Being able to quit things that don’t work is integral to being a winner.
- Timothy Ferriss
Notable Quotables
[On someone with a new idea.] The first thing is to draw it out, program it, play with it and get other people playing with it so you can get feedback right away… Once you get that feedback you know if it’s something you should pursue and give more of your attention to, or if it’s something you should put on the shelf for another da
- Jack Dorsey
I’ve run into people in my life who were so dramatic; people who are so extreme and so frustrating to be around that you end up thinking about them and talking about them for literally years after your experience with them is over. I’ve had that happen to me, and I’ve seen it happen to other people. I find it fascinating.
- Steve Martin
There’ll always be serendipity involved in discovery.
- Jeff Bezos
It is time to restore the American precept that each individual is accountable for his actions.
- Ronald Reagan
Japanese businesspeople and companies are lacking in individuality.
- Tadashi Yanai
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
The thing about hip-hop is that it’s from the underground, ideas from the underbelly, from people who have mostly been locked out, who have not been recognized.
- Russell Simmons
School districts in the US don’t adopt technology very quickly.
- Reed Hastings
Windows 8 is key to the future, the Surface computer.
- Bill Gates
The 1980s will seem like a walk in the park when compared to new global challenges, where annual productivity increases of 6% may not be enough. A combination of software, brains, and running harder will be needed to bring that percentage up to 8% or 9%.
- Jack Welch
I don’t think of myself as a poor deprived ghetto girl who made good. I think of myself as somebody who from an early age knew I was responsible for myself, and I had to make good, but on a practical level having dealt with being abandoned by your father, being raised by your alcoholic mom and having severe physical disabilities even today, How do you choose to have the right thoughts?
- Oprah Winfrey
My experience of malaria was just taking anti-malarials, which give you strange dreams, because I don’t want to get malaria.
- Bill Gates
[On stopping working and focussing 100% on his company Nike] I was still teaching accounting, but the next year, I told Penny [married in 1968] if we sell $300,000 worth of product, I’m going to go full-time. She was pregnant and a little anxious. We hit $290,000. I said, that ‘s close enough.
- Phil Knight
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
Alibaba is an ecosystem that helps small business to grow.
- Jack Ma
The new information technology… Internet and e-mail… have practically eliminated the physical costs of communications.
- Peter Drucker
We don’t live in a normal world, we live under a power law.
- Peter Thiel
To me, we’re marketing hope.
- Joel Olsteen
In Riyadh, there’s going to be a huge project that will house at least 12,000 units with inhabitants of approximately 150,000 people. It’s like a city within a city.
- Prince Al Waleed Bin Talal Alsaud
You have to come to your closed doors before you get to your open doors… What if you knew you had to go through 32 closed doors before you got to your open door? Well, then you’d come to closed door number eight and you’d think, ‘Great, I got another one out of the way’… Keep moving forward.
- Joel Olsteen
When you have an understanding of how someone else lives, the less likely it is that you conflict with them.
- Jack Dorsey
A fundamentalist is a person who considers whether a fact is acceptable to his religion before he explores it.
- Seth Godin
It’s not manufacturers trying to rip anybody off or anything like that. There’s nobody getting rich writing software that I know of.
- Bill Gates
Start calling yourself healed, happy, whole, blessed, and prosperous. Stop talking to God about how big your mountains are, and start talking to your mountains about how big your God is!
- Joel Olsteen
The problem is not getting rid of fear, but using it properly.
- Zig Ziglar
Fear doesn’t exist anywhere except in the mind.
- Dale Carnegie
Friend, there’s no greater investment in life than in being a people builder. Relationships are more important than our accomplishments.
- Joel Olsteen
There’s no such thing as work-life balance. There are work-life choices, and you make them, and they have consequences.
- Jack Welch
People in any organization are always attached to the obsolete – the things that should have worked but did not, the things that once were productive and no longer are.
- Peter Drucker
Tell your lizard (brain) to shut up.
- Seth Godin
Education isn’t a problem until it serves as a buffer rom the world and a refuge from the risk of failure.
- Seth Godin
To win without risk is to triumph without glory.
