I kept saying, Sam, we’re making a good living. Why go out why expand so much more? The stores are getting farther and farther away. After the seventeenth store, though, I realized there wasn’t going to any stopping it.
- Helen Walton
Notable Quotables
Witchcraft is one of the most baseless, absurd, disgusting and silly of all the humbugs.
- P.T. Barnum
Consider the idea that charisma can be as much a liability as an asset. Your strength of personality can sow the seeds of problems, when people filter the brutal facts from you.
- James C. Collins
The people of Southwest have always been my pride, my joy and my love. Their indomitable dedication and esprit de corps have taken Southwest from a three-airplane dream to a 500-airplane reality.
- Herb Kelleher
Credit is a promise to deliver money. It will produce GDP but you’ll create credit… So you reach a certain point that that you can’t do that anymore… There are choices. And how do we best support, apportion the money? How much is going to be transferred?
- Ray Dalio
No comment’ is a splendid expression. I am using it again and again.
- Winston Churchill
As technology continues to virtualize money, brick ‘n mortar banks have become as superfluous as traditional bookstores.
- Reid Hoffman
You have to understand your own personal DNA. Don’t do things because I do them or Steve Jobs or Mark Cuban tried it. You need to know your personal brand and stay true to it.
- Gary Vaynerchuk
MAY 13 Guard Against Pessimism For the Kingdom of God is not a matter of what we eat or drink, but of living a life of goodness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. ROMANS 14:17 NLT I HEARD A STORY ABOUT TWO FARMERS. When the rain fell, one farmer said, Thank You, Lord, for watering our crops.” But the other farmer said, Yeah, but if the rain keeps up, it’s going to rot the roots.” When the sun came out, the positive farmer said, Thank You, Lord, that our crops are getting the vitamins and minerals they need. We’ll have a wonderful harvest this year.” But the negative farmer said, Yeah, but if it keeps up, it’s going to scorch those plants. We’re never going to make a living.” Don’t you know people who are always focused on the negative? Be sure to guard against their negative attitudes infecting your thinking! Stay focused on the positive things in life.
- Joel Olsteen
It’s harder, but we’re still finding oil in Oklahoma today. The bar has been raised on startup companies, but it can still be done. Every regulation and every rule limits you, but, yes, it can still be done. That’s the beauty of living in a free country and having the freedom to have an idea and become an entrepreneur.
- Harold Hamm
Your faith is very important. I have done the math, and you are going to be dead a whole lot longer that you will be alive.
- Zig Ziglar
You see these dictators on their pedestals, surrounded by the bayonets of their soldiers and the truncheons of their police. On all sides they are guarded by masses of armed men, cannons, aeroplanes, fortifications, and the like – they boast and vaunt themselves before the world, yet in their hearts there is unspoken fear. They are afraid of words and thoughts; words spoken abroad, thoughts stirring at home – all the more powerful because forbidden – terrify them. A little mouse of thought appears in the room, and even the mightiest potentates are thrown into panic. They make frantic efforts to bar our thoughts and words; they are afraid of the workings of the human mind. Cannons, airplanes, they can manufacture in large quantities; but how are they to quell the natural promptings of human nature, which after all these centuries of trial and progress has inherited a whole armoury of potent and indestructible knowledge?
- Winston Churchill
Do not assume anything Obi-Wan. Clear your mind must be if you are to discover the real villains behind this plot.
- Yoda
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 was raised with ‘Laurel and Hardy’ and ‘I Love Lucy’ and Jerry Lewis, and I just loved it. And I had a friend in high school and we would just laugh all day and put on skits. You know, it’s the Andy Kaufman thing or the Marty Short thing where you’re performing in your bedroom for yourself.
- Steve Martin
Being able to see an activity log of where a kid has been going on the Internet is a good thing.
- Bill Gates
The ultimate goal for a business owner is to build a company that he or she can one day sell, continue to scale, or even own passively. Most business owners reach for growth by working harder and personally trying to produce more. This is a flawed model that at best will lead to only moderate growth. At worst this strategy can literally put your entire company at risk.
- Jeff Hoffman
Action is the real measure of intelligence.
