Notable Quotables

Service for the Right Reasons: To Save the Whales, or Kill Them and Feed the Children? Morality is simply the attitude we adopt toward people we personally dislike.

- Oscar Wilde

I’m personally a moderate and a registered independent, so I’m not strongly Democratic or strongly Republican.

- Elon Musk

Organizations that achieve both market and operating focus are nearly unbeatable Customers don’t buy products or services. They buy results. They were designed to break what Schlesinger and his colleagues called the cycle of failure practiced by many of Au Bon Pain’s competitors who paid their employees and managers low wages, offered them little training and other support, and suffered high turnover of employees and limited customer loyalty as a result.

- James L. Heskett, W. Earl Sasser and Leonard

It’s easier for investors and bosses to spend time and money going after a proven market, even though proven markets are the hardest to break into.

- Seth Godin

If you do build a great experience, customers tell each other about that. Word of mouth is very powerful.

- Jeff Bezos

God, You said You would restore health unto me and heal me of my wounds. You said I would live and not die. You said what is impossible with men is possible with God. When you pray.

- Joel Olsteen

No one’s going to be able to operate without a grounding in the basic sciences. Language would be helpful, although English is becoming increasingly international. And travel. You have to have a global attitude.

- Rupert Murdoch

One of the first things you learn when you run an engineering organization is that a good quality assurance organization cannot build a high-quality product, but it can tell you when the development team builds a low quality product. Similarly, a high quality human resources organization cannot make you a well-managed company with a great culture, but it can tell you when you and your managers are not getting the job done.

- Ben Horowitz

What makes a startup employee instantly distinguishable to outsiders is the branded T-shirt or hoodie that makes him look the same as his co-workers. The startup uniform encapsulates a simple but essential principle: everyone at your company should be different in the same way—a tribe of like-minded people fiercely devoted to the company’s mission.

- Peter Thiel

I’ve known entrepreneurs who were not great salespeople, or didn’t know how to code, or were not particularly charismatic leaders. But I don’t know of any entrepreneurs who have achieved any level of success without persistence and determination.

- Harvey Mackay

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

The companies that work are the ones that people really care about and have a vision for the world so do something you like.

- Mark Zuckerberg

We always live in an uncertain world. What is certain is that the United States will go forward over time.

- Warren Buffett

I hope you will take good care of your health, this is religious duty, and you can accomplish so much for the world if you keep well and strong.

- John D. Rockefeller

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

- Peter Thiel

We may not always agree with every one of our neighbors. That’s life. And it’s part of living in such a diverse and dense city. But we also recognize that part of being a New Yorker is living with your neighbors in mutual respect and tolerance. It was exactly that spirit of openness and acceptance that was attacked on 9/11, 2001.

- Michael Bloomberg

I believe in Las Vegas. I think its best days are ahead of it. But I’m afraid to do anything in the current political environment in the United States.

- Stephen Wynn

Is it really necessary to work like a slave to live like a millionaire?

- Timothy Ferriss

People are more likely to accept an order if they have had a part in the decision that caused the order to be issued.

- Dale Carnegie

Whatever you may think of the proposed mosque and community center, lost in the heat of the debate has been a basic question: Should government attempt to deny private citizens the right to build a house of worship on private property based on their particular religion?

- Michael Bloomberg

And once the storm is over, you won’t remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won’t even be sure, whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm, you won’t be the same person who walked in. That’s what this storm’s all about.

- Haruki Murakami

After my death, I want to be remembered as Africa’s greatest industrialist.

- Aliko Dangote

While 9:00 to 5:00 and what happens in the job is important… what happens from 5:00 – 9:00 while you’re off the job is INFINITELY more important.

- Zig Ziglar

I’ve talked to nearly 30,000 people on this show, and all 30,000 had one thing in common: They all wanted validation…I would tell you that every single person you will ever meet shares that common desire.

- Oprah Winfrey

I’m skeptical that the novel will be ‘re-invented.’

- Jeff Bezos

My motivation for all my companies has been to be involved in something that I thought would have a significant impact on the world.

- Elon Musk

Building solid relationships in business is about helping others succeed and moving their efforts forward. This benefits both parties. Relationships are built easily, naturally, and profitably when you focus on helping the other party…

- 2014)

You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backward. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.

- Steve Jobs

Gratitude is the healthiest of all human emotions. The more you express gratitude for what you have, the more likely you will have even more to express gratitude for.

- Zig Ziglar

The successful leader must be in sympathy with his followers. Moreover, he must understand them and their problems.