- Confucius
All salesmen are actors: their priority is persuasion, not sincerity. That’s why the word “salesman” can be a slur and the used car dealer is our archetype of shadiness. But we only react negatively to awkward, obvious salesmen—that is, the bad ones.
- Peter Thiel
There are some important differences between me and Tony Stark, like I have five kids, so I spend more time going to Disneyland than parties.
- Elon Musk
Make the decision and say, I’m not letting that worry in. I’m done being upset when my plans don’t work out. I’m not letting that stress in.” Negative thoughts will still come to your mind, but you don’t have to let them into your spirit.
- Joel Olsteen
[In February 2011 on Square.] Starting a startup after twitter is so much easier than before.
- Jack Dorsey
Keep a good attitude and do the right thing even when it’s hard. When you do that you are passing the test. And God promises you your marked moments are on their way.
- Joel Olsteen
We will rebuild, renew and remain the capital of the free world.
- Michael Bloomberg
Encouragement and hope are the two most powerful qualities any person can provide to others.
- Zig Ziglar
The thought of my mortality – I think about it a lot. I find it motivating. It can be any time that your number’s up.
- Sara Blakely
You have to learn to follow your heart. You can’t let other people pressure you into being something that you’re not. If you want God’s favor in your life, you must be the person He made you to be, not the person your boss wants you to be, not even the person your parents or your husband wants you to be. You can’t let outside expectations keep you from following your own heart.
- Joel Olsteen
The thing that motivates me is a very common form of motivation. And that is, with other folks counting on me, it’s so easy to be motivated.
- Jeff Bezos
Once you say you’re going to settle for second, that’s what happens to you in life.
- John F. Kennedy
In the years to come, that lure of partnership helped us attract a lot of good managers, but I don’t believe that we ever had one who bought more stock than Willard. And of course he feels pretty good about it today. – Sam Walton (on human resources, hiring, early history of Wal-Mart)
- Sam Walton
The fishing is best where the fewest go, and the collective insecurity of the world makes it easy for people to hit home runs while everyone else is aiming for base hits. There is just less competition for bigger goals.
- Timothy Ferriss
What the Commission is seeking cuts the heart out of the strategic rationale of our deal.
- Jack Welch
I always want to listen to people and receive good criticism, but I just don’t have to answer to them; I have to answer to God.
- Joel Olsteen
Do it, and then you will feel motivated to do it.
- Zig Ziglar
Dell will participate in tablets and all sorts of client devices. Our main business is helping our customers secure, protect their data and access it from any device they want to.
- Michael Dell
You don’t drown by falling into water. You only drown if you stay there.
- Zig Ziglar
Especially in technology, we need revolutionary change, not incremental change.
- Larry Page
Similar to all of you, we would like to see higher growth.
- John Chambers
In between personal sales (salespeople obviously required) and traditional advertising (no salespeople required) there is a dead zone.
- Peter Thiel
I’m from the country and I like it that way.
- Tracy Byrd
The purpose of business is to create and keep a customer.
- Peter Drucker
Backed by our conviction, we remain committed to investing wholeheartedly to improve the people’s living conditions, regardless of all uncertainties.
- Cheng Yu-tung
Our thoughts make us what we are.
- Dale Carnegie
I forgive all personal weaknesses except egomania and pretension.
- Herb Kelleher
You have to keep your goal in mind and never lose sight of it. I envisioned myself winning the heavyweight title for ten years before I actually captured it. If you’re not driven to do your best, you’ll never reach the level of excellence in your life.
- George Foreman
I never worry about action, but only inaction.
- Winston Churchill
Failure is a great teacher, and I have been its student on more than one occasion. – CEO David Novak of Yum! Brands
- David Novak
Possession of Power That Was Not Acquired Through Self Effort.
- Napoleon Hill
But you are the average of the five people you associate with most, so do not underestimate the effects of your pessimistic, unambitious, or disorganized friends. If someone isn’t making you stronger, they’re making you weaker.
- Timothy Ferriss
You cannot consistently perform in a manner which is inconsistent with the way you see yourself.
