Notable Quotables

A fanatic is one who can’t change his mind and won’t change the subject.

- Winston Churchill

Unfortunately, the highly curious student is a small percentage of the kids.

- Bill Gates

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

Literature is one of the most interesting and significant expressions of humanity.

- P.T. Barnum

Mars is the only place in the solar system where it’s possible for life to become multi-planetarian.

- Elon Musk

The real benefit of having goals is what you become by reaching them.

- Zig Ziglar

It’s all a risk. Always. That’s not true, actually. The only exception: it’s a certainty that there’s risk. The safer you play your plans for the future, the riskier it actually is. That’s because the world is certainly, definitely, and more than possibly changing.

- Seth Godin

I cannot teach him. The boy has no patience.

- Yoda

Rich people have small TVs and big libraries, and poor people have small libraries and big TVs.

- Zig Ziglar

Any product that needs a manual to work is broken.

- Elon Musk

People say that what we are seeking is a meaning for life. I don’t think this is what we’re really seeking. I think what we’re seeking is an experience of being alive.

- Joseph Campbell

The only definition by which America’s best days are behind it is on a purely relative basis.

- Bill Gates

Every monopoly is unique, but they usually share some combination of the following characteristics: proprietary technology, network effects, economies of scale, and branding.

- Peter Thiel

20% of what you do accounts for 80% of your results

- Brian Tracy

Jim Cathcart is one of the brightest, dearest and most comprehensive speakers I know. In this powerful book he will help you discover and express your true self, accelerate your success and improve your quality of life.

- Jack Canfield

I’ve found that luck is quite predictable. If you want more luck, take more chances. Be more active. Show up more often.

- Brian Tracy

We’re all obsessed with ideas because ideas, not products, are the engine of our new economy.

- Seth Godin

In all the difficult decisions that I made through the course of running Loudcloud and Opsware, I never once felt brave. In fact, I often felt scared to death. I never lost those feelings, but after much practice, I learned to ignore them. That learning process might also be called the courage development process.

- Ben Horowitz

The Group recorded totals sales of around 3,300 property units from which approximately HK$6,810 million was generated from sales revenues attributable to the Group.

- Lee Shau Kee

The foundation stones for a balanced success are honesty, character, integrity, faith, love and loyalty.

- Zig Ziglar

Great achievement is usually born of great sacrifice, and is never the result of selfishness.

- Napoleon Hill

I view my role more as trying to set up an environment where the personalitites, creativity and individuality of all the different employees come out and can shine.

- Tony Hsieh

If you can’t be remarkable, perhaps you should consider doing nothing until you can.

- Seth Godin

Team Together / Team Apart means you respect the final decision even if you would do something diffently, and make it happen with positive energy.

- David Novak

Doing the right thing is more important than doing the thing right.

- Peter Drucker

There’s no reason why the future should happen only at Stanford, or in college, or in Silicon Valley.

- Peter Thiel

No matter what any of us has—and how grateful we are for what we have—no one has it all.

- Sheryl Sandberg

In fact, stories only magnify the need to have something remarkable (and honest) to say.

- Seth Godin

Being surrounded by educated people makes democracy stronger, and it benefits our entire economy.

- Seth Godin

Had the people who started Facebook decided to stay at Harvard, they would not have been able to build the company, and by the time they graduated in 2006, that window probably would have come and gone.

- Peter Thiel

Do the hard jobs first. The easy jobs will take care of themselves.

- Dale Carnegie

God can do in a split second what might otherwise take you many years.

- Joel Olsteen

Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.

- Steve Jobs

Sometimes we look back and 10 years from now we think, ‘Boy, those were great old days.’ Well, you know, we’re living in the good old days.

- Joel Olsteen

Be more concerned with your character than with your reputation, for your character is what you are, while your reputation is merely what others think you are.