- Napoleon Hill
Necessity is the mother of taking chances.
- Mark Twain
Any product that needs a manual to work is broken.
- Elon Musk
Cutting prices or putting things on sale is not sustainable business strategy. The other side of it is that you can’t cut enough costs to save your way to prosperity.
- Howard Schultz
Should there be cameras everywhere in outdoor streets? My personal view is having cameras in inner cities is a very good thing. In the case of London, petty crime has gone down. They catch terrorists because of it. And if something really bad happens, most of the time you can figure out who did it.
- Bill Gates
The successful leader must plan his work, and work his plan. A leader who moves by guesswork, without practical, definite plans, is comparable to a ship without a rudder. Sooner or later he will land on the rocks.
- Andrew Carnegie
This book, then, is a product of the last fifteen years, as well as a product of the fifteen years that preceded them. It was almost exactly eight years before The E-Myth was published that I founded our company, E-Myth Worldwide, which has provided the fuel and experience for the point of view I have shared with those of you who have read The E-Myth, and with those.
- Michael Gerber
The sweltering summer of the Negro’s legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality.
- Martin Luther King Jr.
Be frank. Reporters know when your story is all hype and no substance. Be honest with them.
- Michael Levine
I still get real nervous when I go in front of more than two people.
- Phil Knight
Art allows people a way to dream their way out of their struggle.
- Russell Simmons
Someone is sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago.
- Warren Buffett
The most important thing to understand is that the job of a big company executive is very different from the job of a small company executive. When I was managing thousands of people at Hewlett-Packard after the sale of Opsware, there was an incredible number of incoming demands on my time. Everyone wanted a piece of me. Little companies wanted to partner with me or sell themselves to me, people in my organization needed approvals, other business units needed my help, customers wanted my attention, and so forth. As a result, I spent most of my time optimizing and tuning the existing business. Most of the work that I did was “incoming.” In fact, most skilled big company executives will tell you that if you have more than three new initiatives in a quarter, you are trying to do too much. As a result, big company executives tend to be interrupt-driven. In contrast, when you are a startup executive, nothing happens unless you make it happen. In the early days of a company, you have to take eight to ten new initiatives a day or the company will stand still. There is no inertia that’s putting the company in motion. Without massive input from you, the company will stay at rest.
- Ben Horowitz
I have been struck again and again by how important measurement is to improving the human condition.
- Bill Gates
So, if you look at what’s common among some of the companies I have, including the Four Seasons, NewsCorp, George V, the Plaza, these are all irreplaceable brands in their own fields.
- Prince Al Waleed Bin Talal Alsaud
A smart manager will establish a culture of gratitude. Expand the appreciative attitude to suppliers, vendors, delivery people, and of course, customers.
- Harvey Mackay
It is always more easy to discover and proclaim general principles than to apply them.
- Winston Churchill
This is no war of chieftains or of princes, of dynasties or national ambition; it is a war of peoples and of causes. There are vast numbers, not only in this Island but in every land, who will render faithful service in this war, but whose names will never be known, whose deeds will never be recorded. This is a War of the Unknown Warriors.
- Winston Churchill
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
Music, even with these dial-up connections you have to the Internet, is very practical to download.
- Bill Gates
Follow the GOLDEN RULE. Do unto others as you would have them do onto you.
- David Robinson
I’m convinced that what kids need today are parents – not buddies. They need someone who will exercise mature judgment.
- Zig Ziglar
Happiness doesn’t depend on outward conditions. It depends on inner conditions. It isn’t what you have or who you are or where you are or what you are doing that makes you happy or unhappy. It is what you think about it.
- Dale Carnegie
Understand this law and you will then know, beyond room for the slightest doubt, that you are constantly punishing yourself for every wrong you commit and rewarding yourself for every act of constructive conduct in which you indulge.
- Napoleon Hill
Those people who develop the ability to continuously acquire new and better forms of knowledge that they can apply to their work and to their lives will be the movers and shakers in our society for the indefinite future.
- Brian Tracy
The good-will of a business which is losing money is not worth much.
- Ron Chernow
I like a woman with a head on her shoulders. I hate necks.
