One thing is certain in business. You and everyone around you will make mistakes.
- Richard Branson
Notable Quotables
A lot of the evil in the world is actually not intentional. A lot of people in the financial system did a lot of damage without intending to.
- George Soros
I watch mostly independent films.
- Reed Hastings
One of More of the Six Basic Fears.
- Napoleon Hill
The thing I lose patience with the most is the clock. Its hands move too fast.
- Thomas Edison
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
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
More than trends, consumers need functionality. Everything needs an element of fashion, but that’s more like a spice.
- Tadashi Yanai
If you investigate companies that have failed, you will find that many employees knew about the fatal issues long before those issues killed the company. If the employees knew about the deadly problems, why didn’t they say something? Too often the answer is that the company culture discouraged the spread of bad news, so the knowledge lay dormant until it was too late to act. A healthy company culture encourages people to share bad news. A company that discusses its problems freely and openly can quickly solve them. A company that covers up its problems frustrates everyone involved. The resulting action item for CEOs: Build a culture that rewards—not punishes—people for getting problems into the open where they can be solved.
- Ben Horowitz
Celebrate your successes. Find some humor in your failures
- Sam Walton
As you craft a plan to expand to adjacent markets, don’t disrupt: avoid competition as much as possible.
- Peter Thiel
We shall go on to the end. We shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be. We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender.
- Winston Churchill
It’s disappointing, but it’s still a really good book. I’m glad Kenny did it, and I’m glad it’s going to get out. … I still endorse the book. I think everybody should buy it. I think he did a great job on a very complicated topic.
- Phil Knight
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
In the next decade, I see Spanx going worldwide. Everywhere. No butt left behind. It’s going to be all over the world and it’s going to be an aspirational brand that transcends categories. There’s so many things we can improve upon and make better.
- Sara Blakely
This is no time for ease and comfort. It is time to dare and endure.
- Winston Churchill
For a rich and reasonably successful guy, it is impossible not to enjoy your job; otherwise, why would you spend so much time and effort doing it? I am a great fan of Norilsk, and I like this kind of challenge.
- Vladimir Potanin
The millionaires and billionaires who chose to invest in Australia are actually those who most help the poor and our young. This secret needs to be spread widely.
- Gina Rinehart
Never allow anyone to get between you and your customers and suppliers.
- Jack Welch
Especially in technology, we need revolutionary change, not incremental change.
- Larry Page
God, You said Your favor is not for a season but for a lifetime.
- Joel Olsteen
Driving up the value of the advertising is a big commitment for Microsoft.
- Bill Gates
Emotional labor is the hard work of making art, producing generosity, and exposing creativity. Working without a map involves both vision and the willingness to do something about what you see. Emotional labor is what you get paid to do, and one of the most difficult types of emotional labor is staring into the abyss of choice and picking a path.
- Seth Godin
We’ve got to put a lot of money into changing behavior.
- Bill Gates
The U.S., especially Hollywood, is so strong for film production.
- Wang Jianlin
Know what your brand stands for an exaggerate it in everything you do.
- David Novak
We are pleased to look back at another extremely successful financial year 2014 during which we achieved our targets.
- Elmar Degenhart
You can take from every experience what it has to offer you. And you cannot be defeated if you just keep taking one breath followed by another.
- Oprah Winfrey
My wealth is reflected in the price of Severstal, and the number of shares I have in my possession doesn’t have any impact on the company.
- Alexei Mordashov
Speculation is only a word covering the making of money out of the manipulation of prices, instead of supplying goods and services.
- Henry Ford
Worry is the most significant factor that relates to the root of negative thinking.
- Zig Ziglar
Quality is much better than quantity. One home run is much better than two doubles.
- Steve Jobs
No company has a culture, every company is a culture.
- Peter Thiel
Too often, we have tended to fall into a trap of creating plain hamburgers.
- Tadashi Yanai
The internet is becoming the town square for the global village of tomorrow.
- Bill Gates
If you want to help the poor and our next generation, make investment, reinvestment and businesses welcome.
- Gina Rinehart
I’m glad to see that BMW is bringing an electric car to market. That’s cool.
- Elon Musk
No one ever wants to see his or her name linked to anything bad. Conscience is like a baby. It has to go to sleep before you can.
- Harvey Mackay
The Internet revolution will determine which companies survive and which get left behind, … Increasingly, the Internet is recognized as the key driver in our global economy.
- John Chambers
It’s OK to have your eggs in one basket as long as you control what happens to that basket.
- Elon Musk
When you have one million dollars, you’re a lucky person. When you have 10 million dollars, you’ve got trouble, a lot of headaches. When you have more than one billion dollars, or a hundred million dollars, that’s a responsibility you have – it’s the trust of people on you, because people believe you can spend money better than the others.