- Dale Carnegie

Despite incessant dissappointment, he doggedly pursued a position. Each morning, he left his boardinghouse at eight o’ clock, clothed in a dark suit with a high collar and black tie, to make his rounds of appointed firms. This grimly determined trek went on each day, six days per week for six consecutive weeks, until late in the afternoon. The streets were so hot and hard that he grew footsore from pacing them. His perseverance surely owed something to his desire to end his reliance upon his fickle father. At one point, Bill (his father) suggested that if John didn’t find work he might have to return to the country; the thought of such dependence upon his father made a cold chill run down his spine, Rockefeller later said. Because he approached his job hunt devoid of any doubt or self-pity, he could stare down discouragement. I was working every day at my business –the business of looking for work. I put in my full time at this everyday. He was a confirmed exponent of positive thinking. With almost thirty thousand inhabitants, Cleveland was a boom town that would have thrilled any young man avid for business experience. It had drawn many transplants from New England who had brought along the Puritan mores and Yankee trading culture of their old hometowns. While the streets were largely unpaved and the town lacked a sewage system, Cleveland was expanding rapidly, with immigrants pouring in from Germany and England as well as the Eastern seaboard. The plenty if the Midwest passed through the commercial crossroads of the Western Reserve: coal from Pennsylvania and West Virginia, iron ore from around Lake Superior, salt from Michigan, grain and corn from the plains states. As a port on Lake Erie and the Ohio Canal, Clevelend was a natural hub for transportation networks. When the Cleveland Colombus and Cincinatti Railroad arrived in 1951, it created excellent opportunities for transport by both water and rail, and nobody would more brilliantly exploit these options than John D. Rockefeller. For all the thriving waterfront commerce, the job prospects were momentarily bleak. No one wanted a boy, and very few showed any overwhelming anxiety to talk with me on the subject, said Rockefeller. When he exhausted his list he simply started over from the top and visited several firms two or three times. Another boy might have been crestfallen, but Rockefeller was the sort of stubborn person who only grew more determined with rejection.Then, on the morning of September 26th 1855, he walked into the offices of Hewitt & Tuttle, commission merchants and produce shippers on Mervin Street. He was interviewed by Henry B. Tuttle, the junior partner, who needed help with his books and asked him to return after lunch. Ecstatic, Rockefeller walked with restraint from the office, but when he got downstairs and rounded the corner he skipped down the street in pure joy. Even as an elderly man, he a saw the moment as endowed with high drama: All my future seemed to hinge on that day: and I often tremble when I ask myself the question: What if I had not got the job?In a fever of anxiety, Rockefeller awaited until the noonday meal was over, then returned to the office, where he was interviewed by senior partner Iasacc L. Newton. Owner of a good deal of Cleveland real estate and a mighty capitalist indeed. After scutinizing the boy’s penmanship, he clared we’ll give you a chance. They were evidently in urgent need of an assistant bookkeeper, since they told Rockefeller to hang up his coat and go straight to work without any mention of wages. In those days, it wasn’t unusual for an adolescent to serve an unpaid apprenticeship, and it was three months before John received his first humble retroactive pay. For the rest of his life he would honor September 26th as JOB DAY and celebrate it with more genuine brio than his birthday. One is tempted to say that his real life began on that day, that he was born again in business as he would be in the Erie Street Baptist Mission Church. All the latent dynamism that had been dormant during his country youth would now quicken into robust, startling life in the business world. He was finally liberated from Big Bill (his father), the endless flight from town to town, the whole crazy upside-down world of his boyhood.

- Ron Chernow

When you do more than you’re paid for, eventually you’ll be paid for more than you do.

- Zig Ziglar

Some companies out there quote a start of production that is substantially in advance of when customers get their cars.

- Elon Musk

An organization’s ability to learn, and translate that learning into action rapidly, is the ultimate competitive advantage.

- Jack Welch

Be courageous! Whatever setbacks America has encountered, it has always emerged as a stronger and more prosperous nation…. Be brave as your fathers before you. Have faith and go forward!

- Thomas Edison

For the year ended 31 December 2011, the Group sold 325 residential units in Hong Kong, generating attributable sales revenue of HK$8,308 million, a marked increase when compared with HK$4,842 million for the previous financial year.

