Welch
It’s always darkest before the dawn.
- Anonymous
Don’t have sex man. It leads to kissing and pretty soon you have to start talking to them.
- Steve Martin
It’s not how far you fall. But how high you bounce that counts.
- Zig Ziglar
When you have an understanding of how someone else lives, the less likely it is that you conflict with them.
- Jack Dorsey
Strategic quitting is the secret of successful organizations.
- Seth Godin
All was there—the programme of German resurrection, the technique of party propaganda; the plan for combating Marxism; the concept of a National-Socialist State; the rightful position of Germany at the summit ofthe world. Here was the new Koran of faith and war: turgid, verbose, shapeless, but pregnant with its message.
- Winston Churchill
Microsoft Research has a thing called the Sense Cam that, as you walk around, it’s taking photos all the time. And the software will filter and find the ones that are interesting without having to think, ‘Let’s get out the camera and get that shot.’ You just have that, and software helps you pick what you want.
- Bill Gates
It’s true that every great entrepreneur is first and foremost a designer.
- Peter Thiel
You will need to find ways to do less and less to make more and more.
- Robert Kiyosaki
I think any statement about stock prices is always suspect unless it’s made by Warren Buffett.
- Bill Gates
The hope of a secure and livable world lies with disciplined nonconformists who are dedicated to justice, peace and brotherhood.
- Martin Luther King Jr.
The spread of online information isn’t just good for charities. It’s also good for donors. You can go to a site like Charity Navigator, which evaluates nonprofits on their financial health as well as the amount of information they share about their work.
- Bill Gates
Half the battle is selling music, not singing it. It’s the image, not what you sing.
- Rod Stewart
The problem we have with America is that you come over here and want to make a deal. We meet you and want to form a relationship from which we can make a deal. We meet you and want to form a relationship from which we can make many deals. Most importantly and the basis of everything is that we have a relationship where we honor and trust each other.
- Akio Morita
Digital technology has several features that can make it much easier for teachers to pay special attention to all their students.
- Bill Gates
Software substitution, whether it’s for drivers or waiters or nurses – it’s progressing. Technology over time will reduce demand for jobs, particularly at the lower end of skill set.
- Bill Gates
You reach a point where you don’t work for money.
- Walt Disney
Give me a highly successful unionized industry.
- Jack Welch
Eliminate the fear of old age by reaching a decision to accept it, not as a handicap, but as a great blessing which carries with it wisdom, self-control, and understanding not known to youth. Whip the fear of poverty by reaching a decision to get along with whatever wealth you can accumulate without worry. Master the fear of loss of love by reaching decision to get along without love, if that is necessary. Kill that habit of worry in all its forms, by reaching a general, blanket decision that that nothing which life has to offer is worth the price of worry. With this decision comes poise, peace of mind, and calmness of thought which will bring happiness.
- Napoleon Hill
Don’t find customers for your products, find products for your customers.
- Seth Godin
We are all dreaming of some magical rose garden over the horizon instead of enjoying the roses blooming outside our windows today.
- Dale Carnegie
My most brilliant achievement was my ability to be able to persuade my wife to marry me.
- Winston Churchill
Concentrate your energies, your thoughts and your capital. The wise man puts all his eggs in one basket and watches the basket.
- Andrew Carnegie
Today, we’re very dependent on cheap energy. We just take it for granted – all the things you have in the house, the way industry works.
- Bill Gates
Every enterprise requires commitment to common goals and shared values. Without such commitment there is no enterprise; there is only a mob. The enterprise must have simple, clear, and unifying objectives. The mission of the organization has to be clear enough and big enough to provide common vision. The goals that embody it have to be clear, public, and constantly reaffirmed. Management’s first job is to think through, set, and exemplify those objectives, values, and goals. Management.
- Peter Drucker
As a general rule, everyone you involve with your company should be involved full-time. Sometimes you’ll have to break this rule; it usually makes sense to hire outside lawyers and accountants, for example. However, anyone who doesn’t own stock options or draw a regular salary from your company is fundamentally misaligned.
- Peter Thiel
It’s flattering to people who stop you and say that you’ve helped them and all. But, again, you know, you’ve got to stay humble because as quick as you came up, you can come down.
- Joel Olsteen
Size matters not. Look at me. Judge me by my size, do you? Hmm? Hmm. And well you should not. For my ally is the Force, and a powerful ally it is. Life creates it, makes it grow. Its energy surrounds us and binds us. Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter. You must feel the Force around you; here, between you, me, the tree, the rock, everywhere, yes. Even between the land and the ship.
