Notable Quotables

People are using Windows PCs more than they watch TV now.

- Bill Gates

Often any decision, even the wrong decision, is better than no decision.

- Ben Horowitz

For the first time in a very long time, I believe the external factors are slowly starting to be more positive, … This is still a minority view, held by a minority of our customers, but we’ve seen early indications that the recovery could be gaining momentum.

- John Chambers

If you think your people are negative, then you had better check your attitude. Who you are is who you attract. This is the LAW of Magnetism.

- John Maxwell

You are at the top when: You have made friends with your past, are focused on the present, and are optimistic about your future.

- Zig Ziglar

Hope is the power that gives a person the confidence to step out and try.

- Zig Ziglar

Let me remind everyone in this room that we are not changing guidance.

- John Chambers

Think twice before you speak, because your words and influence will plant the seed of either success or failure in the mind of another.

- Napoleon Hill

A great business is seldom if ever built up, except on lines of the strictest integrity. A reputation for cuteness and sharp dealing is fatal in great affairs. Not the letter of the law, but the spirit, must be the rule. The standard of commercial morality is now very high. A mistake made by any one in favor of the firm is corrected as promptly as if the error were in favor of the other party. It is essential to permanent success that a house should obtain a reputation for being governed by what is fair rather that what is merely legal. A rule which is adpoted and adhered to has given greater returns than one would believe possible, namely; always give the other party the benefit of the doubt. This course does not apply to the speculative class (the stock market). An entirely different atmosphere pervades that world. Men are only gamblers there. Stock gambling and honorable business are incompatible. In recent years it must be admitted that the old fashioned banker, like Julius S. Morgan of London has become rare.

- Andrew Carnegie

We sleep safely at night because rough men stand ready to visit violence on those who would harm us.

- Winston Churchill

You can’t win an argument. You can’t because if you lose it, you lose it; and if you win it, you lose it.

- Dale Carnegie

Helping convene global stakeholders to establish a set of measurable, actionable and consensus-built goals focused on extreme poverty is invaluable.

- Bill Gates

The fatal temptation is to describe your market extremely narrowly so that you dominate it by definition.

- Peter Thiel

I consider my ability to arouse enthusiasm among my people,” said Schwab, the greatest asset I possess, and the way to develop the best that is in a person is by appreciation and encouragement. There is nothing else that so kills the ambitions of a person as criticisms from superiors.

- Dale Carnegie

A nation or civilization that continues to produce soft-minded men purchases its own spiritual death on the installment plan.

- Martin Luther King Jr.

This is a strange Christmas Eve,”Churchill told the the crowd of several hundred gathered at the mansion’s garden.”Almost the whole world is locked in deadly struggle, and with the most terrible weapons which science can devise the nations advance upon each other.

- Winston Churchill

If Jesus were here today, he wouldn’t be riding around on a donkey. He’d be taking a plane, he’d be using the media.

- Joel Olsteen

In the confrontation between the stream and the rock, the stream always wins – not through strength, but through persistence.

- Buddha

I learned that a long walk and calm conversation are an incredible combination if you want to build a bridge.

- Seth Godin

Through some strange and powerful principle of mental chemistry which she has never divulged, nature wraps up in the impulse of strong desire, that something which recognizes no such word as impossible, and accepts no such reality as failure.

- Napoleon Hill

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 longer we dwell on our misfortunes, the greater their power to harm us.

- Voltaire

In the long years to come, not only will the people of this island but of the world, wherever the bird of freedom chirps in human hearts, look back to what we’ve done, and they will say ‘do not despair, do not yield…march straightforward.

- Winston Churchill

Google is a small fish in a big pond. We could be swallowed whole at any time. We are not the monopoly that the government is looking for.

- Peter Thiel

Although we can’t predict the future, our orders for the first weeks of this quarter are in line with the expectations we discussed in our fourth quarter earnings call.

- John Chambers

Five hundred years before Christ was born, the Greek philosopher Heraclitus told his students that everything changes except the law of change. He said: You cannot step in the same river twice. The river changes every second; and so does the man who stepped in it. Life is a ceaseless change. The only certainty is today. Why mar the beauty of living today by trying to solve the problems of a future that is shrouded in ceaseless change and uncertainty-a future that no one can possibly foretell?

- Dale Carnegie

I actually thought that it would be a little confusing during the same period of your life to be in one meeting when you’re trying to make money, and then go to another meeting where you’re giving it away. I mean is it gonna erode your ability, you know, to make money? Are you gonna somehow get confused about what you’re trying to do?

- Bill Gates

Patience is a virtue, and I’m learning patience. It’s a tough lesson.

