Notable Quotables

I’m not gonna give up, shut up, or let up… as a matter of fact, I’m just getting warmed up.

- Zig Ziglar

Motivation is a fire from within. If someone else tries to light that fire under you, chances are it will burn very briefly.

- Stephen R. Covey

Vision is perhaps our greatest strength… it has kept us alive to the power and continuity of thought through the centuries, it makes us peer into the future and lends shape to the unknown.

- Li Ka-shing

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

You can have agency not just over your own life, but over a small and important part of the world. It begins by rejecting the unjust tyranny of Chance.

- Peter Thiel

Wealth, like happiness, is never attained when sought after directly. It comes as a by-product of providing a useful service.

- Henry Ford

Because there have been no settlements reached for the securities action with any of the less-involved banks, it is difficult to know what reserves are prudent.

- Ed Clark

China is a government-oriented economy. No one can say he can run his business entirely without government connections. Anybody who says that he or she can do things alone… is a hypocrite.

- Wang Jianlin

A smart, motivational good manager can work what some outsiders call Wal-Mart magic with folks everywhere. It make take more time. You may have to sift through more people, and you may have to become more skilled with your hiring practices. But I truly believe that people anywhere will eventually respond to the same sorts of motivational techniques we use, if they are treated right and are given the opportunities to be properly trained. If you are good to people, and fair with them, and demanding of them, they will eventually decide you’re on their side.

- Sam Walton

This may sound a bit naive, but I got here by believing in big dreams.

- Howard Schultz

The common question that gets asked in business is, ‘why?’ That’s a good question, but an equally valid question is, ‘why not?’

- Jeff Bezos

Riches does not mean money. You can never have enough money. By following the principles of God he will provide you with what you need materially and internal committment.

- Ben Meinhardt

I think of L.A. as truly the melting pot. It’s basically a mini-country unto itself.

- Patrick Soon-Shiong

Everybody in the world is seeking happiness—and there is one sure way to find it. That is by controlling your thoughts. Happiness doesn’t depend on outward conditions. It depends on inner conditions.

- Dale Carnegie

The best entrepreneurs I’ve ever met are all good communicators. It’s perhaps one of the very few unifying factors.

- Timothy Ferriss

My philosophy is that not only are you responsible for your life, but doing the best at this moment puts you in the best place for the next moment.

- Oprah Winfrey

Every company needs people with different skill sets and passions. But early on, everybody should be willing to wear ten different hats. They can’t have the attitude that something isn’t their job or their responsibility. They have to have the MacGyver mentality and do whatever it takes to get the job done. – Tony Hsieh (CEO of Zappos)

- Tony Hsieh

The older I get, the better I understand that every day is a gift.

- Joel Olsteen

Let’s do as General Eisenhower does: let’s never waste a minute thinking about people we don’t like.

- Dale Carnegie

Any version of Windows is going to have lots of great new things that people use and things that are tough.

- Bill Gates

A bunch of high-IQ people with the wrong kind of ambition won’t work.

- Ben Horowitz

You know, we love stories and we love narrative; we love to get lost in an author’s world.

- Jeff Bezos

Taxes are not good things, but if you want services, somebody’s got to pay for them so they’re a necessary evil.

- Michael Bloomberg

There are a lot of things that go into creating success. I don’t like to do just the things I like to do. I like to do things that cause the company to succeed. I don’t spend a lot of time doing my favorite activities.

- Michael Dell

Many entrepreneurs focus only on short-term growth. They have an excuse: growth is easy to measure, but durability isn’t.

- Peter Thiel

And here is the prime condition of success, the great secret. Concentrate your energy, thoughts and capital exclusively upon the business in which you are engaged in. Having begun in one line, resolve to fight it out on that line; to lead in it. Adopt every improvement, have the best machinery and know the most about it.

- Andrew Carnegie

Consider the idea that charisma can be as much a liability as an asset. Your strength of personality can sow the seeds of problems, when people filter the brutal facts from you.