- Steve Martin
With no clear picture of how you wish your life to be, how on earth are you going to live it? What is your Primary Aim? Where is the script to make your dreams come true? what is the first step to take and how do you measure your progress? How far have you gone and how close are you to getting to your goals?
- Michael Gerber
It’s not as though we can keep burning coal in our power plants. Coal is a finite resource, too. We must find alternatives, and it’s a better idea to find alternatives sooner then wait until we run out of coal, and in the meantime, put God knows how many trillions of tons of CO2 that used to be buried underground into the atmosphere.
- Elon Musk
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
I’ve always thought if we don’t want to enforce laws on the books, we should remove them from the books. But when you have laws, you breed contempt if you don’t enforce them.
- Michael Bloomberg
When people write checks, they are depleting an asset. And when people are using credit cards, they are increasing their liabilities. In other words, credit cards make it so much easier to get deeper and deeper into debt by increasing your monthly liabilties.
- Robert Kiyosaki
You’re got to worry about what’s coming up to stay ahead of the curve…
- Phil Knight
The Internet economy continues to create unprecedented growth opportunities for people, companies and countries on a global basis.
- John Chambers
If you want to reap financial blessings, you have to sow financially.
- Joel Olsteen
There are no longer any great jobs where someone else tells you precisely what to do.
- Seth Godin
Underneath, you would surely see that the best care passionately about their people—about their growth and success. And you would see that they themselves are comfortable in their own skins. They’re real, filled with candor and integrity, optimism and humanity.
- Jack Welch
The next time someone tells you we can trim the budget by cutting aid, I hope you will ask whether it will come at the cost of more people dying.
- Bill Gates
Only men of character are trusted.
- Zig Ziglar
Someday, man will harness the rise and fall of the tides, imprison the power of the sun, and release atomic power.
- Thomas Edison
The future of humanity is going to bifurcate in two directions: Either it’s going to become multiplanetary, or it’s going to remain confined to one planet and eventually there’s going to be an extinction event.
- Elon Musk
My popularity, my happiness and sense of worth depend to no small extent upon my skill in dealing with people.
- Dale Carnegie
We saw strength across our core switching and routing businesses, as well as traction in our advanced technologies. The service provider and public sector segments, in particular, continue to be solid markets for our products.
- John Chambers
Americans are in a cycle of fear which leads to people not wanting to spend and not wanting to make investments, and that leads to more fear. We’ll break out of it. It takes time.
- Warren Buffett
Owners don’t fire all the players. They fire the leader and bring in someone they hope the players will buy into.
- Napoleon Hill
The man who is bound in the slavery of debt is just as helpless as the slave who is bound by ignorance, or by actual chains.
- Napoleon Hill
With comedy, you have no place to go but more comedy, so you’re never off the hook.
- Steve Martin
Psychological despotism, whether enlightened or not, is gross misuse of psychology. The main purpose of psychology is to acquire insight into, and mastery of, oneself. Not for nothing were what we now call the behavioral sciences originally called the moral sciences and “Know thyself” their main precept. To use psychology to control, dominate, and manipulate others is self-destructive abuse of knowledge. It is also a particularly repugnant form of tyranny.
- Peter Drucker
The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires.
- William Arthur Ward
Ultimately, the goal of any public relations campaign is to either reorient or solidify the perception of a product, client, policy or event. From there nature takes its course. If the public perceives the product as good, the movie stars as sexy, the pet rock as indispensable, then the public will fork over its money. One will succeed in a P.R. campaign only if the perception fostered truly resonates with the public. People respect wisdom but obey pain.
- Michael Levine
I like to take every day just searching my own heart, making sure that I’m on course, and I’m doing what God wants me to do. I’m real good with not looking to the critics and looking straight ahead.
- Joel Olsteen
My foundations support people in the country who care about an open society. It’s their work that I’m supporting. So it’s not me doing it. But I can empower them. I can support them, and I can help them.
- George Soros
Look back in forgiveness, forward in hope, down in compassion, and up with gratitude.
- Zig Ziglar
We think of Starbucks not as a coffee company but a media company.