- Lee Shau Kee

People who do not succeed have one distinguishing trait in common. They know all the reasons for failure, and have what they believe to be air-tight alibis to explain their lack of achievement: 1) If I had the money… 2) If I could get the job… 3) If I had been given a chance… 4) If I were younger… 5) If I were older… 6) If I only had a better education… 7) If I could just save some money… 8) If I lived in a big city… 9) If I were not so fat… 10) If my talents were better known… 11) If I didn’t have a past… 12) If I had my own business… 13) If I had the courage…

- Napoleon Hill

I will love the light for it shows me the way, yet I will endure the darkness for it shows me the stars.

- Og Mandino

It’s hard to say with 100 percent certainty that we’re totally out of it (the dry pattern), and it’s going to shift. But it’s leaning in that direction.

- Ed Clark

[On Twitter] This company is bigger than any individual.

- Jack Dorsey

God can take what was meant for my harm and turn it around and use it to my advantage.

- Joel Olsteen

Give your subconscious a chance to work by turning your brain off from time to time. Don’t focus on work or solving problems constantly.

- Harvey Mackay

We did no designs there, no breadboarding, no prototyping, no planning of products. We did no manufacturing there. The garage didn’t serve much purpose, except it was something for us to feel was our home. We had no money. You have to work out of your home when you have no money.

- Steve Wozniak

I enjoy myself a lot but I derive my joy from working. I believe in hard work and one of my business success secret is hard work.

- Aliko Dangote

The life of a startup is full of ups and downs, an emotional roller coaster ride that you can’t quite imagine if you’ve spent your whole career in a corporation.

- Harvey Mackay

The more we share what’s happening around us, the more we understand how someone lives their life. The greater the understanding we have, the more empathy we have for each other. By and large, that reduces conflicts.

- Jack Dorsey

Well, you have the public not wanting any new spending, you have the Republicans not wanting any new taxes, you have the Democrats not wanting any new spending cuts, you have the markets not wanting any new borrowing, and you have the economists wanting all of the above. And that leads to paralysis.

- Michael Bloomberg

It’s far better to buy a wonderful company at a fair price than a fair company at a wonderful price.

- Warren Buffett

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.

- Dale Carnegie

If you do not believe in your product or service enough to offer it to your own family and friends, then you should question the value of what you are selling.

- Zig Ziglar

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

- Richard Branson

Its easy to have principles when you’re rich. The important thing is to have principles when you’re poor.

- Ray Kroc

The first step is to establish that something is possible, then probability will occur.

- Elon Musk

Every day you may make progress. Every step may be fruitful. Yet there will stretch out before you an ever-lengthening, ever-ascending, ever-improving path. You know you will never get to the end of the journey. But this, so far from discouraging, only adds to the joy and glory of the climb.

- Winston Churchill

Men like a ref decision because they just want to get back to the game.

- Jerry Seinfeld

A few years ago there was a poll in china to name the greatest man ever. The winner was Mao, but there was a tie for second between [revolutionary hero] Zhou Enlai and Michael Jordan of the Chicago Red Oxen!

- Phil Knight

The “non-profit” institution neither supplies goods or services not controls. Its “product” is neither a pair of shoes nor an effective regulation. Its product is a changed human being. The non-profit institutions are human-change agents. Their “product” is a cured patient, a child that learns, a young man or woman grown into a self-respecting adult; a changed human life altogether.

- Peter Drucker

You shouldn’t do things differently just because they’re different. They need to be… better.