- James C. Collins

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

Selling an electric sports car creates an opportunity to fundamentally change the way America drives.

- Elon Musk

People say that what we are seeking is a meaning for life. I don’t think this is what we’re really seeking. I think what we’re seeking is an experience of being alive.

- Joseph Campbell

I am upset with the effect that both of these issues have had on the public,

- Michael Gerber

Being overwhelmed is often as unproductive as doing nothing, and is far more unpleasant. Being selective – doing less – is the path of the productive. Focus on the important few and ignore the rest.

- Timothy Ferriss

In our day Capital, Business Ability, and Manual Labor are the legs of a three-legged stool. While the three legs stand sound and firm, the stool stands; but let any one of the three weaken and break, let it be pulled out or struck out, down goes the stool to the ground. And the stool is of no use until the third leg is restored.

- Andrew Carnegie

Arouse in the other person an eager want. He who can do this has the whole world with him. He who cannot walks a lonely way.

- Dale Carnegie

Document in writing every agreement or important conversation with suppliers and customers.

- Jack Nadel

People who smile tend to manage, teach and sell more effectively, and to raise happier children.

- Dale Carnegie

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

He was contradicting everything he’d taught us about not running sick and making it worse. I knew it was just to make me acknowledge that his word was law, no matter how arbitrary. But that didn’t make it any easier to take. I was so mad I ran a personal record.

- Phil Knight

Exercise is bunk. If you are healthy, you don’t need it: if you are sick you should not take it.

- Henry Ford

We don’t have the luxury of time. We spend more because of how we live, but it’s important to be with our family and friends.

- Sara Blakely

We vote for a presidential candidate without saying, “Why not run the country for a month and then we’ll see . .

- Seth Godin

Microsoft is not about greed. It’s about innovation and fairness.

- Bill Gates

The key to realizing a dream is to focus not on success but significance – and then even the small steps and little victories along your path will take on greater meaning.

- Oprah Winfrey

Poker is a game where you don’t have to have the best hand to win. Poker is really reading other people and reading human emotion, which certainly comes into play in business.

- Charles Ergen

It is not necessary to do extraordinary things to get extraordinary results.

- Warren Buffett

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

To build may have to be the slow and laborious task of years. To destroy can be the thoughtless act of a single day.

- Winston Churchill

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

You need editors, not brand managers,who will push the envelope to make [a brand media property] go forward.

- Seth Godin

People stumble over the truth from time to time, but most pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing happened.

- Winston Churchill

You can’t explain much in 60 seconds, but when you show Michael Jordan, you don’t have to. It’s that simple.

- Phil Knight

Wal-Mart became Wal-Mart by ordinary people joined together to accomplish extraordinary things.

- Sam Walton

You can make a positive out of the most negative if you work at it hard enough.

- Sam Walton

Somebody once said that in looking for people to hire, you look for three qualities: integrity, intelligence, and energy. And if you don’t have the first, the other two will kill you. You think about it; it’s true. If you hire somebody without [integrity], you really want them to be dumb and lazy.

- Warren Buffett

God accepts you. God approves you. And He has something better in store.

- Joel Olsteen

It sounds awful, but a crisis rarely ends without blood on the floor. That’s not easy or pleasant. But sadly, it is often necessary so the company can move forward again.

- Jack Welch

If everything seems under control, you’re just not going fast enough.

- Mario Andretti

I am convinced that in order for you, as a patient, to be protected, it has to be transparent, evidence-based, objective information. Not self-serving information. Not pharma-driven information. Not ad-driven information. It is transparent, objective, evidence-based information.

- Patrick Soon-Shiong

With our feet to the fire, we needed to produce, in the course of the deal we figured out how to buy, how to sell, and how to finance a transaction.

