Notable Quotables

Success is the doing, not the getting; in the trying, not the triumph. Success is a personal standard, reaching for the highest that is in us, becoming all that we can be. If we do our best, we are a success.

- Zig Ziglar

In poor countries, we still need better ways to measure the effectiveness of the many government workers providing health services. They are the crucial link bringing tools such as vaccines and education to the people who need them most. How well trained are they? Are they showing up to work?

- Bill Gates

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

- Elon Musk

School districts in the US don’t adopt technology very quickly.

- Reed Hastings

When you have exhausted all possibilities, remember this – you haven’t.

- Thomas Edison

Our schools are not teaching students to think. It is astonishing how many young people have difficulty in putting their brains definitely and systematically to work….

- Thomas Edison

We are in the process of creating a group that has a broader business mix, better quality income streams and a stronger balance sheet. In doing so, our risk profile is spread out and we can better explore the growth potential across our five core businesses – property, hotels, infrastructure, services and telecommunications.

- Cheng Yu-tung

Rich is my word for someone who can afford to make choices, who has enough resources to do more than merely survive.

- Seth Godin

I have the favor of God. I can do all things through Christ. I am blessed. I’m strong. I’m healthy.

- Joel Olsteen

The U.S. immigration laws are bad – really, really bad. I’d say treatment of immigrants is one of the greatest injustices done in our government’s name.

- Bill Gates

It’s not time,” “Take it easy,” “Wait and see,” “It’s someone else’s turn” – none of these stalls are appropriate for a leader in search of change. There’s a small price for being too early, but a huge penalty for being too late. The longer you wait to launch an innovation, the less your effort is worth.

- Seth Godin

You will never become a category of one if you run with the pack.

- Seth Godin

In this early period, Rockefeller was a chronic worrier who labored under a great deal of self-imposed stress. Though not versed in the scientific side of refining, he often excercised a direct managerial role in the plant. With fluctuating market conditions, he sometimes needed shipments to New York with great dispatch and personally rushed down to the railroad tracks to motivate the freight handlers. I shall never forget how hungry I was in those days. I stayed out of doors day and night; I ran up and down the tops of freight cars, when necessary; I hurried up the boys.

- Ron Chernow

There is no doubt that as an economy grows in a great way like India has, that you have to step back and change your tax systems, because you start to get more disparities of wealth.

- Bill Gates

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

- Jack Dorsey

With communication technology in general, there’s a kind of certain critical mass of people. Once you get to 15% of the world’s entire population using one communication technology, that’s a big deal. It’s beyond the theoretical at this point. The people who think it’s a fad have probably not been paying that much attention.

- Ben Horowitz

We believe our growth rate indicates that Cisco continues to gain market share against our traditional competitors in most product sectors.

- John Chambers

I think part of the reason we’re successful so far is that originally we didn’t really want to start a business.

- Larry Page

Freedom is only part of the story and half the truth…. That is why I recommend that the Statue of Liberty on the East Coast be supplanted by a Statue of Responsibility on the West Coast.

- Viktor E. Frankl

I think that the economics of book publishing favor hits with long book runs. You make all your money on the last bunch of books, not the first.

- Seth Godin

People at Facebook are fairly used to the press being nice to us or not nice to us.

- Mark Zuckerberg

My goal wasn’t to make a ton of money. It was to build good computers. I only started the company when I realized I could be an engineer forever.

- Steve Wozniak

A person’s success in life can usually be measured by the number of uncomfortable conversations he or she is willing to have.

- Timothy Ferriss

I actually do think you’re seeing this trend towards organizations just caring more about their brand and engaging. And so I think Home Depot will want to humanize itself. I think that’s a lot of why companies are starting blogs, are just giving more insight into what’s going on with them.

- Mark Zuckerberg

Crowded classrooms and half-day sessions are a tragic waste of our greatest national resource – the minds of our children.

- Walt Disney

To me, this is about preserving history and making it available to everyone.

- Sergey Brin

The goal is to be able to live your life the way Michael Jordan played basketball, or Marvin Gaye sang a song. To be able to feel the way you feel when you laugh at a joke, but to feel that way all the time.

- Russell Simmons

I care about our employees more than anybody in my company. I care about my kids, too, but that doesn’t mean I give them everything that they want.

- Charles Ergen

I love technology, and I love science. It’s just always all in the way you use it. So there’s no – you can’t really blame anything on the technology. It’s just the way people use it, and it always has been.

