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
Notable Quotables
I don’t like typing messages on my phone. Some people get used to it.
- Bill Gates
Every man I meet is my superior in some way. In that, I learn of him.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
At Microsoft there are lots of brilliant ideas, but the image is that they all come from the top. I’m afraid that’s not quite right.
- Bill Gates
For many of us, the happiest future is one that’s precisely like the past, except a little better.
- Seth Godin
It is possible to know all there is to know about a subject—medicine, for example—but if you don’t have M.D. at the end of your name, few will listen. The M.D. is what I term a credibility indicator.” The so-called expert with the most credibility indicators, whether acronyms or affiliations, is often the most successful in the marketplace, even if other candidates have more in-depth knowledge. This is a matter of superior positioning, not deception.
- Timothy Ferriss
Anything that we have to learn to do we learn by the actual doing of it
- Aristotle
I’ve operated and launched newspapers all over the world.
- Rupert Murdoch
It’s not going to happen alone.
- Jack Dorsey
The onset of global financial turmoil in the second half of 2008 and the resultant wait-and-see attitude adopted by some homebuyers put the property market into the doldrums, with a general decline in both transaction volume and transacted prices.
- Lee Shau Kee
Takings were down by 25 per cent as a result of the security scares following the London bombings.
- Michael Ward
Network effects businesses must start with especially small markets.
- Peter Thiel
One reason to buy a watch (or a book) is because you want to possess it, show it off, give it to your grandchildren. Holding a book is a luxury, one for which you pay a premium.
- Seth Godin
It’s no use saying, “We are doing our best.” You have got to succeed in doing what is necessary.
- Winston Churchill
Better to be called a cult—or even a mafia
- Peter Thiel
Chinese people today have strong demand for culture, but we need effective supply, and China needs innovative cultural products.
- Wang Jianlin
The Waffle Trainer later became the best-selling training shoe in the United States.
- Phil Knight
The first time you say something, it’s heard. The second time, it’s recognized, and the third time it’s learned.
- John C. Maxwell
Thus far then have we travelled along the terrible road we chose at the call of duty. The mood of Britain is wisely and rightly averse from every form of shallow or premature exultation. This is no time for boasts or glowing prophecies, but there is this: A year ago our position looked forlorn, and well nigh desperate to all eyes but our own. To-day we may say aloud before an awe-struck world: ‘We are still masters of our fate. We are still captain of our souls.
- Winston Churchill
If you do build a great experience, customers tell each other about that. Word of mouth is very powerful.
- Jeff Bezos
Successful heretics create their own religions….You can recognize the need for faith in your idea, you can find the tribe you need to support you, and yes, you can create a new religion around your faith. Steve Jobs did it on purpose at Apple and Phil Knight is famous for doing it at Nike.
- Seth Godin
A bookstore is one of the only pieces of evidence we have that people are still thinking.
- Jerry Seinfeld
It does matter what you do. 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
Competition is the keen cutting edge of business, always shaving away at costs.
- Henry Ford
Crowded classrooms and half-day sessions are a tragic waste of our greatest national resource – the minds of our children.
- Walt Disney
If the United States wants access to Chinese, Indian or Vietnamese markets, we must get access to theirs. U.S. protectionism is very subtle but it is very much there.
- Azim Premji
If you are satisfied with the results you are now getting, why change? If you are not satisfied, why not experiment?
- Dale Carnegie
I am not a person who pursues luxury. I am not like those people who, once they have money, compulsively squander it or show it off.
- Wang Jianlin
The future of publishing is about having connections to readers and the knowledge of what those readers want.
- Seth Godin
Sound managerial decisions are at the very root of their impending fall from industry leadership.
- Clayton M. Christensen
It’s not the style of clothes one wears, neither the kind of automobiles one drives, nor the amount of money one has in the bank that counts. These mean nothing. It is simply service that measures success.
- George Washington Carver
There is no doubt that as an economy grows in a great way like India has, that you have to step back and change your tax systems, because you start to get more disparities of wealth.
- Bill Gates
The choice to be excellent begins with aligning your thoughts and words with the intention to require more from yourself.
- Oprah Winfrey
You didn’t grow up driving…you figured it out.
- Gary Vaynerchuk
The CIA will only hire people with impeccable credentials to be a translator. ‘Impeccable credentials’ means you’ve never lived outside the United States.
- Michael Bloomberg
My motivation for all my companies has been to be involved in something that I thought would have a significant impact on the world.
- Elon Musk
You can always think of something like the Xbox 360 as a super set-top box that can do everything the set-top box does, but then have the graphics to do the games as well.
