Creating value is not enough—you also need to capture some of the value you create.
- Peter Thiel
Notable Quotables
Answer me this: would you work harder to earn $100 or avoid losing $100? The smiley optimist says the former, but if research from the Center for Experimental Social Science at New York University is any indication, fear of loss is the home-run winner. Experimental groups given $15 and then told the $15 would be rescinded if they lost a subsequent auction routinely overbid the most. Groups offered $15 if they won weren’t nearly as committed.
- Timothy Ferriss
Southwest Airlines is successful because the company understands it’s a customer service company. It also happens to be an airline.
- Harvey Mackay
We think a modern cloud lets you decide when you want to upgrade. We don’t decide for you.
- Larry Ellison
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
Never quit something with great long-term potential just because you can’t deal with the stress of the moment.
- Seth Godin
The richest people in the world look for and build networks, everyone else looks for work.
- Robert Kiyosaki
I like money, but it’s never been about the money.
- Jerry Seinfeld
Nobody in the heavens above or on the earth beneath or in the waters under the earth will ever object to your saying: ‘I may be wrong. Let’s examine the facts.
- Dale Carnegie
Mrs. Carnegie and I had dinner at a friend’s house in Chicago. While carving the meat, he did something wrong. I didn’t notice it; and I wouldn’t have cared even if I had noticed it. But his wife saw it and jumped down his throat right in front of us. John,” she cried, watch what you are doing! Can’t you ever learn to serve properly!” Then she said to us: He is always making mistakes. He just doesn’t try.” Maybe he didn’t try to carve; but I certainly give him credit for trying to live with her for twenty years. Frankly, I would rather have eaten a couple of hot dogs with mustard—in an atmosphere of peace—than to have dined on Peking duck and shark fins while listening to her scolding.
- Dale Carnegie
Well, Howard Stern has been doing his impression of me for years. It doesn’t really bother me.
- Jerry Seinfeld
I’ve always been amazed by Da Vinci, because he worked out science on his own. He would work by drawing things and writing down his ideas. Of course, he designed all sorts of flying machines way before you could actually build something like that.
- Bill Gates
Those who build great companies understand that the ultimate throttle on growth for any great company is not markets, or technology, or competition, or products. It is one thing above all others: the ability to get and keep enough of the right people. The management team.
- James C. Collins
Mr. Attlee is a very modest man. Indeed he has a lot to be modest about.
- Winston Churchill
To win without risk is to triumph without glory.
- Confucius
My strength is programming. I also think my biggest strength is simplification. That’s what I love doing.
- Jack Dorsey
This is a learning in the business life that first of all you need to have commitment, dedication and passion for what you are doing.
- Lakshmi Mittal
Lo que una persona diga de ti no define quién eres. Su opinión de ti no determina tu dignidad propia. Deja que eso te resbale como si fuera agua sobre el plumaje de un pato. Esa persona tiene todo el derecho a tener una opinión, y tú tienes todo el derecho a pasarla por alto.
- Joel Olsteen
When you have no one to answer to, vendetta as investment strategy is as legitimate as anything.
- Carl Icahn
I love great music and art, but I think ‘cubist’ songs and paintings are hideous.
- Thomas Edison
I view my role more as trying to set up an environment where the personalitites, creativity and individuality of all the different employees come out and can shine.
- Tony Hsieh
When I became proficient as a salesman I was invited to teach new hires.
- Zig Ziglar
Medicine is the means by which we poor feeble creatures try to keep from dying or aching.
- P.T. Barnum
It’s quite complicated and sounds circular, but we’ve worked out a way of calculate a Web site’s importance.
- Larry Page
Thoughts mixed with definiteness of purpose, persistence, and a burning desire are powerful things.
- Napoleon Hill
Oppressed people cannot remain oppressed forever. The yearning for freedom eventually manifests itself.
- Martin Luther King Jr.
You will need to find ways to do less and less to make more and more.
- Robert Kiyosaki
My rule of life prescribed as an absolutely sacred rite smoking cigars and also the drinking of alcohol before, after and if need be during all meals and in the intervals between them.
- Winston Churchill
I just wanted to be in show business. I didn’t care if I was going to be an actor or a magician or what. Comedy was a point of the least resistance, really. And on the simplest level, I loved comedy.
