You want to be extra rigorous about making the best possible thing you can. Find everything that’s wrong with it and fix it. Seek negative feedback, particularly from friends.
- Elon Musk
Notable Quotables
You can’t sit there and worry about everything.
- Michael Bloomberg
There would be no advantage to be gained by sowing a field of wheat if the harvest did not return more than was sown.
- Napoleon Hill
Ironically, it is exactly because we are a city that embraces freedom, that welcomes everyone and encourages their dreams, that New York remains on the front lines in the war on terror.
- Michael Bloomberg
Why is this mediocre? We love to point out how broken our systems are. We enjoy getting angry at hotels or government agencies or airlines that are so obviously doing a poor job. Idiots! But we almost never look at merely mediocre products and wonder why they aren’t great. Mediocre services or products do what they’re supposed to, but have set the bar so low that it’s hardly worth the energy to cross the street to buy them. A resolute generic sameness pervades this mediocrity. Why isn’t every restaurant meal a fabulous buy for the money? Why isn’t every tax dollar spent with the intensity and focus it could be spent with? It seems as though we are willing to accept mediocre as long as the product, the service, or the organization isn’t totally broken.
- Seth Godin
If you do everything that everyone else does in business, you’re going to lose. The only way to really be ahead, is to ‘be different’.
- Larry Ellison
Be careful about virtual relationships with artificially intelligent pieces of software.
- Larry Ellison
To boil water, the MED is 212°F (100°C) at standard air pressure. Boiled is boiled. Higher temperatures will not make it more boiled.” Higher temperatures just consume more resources that could be used for something else more productive.
- Timothy Ferriss
Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.
- Zig Ziglar
Play by the rules, but be ferocious.
- Phil Knight
Reality is negotiable.
- Timothy Ferriss
I remember one time I didn’t want to spend any money on motels so we all slept in sleeping bags on the floor of one of our guys’ houses. His furniture hadn’t gotten there yet.
- Sam Walton
In setting goals and executing a strategy, Wanda is sophisticated. We have good systems and departments. If targets are not reached, a yellow light goes off.
- Wang Jianlin
True happiness… is not attained through self-gratification, but through fidelity to a worthy purpose.
- Helen Keller
I went to a public school through sixth grade, and being good at tests wasn’t cool.
- Bill Gates
There’s no single company in the whole world that has a big-scale production base and at the same time has screening and distribution channels. Wanda Group is the first one in the world.
- Wang Jianlin
The majority of men meet with failure because of their lack of persistence in creating new plans to take the place of those which fail.
- Napoleon Hill
When you are committed to doing what’s right, you are sowing seeds for God’s blessings. You will never go wrong by taking the high road and doing more that is required.
- Joel Olsteen
As a freshman, I had to make one hell of an adjustment. I had to go from being a good high school competitor to a locker room with three Olympians in Dellinger, Bailey, and Grelle. Four, if you count Burley coming in my senior year. If you ask where Nike came from, I would say it came from a kid who had that world-class shock administered at age seventeen by Bill Bowerman.
- Phil Knight
Most of us have far more courage than we ever dreamed we possessed.
- Dale Carnegie
I think that business book reporting, it’s all Jim Collins, it’s the story of victory; it’s success bias over and over again.
- Ben Horowitz
Therefore, every startup should start with a very small market. Always err on the side of starting too small. The reason is simple: it’s easier to dominate a small market than a large one. If you think your initial market might be too big, it almost certainly is.
- Peter Thiel
Colleges are the equivalent of the subprime mortgage lenders who…
- Brian Tracy
Don’t be intimidated by what you don’t know. That can be your greatest strength and ensure that you do things differently from everyone else.
- Sara Blakely
History with its flickering lamp stumbles along the trail of the past, trying to reconstruct its scenes, to revive its echoes, and kindle with pale gleams the passion of former days. What is the worth of all this? The only guide to a man is his conscience; the only shield to his memory is the rectitude and sincerity of his actions. It is very imprudent to walk through life without this shield, because we are so often mocked by the failure of our hopes and the upsetting of our calculations; but with this shield, however the fates may play, we march always in the ranks of honor.
- Winston Churchill
Always have something to say. The man who has something to say and who is known never to speak unless he has, is sure to be listened to.
- Dale Carnegie
Good policies without the right people will achieve nothing.
- Aliko Dangote
Rockefeller succeeded because he believed in the long –term prospects of the business and never treated it as a mirage that would soon fade.
- Ron Chernow
I have found from costly experience that it is much easier to analyze the facts after writing them down. In fact, merely writing the facts on a piece of paper and stating our problem clearly goes a long way toward helping us reach a sensible decision. As Charles Kettering puts it: A problem well stated is a problem half solved.
