Notable Quotables

Considering their impact, you might expect mosquitoes to get more attention than they do. Sharks kill fewer than a dozen people every year, and in the U.S. they get a week dedicated to them on TV every year.

- Bill Gates

The air of the English is down-to-earth. They care about details; there’s a tradition, but there’s also a counter-culture: the younger generation versus the older generation and so on. But then that’s well blended into a happy balance and crystallised into common sense.

- Tadashi Yanai

Effective leadership is putting first things first. Effective management is discipline, carrying it out.

- Stephen R. Covey

In tennis, you strike a ball just after the rebound for the fastest return. It’s the same with investment.

- Masayoshi Son

The starting point of all achievement is desire. Keep this constantly in mind. Weak desires bring weak results, just as a small amount of fire makes a small amount of heat.

- Napoleon Hill

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

More than that, internal peace is what enables a startup to survive at all. When a startup fails, we often imagine it succumbing to predatory rivals in a competitive ecosystem. But every company is also its own ecosystem, and factional strife makes it vulnerable to outside threats. Internal conflict is like an autoimmune disease: the technical cause of death may be pneumonia, but the real cause remains hidden from plain view.

- Peter Thiel

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 don’t believe in saturation. We’re thinking and talking worldwide.

- Ray Kroc

I think part of the reason we’re successful so far is that originally we didn’t really want to start a business.

- Larry Page

A fundamentalist is a person who considers whether a fact is acceptable to his religion before he explores it.

- Seth Godin

Once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny, consume you it will.

- Yoda

Too often, that solution is nothing more than adding another layer. What you should be doing is going to the source of the problem to fix it, and sometimes that requires shooting the culprit,

- Sam Walton

Microsoft’s an important partner for Dell, an important company in the industry.

- Michael Dell

We are in the throes of a transition where every publication has to think of their digital strategy.

- Bill Gates

Projects undreamed of by past generations will absorb our immediate descendants, comforts, activities, amenities, pleasures will crowd upon them, but their hearts will ache and their lives will be barren, if they have not a vision above material things.

- Winston Churchill

Exchanging practically all the British infantry and artillery in India for Territorial batteries and battalions, and the formation of the 27th, 28th and 29th Divisions of regular troops. The New Zealand contingent must be escorted to Australia and there, with 25,000 Australians, await convoys to Europe. Meanwhile the leading troops of the Canadian Army, about 25,000 strong, had to be brought across the Atlantic. All this was of course additional to the main situation in the North Sea and to the continued flow of drafts, reinforcements and supplies across the Channel. Meanwhile the enemy’s Fleet remained intact, waiting, as we might think, its moment to strike; and his cruisers continued to prey upon the seas. To strengthen our cruiser forces we had already armed and commissioned twenty-four liners as auxiliary cruisers, and had armed defensively fifty-four merchantmen. Another forty suitable vessels were in preparation. In order to lighten the strain in the Indian Ocean and to liberate our light cruisers for their proper work of hunting down the enemy, I proposed the employment of our old battleships (Canopus class) as escorts to convoys.

- Winston Churchill

You want to be a bit compulsive in your art or craft or whatever you do. You want to be focused on it.

- Steve Martin

An artist is someone who uses bravery, insight, creativity, and boldness to challenge the status quo. And an artist takes it personally.

- Seth Godin

Faith in the endgame helps you live through the months or years of buildup.

- James C. Collins

Great CEOs face the pain. They deal with the sleepless nights, the cold sweats, and what my friend the great Alfred Chuang (legendary cofounder and CEO of BEA Systems) calls “the torture.” Whenever I meet a successful CEO, I ask them how they did it. Mediocre CEOs point to their brilliant strategic moves or their intuitive business sense or a variety of other self-congratulatory explanations. The great CEOs tend to be remarkably consistent in their answers. They all say, “I didn’t quit.

- Ben Horowitz

To lead a meaningful life, one must build trust with others. To enjoy peace, a nation must win the confidence and support of its people. To achieve stable growth, an enterprise must live up to its conviction.

- Cheng Yu-tung

Often people fail to start or complete a task because they don’t see any connection between what they’re doing and what they really want to accomplish in life.

- John C. Maxwell

I’m personally a moderate and a registered independent, so I’m not strongly Democratic or strongly Republican.

- Elon Musk

People who use time wisely spend it on activities that advance their overall purpose in life.

