Notable Quotables

Some of the biggest failures I’ve ever met, are people that have never failed.

- Robert Kiyosaki

There’s an energy and excitement when you’re building a company. You have so much tail wind. You’re planting new seeds. But it’s also scary, because there’s no safety net.

- Howard Schultz

Writing is thought crystalized on a piece of paper, which can then be reviewed.

- Timothy Ferriss

Leadership is not magnetic personality, that can just as well be a glib tongue. It is not “making friends and influencing people”, that is flattery. Leadership is lifting a person’s vision to higher sights, the raising of a person’s performance to a higher standard, the building of a personality beyond its normal limitations.

- Peter Drucker

Of this I am quite sure. If we open up a quarrel between the past and the present, we shall find that we have lost the future.

- Winston Churchill

The competitor to be feared is one who never bothers about you at all, but goes on making his own business better all the time.

- Henry Ford

Obviously I knew it was a great opportunity but I wasn’t expecting something as big as right now, what we see in Macau.

- Lui Che Woo

Know your numbers’ is a fundamental precept of business.

- Bill Gates

This I beheld, or dreamed it in a dream: —There spread a cloud of dust along a plainAnd underneath the cloud, or in it, ragedA furious battle, and men yelled, and swordsShocked upon swords and shields. A prince’s bannerWavered, then staggered backward, hemmed by foes.A craven hung along the battle’s edge,And thought, Had I a sword of keener steel —That blue blade that the king’s son bears, — but thisBlunt thing! — he snapt and flung it from his hand,And lowering crept away and left the field.Then came the king’s son, wounded, sore bestead,And weaponless, and saw the broken sword,Hilt-buried in the dry and trodden sand,And ran and snatched it, and with battle-shoutLifted afresh, he hewed his enemy down,And saved a great cause that heroic day.

- Edward Rowland Sill

We also now believe that this slowdown in capital spending could extend beyond two quarters.

- John Chambers

By giving people the power to share, we’re making the world more transparent.

- Mark Zuckerberg

As knowledge is acquired it must be organized and put into use, for a definate purpose, through practical plans. Knowledge has no value except that which be gained from its application toward some worthy end.

- Napoleon Hill

Although I don’t have a prescription for what others should do, I know I have been very fortunate and feel a responsibility to give back to society in a very significant way.

- Bill Gates

If you say you can or you can’t you are right either way

- Henry Ford

Hong Kong has gone through countless difficult moments in the past. Our belief in our abilities and our determination to work for a better future have helped us overcome all obstacles.

- Cheng Yu-tung

Too many people are living below their privileges. It’s because their vision has been clouded by past mistakes, disappointments, or how they were raised. They don’t feel like royalty. They don’t think they could be successful and really accomplish what God has put in their hearts. But I believe today, as I’m speaking faith into you, something is happening on the inside.

- Joel Olsteen

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

- Joel Olsteen

If you want to live your life in a creative way, as an artist, you have to not look back too much. You have to be willing to take whatever you’ve done and whoever you were and throw them away.

- Steve Jobs

My supply of Scotch caution never has been small; but I was apparently something of a daredevil now and then to the manufacturing fathers of Pittsburgh. They were old and I was young, which made all the difference.

- Andrew Carnegie

I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for law.

- Martin Luther King Jr.

A lot of people assume that creating software is purely a solitary activity where you sit in an office with the door closed all day and write lots of code.

- Bill Gates

If your culture doesn’t like geeks, you are in real trouble.

- Bill Gates

The Group also continues to be bullish for the long-term prospects for the property market in mainland China…

- Lee Shau Kee

God didn’t create you to be average. You were created to excel You have everything.

- Joel Olsteen

Socialism is the philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy.