- Yoda
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
What separates the winners from the losers is how a person reacts to each new twist of fate.
- Donald Trump
I think my whole life, because of where I came from, I had a fear of failure.
- Howard Schultz
People are poor judges of importance and inflate minutiae to fill time and feel important.
- Timothy Ferriss
Life is a buzzer box. Poke it.
- Seth Godin
If you go on with this nuclear arms race, all you are going to do is make the rubble bounce.
- Winston Churchill
A company should limit its growth based on its ability to attract enough of the right people.
- James C. Collins
Obstacles are necessary for success because in selling, as in all careers of importance, victory comes only after many struggles and countless defeats.
- Og Mandino
Disruptive technologies typically enable new markets to emerge.
- Clayton M. Christensen
We are not even close to finishing the basic dream of what the PC can be.
- Bill Gates
He was probably America’s first capitalist.
- Travis Kalanick
If they really don’t want to buy the flats, I’ll take their deposits.
- Lee Shau Kee
You make a living by what you get. You make a life by what you give.
- Winston Churchill
Larger-than-life, celebrity leaders who ride in from the outside are negatively correlated with taking a company from good to great. Ten of eleven good-to-great CEOs came from inside the company, whereas the comparison companies tried outside CEOs six times more often.
- James C. Collins
Some regard private enterprise as if it were a predatory tiger to be shot. Others look upon it as a cow that they can milk. Only a handful see it for what it really is–the strong horse that pulls the whole cart.
- Winston Churchill
Inability to Cooperate With Others.
- Napoleon Hill
When I started Oracle, what I wanted to do was to create an environment where I would enjoy working. That was my primary goal. Sure, I wanted to make a living. I certainly never expected to become rich, certainly not this rich. I mean, rich does not even describe this. This is surreal. And it has nothing to do with money. I mean, you buy clothes with money, and cars. But I really wanted to work with people I enjoyed working with, who I admired and liked.
- Larry Ellison
We’ve all been guilty at one point or another in our careers of boasting of perfect hindsight. It’s a terrible sin. If you don’t make sure your questions and concerns are acted upon, it doesn’t count.
- Jack Welch
[In January 2011] I think the important thing for Twitter is that it works on any technology.
- Jack Dorsey
I love to learn but I do not want to be taught.
- Winston Churchill
With sustained recovery of the local economy, marked improvement in consumer spending and increasing tourist arrivals from Mainland China, these led to the expansion of certain local retail trades including cosmetics, audio-visual products and jewellery which in turn boosted the demand for retail shop spaces.
- Lee Shau Kee
Trying to read our DNA is like trying to understand software code – with only 90% of the code riddled with errors. It’s very difficult in that case to understand and predict what that software code is going to do.
- 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
Sometimes you may have to trade places with someone who is hurting.
- Joel Olsteen
The Real ReasonNew College Grads Can’t Get Hired shocked many when it reported, The Workforce Solutions Group at St. Louis Community College finds that more than 60% of employers say applicants lack communication and interpersonal skills
- Martha C. White
A decision is a judgment. It is a choice between alternatives. It is rarely a choice between right and wrong. It is at best a choice between “almost right” and “probably wrong”—but much more often a choice between two courses of action neither of which is provably more nearly right than the other.
- Peter Drucker
Maintain ‘baseball cards’ and/or ‘believability matrixes’ for your people. Imagine if you had baseball cards that showed all the performance stats. You could see what they did well and poorly and call on the right people to play the right positions in a very transparent way.
- Ray Dalio
Ending a sentence with a preposition is something up with which I will not put.
- Winston Churchill
Your time is limited, don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma, which is living the result of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of other opinions drown your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition, they somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.
- Steve Jobs
We keep moving forward, opening new doors, and doing new things, because we’re curious and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths.
- Walt Disney
Visionary companies pursue a cluster of objectives, of which making money is only one—and not necessarily the primary one.
- James C. Collins
The key to a good one-on-one meeting is the understanding that it is the employee’s meeting rather than the manager’s meeting. This is the free-form meeting for all the pressing issues, brilliant ideas, and chronic frustrations that do not fit neatly into status reports, email, and other less personal and intimate mechanisms.
- Ben Horowitz
As the Readers’s Digest once said: ‘Many persons call a doctor when all they want is an audience.
- Dale Carnegie