- Elon Musk

I won a Marshall scholarship to read philosophy at Oxford, and what I most wanted to do was strengthen public intellectual culture – I’d write books and essays to help us figure out who we wanted to be.

- Reid Hoffman

Create a vision and personalize it. People need to say, I understand it, I’m excited about it, and I can make it happen.

- David Novak

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

- John C. Maxwell

That’s why I can tell you with confidence that you are coming into greater victories. Enlarge your vision. Take the limits off God. You have not seen your best days. God has victories in your future that will amaze you. He will show up and show out in unusual ways. You may be in a tough time right now, but remember this: The enemy always fights you the hardest when he knows God has something great in store for you.

- Joel Olsteen

we can not prepare for defeat and expect to live a life in Victory.

- Joel Olsteen

Some libertarians say, ‘Well, if people work harder, they can make more money.’ But, you know, my mother is a nurse and I am a venture capitalist. I think no matter how great a nurse she is, she wouldn’t earn a one-thousandth of what I can make, if that.

- Ben Horowitz

I would say this for Montserrat? one of its credit weaknesses is that it’s in a zone that depends greatly on external savings.

- John Chambers

We are beginning to see the benefits of global consolidation.

- Lakshmi Mittal

I don’t have an alarm clock. If someone needs to wake me up, then I have my BlackBerry next to me.

- Mark Zuckerberg

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

- Dale Carnegie

The first thing to recognize is that no startup has time to do optional things.

- Ben Horowitz

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

- Zig Ziglar

You must not ever think that anything is common sense.

- Clay Clark

This could easily end up one of the driest winters ever, unless things switch around.

- Ed Clark

A man convinced against his will Is of the same opinion still.

- Dale Carnegie

We think of Starbucks not as a coffee company but a media company.

- Howard Schultz

Never allow anyone to get between you and your customers and suppliers.

- Jack Welch

Great design = getting people to do what you want.

- Seth Godin

Learning is truly a value, growth for every employee is a real objective, mistakes aren’t always fatal, and there are lots of people around whom you can reach out to for coaching and mentoring.

- Jack Welch

Wally Amos is the classic example of a man who gets up again and again.

- Zig Ziglar

Some of the biggest failures I’ve ever met, are people that have never failed.

- Robert Kiyosaki

People don’t want to believe that technology is broken. Pharmaceuticals, robotics, artificial intelligence, nanotechnology – all these areas where the progress has been a lot more limited than people think. And the question is why.

- Peter Thiel

Lost a planet Master Obi-Wan has. How embarrassing …

- Yoda

Desire is the catalyst that enables a person with average ability to compete and win against others with more natural talent.

- Zig Ziglar

The most “successful” companies seemed to embrace a sort of anti-business model where they lost money as they grew.

- Peter Thiel

Perfect target market for a startup is a small group of particular.

- Peter Thiel

If you are not willing to learn, no one can help you. If you are determined to learn, no one can stop you.

- Zig Ziglar

The Waffle Trainer later became the best-selling training shoe in the United States.

- Phil Knight

One who knows God is going to bless them, despite the fact that they have no idea how to actually raise capital or solve a real problem that people have in exchange for monetary compensation. They love the idea of business ownership, yet fear working, as though doing any actual work or rendering any tangible service or product might ruin their lives on this planet and for eternity.

- Clay Clark

Animation offers a medium of story telling and visual entertainment which can bring pleasure and information to people of all ages everywhere in the world.

- Walt Disney

Always seek out the seed of triumph in every adversity.

- Og Mandino

Always two there are, no more, no less. A master and an apprentice.

- Yoda

I’m going to start these art museums that are basically converted homes, and I have one for modern art, and I have one for 19th century European art, and one for French impressionism. I’ve got Japanese.

- Larry Ellison

It’s insane to me to ask anybody to be what they’re not. Know what you know the best, love the most. That’s always going to be the answer to the thing that you have the best shot at winning at.

- Gary Vaynerchuk

It is always important that we have transparency, that we have shareholder protection. Then again, I think it is important that there are not so many regulations that management can’t make a decision without asking a lawyer whether he can do it.

- Michael Otto

The Arab League tells us to go in and take out Qaddafi. We’ve spent billions of dollars already with respect to the Arab League. Billions of dollars, because they told us to do it. Why aren’t they paying for it? They don’t like Qaddafi, Qaddafi’s been a terrible thorn in their side.

- Donald Trump

I started getting more and more active around immigration reform because this was such a waste of lives, such a waste of potential, such a waste for our country not to have the human capital that we developed – geared toward improving our entire society.