- Zig Ziglar
We live well below our means. We wear inexpensive suits and drive American-made cars. Only a minority of us drive the current-model-year automobile. Only a minority ever lease our motor vehicles.
- Thomas J Stanley
I’ve been blessed to find people who are smarter than I am, and they help me to execute the vision I have.
- Russell Simmons
Well, Howard Stern has been doing his impression of me for years. It doesn’t really bother me.
- Jerry Seinfeld
Fear itself is quite fear-inducing. Most intelligent people in the world dress it up as something else: optimistic denial.
- Timothy Ferriss
When I look back on all these worries, I remember the story of the old man who said on his deathbed that he had had a lot of trouble in his life, most of which had never happened
- Winston Churchill
Nature is what we know. We do not know the gods of religions. And nature is not kind, or merciful, or loving. If God made me — the fabled God of the three qualities of which I spoke: mercy, kindness, love — He also made the fish I catch and eat. And where do His mercy, kindness, and love for that fish come in? No; nature made us — nature did it all — not the gods of the religions.
- Thomas Edison
If you think back to the beginning of cell phones, laptops or really any new technology, it’s always expensive.
- Elon Musk
Good advertising should give the reader essential facts about the product or company advertised and should do so engagingly without trickery or hogwash.
- Leo Burnett
60% of the bonus was based on financials and 40% on Six Sigma (quality) results.
- Jack Welch
Mudhole? Slimy? My home this is!
- Yoda
I’ve always believed that businesses should be good citizens…
- Phil Knight
Steve Jobs’ ability to focus in on a few things that count, get people who get user interface right, and market things as revolutionary are amazing things.
- Bill Gates
What you are will show in what you do.
- Thomas Edison
[On a company founder.] A founder is not a job, it’s a role, it’s an attitude. And it’s something that can happen again, and again, and again. In fact it has to happen, again and again and again. Otherwise we would not move forward.
- Jack Dorsey
[Luke:] I can’t believe it. [Yoda:] That is why you fail.
- Yoda
Sometimes even to live is an act of courage.
- Seneca
Even though I am nearly deaf, I seem to be gifted with a kind of inner hearing which enables me to detect sounds and noises that the listeners do not perceive.
- Thomas Edison
I had a TV set and a typewriter and that made me think a computer should be laid out like a typewriter with a video screen.
- Steve Wozniak
We are witnessing a seismic change in consumer behavior. That change is being brought about by technology and the access people have to information.
- Howard Schultz
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
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
Be careful not to compromise what you want most for what you want now.
- Zig Ziglar
the only way on earth to influence other people is to talk about what they want and show them how to get it.
- Dale Carnegie
My financial service business is the absolute best thing I have done to empower the poor. I run many charities and fight many political causes, but my financial service company is the greatest gift I’ve given.
- Russell Simmons
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
I had no idea that being your authentic self could make me as rich as I’ve become. If I had, I’d have done it a lot earlier.
- Oprah Winfrey
If you want to be a Millionaire, start with a billion dollars and launch a new airline.
- Richard Branson
We are all worms. But I believe that I am a glow-worm.
- Winston Churchill
No one lives long enough to learn everything they need to learn starting from scratch. To be successful, we absolutely, positively have to find people who have already paid the price to learn the things that we need to learn to achieve our goals.
- Brian Tracy
I can understand wanting to have millions of dollars; there’s a certain freedom, meaningful freedom, that comes with that.
- Bill Gates
People of excellence go the extra mile to do what’s right.
- Joel Olsteen
Why would I spend $5 billion for something in order to wreck it?
- Rupert Murdoch
The problem with New Year’s resolutions – and resolutions to ‘get in better shape’ in general, which are very amorphous – is that people try to adopt too many behavioral changes at once. It doesn’t work. I don’t care if you’re a world-class CEO – you’ll quit.
- Timothy Ferriss
I think it is possible for ordinary people to choose to be extraordinary.
- Elon Musk
There’s 20 companies that I have investments in – some batteries, some solar-thermal, one big nuclear thing. We need hundreds and hundreds of companies like that, so that in a 20-year time frame we really are starting to change the energy infrastructure.
- Bill Gates
