Notable Quotables

Chase the vision, not the money; the money will end up following you.

- Tony Hsieh

When one door closes, another opens; but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us.

- Alexander Graham Bell

You need to live in a dome initially, but over time you could terraform Mars to look like Earth and eventually walk around outside without anything on… So it’s a fixer-upper of a planet.

- Elon Musk

Far better to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows not victory, nor defeat.

- James C. Collins

I think that the economics of book publishing favor hits with long book runs. You make all your money on the last bunch of books, not the first.

- Seth Godin

Speakers who talk about what life has taught them never fail to keep the attention of their listeners.

- Dale Carnegie

It’s not always easy to get over some of those bumps in the road, those disillusionments and disappointments. It’s going to take a strong will. Sometimes, it may take courage. Sometimes nothing but faith in God and say, I refuse to be trapped in the past. I’m not going to let the past destroy my future. I’m pressing on. I’m straining forward, knowing that God has great things in store for me.

- Joel Olsteen

Always remember, that I have taken more out of alcohol than alcohol has taken out of me.

- Winston Churchill

We must remember that our children are very much what we make them.

- Dale Carnegie

There’s been so much corruption and so much cronyism in the taxi industry and so much regulatory capture, that if you ask for permission upfront for something that’s already legal, you’ll never get it.

- Travis Kalanick

I don’t feel under-taxed in any way at all.

- Jack Welch

Christmas is the perfect time to celebrate the love of God and family and to create memories that will last forever. Jesus is God’s perfect, indescribable gift. The amazing thing is that not only are we able to receive this gift, but we are able to share it with others on Christmas and every other day of the year.

- Joel Olsteen

The reason is that good management itself was the root cause. Managers played the game the way it was supposed to be played. The very decision-making and resource-allocation processes that are key to the success of established companies are the very processes that reject disruptive technologies: listening carefully to customers; tracking competitors’ actions carefully; and investing resources to design and build higher-performance, higher-quality products that will yield greater profit. These are the reasons why great firms stumbled or failed when confronted with disruptive technological change.

- Clayton M. Christensen

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

I believe that continued strong consumer acceptance of our products at retail and the strengthening of our organization will enable us to manage through the challenges in our U. S. footwear business and lay the foundation for another round of growth.

- Phil Knight

I had already started the learning process by organizing a tour of some of the best companies out there to find out exactly what it was that made them great. I went back to the Partners’ Council and asked them to help me study the best practices of the best companies we could find. We would then use then findings to strengthen our company.

- David Novak

The Loire Valley is grossly underestimated. The prices are fair, and the wines are real.

- Gary Vaynerchuk

The premium single-cup segment is the fastest-growing business within the global coffee industry.

- Howard Schultz

Innovation comes from long-term thinking and iterative execution.

- Reid Hoffman

Publicity is absolutely critical. A good PR story is infinitely more effective than a front page ad.

- Richard Branson

I was not an easy student, and I had to apply myself diligently to prepare my lessons, said Rockefeller, who described himself accurately as reliable but not brilliant.

- John D. Rockefeller

I have thought about some kind of musical involving my music. That would be kind of interesting. I have thought of it in that way, as a creator of something, not so much a performer. So that’s in my head.

- Steve Martin

How much of what you know about business is shaped by mistaken reactions to past mistakes?

- Peter Thiel

You have everything to gain and nothing to lose by trying. Success is achieved and maintained by those who keep trying with a positive mental attitude.

- Napoleon Hill

It has been my observation that most people get ahead during the time that others waste.

- Henry Ford

At 25, I was in the audience of my first professional speaker, Bob Bales. His presentation got my attention. I had never seen anyone having so much fun ‘at work’ and getting paid for it!

- Zig Ziglar

Earn the right to be heard by listening to others. Seek to understand a situation before making judgments about it.

- John C. Maxwell

Remember the proverb of Solomon: “He becometh poor that dealeth with a slack hand; but the hand of the diligent maketh rich.

- P.T. Barnum

Choosing to be positive and having a grateful attitude is going to determine how you’re going to live your life.

- Joel Olsteen

Get the right people on the bus, the wrong people off the bus, and the right people in the right seats.

- Jim Collins

Here lies one who knew how to get around him men who were cleverer than himself.

- Dale Carnegie

Surplus wealth is a sacred trust which its possessor is bound to administer in his lifetime for the good of the community.

- Andrew Carnegie

I support Democrats and Republicans. And I’m telling you that the business community in this company is frightened to death of the weird political philosophy of the President of the United States. And until he’s gone, everybody’s going to be sitting on their thumbs.