- John C. Maxwell

Don’t confuse the complex with the difficult. Most situations are simple—many are just emotionally difficult to act upon.

- Timothy Ferriss

Success is due to our stretching to the challenges of life. Failure comes when we shrink from them.

- John C. Maxwell

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.

There is no monopoly on becoming a millionaire. If you’re jealous of those with more money, don’t just sit there and complain – do something to make more money yourself.

- Gina Rinehart

Being too humble can cost you. Not talking about your accomplishments can hit you in the pocketbook. It’s those who visibly take credit for accomplishments who are rewarded with promotions and gem assignments, writes Klaus. As our economy has resulted in less job stability, self-promotion has become more important. Even if you aren’t an entrepreneur, says Klaus, you need to think like one and start talking up your most valuable product: you.

- Peggy Klaus

I’ve learned that people will seldom let you down if they understand that your destiny is in their hands, and vice versa.

- Harvey Mackay

If you set your goals ridiculously high and it’s a failure, you will fail above everyone else’s success.

- James Cameron

If you don’t set a baseline standard for what you’ll accept in life, you’ll find it’s easy to slip into behaviors and attitudes or a quality of life that’s far below what you deserve.

- Anthony Robbins

Regardless of who you are or what you have been, you can be what you want to be.

- W. Clement Stone

We don’t know exactly how it will work. Advertisers want greater access, better accountability.

- Sergey Brin

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

- Richard Branson

I have to be ever vigilant to remain open to other people’s points of view. Just because I’m enthusiastic doesn’t necessarily mean I’m right. I have to always keep the doors open for honest communication or I could enthusiastically lead everyone right over the cliff.

- David Novak

We bring together the best ideas – turning the meetings of our top managers into intellectual orgies.

- Jack Welch

The key to high-quality communication is trust, and it’s hard to trust somebody that you don’t know.

- Ben Horowitz

The future of the world’s film industry is in China because we have 1.3 billion people.

- Wang Jianlin

Good executives never put off until tomorrow what they can get someone else to do today.

- John C. Maxwell

One can get anything if he is willing to help enough others get what they want.

- Zig Ziglar

Failure is part of discovering the problem you need to be working on. If, as an entrepreneur, you are afraid to fail or to admit the failure of your efforts, then you completely lose any chance at being able to adapt and succeed at finding the problem that needs solving.

- Caterina Fake

You can’t have a rigid view that all new taxes are evil.

- Bill Gates

I think that any wealth creates a sense of trusteeship… it is characteristic of the new generation which has created wealth to have some amount of responsibility for it.

- Azim Premji

Art isn’t only a painting. Art is anything that’s creative, passionate, and personal. And great art resonates with the viewer, not only with the creator.What makes someone an artist? I don’t think is has anything to do with a paintbrush. There are painters who follow the numbers, or paint billboards, or work in a small village in China, painting reproductions. These folks, while swell people, aren’t artists. On the other hand, Charlie Chaplin was an artist, beyond a doubt. So is Jonathan Ive, who designed the iPod. You can be an artists who works with oil paints or marble, sure. But there are artists who work with numbers, business models, and customer conversations. Art is about intent and communication, not substances.An artists is someone who uses bravery, insight, creativity, and boldness to challenge the status quo. And an artists takes it personally.That’s why Bob Dylan is an artist, but an anonymous corporate hack who dreams up Pop 40 hits on the other side of the glass is merely a marketer. That’s why Tony Hsieh, founder of Zappos, is an artists, while a boiler room of telemarketers is simply a scam.Tom Peters, corporate gadfly and writer, is an artists, even though his readers are businesspeople. He’s an artists because he takes a stand, he takes the work personally, and he doesn’t care if someone disagrees. His art is part of him, and he feels compelled to share it with you because it’s important, not because he expects you to pay him for it.Art is a personal gift that changes the recipient. The medium doesn’t matter. The intent does.Art is a personal act of courage, something one human does that creates change in another.

- Seth Godin

Corporations that navigate through these rough times will prosper as the region inevitably enters a new era of prosperity.

- Cheng Yu-tung

Instead of wondering when your next vacation is, maybe you should set up a life you don’t need to escape from.

- Seth Godin

America, for me, is the country where, if you have something great to offer, you’ll be valued highly.

- Tadashi Yanai

A good intention, with a bad approach, often leads to a poor result.