- Napoleon Hill

Some think that it is cruel or brutal to remove the bottom 10 percent of our people. It isn’t. It’s just the opposite. What I think is brutal and false kindness is keeping people around who aren’t going to grow and prosper. There’s no cruelty like waiting and telling people late into their careers that they don’t belong – just when the options are limited and they’re putting their children through college or paying off big mortgages.

- Jack Welch

What do you need to start a business? Three simple things: know your product better than anyone, know your customer, and have a burning desire to succeed.

- Dave Thomas

We see no major changes in that model for the next several years. In fact, we are more optimistic about Cisco’s position and opportunities in both the enterprise and service provider markets than at any point in the last several years.

- John Chambers

My first transistor radio was the heart of my gadget love today. It fit in my hand and brought me a world of music 24 / 7.

- Steve Wozniak

I am a former sabre fencer and fenced as part of the Uzbek republic team.

- Alisher Usmanov

Great achievers are driven, not so much by the pursuit of success, but by the fear of failure.

- Larry Ellison

You do not get what you want. You get what you negotiate.

- Harvey Mackay

All labor that uplifts humanity has dignity and importance and should be undertaken with painstaking excellence.

- Martin Luther King Jr.

Motivation needs to be a part of your own life for you to be effective in conveying it to other people.

- Zig Ziglar

The competitive advantages the marketplace demands is someone more human, connected, and mature. Someone with passion and energy, capable of seeing things as they are and negotiating multiple priorities as she makes useful decisions without angst. Flexible in the face of change, resilient in the face of confusion. All of these attributes are choices, not talents, and all of them are available to you.

- Seth Godin

Well, no one gives aid to Zimbabwe through the Mugabe government.

- Bill Gates

Nothing tells in the long run like a good judgment, and no sound judgment can remain with the man whose mind is disturbed by the mercurial changes of the stock exchange. It places him under an influence akin to intoxication. What is not, he sees, and what he sees, is not.

- Andrew Carnegie

Incineration does not equal human digestion, eating a fireplace log will not store the same number of calories as burning one will produce.

- Timothy Ferriss

Commit to your business. Believe in it more than anybody else.

- Sam Walton

Employee loyalty begins with employer loyalty. Your employees should know that if they do the job they were hired to do with a reasonable amount of competence and efficiency, you will support them.

- Harvey Mackay

We have to realize that our lives could be gone in a moment. There are no guarantees that we will be here at this time next year. Learn to live each day to the fullest. Don’t complain. Don’t focus on what’s wrong. Be grateful for the opportunity to experience each day.

- Joel Olsteen

There is no substitute for hard work. There is no such thing as overnight success or easy money.

- Henry Sy

Despite incessant dissappointment, he doggedly pursued a position. Each morning, he left his boardinghouse at eight o’ clock, clothed in a dark suit with a high collar and black tie, to make his rounds of appointed firms. This grimly determined trek went on each day, six days per week for six consecutive weeks, until late in the afternoon. The streets were so hot and hard that he grew footsore from pacing them. His perseverance surely owed something to his desire to end his reliance upon his fickle father. At one point, Bill (his father) suggested that if John didn’t find work he might have to return to the country; the thought of such dependence upon his father made a cold chill run down his spine, Rockefeller later said. Because he approached his job hunt devoid of any doubt or self-pity, he could stare down discouragement. I was working every day at my business –the business of looking for work. I put in my full time at this everyday. He was a confirmed exponent of positive thinking. With almost thirty thousand inhabitants, Cleveland was a boom town that would have thrilled any young man avid for business experience. It had drawn many transplants from New England who had brought along the Puritan mores and Yankee trading culture of their old hometowns. While the streets were largely unpaved and the town lacked a sewage system, Cleveland was expanding rapidly, with immigrants pouring in from Germany and England as well as the Eastern seaboard. The plenty if the Midwest passed through the commercial crossroads of the Western Reserve: coal from Pennsylvania and West Virginia, iron ore from around Lake Superior, salt from Michigan, grain and corn from the plains states. As a port on Lake Erie and the Ohio Canal, Clevelend was a natural hub for transportation networks. When the Cleveland Colombus and Cincinatti Railroad arrived in 1951, it created excellent opportunities for transport by both water and rail, and nobody would more brilliantly exploit these options than John D. Rockefeller. For all the thriving waterfront commerce, the job prospects were momentarily bleak. No one wanted a boy, and very few showed any overwhelming anxiety to talk with me on the subject, said Rockefeller. When he exhausted his list he simply started over from the top and visited several firms two or three times. Another boy might have been crestfallen, but Rockefeller was the sort of stubborn person who only grew more determined with rejection.Then, on the morning of September 26th 1855, he walked into the offices of Hewitt & Tuttle, commission merchants and produce shippers on Mervin Street. He was interviewed by Henry B. Tuttle, the junior partner, who needed help with his books and asked him to return after lunch. Ecstatic, Rockefeller walked with restraint from the office, but when he got downstairs and rounded the corner he skipped down the street in pure joy. Even as an elderly man, he a saw the moment as endowed with high drama: All my future seemed to hinge on that day: and I often tremble when I ask myself the question: What if I had not got the job?In a fever of anxiety, Rockefeller awaited until the noonday meal was over, then returned to the office, where he was interviewed by senior partner Iasacc L. Newton. Owner of a good deal of Cleveland real estate and a mighty capitalist indeed. After scutinizing the boy’s penmanship, he clared we’ll give you a chance. They were evidently in urgent need of an assistant bookkeeper, since they told Rockefeller to hang up his coat and go straight to work without any mention of wages. In those days, it wasn’t unusual for an adolescent to serve an unpaid apprenticeship, and it was three months before John received his first humble retroactive pay. For the rest of his life he would honor September 26th as JOB DAY and celebrate it with more genuine brio than his birthday. One is tempted to say that his real life began on that day, that he was born again in business as he would be in the Erie Street Baptist Mission Church. All the latent dynamism that had been dormant during his country youth would now quicken into robust, startling life in the business world. He was finally liberated from Big Bill (his father), the endless flight from town to town, the whole crazy upside-down world of his boyhood.

