Notable Quotables

I have been up against tough competition all my life. I wouldn’t know how to get along with it.

- Walt Disney

India has the potential to be our biggest market in Asia, bigger than China, in as much as two to five years.

- John Chambers

Value and purpose are about understanding the specific benefits you will help people receive if they receive what you have for them.

- Zig Ziglar

The elevator to success is not running, you must climb the stairs.

- Zig Ziglar

Of course I needed somebody to run my new store, and I didn’t have much money, so I did something that I would do for the rest of my run in the retail business without any shame or embarrassment whatsoever: nose around other people’s stores searching for good talent. That’s when I made my first real hire, the first manager, Willard Walker.

- Sam Walton

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

- Peter Thiel

Connectors understand the necessity of creating value for others. If you want to be in the middle of the action, you must seek ways to enhance the lives of those surrounding you. The best connectors I know are extremely generous with introductions where they make sense. One of my favorite questions is, What are you most excited about right now? From that answer, I know who I can hook that person up with.

- Forbes

The path to the CEO’s office should not be through the CFO’s office, and it should not be through the marketing department. It needs to be through engineering and design.

- Elon Musk

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

The most terrifying phrase in the English language is ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help’

- Ronald Reagan

Ethical decisions ensure that everyone’s best interests are protected. When in doubt, don’t.

- Harvey Mackay

The show business has all phases and grades of dignity, from the exhibition of a monkey to the exposition of that highest art in music or the drama which secures for the gifted artists a world-wide fame princes well might envy.

- P.T. Barnum

To do more for the world than the world does for you – that is success.

- Henry Ford

Do you know the only thing that gives me pleasure? It’s to see my dividends coming in.

- John D. Rockefeller

People have been indoctrinated so completely by their jobs that they don’t want to know how something works, they’re willing to accept that perhaps the laws of nature don’t work as they expect, and by the way, can I have the remote?

- Seth Godin

Don’t waste your energy trying to convince people to understand you. Your time is too valuable to try to prove yourself to people.

- Joel Olsteen

Man, alone, has the power to transform his thoughts into physical reality; man, alone, can dream and make his dreams come true.

- Napoleon Hill

I am a better investor because I am a businessman, and a better businessman because I am an investor.

- Warren Buffett

It is astonishing what an effort it seems to be for many people to put their brains definitely and systematically to work.

- Thomas Edison

Not long ago somebody showed me an article written for a local magazine in 1960. IT was called Success Story of the Year, and it described how we had built up an empire of nine variety stores. Then it quoted me as saying that we probably wouldn’t grow much more because I believed in personally supervising the nine-store group, and I thought any more stores would be unwieldy to manager without additional supervisors. So what the heck happened? How did we ever get to be the largest retailer in the world with a philosophy like that?

- Sam Walton

People think, ‘Jack, you do too much.’

- Jack Ma

This is Day 1 for the Internet and, if we execute well, for Amazon.com. Today, online commerce saves customers money and precious time. Tomorrow, through personalization, online commerce will accelerate the very process of discovery. Amazon.com uses the Internet to create real value for its customers and, by doing so, hopes to create an enduring franchise, even in established and large markets.

- Jeff Bezos

The greatest business people I’ve met are determined to get it right no matter what the cost.

- Michael Gerber

To achieve stable growth, an enterprise must live up to its conviction.

- Cheng Yu-tung

Creating ideas that spread and connecting the disconnected are the two pillars of our new society, and both of them require the posture of the artist.

- Seth Godin

Successful heretics create their own religions….You can recognize the need for faith in your idea, you can find the tribe you need to support you, and yes, you can create a new religion around your faith. Steve Jobs did it on purpose at Apple and Phil Knight is famous for doing it at Nike.

- Seth Godin

What man actually needs is not a tensionless state but rather the striving and struggling for a worthwhile goal, a freely chosen task.

- Viktor E. Frankl

Embrace what you don’t know, especially in the beginning because what you don’t know can become your greatest asset. It ensures that you will be doing things absolutely differently from everybody else.

