Notable Quotables

Darwin Smith stands as a classic example of what we came to call a Level 5 leader—an individual who blends extreme personal humility with intense professional will.

- James C. Collins

I think my father is nearly perfect. I think he’s quite handsome, except a bit fat.

- Gina Rinehart

I have come to the conclusion that there is only one way under high heaven to get the best of an argument— and that is to avoid it. Avoid it as you would avoid rattlesnakes and earthquakes.

- Dale Carnegie

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

- Kanye West

Maturity is often more absurd than youth and very frequently is most unjust to youth.

- Thomas Edison

If everything worth doing has already been done, you may as well feign an allergy to achievement and become a barista.

- Peter Thiel

My own answer to the contrarian question is that most people think the future of the world will be defined by globalization, but the truth is that technology matters more.

- Peter Thiel

Japanese businesspeople and companies are lacking in individuality.

- Tadashi Yanai

Theories, for me, are just about freeing your mind. It doesn’t mean the theory is going to work like a scientific theory works. It’s about freeing your mind and making you think a different way.

- Steve Martin

Your business plan is fluid, not concrete. Once you a build plan, the market place validates what works and what does not. Be flexible and evolve your business strategy.

- David Nilssen

God, You said You would restore health unto me and heal me of my wounds. You said I would live and not die. You said what is impossible with men is possible with God. When you pray.

- Joel Olsteen

Well, real estate is always good, as far as I’m concerned.

- Donald Trump

I work hard, I eat fishballs and nood­les. I drink coffee and tea from a street vendor. I am quite casual about personal wealth, life hasn’t changed at all.

- Lui Che Woo

Historians will record 1998 as a time when the impossible happened in Asia

- Cheng Yu-tung

Your employees come first. And if you treat your employees right, guess what? Your customers come back, and that makes your shareholders happy. Start with employees and the rest follows from that.

- Herb Kelleher

There is nothing else that so kills the ambitions of a person as criticisms from superiors. I never criticize any-one. I believe in giving a person incentive to work. So I am anxious to praise but loath to find fault. If I like anything, I am hearty in my approbation and lavish in my praise.

- Dale Carnegie

I’m not a tech guy. I’m looking at the technology with the eyes of my customers, normal people’s eyes.

- Jack Ma

Word of mouth works now, much more than ever. @-reply every single person.

- Gary Vaynerchuk

Physics is really figuring out how to discover new things that are counterintuitive, like quantum mechanics. It’s really counterintuitive.

- Elon Musk

We can’t wait for Washington. Business leaders are going to have to galvanize their own constituencies and do everything they can to demonstrate confidence in the economy, and I think that can be contagious.

- Howard Schultz

Here was a place where real things were going on. Here was a scene of vital action. Here was a place where anything might happen. Here was a place where something would certainly happen.

- Winston Churchill

Henceforth, I will consider each day’s effort as but one blow of my blade against a mighty oak. The first blow may cause not a tremor in the wood, nor the second, nor the third. Each blow, of itself, may be trifling, and seem of no consequence. Yet from childish swipes the oak will eventually tumble. So it will be with my efforts of today. I will be likened to the raindrop, which washes away the mountain; the ant who devours a tiger; the star which brightens the earth; the slave who builds a pyramid. I will build my castle one brick at a time for I know that small attempts, repeated, will complete any undertaking. I will persist until I succeed.

- Og Mandino

The most valuable kind of company maintains an openness to invention that is most characteristic of beginnings.

- Peter Thiel

While there’s always room for improvement, … we were very pleased with our results in what is a seasonally-challenging quarter.

- John Chambers

All happy companies are different: each one earns a monopoly by solving a unique problem. All failed companies are the same: they failed to escape competition.

- Peter Thiel

It is the individual who is not interested in his fellow men who has the greatest difficulties in life and provides the greatest injury to others.

- Dale Carnegie

Back in high school, I really wanted to be a diesel mechanic. I was building pools and it was still working with my hands. I was installing the (reinforcement) bars, shaping the pools and then they’d bring the cement in. It was great. . . . Then I had my accident.

- Ed Clark

The IRS! They’re like the Mafia, they can take anything they want!

- Jerry Seinfeld

Librarians who are arguing and lobbying for clever e-book lending solutions are completely missing the point. They are defending the library-as-warehouse concept, as opposed to fighting for the future, which is librarian as producer, concierge, connector, teacher, and impresario.

- Seth Godin

I’ve come to believe that all my past failure and frustration were actually laying the foundation for the understandings that have created the new level of living I now enjoy.

- Tony Robbins

I had a disc giving me a lot of trouble, and I had four surgeries. Then I had a staph infection, so they had to open me up five times in four months… It was in the bottom of my back, the same incision. They should have put a zipper on it.