- Steve Martin

It says in Romans 5:17, We are to reign in life as kings.” When God looks at us He doesn’t see us defeated, barely getting by, or just taking the leftover positions. Not at all. God sees you as a king. He sees you as a queen. You have His royal blood flowing through your veins. You and I are supposed to reign in life. Do you know what that word reign means? It means, time in power.” God said we’re to reign how long? In life. That means as long as you’re alive that is your time in power. You don’t have a two-year term like a mayor, a four-year term like a president. Your term is to reign every single day, to be victorious, to rise to new levels, to accomplish great things.

- Joel Olsteen

I have an excellent memory, a most excellent memory.

- Bill Gates

None of us got to where we are alone. Whether the assistance we received was obvious or subtle, acknowledging someone’s help is a big part of understanding the importance of saying thank you.

- Harvey Mackay

If you think you can do a thing or think you can’t do a thing, you’re right.

- Henry Ford

When you go through a disappointment, when you go through a loss, don’t stop on that page. Keep moving forward. There’s another chapter in front of you, but you have to be willing to walk into it.

- Joel Olsteen

Superior sales and distribution by itself can create a monopoly, even with no product differentiation.

- Peter Thiel

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

- Winston Churchill

Mr. Ford’s most rapid strides became noticable from the time he became a personal friend of Thomas A. Edison, and you will begin to understand what the influence of one mind upon another can accomplish.

- Napoleon Hill

We don’t want tradition. We want to live in the present and the only history that is worth a tinker’s dam is the history we make today.

- Henry Ford

You’ve got to visualize where you’re headed and be very clear about it. Take a polaroid picture of where you’re going to be in a few years

- Sara Blakely

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

- Elon Musk

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

I never did anything by accident, nor did any of my inventions come by accident; they came by work.

- Thomas Edison

We think that athletes are human beings and have foibles just like human beings do…

- Phil Knight

The best way a mentor can prepare another leader is to expose him or her to other great people.

- John C. Maxwell

My saddlebags are why Spanx exist! Now that I have a baby I also have a muffin top.

- Sara Blakely

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

Whether it’s eight o’clock in the morning or eight o’clock at night, I always try to greet others before they have a chance to speak to me.

- Zig Ziglar

Consider this: you are today what you believed about yourself yesterday. And you will be tomorrow what you believe about yourself right now.

- Joel Olsteen

Most of the reason we don’t do things is because we’re afraid to fail. I just made a decision one day that I was not going to do things in my life because of fear.

- Sara Blakely

There is no time for ease and comfort. It is the time to dare and endure.

- Winston Churchill

With a population of more than 600 million people, an emerging middle class that is driving strong consumption, and a robust and resilient economy, Southeast Asia presents a compelling growth opportunity for Starbucks.

- Howard Schultz

In a poor organization, on the other hand, people spend much of their time fighting organizational boundaries, infighting, and broken processes. They are not even clear on what their jobs are, so there is no way to know if they are getting the job done or not. In the miracle case that they work ridiculous hours and get the job done, they have no idea what it means for the company or their careers. To make it all much worse and rub salt in the wound, when they finally work up the courage to tell management how fucked-up their situation is, management denies there is a problem, then defends the status quo, then ignores the problem.

- Ben Horowitz

I don’t feel under-taxed in any way at all.

- Jack Welch

We often miss opportunity because it’s dressed in overalls and looks like work.

- Thomas Edison

Starbucks has changed the rules of engagement for the music industry.

- Howard Schultz

First, arouse in the other person an eager want. He who can do this has the whole world with him. He who cannot walks a lonely way.

- Professor Harry A. Overstreet

If your access to health care involves your leaving work and driving somewhere and parking and waiting for a long time, that’s not going to promote healthiness.

- Larry Page

If something is worth doing, it is worth doing right. I take that one step further. You shouldn’t do anything unless you do it right.

- George Foreman

Even if you have a world class idea and want to give it away for the good of humanity, you will have to sell the concept. If you can’t sell it, you’ll be stuck with your idea, poorer for your brilliance and generosity.

- Jerry Vass

The advance of technology is based on making it fit in so that you don’t really even notice it, so it’s part of everyday life.

- Bill Gates

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

I like the idea that one thing leads to another. You can tweet something completely innocuous, and then find yourself going off on a tangent that’s inspired by a response.