- Howard Schultz
Letting the wrong people hang around is unfair to all the right people, as they inevitably find themselves compensating for the inadequacies of the wrong people. Worse, it can drive away the best people. Strong performers are intrinsically motivated by performance, and when they see their efforts impeded by carrying extra weight, they eventually become frustrated.
- James C. Collins
So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you.
- Matthew 7:12
There would be no advantage to be gained by sowing a field of wheat if the harvest did not return more than was sown.
- Napoleon Hill
Up until the time I was 14 years old, I was sure that I was going to be a big-league baseball player. But that dream came to a rude awakening when I got cut from my high school baseball team.
- Phil Knight
So we really need jobs now. We have to take jobs away from other countries because other countries are taking our jobs. There is practically not a country that does business with the United States that isn’t making – let’s call it a very big profit. I mean China is going to make $300 billion on us at least this year.
- Donald Trump
Happiness is a Choice.
- Joel Olsteen
If you know the enemy and know yourself you need not fear the results of a hundred battles.
- Sun Tzu
When you cease to dream you cease to live.
- Malcolm Forbes
To integrate the new information into your existing network, you need to do three things: prioritize, organize and follow up on your contacts. You will follow your own inclinations, preferences and criteria for accomplishing each of these tasks, but the end result of your efforts should always be to strengthen, extend and enhance the effectiveness of your network of contacts.
- Ivan Misner
Times and conditions change so rapidly that we must keep our aim constantly focused on the future.
- Walt Disney
Japanese tend to put sales and market share first. They make many products with the aim of raising sales. But then profits decline, and companies find themselves falling into debt… I changed the mindset at Canon by getting people to realize that profits come first.
- Fujio Mitarai
Establish late-payment penalties as part of your terms and conditions and enforce them.
- Robert Kiyosaki
There is a real magic in enthusiasm. It spells the difference between mediocrity and accomplishment.
- Norman Vincent Peale
It was really an easy decision for me to be a part of the Lakers. It’s priceless. It is one of the few places where I truly get lost in the joy of the moment of that game. All of the stresses and all the responsibilities are gone.
- Patrick Soon-Shiong
Real integrity is doing the right thing, knowing that nobody’s going to know whether you did it or not.
- Oprah Winfrey
What options expensing will determine is job creation and job loss, … This is why we are debating it so strongly and I’m proud to champion it.
- John Chambers
The most interesting thing about a postage stamp is the persistence with which it sticks to its job.
- Napoleon Hill
You have to be pretty driven to make it happen. Otherwise, you will just make yourself miserable.
- Elon Musk
All the great things are simple, and many can be expressed in a single word: freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope.
- Winston Churchill
You were given the choice between war and dishonour. You chose dishonour, and you will have war. – To Neville Chamberlain
- Winston Churchill
Winelibrary.tv was about building personal brand equity. It was a business move. Now, it was totally surrounded by a passion for wine, but I very much gave a lot of thought to doing a sports-video blog instead.
- Gary Vaynerchuk
[As a child] I would just question things…
- Elon Musk
People who don’t take risks generally make about two big mistakes a year. People who do take risks generally make about two big mistakes a year.
- Peter Drucker
The engineer’s grail is a product great enough that “it sells itself.
- Peter Thiel
To enjoy life, you don’t need fancy nonsense, but you do need to control your time and realize that most things just aren’t as serious as you make them out to be.
- Timothy Ferriss
Hong Kong has, throughout it’s history, experienced periods of uncertainties… I believe that the virtues of Hong Kong people – diligent, flexible and entrepreneurial – will once again overcome the obstacles before us.
- Cheng Yu-tung
Apple has a complex suite of proprietary technologies, both in hardware (like superior touchscreen materials) and software (like touchscreen interfaces purpose-designed for specific materials).
- Peter Thiel
The most fundamental reason that even businesspeople underestimate the importance of sales is the systematic effort to hide it at every level of every field in a world secretly driven by it.
- Peter Thiel
If you can’t sleep, then get up and do something instead of lying there worrying. It’s the worry that gets you, not the lack of sleep.
- Dale Carnegie
