People who smile tend to manage, teach and sell more effectively, and to raise happier children.
- Dale Carnegie
Notable Quotables
Social media is a giant distraction to the ultimate aim, which is honing your craft as a songwriter. There are people who are exceptional at it, however, and if you can do both things, then that’s fantastic, but if you are a writer, the time is better spent on a clever lyric than a clever tweet.
- Bryan Adams
Other people and things can stop you temporarily. You’re the only one who can do it permanently.
- Zig Ziglar
Helping convene global stakeholders to establish a set of measurable, actionable and consensus-built goals focused on extreme poverty is invaluable.
- Bill Gates
We gave new customers $10 for joining, and we gave them $10 more every time they referred a friend.
- Peter Thiel
The critical ingredient is getting off your butt and doing something. It’s as simple as that. A lot of people have ideas, but there are few who decide to do something about them now. Not tomorrow. Not next week. But today. The true entrepreneur is a doer, not a dreamer.
- Nolan Bushnell
We all know that there are these exemplars who can take the toughest students, and they’ll teach them two-and-a-half years of math in a single year.
- Bill Gates
I read the paper every day and the Bible every day, that way I know what both sides are up to.
- Zig Ziglar
There is a huge need and a huge opportunity to get everyone in the world connected, to give everyone a voice and to help transform society for the future. The scale of the technology and infrastructure that must be built is unprecedented, and we believe this is the most important problem we can focus on.
- Mark Zuckerberg
Any idea, plan, or purpose may be placed in the mind through repetition of thought.
- Napoleon Hill
It certainly wasn’t where we were planning to be.
- Simon Wolfson
When you have got a thing where you want, it is a good thing to leave it where it is.
- Winston Churchill
Customers today are strongly value oriented. But just what does that mean? Customers tell us that value means the results they receive in relation to the total costs (both the price and other costs to customers incurred in acquiring the service).
- Gary W. Lo
Success in the United States is not an entitlement in China. You have to go there and earn it, and earn it the right way.
- Howard Schultz
I’ve learned that it doesn’t matter how many times you failed…You only have to be right once…I was an idiot lots of times, and I learned from them all.
- Mark Cuban
While formal schooling is an important advantage, it is not a guarantee of success nor is its absence a fatal handicap.
- Ray Kroc
In a climate of tight budgets, reduced workforces and stiff competition, internal training can be a great substitute for costly offsite workshops and conferences.
- Harvey Mackay
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
Woody’s Allen’s great line about relationships. A relationship is like a shark, it either has to move forward or it dies. And that’s true about your company.
- Larry Ellison
When you look at a company that’s already succeeded or is at the very top of its game, it isn’t necessarily when it’s executing well. It tends to be peacetime – you’ve defeated the competition, you have the highest margins, the highest multiple.
- Ben Horowitz
Apply the blacksmith’s homely principle when you are speaking. If you feel deeply about your subject you will be able to think of little else. Concentration is a process of distraction from less important matters. It is too late to think about the cut of your coat when once you are upon the platform, so centre your interest on what you are about to say—fill your mind with your speech-material and, like the infilling water in the glass, it will drive out your unsubstantial fears.
- Dale Carnegie
I realized about 10 years ago that my wealth has to go back to society. A fortune, the size of which is hard to imagine, is best not passed on to one’s children. It’s not constructive for them.
- Bill Gates
Success is dependent upon the glands – sweat glands.
- Zig Ziglar
Biofuels such as ethanol require enormous amounts of cropland and end up displacing either food crops or natural wilderness, neither of which is good.
- Elon Musk
Grandmaster José Raúl Capablanca put it well: to succeed, “you must study the endgame before everything else.
- Peter Thiel
The bible says no man can take your joy. That means no person can make you live with a negative attitude. No circumstance, no adversity can force you to live in despair. As Eleanor Roosevelt, wife of wheelchair-bound President Franklin D. Roosevelt, often said, ‘No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.
- Joel Olsteen
Since most people have not been taught how to make mistakes and learn from them, they either avoid making mistakes altogether, which is a bigger mistake, or they make a mistake but fail to find the lesson from the mistakes.
- Robert Kiyosaki
The starting point of all achievement is desire. Keep this constantly in mind. Weak desires bring weak results, just as a small amount of fire makes a small amount of heat.
- Napoleon Hill
Risk more than others think is safe. Dream more than others think is practical.
- Howard Schultz
Thinking about what might happen if we ran completely out of money—laying off all the employees that I’d so carefully selected and hired, losing all my investors’ money, jeopardizing all the customers who trusted us with their business—made it difficult to concentrate on the possibilities. Marc Andreessen attempted to cheer me up with a not-so-funny-at-the-time joke: 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
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
We can be certain that cities around the world will compete for the jobs that the next revival of the financial services industry will bring.