- Jack Ma
Any area of achievement in your life required you to stick with the basics until you became great…it’s not about learning 4,000 moves but about doing just a handful of moves 4,000 times.
- Chet Holmes
I think we are living in a time where the consumer has lots of choices, whether it’s coffee, newspapers or whatever it is. And there is parity in the market place, and as a result of that, the consumer is beginning to make decisions, not just on what things cost and the convenience of it.
- Howard Schultz
Faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. HEBREWS 11:1.
- Joel Olsteen
Too often, sales reps simply regurgitate their presentations and expect to land the sale. It doesn’t work.
- Harvey Mackay
Diversification is a protection against ignorance. It makes very little sense for those who know what they’re doing.
- Warren Buffett
Success is never accidental.
- Peter Thiel
Given how few young people actually read the newspaper, it’s a good thing they’ll be reading a newspaper on a screen.
- Bill Gates
Human salvation lies in the hands of the creatively maladjusted.
- Martin Luther King Jr.
Everyone deserves at least a chance to make things better. And besides people can surprise you.
- David Novak
Tomorrow is only found in the calendar of fools.
- Og Mandino
Today, we’re very dependent on cheap energy. We just take it for granted – all the things you have in the house, the way industry works.
- Bill Gates
In the face of challenging economic and market conditions of the past 12 months, our diversified portfolio of multiple earnings streams has served us well.
- Cheng Yu-tung
Pull in your belt, spend less, and reduce debt.
- Ray Dalio
Pick a movement. Pick a revolution. And join it.
- Jack Dorsey
The subject of this book is managing oneself for effectiveness.
- Peter Drucker
You cannot be a leader, and ask other people to follow you, unless you know how to follow, too.
- Sam Rayburn
Forty years ago, Richard Branson, who ultimately founded Virgin Air, found himself in a similar situation in an airport in the Caribbean. They had just canceled his flight, the only flight that day. Instead of freaking out about how essential the flight was, how badly his day was ruined, how his entire career was now in jeopardy, the young Branson walked across the airport to the charter desk and inquired about the cost of chartering a flight out of Puerto Rico. Then he borrowed a portable blackboard and wrote, “Seats to Virgin Islands, $39.” He went back to his gate, sold enough seats to his fellow passengers to completely cover his costs, and made it home on time.
- Seth Godin
Wherever smart people work, doors are unlocked.
- Steve Wozniak
So to hype up PolyGram we placed fake orders for the record into their system by telling retailers and wholesalers to order the 12 inch through PolyGram. PolyGram didn’t own it yet, but we created an appetite for Christmas Rappin that led them to buy it…So in the fall of 1979 Kurtis Blow signed with Mercury Records a division of Polygram Records, making him the first rapper on a major label…Christmas eve 1979 was the first time that I heard Christmas Rappin’ on the radio; I was upstairs at my family’s house. Frankie Crocker the biggest radio DJ in New York played it on WBLS.
- Russell Simmons
Berkshire’s record would have been terrible if Warren didn’t keep learning.
- Charlie Munger
No matter how many times you get knocked down, keep getting back up. God sees your resolve. He sees your determination. And when you do everything you can do, that’s when God will step in and do what you can’t do.
- Joel Olsteen
McDonald’s is a people business, and that smile on that counter girl’s face when she takes your order is a vital part of our image.
- Ray Kroc
Difficult to see. Always in motion is the future..
- Yoda
It is unwise to pay too little. When you pay too much, you lose a little money, that is all. When you pay too little, you sometimes lose everything because the thing you bought was incapable of doing what it was bought to do. The common law of business balance prohibits paying a little and getting a lot . .
- Zig Ziglar
The best way to be missed when you’re gone,Is to stand for something when you’re here.
- Seth Godin
The time has come to act.
- Theodore Roosevelt
Leadership is not about titles, positions or flowcharts. It is about one life influencing another.
- John C. Maxwell
My Golden Rule of Networking is simple: Don’t keep score.
- Harvey Mackay
I think art is the ability to change people with your work, to see things as they are and then create stories, images, and interactions that change the marketplace.
- Seth Godin
I do probably 60 concerts a year in the States. And I go out to clubs in the week. I’m doing new stuff all the time.
- Jerry Seinfeld
Capital isn’t scarce, vision is.
- Sam Walton
You have to be constantly reinventing yourself and investing in the future.
- Reid Hoffman
I actually think that the economy has got some positives. It’s got the market. It’s got consumer confidence and it’s got banks throwing – I mean central bankers throwing money at it around the world.
- Jack Welch
The secret of his success? I will speak ill of no man, and speak all the good I know of everybody.
- Dale Carnegie
But use the opposite technique – be liberal with your encouragement, make the thing seem easy to do, let the other person know that you have faith in his ability to do it, that he has an undeveloped flair for it – and he will practise until the dawn comes in the window in order to excel.
