Notable Quotables

You should focus relentlessly on something you’re good at doing, but before that you must think hard about whether it will be valuable in the future.

- Peter Thiel

The foundation stones for a balanced success are honesty, character, integrity, faith, love and loyalty.

- Zig Ziglar

Business opportunities are like buses, there’s always another one coming.

- Richard Branson

Keep everybody guessing as to what your next trick is going to be.

- Sam Walton

If you hold on to what you want so tightly, it almost becomes an idol.

- Joel Olsteen

There is only one boss. The customer. And he can fire everybody in the company from the chairman on down, simply by spending his money somewhere else.

- Sam Walton

I think when I was young, let’s call it high school, and even before that, I just loved comedy, and I loved comedians. I grew up watching Laurel and Hardy. That’s really a long time ago. I loved Jerry Lewis. I just loved comedians.

- Steve Martin

An employer has no business with a man’s personality. Employment is a specific contract calling for a specific performance, and nothing else. Any attempt by an employer to go beyond this is usurpation. It is an immoral as well as illegal intrusion of privacy.

- Peter Drucker

This presents a very curious phenomenon. There are two synergistic approaches for increasing productivity that are inversions of each other: 1. Limit tasks to the important to shorten work time (80/20). 2. Shorten work time to limit tasks to the important (Parkinson’s Law). The best solution is to use both together: Identify the few critical tasks that contribute most to income and schedule them with very short and clear deadlines. If you haven’t identified the mission-critical tasks and set aggressive start and end times for their completion, the unimportant becomes the important. Even if you know what’s critical, without deadlines that create focus, the minor tasks forced upon you (or invented, in the case of the entrepreneur) will swell to consume time until another bit of minutiae jumps in to replace.

- Timothy Ferriss

The trouble with the rat race is that even if you win — you’re still a rat.

- Lily Tomlin

60% of the bonus was based on financials and 40% on Six Sigma (quality) results.

- Jack Welch

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

Some of us learn from other people’s mistakes and the rest of us have to be other people.

- Zig Ziglar

There’s a belief that you’re supposed to be poor, and suffering, and show your humility. I just don’t see the Bible that way. I see that God came and Jesus died so that we might live an abundant life and be a blessing to others.

- Joel Olsteen

Business in Russia was not being done like in the West, with contracts. In Russia, hundreds of millions of dollars were going forward and backward by word of mouth.

- David Reuben

Politics is the ability to foretell what is going to happen tomorrow, next week, next month and next year. And to have the ability afterwards to explain why it didn’t happen.

- Winston Churchill

It’s true that every great entrepreneur is first and foremost a designer.

- Peter Thiel

Although DJ Clay may never sleep, all of his dreams come true!

- Blake Fraley

You have to be a crazy guy and a little eccentric to be very successful.

- Tadashi Yanai

In poor countries, we still need better ways to measure the effectiveness of the many government workers providing health services. They are the crucial link bringing tools such as vaccines and education to the people who need them most. How well trained are they? Are they showing up to work?

- Bill Gates

There are no limitations to the mind except those we acknowledge.

- Napoleon Hill

When companies fail, or fail to grow, it’s almost always because they don’t invest in the people, the systems, and the processes they need.

- Howard Schultz

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

If you do build a great experience, customers tell each other about that. Word of mouth is very powerful.

- Jeff Bezos

Most of the reason we don’t do things is because we’re afraid to fail. I just made a decision one day that I was not going to do things in my life because of fear.

- Sara Blakely

Unrestrained competition can drive people into actions that they would otherwise regret.

- George Soros

Sales is what you do in person, one on one. Marketing is sales done via a system. Most (Self-Employed) S quadrant businesspeople are very good at one-on-one sales. For them to make the transition to the B quadrant, they need to learn how to sell through a system which is called marketing.

- Robert Kiyosaki

By getting your customers to agree with you in small steps along the way, you have a better chance of reaching agreement when it’s time to do business.

- Harvey Mackay

As long as you’re green, you’re growing. As soon as you’re ripe, you start to rot.

- Ray Kroc

A lot of preachers’ kids are some of the most rebellious kids in the world. I never was like that.

- Joel Olsteen

While the uncertainties that the economic climate holds are a challenge for all companies, we are confident that by drawing from the strengths of our people, as well as on our core values of quality, initiative, trust and creativity, we will maintain our focus and strategic direction.

- Cheng Yu-tung

Execution begins with a vision and your people saying, I understand it. I’m excited about it. I can help make it happen.

- David Novak

It’s the moments where you feel most like hiding or dying that you can make the biggest difference as a CEO.

- Ben Horowitz

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

- Henry Ford

A politician needs the ability to foretell what is going to happen tomorrow, next week, next month, and next year. And to have the ability afterwards to explain why it didn’t happen.

- Winston Churchill

I used to have this debate with Steve Jobs, and he would always say, ‘You guys are doing too much stuff.’ He did a good job of doing one or two things really well. We’d like to have a bigger impact on the world by doing more things.