- Michael Bloomberg
We cannot take for granted that the future will be better, and that means we need to work to create it today.
- Peter Thiel
It’s hard to tell with these Internet startups if they’re really interested in building companies or if they’re just interested in the money. I can tell you, though: If they don’t really want to build a company, they won’t luck into it. That’s because it’s so hard that if you don’t have a passion, you’ll give up.
- Steve Jobs
When we recognize the fraud for what it is, we feel incredibly stupid. Something more than our bank accounts is damaged—our egos are damaged. As a result, it’s almost impossible for the marketer to regain our trust.
- Seth Godin
Most of a tech company’s value will come at least 10 to 15 years in the future.
- Peter Thiel
At your next sales meeting with 20 people, three will take home the money of 17 others. Is it luck, hard work and a great attitude? Or it is persuasive skill – understanding the transactional dynamics of the sales process?
- Jerry Vass
You are at the top when: You have made friends with your past, are focused on the present, and are optimistic about your future.
- Zig Ziglar
You can learn from everybody.
- Sam Walton
After all, a man’s Life must be nailed to a cross either of Thought or Action. Without work there is no play.
- Winston Churchill
I worry about losing a real talent. I hate losing a great leader more than anything. I also hate it when I have to manager out a good person for poor performance or for simply doing something that is not in sync with our values. One of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do in my life and I’ve had to do it more than once, is fire a friend.
- David Novak
All of the great empires of the future will be empires of the mind.
- Winston Churchill
What is Oracle? It’s people. We rely on our HR department to build this organization, to help find those people, to help grow those people.
- Larry Ellison
We take care of the people, the products, and the profits—in that order.” It’s a simple saying, but it’s deep. “Taking care of the people” is the most difficult of the three by far and if you don’t do it, the other two won’t matter. Taking care of the people means that your company is a good place to work.
- Ben Horowitz
What is the use of living, if it be not to strive for noble causes and to make this muddled world a better place for those who will live in it after we are gone? How else can we put ourselves in harmonious relation with the great verities and consolations of the infinite and the eternal? And I avow my faith that we are marching towards better days. Humanity will not be cast down. We are going on swinging bravely forward along the grand high road and already behind the distant mountains is the promise of the sun.
- Winston Churchill
If you hold on to what you want so tightly, it almost becomes an idol.
- Joel Olsteen
A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.
- Winston Churchill
If GE’s strategy of investment in China is wrong, it represents a loss of a billion dollars, perhaps a couple of billion dollars. If it is right, it is the future of this company for the next century.
- Jack Welch
A leader has the vision and conviction that a dream can be achieved. He inspires the power and energy to get it done.
- Ralph Lauren
I think many start-ups make mistakes because they are focusing on things that are farther ahead, and they haven’t done the work that has built the foundation to support it.
- Howard Schultz
I believe if you keep your faith, you keep your trust, you keep the right attitude, if you’re grateful, you’ll see God open up new doors.
- Joel Olsteen
More than that, internal peace is what enables a startup to survive at all. When a startup fails, we often imagine it succumbing to predatory rivals in a competitive ecosystem. But every company is also its own ecosystem, and factional strife makes it vulnerable to outside threats. Internal conflict is like an autoimmune disease: the technical cause of death may be pneumonia, but the real cause remains hidden from plain view.
- Peter Thiel
I couldn’t figure out what to wear under my clothes. The body shapers were too thick at the time.
- Sara Blakely
The experience of the human race indicates strongly that the only person in abundant supply is the universal incompetent.
- Peter Drucker
There is one quality which one must possess to win, and that is definiteness of purpose, the knowledge of what one wants, and a burning desire to possess it.
- Napoleon Hill
I strongly believe that missionaries make better products. They care more. For a missionary, it’s not just about the business. There has to be a business, and the business has to make sense, but that’s not why you do it. You do it because you have something meaningful that motivates you.
- Jeff Bezos
Courage is being scared to death, but saddling up anyway.
- John Wayne
I don’t know what can be so dangerous about giving people hope. Causing people to have better relationships. I’m not leading them to some false God or something like that.
- Joel Olsteen
Never, never, never give up.
- Winston Churchill
I’m in the shoe business. Look at these things. They’re called Tigers. I faked out the company. I’m the US distributor. Come with me.
- Phil Knight
The six people who had the biggest impact on my life were all women. Had I been sexist, my life would have been far less fulfilling.
- Zig Ziglar
Most of my job and most of what I do is to mentor people. There are a lot of people I work with that I don’t have investments in.