- Winston Churchill

FATHER FORGETS W. Livingston Larned Listen, son: I am saying this as you lie asleep, one little paw crumpled under your cheek and the blond curls stickily wet on your damp forehead. I have stolen into your room alone. Just a few minutes ago, as I sat reading my paper in the library, a stifling wave of remorse swept over me. Guiltily I came to your bedside. There are the things I was thinking, son: I had been cross to you. I scolded you as you were dressing for school because you gave your face merely a dab with a towel. I took you to task for not cleaning your shoes. I called out angrily when you threw some of your things on the floor. At breakfast I found fault, too. You spilled things. You gulped down your food. You put your elbows on the table. You spread butter too thick on your bread. And as you started off to play and I made for my train, you turned and waved a hand and called, ‘Goodbye, Daddy!’ and I frowned, and said in reply, ‘Hold your shoulders back!’ Then it began all over again in the late afternoon. As I came up the road I spied you, down on your knees, playing marbles. There were holes in your stockings. I humiliated you before your boyfriends by marching you ahead of me to the house. Stockings were expensive – and if you had to buy them you would be more careful! Imagine that, son, from a father! Do you remember, later, when I was reading in the library, how you came in timidly, with a sort of hurt look in your eyes? When I glanced up over my paper, impatient at the interruption, you hesitated at the door. ‘What is it you want?’ I snapped. You said nothing, but ran across in one tempestuous plunge, and threw your arms around my neck and kissed me, and your small arms tightened with an affection that God had set blooming in your heart and which even neglect could not wither. And then you were gone, pattering up the stairs. Well, son, it was shortly afterwards that my paper slipped from my hands and a terrible sickening fear came over me. What has habit been doing to me? The habit of finding fault, of reprimanding – this was my reward to you for being a boy. It was not that I did not love you; it was that I expected too much of youth. I was measuring you by the yardstick of my own years. And there was so much that was good and fine and true in your character. The little heart of you was as big as the dawn itself over the wide hills. This was shown by your spontaneous impulse to rush in and kiss me good night. Nothing else matters tonight, son. I have come to your bedside in the darkness, and I have knelt there, ashamed! It is a feeble atonement; I know you would not understand these things if I told them to you during your waking hours. But tomorrow I will be a real daddy! I will chum with you, and suffer when you suffer, and laugh when you laugh. I will bite my tongue when impatient words come. I will keep saying as if it were a ritual: ‘He is nothing but a boy – a little boy!’ I am afraid I have visualized you as a man. Yet as I see you now, son, crumpled and weary in your cot, I see that you are still a baby. Yesterday you were in your mother’s arms, your head on her shoulder. I have asked too much, too much. Instead of condemning people, let’s try to understand them. Let’s try to figure out why they do what they do. That’s a lot more profitable and intriguing than criticism; and it breeds sympathy, tolerance and kindness. ‘To know all is to forgive.

- Dale Carnegie

Stones of judgment, discouragement or doubt may be thrown at you. You can’t stop them, but you can make the choice to keep your walls up and not let them affect you.

- Joel Olsteen

FOCUSING TOO MUCH ON THE NUMBERS In the second example, I managed the team to a set of numbers that did not fully capture what I wanted. I wanted a great product that customers would love with high quality and on time—in that order. Unfortunately, the metrics that I set did not capture those priorities. At a basic level, metrics are incentives. By measuring quality, features, and schedule and discussing them at every staff meeting, my people focused intensely on those metrics to the exclusion of other goals. The metrics did not describe the real goals and I distracted the team as a result. Interestingly, I see this same problem play out in many consumer Internet startups. I often see teams that maniacally focus on their metrics around customer acquisition and retention. This usually works well for customer acquisition, but not so well for retention. Why? For many products, metrics often describe the customer acquisition goal in enough detail to provide sufficient management guidance. In contrast, the metrics for customer retention do not provide enough color to be a complete management tool. As a result, many young companies overemphasize retention metrics and do not spend enough time going deep enough on the actual user experience. This generally results in a frantic numbers chase that does not end in a great product. It’s important to supplement a great product vision with a strong discipline around the metrics, but if you substitute metrics for product vision, you will not get what you want.

- Ben Horowitz

I think that society has to be careful not to shift all of its resources to the elderly versus the young.

- Bill Gates

So long as I am acting from duty and conviction, I am indifferent to taunts and jeers. I think they will probably do me more good than harm.

- Winston Churchill

From wherever you are, you can go anywhere you want to go if you pick the right roads to travel.

- Zig Ziglar

Risk, to some, is a bad thing, because risk brings with it the possibility of failure. It might be only a temporary failure, but that doesn’t matter so much if the very thought of it shuts you down. So, for some, risk comes to equal failure (take enough risks and sooner or later, you will fail). Risk is avoided because we’ve been trained to avoid failure.

- Seth Godin

If you neglect to recharge a battery, it dies. And if you run full speed ahead without stopping for water, you lose momentum to finish the race.

- Oprah Winfrey

Control your expenses better than your competition. This is where you can always find the competitive advantage.