- Steve Martin
The freedom of the new kind of work (which most of us do, most of the time) is that the tasks are vague and difficult to measure. We can waste an hour surfing the ’Net because no one knows if surfing the ’Net is going to help us make progress or connections. This freedom is great, because it means no one is looking over your shoulder; no one is using a stopwatch on you. This freedom is a pox, because it’s an opening for the resistance. Freedom like this makes it easy to hide, easy to find excuses, easy to do very little.
- Seth Godin
A prisoner of war is a man who tries to kill you and fails, and then asks you not to kill him.
- Winston Churchill
Well, it’s very clear that the Arab population is rising because they’d like to have a say in the running of their affairs, running of their government, and this is very legitimate.
- Prince Al Waleed Bin Talal Alsaud
Set high goals, encourage competition, and then keep score.”
- Sam Walton
Sooner or later, many idealists transform themselves into disheartened realists who mistakenly believe that giving up is the same thing as being realistic.
- Seth Godin
Hong Kong is a good fashion city. The interest is enormous. There’s good potential in the Asian market.
- Stefan Persson
Sometimes you may have to trade places with someone who is hurting.
- Joel Olsteen
Talent grips us. We are overtaken by the beauty of Michelangelo’s sculpture, riveted by Mariah Carey’s angelic voice, doubled over in laughter by the comedy of Robin Williams, and captivated by the on screen performances of Denzel Washington.
- John C. Maxwell
If past history was all there was to the game, the richest people would be librarians.
- Warren Buffett
I don’t feel under-taxed in any way at all.
- Jack Welch
America gets its opinions from advertising.
- Phil Knight
The world has the habit of making room for the man whose actions show that he knows where he is going.
- Napoleon Hill
I have thought about some kind of musical involving my music. That would be kind of interesting. I have thought of it in that way, as a creator of something, not so much a performer. So that’s in my head.
- Steve Martin
Starbucks has a role and a meaningful relationship with people that is not only about the coffee.
- Howard Schultz
The future is here. It’s just not widely distributed yet.
- William Gibson
Level 5 leaders channel their ego needs away from themselves and into the larger goal of building a great company. It’s not that Level 5 leaders have no ego or self-interest. Indeed, they are incredibly ambitious—but their ambition is first and foremost for the institution, not themselves.
- James C. Collins
You don’t have to start from scratch to do something interesting. You don’t have to start from scratch to have a massive impact on the world. You have to have a good idea. You have to convince other people of those good ideas. And you have to push as quickly as possible.
- Jack Dorsey
Well, you know, News Corp is the only real media global – that has a global presence that’s involved in TV production, in movies, in publishing, in newspapers, digital media, et cetera. So for a company like that to function, clearly it does not depend only on Rupert Murdoch or James Murdoch.
- Prince Al Waleed Bin Talal Alsaud
Personally, I think the failure to really kind of get his arms around this company and this industry led to confusion on behalf of the management team. And I didn’t see that getting any better.
- Phil Knight
At the end of the day, effective mission statements balance the possible and the impossible. They give people a clear sense of the direction to profitability and the inspiration to feel they are part of something big and important.
- Jack Welch
Pull in your belt, spend less, and reduce debt.
- Ray Dalio
Treat your life like a game.
- Ray Dalio
I DECLARE I am special and extraordinary. I am not average! I have been custom-made. I am one of a kind. Of all the things God created, what He is the most proud of is me. I am His masterpiece, his most prized possession. I will keep my head held high, knowing I am a child of the most high God, made in his very image. This is my declaration.
- Joel Olsteen
I read Google News and use NetNewsWire to keep up with general and tech news.
- Steve Wozniak
To succeed in business, you must build a brand and never destroy it.
- Aliko Dangote
I don’t believe in saturation. We’re thinking and talking worldwide.
- Ray Kroc
Climate change is a terrible problem, and it absolutely needs to be solved. It deserves to be a huge priority.
- Bill Gates
We were looking to guide and help people who want to start small businesses.
- David Nilssen
Cisco Systems Capital will be investing in companies working on networking technology.
- John Chambers
No effort has been spared in ensuring the best designs for all our projects.
- Lee Shau Kee
I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for law.
- Martin Luther King Jr.
Post-9/11, we saw an immediate uptick in the amount of people in our stores, all over the country. People wanted that human connection. We are not going to fracture the Starbucks experience.
- Howard Schultz
We only get to play this game one time…one life.
- Gary Vaynerchuk
Love doesn’t sit there like a stone, it has to be made, like bread: remade all the time, made new.
- Og Mandino
Europe has always represented a major strategic opportunity to achieve our goal of creating and building an enduring global brand.