- Dale Carnegie
If any of my competitors were drowning, I’d stick a hose in their mouth
- Ray Kroc
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
There is no shame in taking pride in achievements or position. But nobody gets to the top alone.
- Harvey Mackay
Work as though you would live forever, and live as though you would die today. Go another mile!
- Og Mandino
Watching how customers actually use a product provides much more reliable information than can be gleaned from a verbal interview or a focus group.
- Clayton M. Christensen
He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire.
- Winston Churchill
No effort has been spared in ensuring the best designs for all our projects.
- Lee Shau Kee
Simple works, complex fails.
- Timothy Ferriss
Enduring great companies don’t exist merely to deliver returns to shareholders. Indeed, in a truly great company, profits and cash flow become like blood and water to a healthy body: They are absolutely essential for life, but they are not the very point of life.
- James C. Collins
You want to do good things, and once you’ve done a couple of good things in a row, you think ‘Well gee, let’s not mess this up.’ But I am lucky at this point that I have something I really love to do, and it completely holds my attention. I never feel frustrated by it.
- Jerry Seinfeld
Most people already know what they’re doing wrong. When I get them to church I want to tell them that you can change.
- Joel Olsteen
The balloons only have one life and the only way of finding out whether they work is to attempt to fly around the world.
- Richard Branson
Nobody believes in completely unadulterated capitalism.
- Bill Gates
Problem-solving becomes a very important part of our makeup as we grow into maturity or move up the corporate ladder.
- Zig Ziglar
Kites rise highest against the wind, not with it.
- Winston Churchill
I didn’t invent the hamburger. I just took it more seriously than anyone else…We take the hamburger business more seriously than anyone else.
- Ray Kroc
Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it’s time to pause and reflect.
- Timothy Ferriss
This is a strange Christmas Eve,”Churchill told the the crowd of several hundred gathered at the mansion’s garden.”Almost the whole world is locked in deadly struggle, and with the most terrible weapons which science can devise the nations advance upon each other.
- Winston Churchill
My job is to help more people have jobs.
- Jack Ma
The thought of my mortality – I think about it a lot. I find it motivating. It can be any time that your number’s up.
- Sara Blakely
The kids are a big part of my schedule.
- Bill Gates
I’m a big supporter of President Obama.
- Russell Simmons
Kids instinctively know – although they will argue to the contrary – that they really are not mature enough to make good decisions on some important issues.
- Zig Ziglar
Occasionally a man stumbles over the truth. Most dust themselves off and continue walking as though nothing had happened.
- Winston Churchill
I believe God is managing affairs and that He doesn’t need any advice from me. With God in charge, I believe everything will work out for the best in the end. So what is there to worry about.
- Henry Ford
Marketing is too important to be left to the marketing department.
- David Packard
Doing the right thing daily, compounds over time.
- John C. Maxwell
Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak, courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen.
- Winston Churchill
Foreign politicians don’t have resources – or limited resources. It’s useless dealing with them.
- Wang Jianlin
When you are tough on yourself, life is going to be infinitely easier on you.
- Zig Ziglar
Substantial growth in GDP, rising wages, improved employment prospects and favourable bank mortgage terms have all resulted in a buoyant property market.
- Lee Shau Kee
Esta es la clave: las únicas promesas que se avivarán en su vida y terminarán convirtiéndose en realidad son las promesas en las que usted se levanta y dice: Sí, eso es para mí”. Tiene que entrar en acuerdo con Dios y permitir que eso eche raíz.
- Joel Olsteen
There are no limitations to the mind except those we acknowledge.
- Napoleon Hill
An open society is a society which allows its members the greatest possible degree of freedom in pursuing their interests compatible with the interests of others.
- George Soros
Accountability breeds response-ability.
- Stephen R. Covey
It is very important to grasp that Level 5 leadership is not just about humility and modesty. It is equally about ferocious resolve, an almost stoic determination to do whatever needs to be done to make the company great.
- James C. Collins
One of the greatest casualties of the war in Vietnam is the Great Society… shot down on the battlefield of Vietnam.
- Martin Luther King Jr.
The ‘morality of compromise’ sounds contradictory. Compromise is usually a sign of weakness, or an admission of defeat. Strong men don’t compromise, it is said, and principles should never be compromised.
- Andrew Carnegie
Everyone needs to be valued. Everyone needs to be appreciated. Every person needs that blessing.
- Joel Olsteen
The game of life does not proceed like a mathematical calculation on the principle that two and two make four. Sometimes they make five, or minus four, and sometimes the blackboard topples over in the middle of the sum and the pedagogue is left with a black eye.