- Thomas Edison

At the margin, they’ll be biased to claim value in the near term, not help you create more in the future. That’s why hiring consultants doesn’t work. Part-time employees don’t work. Even working remotely should be avoided,

- Peter Thiel

The most important quality for an investor is temperament, not intellect. You need a temperament that neither derives great pleasure from being with the crowd or against the crowd.

- Warren Buffett

It’s not what you’ve got. It’s what you use that makes a difference.

- Zig Ziglar

If people like you, they’ll listen to you, but if they trust you, they’ll do business with you.

- Zig Ziglar

When we began Starbucks, what I wanted to try to do was to create a set of values, guiding principles, and culture.

- Howard Schultz

Don’t be afraid to give your best to what seemingly are small jobs. Every time you conquer one it makes you that much stronger. If you do the little jobs well, the big ones will tend to take care of themselves.

- Dale Carnegie

Management is all about managing in the short term, while developing the plans for the long term.

- Jack Welch

Marketing is every bit of contact your company has with anyone in the outside world. Every bit of contact. That means a lot of marketing opportunities. It does not mean investing a lot of money.

- Jay Conrad Levinson

It is no achievement to walk a tightrope laid flat on the floor.

- Ray Kroc

It has been almost a decade since the handover of Hong Kong in 1997. Hong Kong has gone through both good times and bad times. During the past decade, Hong Kong has undoubtedly played an increasingly important role in the economic development of China.

- Cheng Yu-tung

There are two mistakes one can make along the road to truth. Not going all the way, and not starting.

- Siddhartha Gautama

In energy, you have to plan and do research way in advance, sometimes decades in advance to get a new system that’s safer, doesn’t require us to go around the world to get all our oil.

- Bill Gates

The spirit of Southwest Airlines is exuberant, it’s caring, it’s dedicated, it’s diligent, it’s fun, it’s rewarding, it’s a joy.

- Herb Kelleher

In practice, a large market will either lack a good starting point or it will be open to competition.

- Peter Thiel

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

- Dale Carnegie

When your head of sales interviews for her next job, she won’t want to say that despite the fact that she ran a global sales force with hundreds of employees, her title was “Dude.”

- Ben Horowitz

I don’t know where we should take this company, but I do know that if I start with the right people, ask them the right questions, and engage them in vigorous debate, we will find a way to make this company great.

- James C. Collins

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

- Timothy Ferriss

What is the one sentence summary of how you change the world? Always work hard on something uncomfortably exciting!

- Larry Page

As you and I march across the decades of time, we are going to meet a lot of unpleasant situations that are so. They cannot be otherwise. We have our choice. We can either accept them as inevitable and adjust ourselves to them, or we can ruin our lives with rebellion and maybe end up with a nervous breakdown.

- Dale Carnegie

A smart manager will establish a culture of gratitude. Expand the appreciative attitude to suppliers, vendors, delivery people, and of course, customers.

- Harvey Mackay

I… had no need for cheering dreams,” he wrote. Facts are better than dreams.

- James C. Collins

The [Henderson] Group adopted a conservative approach in replenishing its land bank and focused its resources to convert agricultural land holdings in hand into development land in the past year with a view to bringing down the cost of land replenishment and good progress has been made in this respect.

- Lee Shau Kee

I think how you start the day many times determines what kind of day you’re going to have.

- Joel Olsteen

But entrepreneurs should take cultures of extreme dedication seriously.

- Peter Thiel

People ask me what’s the most important function when you’re starting an organization or setting up the kind of culture and values that are going to endure. The discipline I believe so strongly in is H.R., and its the last discipline that gets funded.

- Howard Schultz

Failing is an event, not a person. Yesterday ended last night.

- Zig Ziglar

Out the right product is the innovator’s job, not the customer’s job.

- Ben Horowitz

I try to make myself happy, no, because I know that if I’m not happy, my colleagues are not happy and my shareholders are not happy and my customers are not happy.

- Jack Ma

We see no indications in the marketplace that the radical Internet business transformation in practices like customer service, supply-chain management, employee training, empowerment, and e-commerce that is taking place around the world today is slowing — in fact, we believe it is accelerating globally.

- John Chambers

The successful leader must be willing to assume responsibility for the mistakes and the shortcomings of his followers. If he tries to shift this responsibility he will not remain the leader. If one of his followers makes a mistake or proves to be incompetent, the leader must consider that it is he who failed.

- Napoleon Hill

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