- Larry Page

(In reference to one of his first advertising sales mentors Howard Davis)… He was 6 foot 4 with silver hair…the quintessential advertising guy. He had a glass topped desk in his office because, as he put it, he like to be able to look down and see his Guccis while he worked. Howard taught me to get things done. He was very smart but he was also an animal. He exuded power and he could be very intimidating, and he knew how to use his power to get results while still managing to be a good guy. Howard’s personal style was very different from my own, but what he did teach me was how to create a sense of urgency, how to motivate performance by getting everyone’s heart pounding.

- David Novak

all information and interruptions that are irrelevant, unimportant, or unactionable.

- Timothy Ferriss

Short cycle business are being impacted by credit, and are being impacted by gasoline prices, food, distribution businesses, chemical business.

- Jack Welch

Social networks do best when they tap into one of the seven deadly sins. Facebook is ego. Zynga is sloth. LinkedIn is greed.

- Reid Hoffman

Danger: if you meet it promptly and without flinching, you will reduce the danger by half. Never run away from anything. Never!

- Winston Churchill

The main reason I write the daily observations is because I want to know where I’m wrong. So lots of times if somebody points something out it helps me, and I want to have a diversified bet of uncorrelated bets.

- Ray Dalio

What’s amazing is, if young people understood how doing well in school makes the rest of their life so much interesting, they would be more motivated. It’s so far away in time that they can’t appreciate what it means for their whole life.

- Bill Gates

Let us never negotiate out of fear, but let us never fear to negotiate.

- John F. Kennedy

Canoeing was hard and scary, and the wind could blow you across the lake if you did it wrong. After a year of not doing it right, I could talk to people and get them to sit up straight, take different kinds of chances, to breathe differently, to engage in the moment in the boat. And I changed them, and I changed me in the process.

- Seth Godin

This the real world, homie, school finished They done stole your dreams, you dunno who did it.

- Kanye West

Connectivity enables transparency for better government, education, and health.

- Bill Gates

In my own experience as a C.E.O., I would find myself laying awake at 3 A.M. asking questions about my business, and there weren’t management books out there that could help me.

- Ben Horowitz

To achieve stable growth, an enterprise must live up to its conviction.

- Cheng Yu-tung

Politics and government are certainly among the most important of practical human interests.

- P.T. Barnum

When I hear Mitt Romney say that he believes that Jesus is the Son of God, that He’s the Christ, raised from the dead, that He’s his savior – that’s good enough for me.

- Joel Olsteen

Your people give their days (and sometimes their nights) to you. They give their hands, brains, and hearts. Sure, the company pays them. It fills their wallets. But as a leader, you need to fill their souls. You can do that by getting in their skin, by giving the work meaning, by clearing obstacles, and by demonstrating the generosity gene. And you can do it, perhaps most powerfully, by creating an environment that’s exciting and enjoyable.

- Jack Welch

Traditional corporations, particularly large-scale service and manufacturing businesses are organized for efficiency. Or consistency. But not joy. Joy comes from surprise and connection and humanity and transparency and new…If you fear special requests, if you staff with cogs, if you have to put it all in a manual, then the chances of amazing someone are really quite low. These organizations have people who will try to patch problems over after the fact, instead of motivated people eager to delight on the spot.The alternative, it seems, is to organize for joy. These are the companies that give their people the freedom (and the expectation) that they will create, connect and surprise. These are the organizations that embrace someone who make a difference, as opposed to searching the employee handbook for a rule that was violated.

- Seth Godin

Quality is remembered long after price is forgotten.

- Anonymous

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

I know of nothing more despicable and pathetic than a man who devotes all the hours of the waking day to the making of money for money’s sake.

- John D. Rockefeller

They did not die because of sickness or anything but because of hunger. I remember that and how people suffered.

- Lui Che Woo

Monopolists can afford to think about things other than making money, non-monopolists can’t.

- Peter Thiel

To all of us comes that moment in life when we are literally tapped on the shoulder to do a very special thing unique to ourselves and our talents. What a pity if that moment finds us unprepared.

- Winston Churchill

What if there were no longer only two sides? Not just capital versus labor, but a third team, one that straddled elements of both? I think there’s a huge opportunity for a third kind of participant, a linchpin, and now there is an opportunity to change all the rules that we’ve lived with all our lives. There is a shortage of this third kind of worker, and that shortage means that the market needs you desperately. The con game is ending, at least for people passionate enough to do something about it.

- Seth Godin

If you want people to know how much you care, show them how much you remember. Learn their names and use them often. It’s an important skill to develop.

- Harvey Mackay

That was a great day in my life! Your time is too valuable to worry about pleasing everyone else or making them happy. I know people who spend more time worrying about what others think about them than they do focusing on their own dreams and goals. You’ve got to get free from that.

- Joel Olsteen

The 1990s have a good image. We tend to remember them as a prosperous, optimistic decade that happened to end with the internet boom and bust. But many of those years were not as cheerful as our nostalgia holds. We’ve long since forgotten the global context for the 18 months of dot-com mania at decade’s end.