- Dale Carnegie
The main reason I write the daily observations is because I want to know where I’m wrong. So lots of times if somebody points something out it helps me, and I want to have a diversified bet of uncorrelated bets.
- Ray Dalio
In setting goals and executing a strategy, Wanda is sophisticated. We have good systems and departments. If targets are not reached, a yellow light goes off.
- Wang Jianlin
New World Group believes that the desire to change and surmount the status quo will be the key to advancement and progression.
- Cheng Yu-tung
One of the things that school is for is to teach our children to understand and relish the idea of intellectualism, to develop into something more than a purpose-driven tool for the industrial state.
- Seth Godin
As we said, even the best venture investors have a portfolio, but investors who understand the power law make as few investments as possible.
- Peter Thiel
What destroys more self-confidence than any other educational thing in America is being assigned to some remedial math when you get into some college, and then it’s not taught very well and you end up with this sense of, ‘Hey, I can’t really figure those things out.’
- Bill Gates
It’s easier to add things on to a PC than it’s ever been before. It’s one click, and boom, it comes down.
- Bill Gates
Doing the Unrealistic Is Easier Than Doing the Realistic
- Timothy Ferriss
Without promotion, something terrible happens… nothing!
- P.T. Barnum
I’ve worked very hard, but my life’s always been fun.
- Reed Hastings
Because there have been no settlements reached for the securities action with any of the less-involved banks, it is difficult to know what reserves are prudent.
- Ed Clark
Eventually I left City College in my senior year, just four or five credits short of a sociology degree. This really upset my father who thought that I was a fool. Over and over he lectured me that the only way for a black man to make it was to get a degree and a job. For a while there I felt like I was a failure in my father’s eyes, which hurt alot, but promoting felt right in my gut. I knew that to be a man I had to follow my heart. My mother was always more open to Danny, Joey and me pursuing a more non-traditional entrepreneurial way…Early in my promoting career I lost all the money I’d saved on a show in Harlem no one came to. I came out to Hollis and no one would help me. My father just wanted me to go back to school and told me so. What could I say? I had no money. Then my mother went back in the house and came with $2,000 in crisp $100 bills from her personal savings. It was that money that kept me afloat until Kurtis Blow broke and I entered the record business. That act of love and faith, which is what kept me in business at a key time, is my favorite memory of her.
- Russell Simmons
Investing in courage and determination was an easy decision for me.
- Ben Horowitz
If he trips he must be sustained. If he makes mistakes they must be covered. If he sleeps he must not be wantonly disturbed. If he is no good he must be pole-axed.
- Winston Churchill
We’ll make cloud computing announcements because, you know, if orange is the new pink, we’ll make orange blouses. I mean, I’m not gonna fight this thing … well, maybe we’ll do an ad. Uh, I don’t understand what we would do differently in the light of cloud computing, other than market … you know, change the wording on some of our ads.
- Larry Ellison
Through the right people focusing on the right things, we can, in time, get on top of a lot if not most of the problems of this world. And that’s what a number of us are trying to do.
- Richard Branson
I never did anything worth doing by accident, nor did any of my inventions come by accident; they came by work.
- Thomas Edison
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
Your story is a symphony, not a note.
- Seth Godin
Starting a company is a very tough thing. There’s a friend of mine, Bill Lee, whose phrase is ‘starting a company is like staring into the abyss and eating glass.’ So you should certainly expect that it’s going to be very hard. It’s going to be harder than getting a job somewhere by a pretty good margin and the odds of you losing the money that you invested or your friends invested is pretty high. I mean, those are just the basic facts. So if you don’t mind things being really hard and high risk, then starting a company is a good idea. Otherwise, it’s probably unwise. It will certainly stress you out. So I think you have to be pretty driven to make it happen. Otherwise, you will just make yourself miserable.
- Elon Musk
The final relationship that cannot be ignored is with disrupters: They are individuals who cause trouble for sport – inciting opposition to management for a variety of reasons, most of them petty. Usually these people have good performance – that’s their cover – and so they are endured or appeased. A company that manages people well takes disrupters head-on. First they give them very tough evaluations, naming their bad behaviour and demanding it change. Usually it won’t. Disrupters are a personality type. If that’s the case, get them out of the way of people trying to do their jobs. They’re poison.
- Jack Welch
If any of my competitors were drowning, I’d stick a hose in their mouth
- Ray Kroc
I believe life is a series of near misses. A lot of what we ascribe to luck is not luck at all. It’s seizing the day and accepting responsibility for your future. It’s seeing what other people don’t see And pursuing that vision.
- Howard Schultz
God can do in a split second what might otherwise take you many years.
- Joel Olsteen