- Bill Gates
Of all the things I’ve done, the most vital is coordinating those who work with me and aiming their efforts at a certain goal.
- Walt Disney
The problems forced us to take a hard look at what we were doing, what was going wrong, what we were good at, and where we wanted to go.
- Phil Knight
I have stated that a democracy is always two years behind the dictator.
- Winston Churchill
If you don’t set the tone for the day, the devil will set it for you.
- Joel Olsteen
It is true that integrity alone won’t make you a leader, but without integrity you will never be one.
- Zig Ziglar
See win-win deals.
- Jack Nadel
There was a moment when I was watching Martin Lawrence and Will Smith in ‘Badboys’ that I felt, you know, inspired. I don’t know if I was proud, because so many people do the work. Everyone’s part of a team that develops over the years and gives people chances. There have been some good moments watching people develop.
- Russell Simmons
Extraordinary results are directlydetermined by how narrow you can make your focus.
- Gary Keller
You can abuse me, you can strike me, so long as you let me have my own.
- Ron Chernow
It’s not about toughness, it’s not about attitude. Companies don’t fail for lack of cash or attitude. Companies fail for lack of brains and effort.
- Mark Cuban
Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is probably the reason why so few engage in it.
- Henry Ford
On many long journeys have I gone. And waited, too, for others to return from journeys of their own. Some return; some are broken; some come back so different only their names remain.
- Yoda
You may live or work around a bunch of weeds, but don’t let that stop you from blooming. Realize that your environment does not prevent you from being happy. Some people spend all their time trying to pull up all the weeds. Meanwhile, they miss much of their lives. Don’t worry about things you can’t change. You can’t change the traffic in the morning. You can’t fix everybody at work. You can’t make all your family members serve God. But you shouldn’t let that keep you from being happy. Bloom anyway and focus on the things that you can change. You can change your own attitude. You can choose to be happy right where you are.
- Joel Olsteen
There’s no recipe for motivating teams when your business has turned to crap.
- Ben Horowitz
The most talented do not always end up as celebrities, and those with less talent often do. Upsets are written into our history and occur around us every day.
- John C. Maxwell
There is no class so pitiably wretched as that which possesses money and nothing else.
- Andrew Carnegie
It is always important that we have transparency, that we have shareholder protection. Then again, I think it is important that there are not so many regulations that management can’t make a decision without asking a lawyer whether he can do it.
- Michael Otto
Perhaps your challenge isn’t finding a better project or a better boss. Perhaps you need to get in touch with what it means to feel passionate. People with passion look for ways to make things happen.
- Seth Godin
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
The time is always right to do what is right.
- Martin Luther King Jr.
And you know, I’ve had great fun turning quite a lot of different industries on their head and making sure those industries will never be the same again, because Virgin went in and took them on.
- Richard Branson
I’m blessed to be a blessing to someone else.
- Joel Olsteen
You can live your life angry, bitter, mad at somebody or even guilty, not letting go of your own mistakes, but you won’t receive the good things God has in store.
- Joel Olsteen
You can always count on the Americans to do the right thing, after they have exhausted all the other possibilities.
- Winston Churchill
Competitiveness is really what it costs you per man-hour to get you what you want. In other words, there’s an education level that plays into the mix and so if it’s inexpensive to buy an hour of real good education in places like China versus the U.S., that factors in.
- Ray Dalio
Be more splendid, more extraordinary. Use every moment to fill yourself up.
- Oprah Winfrey
I shall pass this way but once. Therefore any good that I can do or any kindness that I can show-let me do it now. Let me not defer nor neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again.
- Dale Carnegie
In 1973 when the Hong Kong stock market witnessed an unprecedented slump with the Hang Seng Index plunging by over 90% in a year, the Group built the New World Centre in Tsim Sha Tsui, Hong Kong through the acquisition of Holt’s Wharf. In doing so we broke the dominance of the UK-based conglomerates and, as if [being given] a shot in the arm, initiated the course of weaving the companies with Chinese capital into the economic fabric of Hong Kong.
- Cheng Yu-tung
If you don’t have a competitive advantage — don’t compete.
- Jack Welch
To me, if life boils down to one thing, it’s movement. To live is to keep moving.
- Jerry Seinfeld
IT’S SAID that you can only live life forward and understand it backward.
- Jack Welch
Possession of Power That Was Not Acquired Through Self Effort.
- Napoleon Hill
Advertising is to a genuine article what manure is to land, – it largely increases the product.
- P.T. Barnum
Poor sales rather than bad product is the most common cause of failure.