- Ben Horowitz
Profit and growth are stimulated primarily by customer loyalty. Loyalty is a direct result of customer satisfaction. Satisfaction is largely influenced by the value of services provided to customers. Value is created by satisfied, loyal, and productive employees.
- Putting the Service-Profit Chain To Work - Ja
Disneyland is the star, everything else is in the supporting role.
- Walt Disney
It’s the moments where you feel most like hiding or dying that you can make the biggest difference as a CEO.
- Ben Horowitz
You will get all you want in life if you help enough other people get what they want.
- Zig Ziglar
Great companies are built on great products.
- Elon Musk
Imagine if you had baseball cards that showed all the performance stats for your people: batting averages, home runs, errors, ERAs, win/loss records. 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
Let go of yesterday. Let today be a new beginning and be the best that you can, and you’ll get to where God wants you to be.
- Joel Olsteen
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
Successful people find value in unexpected places, and they do this by thinking about business from first principles instead of formulas.
- Peter Thiel
China traditionally has been a tea-drinking country but we turned them into coffee drinkers.
- Howard Schultz
McDonald’s is a people business, and that smile on that counter girl’s face when she takes your order is a vital part of our image.
- Ray Kroc
Surround yourself with people who want the best for you and the people you love!
- Zig Ziglar
While evaluating his future professional opportunities, Gary has chosen to spend some time with his family.
- John Chambers
I can’t afford to be indifferent to politics, but I don’t have personal ambitions.
- Vagit Alekperov
Spreading old ways to create wealth around the world will result in devastation, not riches. In a world of scarce resources, globalization without new technology is unsustainable
- Peter Thiel
Maybe you once were excited about that person God supernaturally brought into your life as a marriage partner, but now all the excitement has worn off. Don’t’ allow that sense of a miracle to slip away. Don’t get so familiar with each other that you take one another for granted.
- Joel Olsteen
I am prepared to try anything once.
- Richard Branson
If any of my competitors were drowning, I’d stick a hose in their mouth
- Ray Kroc
Since all of them overestimated the competition, no one even showed up.
- Timothy Ferriss
A startup is a team of people on a mission, and a good culture is just what that looks like on the inside.
- Peter Thiel
Once we realize that imperfect understanding is the human condition there is no shame in being wrong, only in failing to correct our mistakes.
- George Soros
Freedom is only part of the story and half the truth…. That is why I recommend that the Statue of Liberty on the East Coast be supplanted by a Statue of Responsibility on the West Coast.
- Viktor E. Frankl
I understood the importance of hiring for strength rather than for lack of weakness, and I understood the meaning of “fit.”
- Ben Horowitz
Passion can overcome fear – the fear of losing, of failing, of being traditional.
- Seth Godin
Confidence is a habit that can be developed by acting as if you already had the confidence you desire to have.
- Brian Tracy
I believe in motivating with humor. … – David Novak CEO OF Yum! Brands
- David Novak
My popularity, my happiness and sense of worth depend to no small extent upon my skill in dealing with people.
- Dale Carnegie
To achieve stable growth, an enterprise must live up to its conviction.
- Cheng Yu-tung
Anyone who prefers owning a part of your company to being paid in cash reveals a preference for the long term and a commitment to increasing your company’s value in the future. Equity can’t create perfect incentives, but it’s the best way for a founder to keep everyone in the company broadly aligned.
- Peter Thiel
The U.S. couldn’t even get rid of Saddam Hussein. And we all know that the EU is just a passing fad. They’ll be killing each other again in less than a year. I’m sick to death of all these fascist lawsuits.
- Bill Gates
If he trips he must be sustained. If he makes mistakes they must be covered. If he sleeps he must not be wantonly disturbed. If he is no good he must be pole-axed.
- Winston Churchill
Most people will choose unhappiness over uncertainty.
- Timothy Ferriss
The Internet economy continues to create unprecedented growth opportunities for people, companies and countries on a global basis.
- John Chambers
The ultimate goal for a business owner is to build a company that he or she can one day sell, continue to scale, or even own passively. Most business owners reach for growth by working harder and personally trying to produce more. This is a flawed model that at best will lead to only moderate growth. At worst this strategy can literally put your entire company at risk.
- Jeff Hoffman
Eventually, all companies are replaced.
- Bill Gates
Perhaps it is better to be irresponsible and right, than to be responsible and wrong.
- Winston Churchill
I only hope that we don’t lose sight of one thing – that it was all started by a mouse.
- Walt Disney
For my part, I consider that it will be found much better by all parties to leave the past to history, especially as I propose to write that history myself.
- Winston Churchill