- Elon Musk

The Struggle is when you wonder why you started the company in the first place. The Struggle is when people ask you why you don’t quit and you don’t know the answer. The Struggle is when your employees think you are lying and you think they may be right. The Struggle is when food loses its taste. The Struggle is when you don’t believe you should be CEO of your company. The Struggle is when you know that you are in over your head and you know that you cannot be replaced. The Struggle is when everybody thinks you are an idiot, but nobody will fire you. The Struggle is where self-doubt becomes self-hatred. The Struggle is when you are having a conversation with someone and you can’t hear a word that they are saying because all you can hear is the Struggle. The Struggle is when you want the pain to stop. The Struggle is unhappiness. The Struggle is when you go on vacation to feel better and you feel worse. The Struggle is when you are surrounded by people and you are all alone. The Struggle has no mercy. The Struggle is the land of broken promises and crushed dreams. The Struggle is a cold sweat. The Struggle is where your guts boil so much that you feel like you are going to spit blood. The Struggle is not failure, but it causes failure. Especially if you are weak. Always if you are weak. Most people are not strong enough. Every great entrepreneur from Steve Jobs to Mark Zuckerberg went through the Struggle and struggle they did, so you are not alone. But that does not mean that you will make it. You may not make it. That is why it is the Struggle. The Struggle is where greatness comes from.

- Ben Horowitz

The big question is: When will the term structure of interest rates change? That’s the question to be worried about.

- Ray Dalio

And we are never too old to study the Bible. Each time the lessons are studied comes some new meaning, some new thought which will make us better.

- John D. Rockefeller

The six people who had the biggest impact on my life were all women. Had I been sexist, my life would have been far less fulfilling.

- Zig Ziglar

Often the best way to develop workers – when you are sure they have the character and think they have the ability – is to take them to a deep place, throw them in and make them sink or swim.

- John D. Rockefeller

Anyone who has held an iDevice or a smoothly machined MacBook has felt the result of Steve Jobs’s obsession with visual and experiential perfection. But the most important lesson to learn from Jobs has nothing to do with aesthetics. The greatest thing Jobs designed was his business. Apple imagined and executed definite multi-year plans to create new products and distribute them effectively.

- Peter Thiel

The person who has technical knowledge plus the ability to express ideas, to assume leadership, and to arouse enthusiasm among people—that person is headed for higher earning power.

- Dale Carnegie

I find that a duck’s opinion of me is very much influenced over whether or not I have bread

- Mitch Hedberg

Nine out of ten businesses fail, so I came up with a foolproof plan — create ten businesses.

- Robert Kiyosaki

There are a thousand excuses for failure, but never a good reason.

- Mark Twain

God wants to use you in spite of your weaknesses. Of God chose to use perfect people only, He’d have no one to use.

- Joel Olsteen

We sold ‘Seinfeld’ all over the world but it was a very specific kind of show. In some countries it went down really well, in others they hated it.

- Jerry Seinfeld

Starbucks is committed to evolving and enhancing our customer experience with innovative and wholesome food offerings.

- Howard Schultz

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

- Mark Twain

A company can seize extra-ordinary opportunities only if it is very good at the ordinary operations.

- Marcel Herrmann Telles

Seizing new ground, making connections between people or ideas, working without a map—these are works of art, and if you do them, you are an artist, regardless of whether you wear a smock, use a computer, or work with others all day long.

- Seth Godin

I have never met a geologist or leading scientist who believes adding more carbon dioxide to the atmosphere will have any significant effect on climate change.

- Gina Rinehart

Flattery is telling the other person precisely what he thinks about himself.

- Dale Carnegie

Dell’s a company that has changed the IT landscape in making PCs and servers more affordable. There’s enormous opportunities to make IT more accessible to tens of millions of companies, kind of democratizing the ability for companies to gain access to IT.

- Michael Dell

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

That’s an issue dear to my heart, because I was born in the Soviet Union during the communist era.

- Sergey Brin

Niklas Zennstroem has a thorough background as a successful entrepreneur with extensive expertise in areas such as IT and online.

- Stefan Persson

Every failure brings with it the seed of an equivalent benefit.

- Napoleon Hill

No leader enjoys making the tough decision. We constantly faced severe resistence from even the best people in our organization. I’ve struggled with this problem myself and have often been guilty of not being rigorous enough. Every impulse is to look the other way.

- Jack Welch

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