- Peter Thiel
The one thing that offends me the most is when I walk by a bank and see ads trying to convince people to take out second mortgages on their home so they can go on vacation. That’s approaching evil.
- Jeff Bezos
The foundation stones for a balanced success are honesty, character, integrity, faith, love and loyalty.
- Zig Ziglar
In the end, you’re measured not by how much you undertake but by what you finally accomplish.
- Donald Trump
Do you know the only thing that gives me pleasure? It’s to see my dividends coming in.
- John D. Rockefeller
I believe that every single event in life happens in an opportunity to choose love over fear.
- Oprah Winfrey
If you think back to the beginning of cell phones, laptops or really any new technology, it’s always expensive.
- Elon Musk
I knew I could only play Cyrano if he were Americanized. I had no intention of writing the script myself. I was afraid of it. You’re playing with fire when you tamper with a classic. So I went looking for a writer. But it was such a personal idea, and anyone I would give it to would make it his own. It’s hard to ask Neil Simon to write your idea.
- Steve Martin
Haiti should remind us all that there is an immediate need to invest in and promote long-term development projects that are sustainable, scalable, and proven to work.
- Bill Gates
Hong Kong has remained a strong financial centre. It has a solid business environment and geographically, it is well located, being next to China. During this time, there is no city that can match it.
- Lee Shau Kee
A man convinced against his will Is of the same opinion still.
- Dale Carnegie
Konosuke Matsushita was a visionary entrepreneur. He started working very young as a teenager, and he eventually created Panasonic to become a truly global company.
- Tadashi Yanai
I think people will walk into the Starbucks store and overnight recognize the significant difference between what Starbucks represents day-in and day-out and all the other coffee companies that have been serving coffee in India for so many years.
- Howard Schultz
Only engage in mutually beneficial relationships.
- Clay Clark
Being first is more important to me [than earning money]. I have so much money. Whatever money is, it’s just a method of keeping score now. I mean, I certainly don’t need more money
- Larry Ellison
Every one of my positions cuts – out half the country. I’m pro-choice, I’m pro-gay rights, I’m pro-immigration, I’m against guns, I believe in Darwin.
- Michael Bloomberg
I wanted to be a tailor to craft products.
- Jack Dorsey
Victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory however long and hard the road may be; for without vicory there is no survival.
- Winston Churchill
I contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle.
- Winston Churchill
Employees were invited to send complaints or suggestions directly to him and he always took an interest in their affairs. He was the best employer of his time, instituting hospitalization and retirement pensions. He was a fine boss if workers abided by the rules, but if they did something foolish, like show interest in a union, they promptly forfeited his sympathy. Rockefeller never acknowledged the legitamacy of organized labor, nor did he tolerate union organizers on his premises.
- Ron Chernow
The Law of Crappy People states: For any title level in a large organization, the talent on that level will eventually converge to the crappiest person with the title.
- Ben Horowitz
It is confidence in our bodies, minds and spirits that allows us to keep looking for new adventures, new directions to grow in, and new lessons to learn – which is what life is all about.
- Oprah Winfrey
1815 to 1914 was a period of both rapid technological development and rapid globalization.
- Peter Thiel
The entrepreneur always searches for change, responds to it, and exploits it as an opportunity.
- Peter Drucker
Alibaba is an ecosystem that helps small business to grow.
- Jack Ma
Andy Andrews is the best speaker I have ever seen.
- Zig Ziglar
Success is one thing — but impact is another.
- Ray Lewis
I consider myself a “social ecologist,” concerned with man’s man-made environment the way the natural ecologist studies the biological environment…..the discipline itself boasts an old and distinguished lineage. Its greatest document is Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America. But no one is as close to me in temperament, concepts, and approach as the mid-Victorian Englishman Walter Bagehot. Living (as I have) in an age of great social change, Bagehot first saw the emergence of new institutions: civil service and cabinet government, as cores of a functioning democracy, and banking as the center of a functioning economy. A hundred years after Bagehot, I was first to identify management as the new social institution of the emerging society of organizations and, a little later, to spot the emergence of knowledge as the new central resource, and knowledge workers as the new ruling class of a society that is not only “postindustrial” but postsocialist and, increasingly, post-capitalist. As it had been for Bagehot, for me too the tension between the need for continuity and the need for innovation and change was central to society and civilization.
- Peter Drucker
Your network is the people who want to help you, and you want to help them, and that’s really powerful.
- Reid Hoffman
Visibility remains limited, and this should come as no surprise, given that our customers’ visibility is limited.
- John Chambers