- Sam Walton

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

I think George Will is somebody that said recently that the Republicans will not lose, as a Republican, that the Republicans will not win the election. I think it was a terrible statement.

- Donald Trump

You may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated. In fact, it may be necessary to encounter the defeats, so you can know who you are, what you can rise from, how you can still come out of it.

- Maya Angelou

Sometimes, “never let them see you sweat,” is truly bad advice. The work of an individual who cares often exposes the grit and determination and effort that it takes to be present.Perfecting your talk, refining your essay and polishing your service until all elements of you disappear might be obvious tactics, but they remove the thing we were looking for: you.

- Seth Godin

If you believe you will fail, there is no hope for you. You will.

- Dale Carnegie

We sell tea in Starbucks, but I think the experience is very different. I think coffee is something that is quick – it’s transactional. I think tea is more Zen-like. It requires a different environment.

- Howard Schultz

The question is not whether we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we will be… The nation and the world are in dire need of creative extremists.

- Martin Luther King Jr.

If you get something right, you really feel it, right in your chest, on stage. I think it’s an incomparable experience.

- Jerry Seinfeld

It’s important that we attempt to extend life beyond Earth now. It is the first time in the four billion-year history of Earth that it’s been possible, and that window could be open for a long time – hopefully it is – or it could be open for a short time. We should err on the side of caution and do something now.

- Elon Musk

If you don’t have a voice that forces you back to basics, you’re a dangerous person. Or to put it another way: You’re at risk, and the people with you are at risk. I’m not a daredevil. I don’t fly without a safety net.

- Stephen Wynn

An educated man is not, necessarily, one who has an abundance of general or specialized knowledge. An educated man is one who has so developed the faculties of his mind that he may acquire anything he wants, or its equivalent, without violating the rights of others.

- Napoleon Hill

I have asked thousands of business people to smile at someone every hour of the day for a week and then come to class and talk about the results.

- Dale Carnegie

I didn’t try to copy my dad or fit into the pressure or the mold that everybody tried to make me fit into.

- Joel Olsteen

He declared he never stepped in front of the footlights without first saying to himself over and over: I love my audience. I love my audience.

- Dale Carnegie

Your time is limited, don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma, which is living the result of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of other opinions drown your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition, they somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

- Steve Jobs

Despite the office rent in Hong Kong generally declining, the Group’s rental is resilient as the major rental properties owned by the Group are retail shopping properties situated in the new towns and mass transportation network.

- Lee Shau Kee

If you’re single and you want to get married, put an empty photo album on your table. That’s where you’re going to put your wedding photos. When you see it, you’re moving toward it.

- Joel Olsteen

Every entrepreneur should plan to be the last mover in her particular market. That starts with asking yourself: what will the world look like 10 and 20 years from now, and how will my business fit in?

- Peter Thiel

The man who goes farthest is generally the one who is willing to do and dare. The sure-thing boat never gets far from shore.

- Dale Carnegie

The fear of loss is a path to the Dark Side.

- Yoda

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

- Harry Truman

Every company must deal decisively with people who don’t perform satisfactorily….Great people, not great strategies are what made it all work (GE).

- Jack Welch

We often hear military experts inculcate the doctrine of giving priority to the decisive theatre. There is a lot in this. But in war this principle, like all others, is governed by facts and circumstances; otherwise strategy would be too easy. It would become a drill-book and not an art; it would depend upon rules and not on an instructed and fortunate judgment of the proportions of an ever-changing scene.

- Winston Churchill

Being aware of your fear is smart. Overcoming it is the mark of a successful person.

- Seth Godin

A lot of hacking is playing with other people, you know, getting them to do strange things.

- Steve Wozniak

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

Whether it’s eight o’clock in the morning or eight o’clock at night, I always try to greet others before they have a chance to speak to me.

- Zig Ziglar

For me, learning to my control my temper has been a lifelong process. So has the process of being will to take risks, make mistakes and be grateful for the other person, even if I may no longer speak to or do business with that person. When I reflect back on my life, I would say that it is this mental attitude that has made me the most money, has brought me the most success, and has ultimately allowed me to have the most magic in my life.

- Robert Kiyosaki

To me, this is about preserving history and making it available to everyone

- Sergey Brin

Letting your customers set your standards is a dangerous game, because the race to the bottom is pretty easy to win. Setting your own standards–and living up to them–is a better way to profit. Not to mention a better way to make your day worth all the effort you put into it.