- Sara Blakely

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

Art isn’t only a painting. Art is anything that’s creative, passionate, and personal. And great art resonates with the viewer, not only with the creator.What makes someone an artist? I don’t think is has anything to do with a paintbrush. There are painters who follow the numbers, or paint billboards, or work in a small village in China, painting reproductions. These folks, while swell people, aren’t artists. On the other hand, Charlie Chaplin was an artist, beyond a doubt. So is Jonathan Ive, who designed the iPod. You can be an artists who works with oil paints or marble, sure. But there are artists who work with numbers, business models, and customer conversations. Art is about intent and communication, not substances.An artists is someone who uses bravery, insight, creativity, and boldness to challenge the status quo. And an artists takes it personally.That’s why Bob Dylan is an artist, but an anonymous corporate hack who dreams up Pop 40 hits on the other side of the glass is merely a marketer. That’s why Tony Hsieh, founder of Zappos, is an artists, while a boiler room of telemarketers is simply a scam.Tom Peters, corporate gadfly and writer, is an artists, even though his readers are businesspeople. He’s an artists because he takes a stand, he takes the work personally, and he doesn’t care if someone disagrees. His art is part of him, and he feels compelled to share it with you because it’s important, not because he expects you to pay him for it.Art is a personal gift that changes the recipient. The medium doesn’t matter. The intent does.Art is a personal act of courage, something one human does that creates change in another.

- Seth Godin

Make a decision. It doesn’t have to be a wise decision or a perfect one. Just make one.

- Seth Godin

Advertising doesn’t exist to make you buy a product right away, it exists to embed subtle impressions that will drive sales later.

- Peter Thiel

It’s the power of the brand. We’ve never formally advertised.

- Sara Blakely

The secret to modern life is finding the measure in time management. I have two kids, career and I travel, and I don’t think my life is any different than most couples. The most valuable commodity now for many people is time and how to parcel that out.

- Hugh Jackman

I will study and prepare myself, and someday the opportunity will come.

- Abraham Lincoln

I am a tightwad. That’s one of the main reasons I completed a long questionnaire for a crispy $1 bill. Why else would I spend two or three hours being personally interviewed by these authors? They paid me $100, $200, or $250. Oh, they made me another offer–to donate in my name the money I earned for my interview to my favorite charity. But I told them, I am my favorite charity.

- Thomas J Stanley

For all of the most important things, the timing always sucks. Waiting for a good time to quit your job? The stars will never align and the traffic lights of life will never all be green at the same time. The universe doesn’t conspire against you, but it doesn’t go out of its way to line up the pins either. Conditions are never perfect. ‘Someday’ is a disease that will take your dreams to the grave with you. Pro and con lists are just as bad. If it’s important to you and you want to do it ‘eventually’, just do it and correct course along the way.

- Timothy Ferriss

My two primary areas of focus have been open-space conservation and education, and I expect those to remain my priorities in the future. The Irvine open space and parklands provide serenity and balance to our unique Orange County lifestyle.

- Donald Bren

No question about it, alot of my attitude towards money stems from growing up during a pretty hardscrabble time in our country’s history: the Great Depression.

- Sam Walton

I like the fact that I can meet anyone now and have a conversation.

- Larry Page

Everyone has the potential to become an encourager. You don’t have to be rich. You don’t have to be a genius. You don’t have to have it all together. All you have to do is care about people and initiate.

- John C. Maxwell

I get great satisfaction from both business and philanthropy.

- Donald Bren

We are pleased to look back at another extremely successful financial year 2014 during which we achieved our targets.

- Elmar Degenhart

Steve Jobs didn’t really set the direction of my Apple I and Apple II designs but he did the more important part of turning them into a product that would change the world. I don’t deny that.

- Steve Wozniak

What information consumes is rather obvious: it consumes the attention of its recipients. Hence, a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention and a need to allocate that attention efficiently among the overabundance of information sources that might consume it.

- Herbert Simon

Everything we did we were setting the tone for the world.

- Steve Wozniak

There are certain things I will automate, but when it comes to quality control, I want to keep a very close eye.

- Timothy Ferriss

When you network, your aim is to meet people who are going places in their lives. You want to meet people who are ahead of you in their careers and in their organizations. You want to meet people you can look up to with pride. You want to meet people who can be friends, guides and mentors.

- Brian Tracy

Only engage in mutually beneficial relationships.

- Clay Clark

I will chum with you, and suffer when you suffer, and laugh when you laugh. I will bite my tongue when impatient words come. I will keep saying as if it were a ritual: He is nothing but a boy — a little boy!

- Dale Carnegie

When you make a TV show, they always say you’re a guest in someone’s home. Online, you’re a guest in someone’s face. So that’s why I try to make it sound and look and feel very inviting and attractive, because I know that I’m in your face.

- Jerry Seinfeld

Profit in business comes from repeat customers; customers that boast about your product and service, and that bring friends with them.

- W. Clement Stone

Most people think the future of the world will be defined by globalization, but the truth is that technology matters more.