- Stephen Wynn

I influence anybody who is able to get through the chaos of my first impression.

- Gary Vaynerchuk

He was contradicting everything he’d taught us about not running sick and making it worse. I knew it was just to make me acknowledge that his word was law, no matter how arbitrary. But that didn’t make it any easier to take. I was so mad I ran a personal record.

- Phil Knight

It was this desire for a feeling of importance that led an uneducated, poverty-stricken grocery clerk to study some law books he found in the bottom of a barrel of household plunder that he had bought for fifty cents. You have probably heard of this grocery clerk. His name was Lincoln.

- Dale Carnegie

I cringe at backstory. Because it never quite explains or gets into some psychological thing that is never quite right and never quite the truth and who knows why someone is some way.

- Steve Martin

I’m not in business to make money for the other guy. I’m in the business to make money for myself.

- Sheldon Adelson

Creative leaders inherently know when rules need to be challenged, and they can see when a more flexible approach should be taken.

- John C. Maxwell

Deciding what not to do is as important as deciding what to do.

- Steve Jobs

I have always believed that if we do well, we must also do something to help others in society.

- Henry Sy

I had a terrible time hiring rich people. It sounds funny, but the problem is when things go wrong they can ask, ‘Why am I doing this?’ You don’t ever want anybody asking that question. You want them to say, ‘I know why I’m doing it, I need the money, let’s go’ or whatever it is that draws them.

- Ben Horowitz

On behalf of the employees of Cisco, we send our deepest sympathy and condolences to all of those affected by Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath, … This has been a crushing blow to the residents of the Gulf Coast and we stand by them, ready to help.

- John Chambers

It’s a libel to say that I use my newspapers to support my other business interests. The fact is, I haven’t got any other business interests.

- Rupert Murdoch

You can turn painful situations around through laughter. If you can find humor in anything, even poverty, you can survive it.

- Bill Cosby

God would not have put a dream in your heart if He had not already given you everything you need to fulfill it.

- Joel Olsteen

A business that makes nothing but money is a poor business.

- Henry Ford

If you think the people you attract could be better, then it’s time for you to improve yourself.

- Napoleon Hill

We’re all working together, that’s the secret.

- Sam Walton

Take a chance! All life is a chance. The man who goes farthest is generally the one who is willing to do and dare.

- Dale Carnegie

And do not suppose that this is the end. This is only the beginning of the reckoning. This is only the first sip, the first foretaste of a bitter cup which will be proffered to us year by year unless by a supreme recovery of moral health and martial vigour, we arise again and take our stand for freedom as in the olden time.

- Winston Churchill

An apology? Bah! Disgusting! Cowardly! Beneath the dignity of any gentleman, however wrong he might be.

- Steve Martin

The business schools reward difficult complex behavior more than simple behavior, but simple behavior is more effective.

- Warren Buffett

I have heard, in such a way as to believe it, of your recently saying that both the army and the Government needed a dictator. Of course, it was not for this, but in spite of it, that I have given you command. Only those generals who gain successes can set up as dictators. What I now ask of you is military success and I will risk the dictatorship.

- Dale Carnegie

This is not the end, this is not even the beginning of the end, this is just perhaps the end of the beginning.

- Winston Churchill

In order to lead a country or a company, you’ve got to get everybody on the same page and you’ve got to be able to have a vision of where you’re going. America can’t have a vision of health care for everybody, green economy, regulations – can’t have a bunch of piece-meal activities. It’s got to have a vision.

- Jack Welch

The only thing worse than training employees and losing them is to not train them and keep them.

- Zig Ziglar

The idea that you encourage companies to take their innovative thinkers and think about the most needy – even beyond the market opportunities – that’s something that appropriately ought to be done.

- Bill Gates

Energy is the essence of life. Every day you decide how you’re going to use it by knowing what you want and what it takes to reach that goal, and by maintaining focus.

- Oprah Winfrey

The mission announces exactly where you are going, and the values describe the behaviors that will get you there.

- Jack Welch

Greatness is not a function of circumstance. Greatness, it turns out, is largely a matter of conscious choice, and discipline.

- James C. Collins

The rumours of the demise of the U.S. manufacturing industry are greatly exaggerated.

- Elon Musk

You don’t need a big close, as many sales reps believe. You risk losing your customer when you save all the good stuff for the end. Keep the customer actively involved throughout your presentation, and watch your results improve.

- Harvey Mackay

The death of my father is probably the biggest thing that I ever faced. Daddy and I were best friends.