- Peter Thiel

Exercise is better than any medicine I can take, exercise and sleep.

- Aliko Dangote

The lizard brain is hungry, scared, angry, and horny.The lizard brain only wants to eat and be safe.The lizard brain will fight (to the death) if it has to, but would rather run away. It likes a vendetta and has no trouble getting angry.The lizard brain cares what everyone else thinks, because status in the tribe is essential to its survival.A squirrel runs around looking for nuts, hiding from foxes, listening for predators, and watching for other squirrels. The squirrel does this because that’s all it can do. All the squirrel has is a lizard brain.The only correct answer to ‘Why did the chicken cross the road?’ is ‘Because it’s lizard brain told it to.’ Wild animals are wild because the only brain they posses is a lizard brain.The lizard brain is not merely a concept. It’s real, and it’s living on the top of your spine, fighting for your survival. But, of course, survival and success are not the same thing.The lizard brain is the reason you’re afraid, the reason you don’t do all the art you can, the reason you don’t ship when you can. The lizard brain is the source of the resistance.

- Seth Godin

First, 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.

- Professor Harry A. Overstreet

I described the CEO job as knowing what to do and getting the company to do what you want. Designing a proper company culture will help you get your company to do what you want in certain important areas for a very long time.

- Ben Horowitz

It took 23 years from Abraxane being conceived to us showing now with conclusiveness that it works in pancreatic cancer. We cannot afford as a society to wait another 23 years to make sure that the patients get the right care, at the right time, at the right place.

- Patrick Soon-Shiong

The goal is not to simply eliminate the bad, which does nothing more than leave you with a vacuum, but to pursue and experience the best in the world.

- Timothy Ferriss

It doesn’t matter how many people you offend, as long as you’re getting your message to your consumers. I say to those people who do not want to offend anybody: You are going to have a very, very difficult time having meaningful advertising.

- Phil Knight

I would make them all learn English: and then I would let the clever ones learn Latin as an honour, and Greek as a treat.

- Winston Churchill

I do think – as self-serving as it sounds – that I was the right person, given the very, very strong headwind we had from the economy and our own issues, to come back and rewrite the future of the company.

- Howard Schultz

Great leaders, like Steve Jobs or Jeff Bezos, also focused on the long term.

- Reed Hastings

We have two turbines in our company: One is engineering, and the other is operations. And so our business people are on equal footing with our engineering and technology culture. Cars are moving because of what we do, so there’s an imperative to go beyond just the technology.

- Travis Kalanick

I’m not big on to-do lists. Instead, I use e-mail and desktop folders and my online calendar. So when I walk up to my desk, I can focus on the e-mails I’ve flagged and check the folders that are monitoring particular projects and particular blogs.

- Bill Gates

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

The austerity policies for the mainland property market will remain intact in 2011.

- Lee Shau Kee

Les tengo buenas noticias: Usted no se tiene que mantener a la par de nadie. Usted puede correr su propia carrera y ser un individuo. Dios le ha dado la gracia para hacer lo que Él le ha llamado a hacer y no le ha dado la gracia para hacer lo que todos los demás están haciendo. Usted no tiene que ser la mejor mamá del mundo, sólo sea la mejor mamá que usted puede ser. Posiblemente, yo nunca seré el mejor pastor del mundo. Quizá no seré el mejor esposo ni el mejor padre, pero he decidido ser lo mejor que yo puedo ser y no me sentiré mal conmigo. Si otra persona puede hacer lo que hago mejor que yo, que bueno, yo no estoy en una competencia ni me estoy comparando con nadie. A mi manera de pensar, ¡yo soy el mejor! Y sé que estoy haciendo lo mejor que puedo. Eso es lo que nos enseña la Escritura. Dice: Así que, cada uno someta a prueba su propia obra…1.

- Joel Olsteen

I am looking for a lot of men who have an infinite capacity to not know what can’t be done.

- Henry Ford

But it takes character and self-control to be understanding and forgiving.

- Dale Carnegie

The very important thing you should have is patience.

- Jack Ma

As you stumble and learn, stumble and learn again, resolve to talk to yourself as if you were your best friend. So no What a #?%$@ idiot! when your BFF smashes an egg on the floor, m’kay? Be cool, like the Fonz.

- Timothy Ferriss

The skill sets it takes to be a successful entrepreneur, a successful marketer, or a relevant celebrity is a different skill set than you needed ten years ago, even though that was the skill set that mattered for decades.

- Gary Vaynerchuk

I demand pretty aggressive goal setting and a commitment to measured progress towards those goals because I don’t like surprises. I don’t even like good surprises.

- Abigail Johnson

Gold is a kind of mortar and offers a form of capital preservation. We’re still bullish about gold.

- Lee Shau Kee

Many people who I respected were disappointed when I started ‘Wine Library TV.’ They thought I was dumbing down wine, but I always knew I was one of the biggest producers of new wine drinkers in the world, and people are realizing it now.

- Gary Vaynerchuk

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