- Peter Thiel

In every age there comes a time when a leader must come forward to meet the needs of the hour. Therefore, there is no potential leader who does not have the opportunity to make a positive difference in society.

- Winston Churchill

Most of my job and most of what I do is to mentor people. There are a lot of people I work with that I don’t have investments in.

- Ben Horowitz

Obstacles can’t stop you. Problems can’t stop you. Most of all, other people can’t stop you. Only you can stop you.

- J. Gitomer

It is predicated on the assumption that you dislike what you are doing during the most physically capable years of your life. This is a nonstarter—nothing can justify that sacrifice.

- Timothy Ferriss

The time to look for a new job is when you don’t need one. The time to switch jobs is before it feels comfortable.

- Seth Godin

Instead of condemning people, let’s try to understand them. Let’s try to figure out why they do what they do. That’s a lot more profitable and intriguing than criticism; and it breeds sympathy, tolerance and kindness. To know all is to forgive all.

- Dale Carnegie

So go ahead. Fall down. The world looks different from the ground.

- Oprah Winfrey

When advice is freely given, the receiver is free to use it as he or she sees fit.

- Harvey Mackay

China’s movie industry is growing a lot faster than that of the U.S.

- Wang Jianlin

Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak, courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen.

- Winston Churchill

While there were a number of highlights, it was probably the U.S. that topped the highlight list with strong order growth of approximately 20 percent year over year. This is better order growth than we’ve experienced in the last six quarters in the U.S..

- John Chambers

the major fears of modern man could be boiled down to two things: too much e-mail and getting fat.

- Timothy Ferriss

You walk into a retail store, whatever it is, and if there’s a sense of entertainment and excitement and electricity, you wanna be there.

- Howard Schultz

The Group is rapidly increasing its activities in Mainland China, where it now has projects ranging from landmark commercial developments in the major cities of Beijing and Shanghai to massive residential schemes in the second-tier cities.

- Lee Shau Kee

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

We thought we ought to put that in because it’s the truth but the (like-for-like) number even with those factors taken into account is still very disappointing.

- Simon Wolfson

What tribes are, is a very simple concept that goes back 50 million years. It’s about leading and connecting people and ideas. And it’s something that people have wanted forever.

- Seth Godin

Some people don’t like change, but you need to embrace change if the alternative is disaster.

- Elon Musk

I’ve seen more people fail because of liquor and leverage — leverage being borrowed money. You really don’t need leverage in this world much. If you’re smart, you’re going to make a lot of money without borrowing.

- Warren Buffett

You can make an internet company with 10 people and it can have billions of users. It doesn’t take much capital and it makes a lot of money — a really, really lot of money — so it’s natural for everyone to focus on those kinds of things.

- Larry Page

A good thing to remember is somebody’s got it a lot worse than we do.

- Joel Olsteen

You can’t explain much in 60 seconds, but when you show Michael Jordan, you don’t have to. It’s that simple.

- Phil Knight

There is a winner in you. You were created to be successful, to accomplish your goals, to leave your mark on this generation. You have greatness in you. The key is to get it out.

- Joel Olsteen

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

This isn’t stealing this is standing on the shoulders of giants.

- David Novak

How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. The effects are apparent in many countries. Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live. A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property – either as a child, a wife, or a concubine – must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men. Thousands become the brave and loyal soldiers of the faith: all know how to die but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science, the science against which it had vainly struggled, the civilisation of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilisation of ancient Rome.

- Winston Churchill

When I started Oracle, what I wanted to do was to create an environment where I would enjoy working. That was my primary goal. Sure, I wanted to make a living. I certainly never expected to become rich, certainly not this rich. I mean, rich does not even describe this. This is surreal. And it has nothing to do with money. I mean, you buy clothes with money, and cars. But I really wanted to work with people I enjoyed working with, who I admired and liked.

- Larry Ellison

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

We’re better than the rest of the country but we shouldn’t believe it too much.

- Peter Thiel

Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will.

- Martin Luther King Jr.

Poor sales rather than bad product is the most common cause of failure.

- Peter Thiel

Non-violence leads to the highest ethics, which is the goal of all evolution. Until we stop harming all other living beings, we are still savages.

- Thomas Edison

The task of the leader is to get his people from where they are to where they have not been.

- Henry Kissinger

Most of us don’t invent ideas. We take the best ideas from someone else.

- Sam Walton

Common mission trap for companies: trying to be all things to all people at all times.

- Jack Welch

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