- Joel Olsteen

It is hard to realize today that “government” during the American Civil War a hundred years ago meant the merest handful of people. Lincoln’s Secretary of War had fewer than fifty civilian subordinates, most of them not “executives” and policy-makers but telegraph clerks. The entire Washington establishment of the U.S. government in Theodore Roosevelt’s time, around 1900, could be comfortably housed in any one of the government buildings along the Mall today.

- Peter Drucker

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

- Dale Carnegie

I know Bo Xilai well. But our relationship was based on our work, we didn’t have a personal relationship.

- Wang Jianlin

Churchill: The strangling of Bolshevism at its birth would have been an untold blessing to the human race.Mr. Seymour Cocks (Labor Party): “If that had happened we should have lost the 1939 -45 war”.Churchill: No, it would have prevented that war.

- Winston Churchill

Edison failed 10,000 times before he made the electric light. Do not be discouraged if you fail a few times.

- Napoleon Hill

The great football coach John Madden was once asked whether he would tolerate a player like Terrell Owens on his team. Owens was both one of the most talented players in the game and one of the biggest jerks. Madden answered, “If you hold the bus for everyone on the team, then you’ll be so late you’ll miss the game, so you can’t do that. The bus must leave on time. However, sometimes you’ll have a player that’s so good that you hold the bus for him, but only him.

- Ben Horowitz

We can never own property (because of property taxes) we can just control it (by renting it from the government by paying taxes).

- Robert Kiyosaki

To be sure, real differences of opinion existed between the groups. Compared to pro-life participants, pro-choice participants had more favorable personal attitudes toward the pro-choice issues and less favorable attitudes toward the pro-life issues, and vice versa.

- John Chambers

When you live your life in different ways, it makes people around you become uncomfortable. So deal with it. They don’t know what you are going to do.

- Larry Ellison

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

I think if you’re an entrepreneur, you’ve got to dream big and then dream bigger.

- Howard Schultz

For people to be fully committed, they should be properly compensated. Whenever an entrepreneur asks me to invest in his company, I ask him how much he intends to pay himself. A company does better the less it pays the CEO—that’s one of the single clearest patterns I’ve noticed from investing in hundreds of startups. In no case should a CEO of an early-stage, venture-backed startup receive more than $150,000 per year in salary.

- Peter Thiel

I’m not as interested in what you make as I am in what you’re passionate about. What business are you really in?

- Howard Schultz

The Negro needs the white man to free him from his fears. The white man needs the Negro to free him from his guilt.

- Martin Luther King Jr.

We know that if you just were to take the drugs that you were supposed to take for diabetes or hypertension, just take it, as opposed to not take it, we could save $7,000, $3,000 per patient per year.

- Patrick Soon-Shiong

There’s never been a doctor who served many patients who, despite their best efforts, did not lose some of them to death. But they understood that was part of life itself.

- Zig Ziglar

Sometimes even to live is an act of courage.

- Seneca

When I hear people debate the ROI of social media? It makes me remember why so many business fail. Most businesses are not playing the marathon. They’re playing the sprint. They’re not worried about lifetime value and retention. They’re worried about short-term goals.

- Gary Vaynerchuk

If the executive lets the flow of events determine what he does, what he works on, and what he takes seriously, he will fritter himself away “operating.” He may be an excellent man. But he is certain to waste his knowledge and ability and to throw away what little effectiveness he might have achieved. What the executive needs are criteria which enable him to work on the truly important, that is, on contributions and results, even though the criteria are not found in the flow of events.

- Peter Drucker

Nevertheless, in the first years of Standard Oil, Rockefeller regularly toured his facilities and was extremely inquisitive and observant, soaking up information and assiduously quizzing plant superintendants. In his pocket, he carried a little red notebook in which he jotted suggestions or improvements and always followed up on them. He knew the terror inspired by the little red book. More than once I have gone to luncheon with a number of our heads of departments and have seen the sweat out of on the foreheads for some of them when that little red notebook was pulled out.

- Ron Chernow

Rockefeller never clarified why he dropped out of high school around May 1855, just 2 months shy of commencement, excercises on July 16…

- Ron Chernow

I seldom read anything that is not of a factual nature because I want to invest my time wisely in the things that will improve my life. Don’t misunderstand; there is nothing wrong with reading purely for the joy of it. Novels have their place, but biographies of famous men and women contain information that can change lives.

- Zig Ziglar

The spread of online information isn’t just good for charities. It’s also good for donors. You can go to a site like Charity Navigator, which evaluates nonprofits on their financial health as well as the amount of information they share about their work.

- Bill Gates

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