- Seth Godin

What nerds miss is that it takes hard work to make sales look easy.

- Peter Thiel

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

Poor sales rather than bad product is the most common cause of failure.

- Peter Thiel

Only when we are brave enough to explore the darkness will we discover the infinite power of our light.

- Brene Brown

When commercializing disruptive technologies, they found or developed new markets that valued the attributes of the disruptive products, rather than search for a technological breakthrough so that the disruptive product could compete as a sustaining technology in mainstream markets.

- Clayton M. Christensen

Making it good at scale means admitting that it must be different and embracing the changes that you’ll need to make to keep things from falling apart.

- Ben Horowitz

I have ways of making money that you know nothing about…(if you’re firm won’t sell) you will stand alone, Your firm can never make any more money in Cleveland. No use trying to do business in competition with Standard Oil Company. If you do (continue to fight) it will end in your being wiped out.

- John D. Rockefeller

As it happened, we did extraordinarily well with our Newport Wal-Mart, and it wasn’t too long before the old Ben Franklin store I had run on Front Street had to close its doors. You can’t say we ran that guy – the landlord’s son – out of business. His customers were the ones who shut him down. They voted with their feet. Quite a few smaller stores have gone out of business during the time of Wal-Mart’s growth. Some people have tried to turn it into this big controversy, sort of a Save the Small-Town Merchants deal, like they were whales or whooping cranes of something that has the right to be protected…If you become a large-scale success it’s Katie bar the door. Suddenly, you make a very convenient villian because everybody seems to love shooting at who’s on top.

- Sam Walton

Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.

- Mark Twain

Instead of trying to use your technology and expertise to make a better product for your users’ standard behavior, experiment with inviting the users to change their behavior to make the product work dramatically better.

- Seth Godin

If it didn’t happen in your life before, then you’re not paying attention you don’t think it’s possible. But almost all important events never happen in your life before.

- Ray Dalio

I want to promote poetry to the point where you got all the baldhead kids running around doing poetry, getting the music out of the way and having only words, the spoken word, and then see what happens.

- Russell Simmons

It is a fine game to play – the game of politics – and it is well worth waiting for a good hand before really plunging.

- Winston Churchill

As I get, I give. Giving as you get is critical. It has everything to do with being happy for yourself, and making others happy is the cause of making yourself happy, and it’s the cycle of giving and getting.

- Russell Simmons

I’ve known entrepreneurs who were not great salespeople, or didn’t know how to code, or were not particularly charismatic leaders. But I don’t know of any entrepreneurs who have achieved any level of success without persistence and determination.

- Harvey Mackay

It is equally important that diversification is an ongoing process.

- Cheng Yu-tung

A waitress goes up to Winston Churchill and says, ‘Sir, your drunk.’ To which he replies, ‘I may be drunk, miss, but in the morning I will be sober and you will still be ugly.

- Winston Churchill

I like to get people fired up, fill them with zeal for McDonald’s, and watch the results in their work.

- Ray Kroc

Bill Gates was in his 20s when he started with $50,000 and became the richest man in the world with $90 billion. It’s a good idea that he did not ask too many people for their ideas on what they thought was possible for his life.

- Robert Kiyosaki

Before spending time on a stress-inducing question or problem, consider this: If you can’t define it or act upon it, forget it.

- Timothy Ferriss

We think when God speaks to us, there’s going to be a boom out of Heaven or we’re going to get some chill bumps, but I really believe God’s talking to us all the time. He’s talking to us right in here. I call it our heart, our conscience, but it’s the Holy Spirit talking to us.

- Joel Olsteen

Shareholder activism works when activists understand something about the characteristics of the business that the board doesn’t.

- Ben Horowitz

If you focus on near-term growth above all else, you miss the most important question you should be asking: will this business still be around a decade from now? Numbers alone won’t tell you the answer; instead you must think critically about the qualitative characteristics of your business.

- Peter Thiel

We’re not going to outgrow our need for information.

- Seth Godin

The best entrepreneurs know this: every great business is built around a secret that’s hidden from the outside. A great company is a conspiracy to change the world; when you share your secret, the recipient becomes a fellow conspirator.

- Peter Thiel

I should be only paying for things that matter. I shouldn’t be paying for things that don’t matter. And, if Walgreen wants a premium, and they’re not doing anything different, why should I pay them more?

- George Paz

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