- Jack Nadel

The Web provides a very easy way to immediately grasp what’s going on. It really offers the transparency, so you can see, especially with the search engine, how people are using Twitter at one glance. The phone doesn’t allow for that.

- Jack Dorsey

It is always wise to look ahead, but difficult to look further than you can see.

- Winston Churchill

You can accomplish anything in life, provided that you do not mind who gets the credit.

- Harry Truman

Checklists seem able to defend anyone, even the experienced, against failure in many more tasks than we realized.

- Atul Gawande

You are here today because of a decision you made yesterday.

- Bryan Smith

If you can’t make 40% on your money in Russia, you’re a fool.

- Simon Reuben

God would not have put a dream in your heart if He had not already given you everything you need to fulfill it.

- Joel Olsteen

Make a decision. It doesn’t have to be a wise decision or a perfect one. Just make one.

- Seth Godin

The Internet will help achieve friction free capitalism” by putting buyer and seller in direct contact and providing more information to both about each other.

- Bill Gates

When I first joined the Irvine Company, I realized that less than 11,000 acres were designated as open space in the original master plan, and that just didn’t seem adequate to me. So, I began the lengthy process working with public and community organizations to add more open space.

- Donald Bren

Opportunity often comes disguised in the form of misfortune, or temporary defeat.

- Napoleon Hill

In all the difficult decisions that I made through the course of running Loudcloud and Opsware, I never once felt brave. In fact, I often felt scared to death. I never lost those feelings, but after much practice, I learned to ignore them. That learning process might also be called the courage development process.

- Ben Horowitz

When you’re surrounded by people who share a passionate commitment around a common purpose, anything is possible.

- Howard Schultz

I would love to do a deal with Walgreen. If they’re willing to come to the table, and offer rates in line with everybody else, then I’m happy to entertain those conversations.

- George Paz

I consider my ability to arouse enthusiasm among my people,” said Schwab, the greatest asset I possess, and the way to develop the best that is in a person is by appreciation and encouragement. There is nothing else that so kills the ambitions of a person as criticisms from superiors.

- Dale Carnegie

Put all excuses aside and remember this: YOU are capable.

- Zig Ziglar

I have 2 million Twitter followers. Some of those people are also yogis and activists and people who really go out and make a difference. I do as much as I can with my voice. It’s effortless in some cases. I try to remind everybody that they have that kind of voice.

- Russell Simmons

And in urology, it could be drugs or devices for bladder and prostate problems.

- David Pyott

Formal education will make you a living, self-education will make you a fortune.

- Jim Rohn

When I was in college, I really liked poetry. I don’t read much anymore.

- Steve Martin

Globalization replaced technology as the hope for the future. Since the ’90s migration “from bricks to clicks” didn’t work as hoped, investors went back to bricks (housing) and BRICs (globalization). The result was another bubble, this time in real estate.

- Peter Thiel

Don’t sling mud at others or soon you will find yourself in a deeper hole than when you started.

- Clay Clark

God, You said Your favor is not for a season but for a lifetime.

- Joel Olsteen

I was always a huge fan of E. E. Cummings. He did a series of lectures at Harvard or Princeton, and they were recorded. And they were incredibly moving.

- Steve Martin

One out of every five page views in the United States is on Facebook!

- Gary Vaynerchuk

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

- Bill Gates

During the epidemic period of SARS, the Group purchased large quantities of disinfectant materials for donation to the local communities.

- Lee Shau Kee

In the old days, Hong Kong was undeveloped, coming from a low base. Now it is on a high base, making it difficult to earn high multiples. We will certainly diversify out of Hong Kong and out of property. [On being asked where?] I don’t know. I haven’t found it yet.

- Lee Shau Kee

Bob Dylan has said that he who is not busy being born is busy dying.

- Peter Thiel

Feedback

Let us know what's going on.

Get Started

Your first month is ONLY $1!

You will be redirected to your dashboard in a moment.

Fill out the information below to cancel your subscription