- Stephen Wynn

Work is a process, and any process needs to be controlled. To make work productive, therefore, requires building the appropriate controls into the process of work.

- Peter Drucker

In the most minimal sense, the future is simply the set of all moments yet to come.

- Peter Thiel

I’ve learned that it doesn’t matter how many times you failed…You only have to be right once…I was an idiot lots of times, and I learned from them all.

- Mark Cuban

Americans want students to get the best education possible. We want schools to prepare children to become good citizens and members of a prosperous American economy.

- Bill Gates

The worst pandemic in modern history was the Spanish flu of 1918, which killed tens of millions of people. Today, with how interconnected the world is, it would spread faster.

- Bill Gates

You have to take away some of tax breaks for the wealthy, and you have to cut back on some entitlements. Because, unless we do all of these things, it just doesn’t work. And what’s good theater and what’s good politics isn’t necessarily good economic policy.

- Michael Bloomberg

College students can become extremely skilled at a few specialties, but many never learn what to do with those skills in the wider world.

- Peter Thiel

Quality means doing it right when no one is looking.

- Henry Ford

There’s no recipe for motivating teams when your business has turned to crap.

- Ben Horowitz

The best thing I did as a manager at PayPal was to make every person in the company responsible for doing just one thing. Every employee’s one thing was unique, and everyone knew I would evaluate him only on that one thing. I had started doing this just to simplify the task of managing people. But then I noticed a deeper result: defining roles reduced conflict. Most fights inside a company happen when colleagues compete for the same responsibilities.

- Peter Thiel

Pity may represent little more than the impersonal concern which prompts the mailing of a check, but true sympathy is the personal concern which demands the giving of one’s soul.

- Martin Luther King Jr.

don’t talk about the way you are. Talk about the way you want to be.

- Joel Olsteen

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

- Henry Ford

The foundation of success in life is good health: that is the substratum fortune, it is also the basis of happiness. A person cannot accumulate a fortune very well when he is sick.

- P.T. Barnum

It’s absolutely true we set out to expose Microsoft’s covert activities, I feel very good about what we did … Maybe our investigation organization may have done things unsavory, but it’s not illegal. We got the truth out.

- Larry Ellison

We have to find a way to make the aspects of capitalism that serve wealthier people serve poorer people as well.

- Bill Gates

The factory has programmed that adventurous impulse out of us. The economic imperative of the last century has been to avoid risk, avoid change, and most of all, avoid exploration and the new. An efficient factory fears change because change means retooling and risk and a blip in productivity. Sure, we’ll put up with change if we have to, and welcome the predictable incremental change of productivity improvement, but please leave us alone when it comes to the word “bold.” Avoiding risk worked then but doesn’t work now. Now “what’s next?” is in fact the driving force for individuals and for organizations. Ever onward, ever faster.

- Seth Godin

Cisco will be well placed to continue building our presence in India as a critical part of our research and development efforts and as domestic market for networking products and solutions continues to expand.

- John Chambers

Failure is nature’s plan to prepare you for great responsibilities.

- Napoleon Hill

That doesn’t mean the opposite ideas are automatically true: you can’t escape the madness of crowds by dogmatically rejecting them. Instead ask yourself: how much of what you know about business is shaped by mistaken reactions to past mistakes? The most contrarian thing of all is not to oppose the crowd but to think for yourself.

- Peter Thiel

Lanai at one time grew 98% of the world’s pineapples. But the world’s pineapples are now grown in two places, Costa Rica and Panama, because no one wants to spend $45 for a pineapple from the United States.

- Larry Ellison

Anyone, even a child, can be taught to develop a positive mental attitude. The method is to repeat positive affirmations such as: Day by day, in every way, through the grace of God, I am getting better and better.

- Napoleon Hill

As a company it is always better for us to work with more customers than fewer customers. The more people that we serve, the more money that we will make.

- Napoleon Hill

If you’re changing the world, you’re working on important things. You’re excited to get up in the morning.

- Larry Page

I am excited for the opportunity to pursue new interests, including my work with a few public company boards, several universities in the U.S. and the UK and ophthalmic charities whose goals are to improve eye health in emerging markets.

- David Pyott

Difficult to see. Always in motion is the future..

- Yoda

I was myself so smitten in public opinion that it was the almost universal view that my political life was at last ended.

- Winston Churchill

In business, the idea of measuring what you are doing, picking the measurements that count like customer satisfaction and performance… you thrive on that.

- Bill Gates

I don’t have a magic formula for prioritizing the world’s problems.

- Bill Gates

I think our leadership team is a highly accountable leadership team.