- Winston Churchill
A man is about as big as the things that make him angry.
- Winston Churchill
You get to keep making art as long as you are willing to make the choices that let you make your art.
- Seth Godin
$1,000,000 in the bank isn’t the fantasy. The fantasy is the lifestyle of complete freedom it supposedly allows.
- Timothy Ferriss
The [Henderson] Group possesses substantial recurrent income.
- Lee Shau Kee
It is not your aptitude but your ATTITUDE that decides your altitude in life.
- Zig Ziglar
I like a man who grins when he fights.
- Winston Churchill
Why would I spend $5 billion for something in order to wreck it?
- Rupert Murdoch
The memory of my mother will always be a blessing to me….
- Thomas Edison
Historians will record 1998 as a time when the impossible happened in Asia
- Cheng Yu-tung
To answer power with power, the Jedi way this is not. In this war, a danger there is, of losing who we are.
- Yoda
Until you make the effort to get to know someone or something, you don’t know anything.
- Ben Horowitz
Kaczynski argued that modern people are depressed because all the world’s hard problems have already been solved. What’s left to do is either easy or impossible, and pursuing those tasks is deeply unsatisfying. What you can do, even a child can do; what you can’t do, even Einstein couldn’t have done.
- Peter Thiel
Bitcoin is mostly about anonymous transactions, and I don’t think over time that’s a good way to go. I’m a huge believe in digital currency… but doing it on an anonymous basis I think that leads to some abuses, so I’m not involved in Bitcoin.”-Bill Gates, Entrepreneur and founder of Microsoft
- Bill Gates
If you go on with this nuclear arms race, all you are going to do is make the rubble bounce.
- Winston Churchill
Anyone that makes me a quarter of a billion dollars, I like.
- Carl Icahn
We wanted Nike to be the world’s best sports and fitness company. Once you say that, you have a focus. You don’t end up making wing tips or sponsoring the next Rolling Stones world tour.
- Phil Knight
Delegating doesn’t mean passing off work you don’t enjoy, but letting your employees stretch their skills and judgment.
- Harvey Mackay
We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender, and even if, which I do not for a moment believe, this Island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, would carry on the struggle, until, in God’s good time, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old.
- Winston Churchill
The door to a balanced success opens wide on the hinges of hope and encouragement.
- Zig Ziglar
The three most charismatic leaders in this century inflicted more suffering on the human race than almost any trio in history: Hitler, Stalin, and Mao. What matters is not the leader’s charisma. What matters is the leader’s mission.
- Peter Drucker
God never said that we wouldn’t have unfair situations, that we wouldn’t experience loss. But He promised if we would stay in faith, He would restore everything that was stolen.
- Joel Olsteen
Those people behind the mosque have to respect, have to appreciate and have to defer to the people of New York. The wound is still there. Just because the wound is healing you can’t say, ‘Let’s just go back to where we were pre-9/11.
- Prince Al Waleed Bin Talal Alsaud
In ninth grade, I came up with a new form of rebellion. I hadn’t been getting good grades, but I decided to get all A’s without taking a book home. I didn’t go to math class, because I knew enough and had read ahead, and I placed within the top 10 people in the nation on an aptitude exam.
- Bill Gates
And people who take risk intelligently can usually actually make a lot more progress than people who don’t.
- Reid Hoffman
Don’t do the natural thing, the impulsive thing. That is usually wrong.
- Dale Carnegie
In fact, when I look at it today, I realize that so much of what we did in the beginning was really poorly done. But we managed to sell our merchandise as low as we possibly could, and that kept us right-side-up for the first 10 years – that and consistently improving sales in these smaller markets by buildling up our relationship with the customers. The ideas was simple: when customers thought of Wal-Mart, they should think of low prices and satisfaction guaranteed.
- Sam Walton
In a literal sense, even a private company, of course, cannot do everything that it wants without some discussion with government. As a good corporate citizen, Severstal discussed the idea of a merger with Arcelor with the Russian government.
- Alexei Mordashov
Take calculated risks. Act boldly and thoughtfully. Be an agile company.
- Ray Kroc
The failure to strangle Bolshevism at its birth and to bring Russia, then prostrate, by one means or another, into the general democratic system lies heavy upon us today.
- Winston Churchill
It helps to have founded and run a company if you’re going to help somebody run a company who is a founder.
- Ben Horowitz
With the intensity of the first three NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series races at Atlanta Motor Speedway, fans have been treated to exciting finishes each race. Fans can expect nothing less than the same for the John Deere 200.
- Ed Clark