- Howard Schultz
This is the day of dramatization. Merely stating a truth isn’t enough. The truth has to be made vivid, interesting, dramatic. You have to use showmanship. The movies do it. Television does it. And you will have to do it if you want attention.
- Dale Carnegie
Being able to see an activity log of where a kid has been going on the Internet is a good thing.
- Bill Gates
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
People begin to become successful the minute they decide to be.
- Harvey Mackay
I… had no need for cheering dreams,” he wrote. Facts are better than dreams.
- James C. Collins
If you teach a man anything, he will never learn.
- Bernard Shaw
I’m trying to change the culture in New York City, that’s hard enough!
- Michael Bloomberg
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
One of the things I say to people is: Imagine if we succeeded.
- Ben Horowitz
If Hitler invaded hell I would make at least a favourable reference to the devil in the House of Commons.
- Winston Churchill
In those days he was wiser than he is now, he used to frequently take my advice.
- Winston Churchill
And being as wicked as any man who ever lived, he exploited his advantage to the full.
- Winston Churchill
Winning ‘Motor Trend’ Car of the year is probably the closest thing to winning the Oscar or Emmy of the car industry.
- Elon Musk
I have a list of the hardest, most challenging problems that our company needs to solve and I start at the top and work my way down. And I have a list of the coolest most fascinating things that we can invent and I start at the top of the list and I work my way down.
- Travis Kalanick
The fishing is best where the fewest go, and the collective insecurity of the world makes it easy for people to hit home runs while everyone else is aiming for base hits. There is just less competition for bigger goals.
- Timothy Ferriss
There may be times when you just have to love people from a distance.
- Joel Olsteen
No hour of life is wasted that is spent in the saddle.
- Winston Churchill
Nobody cares how much you know, until they know how much you care.
- Theodore Roosevelt
There is no such thing as a good tax.
- Winston Churchill
My father encouraged me to study something I was interested in, not necessarily the basis for a career.
- Michael Balmuth
Improvement is to invent something completely new.
- Peter Thiel
We’ll be watching as the storm approaches. If we see a service area is about to be hit by high winds, we will literally have crews loaded and sitting in trucks, ready to go.
- Ed Clark
I grew up in a house where my father encouraged my brother and me to fail. I specifically remember coming home and saying, ‘Dad, Dad, I tried out for this or that and I was horrible,’ and he would high-five me and say, ‘Way to go.’
- Sara Blakely
I’ve operated and launched newspapers all over the world.
- Rupert Murdoch
You should learn from your competitor, but never copy. Copy and you die.
- Jack Ma
Procrastination is the bad habit of putting of until the day after tomorrow what should have been done the day before yesterday.
- Napoleon Hill
Whatever you do, do it with all your might. Work at it, early and late, in season and out of season, not leaving a stone unturned, and never deferring for a single hour that which can be done just as well now.
- P.T. Barnum
We are interested in any sector with good growth potential.
- Dhanin Chearavanont
In order to become rich, you need to learn to build systems that can work without you. .
- Robert Kiyosaki
Discrimination is a hellhound that gnaws at Negroes in every waking moment of their lives to remind them that the lie of their inferiority is accepted as truth in the society dominating them.
- Martin Luther King Jr.
There is a certain amount of dissatisfaction that goes with knowing your time, talent and abilities are not being properly used.
- Zig Ziglar
The secret of his success? I will speak ill of no man, and speak all the good I know of everybody.
- Dale Carnegie
A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way, and shows the way.
- John C. Maxwell
At its zenith Sears accounted for more than 2 percent of all retail sales in the United States. It pioneered several innovations critical to the success of today’s most admired retailers: for example, supply chain management, store brands, catalogue retailing, and credit card sales. The esteem in which Sears’ management was held shows in this 1964 excerpt from Fortune: “How did Sears do it? In a way, the most arresting aspect of its story is that there was no gimmick. Sears opened no big bag of tricks, shot off no skyrockets. Instead, it looked as though everybody in its organization simply did the right thing, easily and naturally. And their cumulative effect was to create an extraordinary powerhouse of a company.
- Clayton M. Christensen
The characteristics that make a good advertisement or commercial – it’s memorable, engaging, entertaining, focused, sends a clear message, makes you want to see it again, makes you want to buy the product.
- David Novak
To my mind, there is a solution which has to do with democracy, because democratic governments are subject to the will of the people. So, if the people will it, you can actually create international institutions through the democratic states.
- George Soros