- Steve Ballmer

Now, we put out a lot of carbon dioxide every year, over 26 billion tons. For each American, it’s about 20 tons. For people in poor countries, it’s less than one ton. It’s an average of about five tons for everyone on the planet. And, somehow, we have to make changes that will bring that down to zero.

- Bill Gates

Next to doing the right thing, the most important thing is to let people know you are doing the right thing.

- John D. Rockefeller

I’m not for gay marriage, but I’m not for discriminating against people.

- Joel Olsteen

The slowdown in futures orders clearly signals that revenue growth in the second half of fiscal 1998 will be below our previous expectations. This is largely a result of the slowdown in the Asia Pacific market, where we now anticipate more moderate revenue growth in fiscal 1998 after increasing 84 percent on a constant dollar basis in fiscal 1997.

- Phil Knight

I think like a Silicon Valley entrepreneur. Failure is a great teacher. At the same time, you must remember, success will never last… Whether it’s tech or fashion, it must be for the customer.

- Tadashi Yanai

Some city-council people are really awesome, but most are uninspired. I meet with them as little as possible.

- Travis Kalanick

We’re living in what I like to call the ‘Thank You Economy,’ because only the companies that can figure out how to mind their manners in a very old-fashioned way – and do it authentically – are going to have a prayer of competing.

- Gary Vaynerchuk

Tomorrow becomes never. No matter how small the task, take the first step now!

- Timothy Ferriss

Decided only to be undecided, resolved to be irresolute, adamant for drift, solid for fluidity, all-powerful to be impotent.

- Winston Churchill

You guarantee a good meal by picking the recipes well, not by following recipes well.

- Timothy Ferriss

Through the wisdom of its government leaders and the entrepreneurship of its private sector, India has rapidly risen to become a major force in the global economy, … Cisco believes that the Internet, and related technologies, will be a key enabler for India to achieve its goal of becoming a developed nation.

- John Chambers

Globally, business and government leaders are beginning to dramatically transform their traditional business models into Internet economy business models, … Customers are increasingly seeking Cisco’s expertise to help them through this transformation.

- John Chambers

The fight against AIDS in China is already well underway. The Chinese government and other funders are providing major support, and they’ll continue to bear primary responsibility for delivering prevention and treatment.

- Bill Gates

The only purpose of starting is to finish, and while the projects we do are never really finished, they must ship.

- Seth Godin

We who in engage in nonviolent direct action are not the creators of tension. We merely bring to the surface the hidden tension that is already alive.

- Martin Luther King Jr.

A startup is the largest endeavor over which you can have definite mastery. 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. You are not a lottery ticket.

- Peter Thiel

I really believed that I said then, and I still do. But we figured out a way to grow, and stay profitable, and there was no logical place to stop. The way I approached managing the business, I always tried to maintain a sense of hands-on, personal supervision – usually flying around to take a look at our stores on a regular basis. But from the very beginning, even on my paper routes in college, I have also been a delegator, trying to hire the best possible people to manage the stores. That’s been the case since back in Newport….We’re big now. We’re really big. That’s not something I like to focus on. I always wanted to be the best retailer in the world, not necessarily the biggest…(being big poses opportunities), but being big also poses big dangers. It has ruined many a fine company – including some giant retailers – who started out strong and got bloated or out of touch or were slow to react to the needs of their customers. Here’s the point: the biggest Wal-Mart gets, the more essential it is that we think small. Because that is exactly how we have become a big corporation.

- Sam Walton

El séptimo imperativo • El primer imperativo es estar al tanto; al tanto del mercado, de las oportunidades y de quién eres. • El segundo imperativo es estar preparados, para entender lo que sucede a tu alrededor. • El tercer imperativo es estar conectado, para que confíen en ti. • El cuarto imperativo es ser coherente, para que el sistema sepa qué esperar de ti. • El quinto imperativo es crear un valor, para tener algo que vender. • El sexto imperativo es ser productivo, para ofrecer un buen precio. No obstante, es posible que hagas todas estas cosas y aun así fracases. Un empleo no es suficiente, ni una fábrica, ni una industria. Solían serlo, pero ya no lo son. El mundo está cambiando muy rápido, y sin la chispa de la iniciativa te limitas a reaccionar ante lo que te rodea. Asimismo, sin la capacidad de incitar y experimentar estás estancado, a la deriva, esperando el empujón…

- Seth Godin

God doesn’t look at how much we do, but with how much love we do it.

- Mother Teresa

The more you are grateful for what you have the more you will have to be grateful for.

- Zig Ziglar

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

- Lui Che Woo

The evolving social and digital media platforms and highly innovative and relevant payment capabilities are causing seismic changes in consumer behavior and creating equally disruptive opportunities for business.

- Howard Schultz

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