- Laurene Powell Jobs

In general, the apparel industry isn’t about continual process improvement or making the perfect piece of denim; it’s about chasing trends.

- Tadashi Yanai

My parents really wanted me to get out of New York, be exposed to other people, other ways of life.

- Howard Schultz

I believe that if you show people the problems and you show them the solutions they will be moved to act.

- Bill Gates

If we are so contemptibly selfish that we can’t radiate a little happiness and pass on a bit of honest appreciation without trying to get something out of the other person in return – if our souls are no bigger than sour crab apples, we shall meet with the failure we so richly deserve.

- Dale Carnegie

Differentiate yourself! Why are you different? What’s important about you? Why does the customer need you?

- Sara Blakely

Time is the scarcest resource and unless it is managed nothing else can be managed.

- Peter Drucker

We often hear military experts inculcate the doctrine of giving priority to the decisive theatre. There is a lot in this. But in war this principle, like all others, is governed by facts and circumstances; otherwise strategy would be too easy. It would become a drill-book and not an art; it would depend upon rules and not on an instructed and fortunate judgment of the proportions of an ever-changing scene.

- Winston Churchill

Giving feels good, but it’s also good for the bottom line. Charity is a viable growth strategy for a lot ofcompanies. Our customers get excited to be a part of what we’re doing. If you ask anyone wearing Toms how they first heard about us, most won’t mention an advertisement; they’ll say a friend told them our story.

- Blake Mycoskie

If you cannot read all your books, at any rate handle, or as it were, fondle them – peer into them, let them fall open where they will, read from the first sentence that arrests the eye, set them back on the shelves with your own hands, arrange them on your own plan so that if you do not know what is in them, you at least know where they are. Let them be your friends; let them at any rate be your acquaintances. If they cannot enter the circle of your life, do not deny them at least a nod of recognition.

- Winston Churchill

In the early days, anybody with a glue pot and a pair of scissors could get into the shoe business…

- Phil Knight

Although my spelling is still sometimes poor, I have managed to overcome the worst of my difficulties through training myself to concentrate.

- Richard Branson

I cannot remember a moment in my life when I have not felt the love of my family that would have killed for each other – and we still are. x

- Richard Branson

I felt as if I were walking with destiny, and that all my past life had been but a preparation for this hour and for this trial… I thought I knew a good deal about it all, I was sure I should not fail.

- Winston Churchill

There is a good saying to the effect that when a new book appears one should read an old one.

- Winston Churchill

Peter Drucker once observed that the drive for mergers and acquisitions comes less from sound reasoning and more from the fact that doing deals is a much more exciting way to spend your day than doing actual work.

- James C. Collins

All the adversity I’ve had in my life, all my troubles and obstacles, have strengthened me… You may not realize it when it happens, but a kick in the teeth may be the best thing in the world for you.

- Walt Disney

Later these tales would be retold and embellished by the genius of Mallory, Spenser, and Tennyson.

- Winston Churchill

For Roosevelt knew, as all leaders know, that the royal road to a person’s heart is to talk about the things he or she treasures most.

- Dale Carnegie

At the end, the acquisition of wealth is ignoble in the extreme. I assume that you save and long for wealth only as a means of enabling you the better to do some good in your day and generation.

- Andrew Carnegie

A decade and a half ago an ‘Esquire’ magazine reporter, noting our advertising played up the heros as aspects of great atheletes asked the question, who is your hero? My answer was simple. My college track coach and partner, Bill Bowerman. He had won four national championships, coached more sub four minute milers than anyone when he retired. He was the 1972 Olympic coach yet he insisted he was not a track coach. He was a professor of competitive response.

- Phil Knight

When we are harassed and reach the limit of our own strength, many of us then turn in desperation to God-There are no atheists in foxholes. But why wait till we are desperate? Why not renew our strength every day? Why wait even until Sunday? For years I have had the habit of dropping into empty churches on weekday afternoons. When I feel that I am too rushed and hurried to spare a few minutes to think about spiritual things, I say to myself: Wait a minute, Dale Carnegie, wait a minute. Why all the feverish hurry and rush, little man? You need to pause and acquire a little perspective. At such times, I frequently drop into the first church that I find open. Although I am a Protestant, I frequently, on weekday afternoons, drop into St. Patrick’s Cathedral on Fifth Avenue, and remind myself that I’ll be dead in another thirty years, but that the great spiritual truths that all churches teach are eternal. I close my eyes and pray. I find that doing this calms my nerves, rests my body, clarifies my perspective, and helps me revalue my values. May I recommend this practice to you?

- Dale Carnegie

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