- Steve Martin

Russia is not a homogenous country, it’s a very fragmented country.

- Alexei Mordashov

If you love your work, you’ll be out there every day trying to do it the best you possibly can, and pretty soon everybody around will catch the passion from you—like a fever.

- Sam Walton

You’ve probably heard about “first mover advantage”: if you’re the first entrant into a market, you can capture significant market share while competitors scramble to get started. But moving first is a tactic, not a goal. What really matters is generating cash flows in the future, so being the first mover doesn’t do you any good if someone else comes along and unseats you. It’s much better to be the last mover—that is, to make the last great development in a specific market and enjoy years or even decades of monopoly profits. The way to do that is to dominate a small niche and scale up from there, toward your ambitious long-term vision. In this one particular at least, business is like chess. Grandmaster José Raúl Capablanca put it well: to succeed, “you must study the endgame before everything else.

- Peter Thiel

We don’t have the luxury of time. We spend more because of how we live, but it’s important to be with our family and friends.

- Sara Blakely

One of the most tragic things I know about human nature is that all of us tend to put off living. We are all dreaming of some magical rose garden over the horizon—instead of enjoying the roses that are blooming outside our windows today. Why are we such fools—such tragic fools?

- Dale Carnegie

We’re totally legal, like totally legal, and the government is telling us to shut down. And you can either do what they say or you can fight for what you believe.

- Travis Kalanick

Although office rental in Hong Kong recorded a general downward adjustment and the slowdown in the economy in the past financial year brought along its negative impacts on the local retailing and food sectors, the major retail shopping properties owned by the Group were able to maintain an overall occupancy rate of 93% whilst rental levels generally remained steady.

- Lee Shau Kee

One challenge is the Peter Principle. Coined by Dr. Laurence J. Peter and Raymond Hull in their 1969 book of that name, the Peter Principle holds that in a hierarchy, members are promoted so long as they work competently. Sooner or later they are promoted to a position at which they are no longer competent (their “level of incompetence”), and there they remain being unable to earn further promotions.

- Ben Horowitz

The War was decided in the first twenty days of fighting, and all that happened afterwards consisted in battles which, however formidable and devastating, were but desperate and vain appeals against the decision of Fate.

- Winston Churchill

Effort only fully releases its reward after a person refuses to quit.

- Napoleon Hill

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

- Napoleon Hill

Certainly, none of us enjoy going through struggles, but you have to understand that your struggle may be an opportunity for advancement and promotion. The very thing you are fighting against so tenaciously may be the springboard that catapults you to a new level of excellence. Your challenges may become your greatest assets.

- Joel Olsteen

I’m not big on to-do lists. Instead, I use e-mail and desktop folders and my online calendar. So when I walk up to my desk, I can focus on the e-mails I’ve flagged and check the folders that are monitoring particular projects and particular blogs.

- Bill Gates

A third of the people who rush to psychiatrists for help could probably cure themselves if they could only do as Margaret Yates did: get interested in helping others. My idea? No, that is approximately what Carl Jung said. And he ought to know—if anybody does. He said: About one third of my patients are suffering from no clinically definable neurosis, but from the senselessness and emptiness of their lives.” To put it another way, they are trying to thumb a ride through life—and the parade passes them by. So they rush to a psychiatrist with their petty, senseless, useless lives. Having missed the boat, they stand on the wharf, blaming everyone except themselves and demanding that the world cater to their self-centered desires.

- Dale Carnegie

The foundation of success in life is good health: that is the substratum fortune, it is also the basis of happiness. A person cannot accumulate a fortune very well when he is sick.

- P.T. Barnum

At the start of any business, keeping the cash flowing in is the entrepreneur’s most IMPORTANT JOB.

- Robert Kiyosaki

If there’s a problem, we at Wine Library never tell ourselves that once we handle this issue, we’ll never have to deal with the person again. We talk to every single person as though we’re going to wind up sitting next to that person at his or her mother’s house that night for dinner.

- Gary Vaynerchuk

Unless a man enters upon the vocation intended for him by nature, and best suited to his peculiar genius, he cannot succeed. I am glad to believe that the majority of persons do find their right vocation.

- P.T. Barnum

However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results.

- Winston Churchill

I usually describe myself as an engineer. That’s basically what I’ve been doing since I was a kid.

- Elon Musk

I think of L.A. as truly the melting pot. It’s basically a mini-country unto itself.

- Patrick Soon-Shiong

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