- Ron Chernow

You must go through the process before you get the product.

- Paul Pressey

I believe that greatest things happen only when you give others the credit. That’s the law of EMPOWERMENT in action.

- Napoleon Hill

This was a decision we reached after a number of years speaking to the human rights groups, and specifically people who really cared about China on human rights. I understand why other people might have other views.

- Sergey Brin

A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.

- Winston Churchill

I’m not a tech guy. I’m looking at the technology with the eyes of my customers, normal people’s eyes.

- Jack Ma

Being an artist isn’t a genetic disposition or a specific talent. It’s an attitude we can all adopt. It’s a hunger to seize new ground, make connections, and work without a map. If you do those things, you’re an artist.

- Seth Godin

It’s our obligation to use the law to the furthest possible means to protect our users’ privacy. It’s just a legal and ethical principle.

- Sergey Brin

If you want enemies, excel your friends; but if you want friends, let your friends excel you.

- Dale Carnegie

When someone does a small task beautifully, their whole environment is affected by it.

- Jerry Seinfeld

Would you like me to give you a formula for success? It’s quite simple, really. Double your rate of failure.

- Thomas J Watson

You shouldn’t do things differently just because they’re different. They need to be… better.

- Elon Musk

I DECLARE breakthroughs are coming in my life, sudden bursts of God’s goodness. Not a trickle. Not a stream. But a flood of God’s power. A flood of healing. A flood of wisdom. A flood of favor. I am a breakthrough person and I choose to live breakthrough minded. I am expecting God to overwhelm me with His goodness and amaze me with His favor. This is my declaration.

- Joel Olsteen

Your weapons, you will not need them.

- Yoda

No man can succeed in a line of endeavor which he does not like.

- Napoleon Hill

Last I looked – and I’m not a candidate – but last time I checked reading about the Constitution, the Electoral College has nothing to do with parties, has absolutely nothing to do with parties. It’s most states are winners take all.

- Michael Bloomberg

Software substitution, whether it’s for drivers or waiters or nurses – it’s progressing. Technology over time will reduce demand for jobs, particularly at the lower end of skill set.

- Bill Gates

I’ve always been fascinated by cities and how they work. And I taught myself how to program so I can understand how the city works.

- Jack Dorsey

I know Bo Xilai well. But our relationship was based on our work, we didn’t have a personal relationship.

- Wang Jianlin

If you don’t love what you’re doing with unbridled passion and enthusiasm, you’re not going to succeed when you hit obstacles.

- Howard Schultz

Success is one thing you can’t pay for. You buy it on the installment plan and make payments every day.

- Zig Ziglar

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

- Robert Kiyosaki

I could’ve just walked away but I never could have forgiven myself to allow Starbucks to drift into mediocrity or not be relevant. I just couldn’t be a bystander.

- Howard Schultz

People ask me what’s the most important function when you’re starting an organization or setting up the kind of culture and values that are going to endure. The discipline I believe so strongly in is H.R., and its the last discipline that gets funded.

- Howard Schultz

The most valuable thing you can make is a mistake- you can’t learn anything from being perfect.

- Adam Osborne

The opposite of love is indifference, and the opposite of happiness is boredom.

- Timothy Ferriss

Listen, son: I am saying this as you lie asleep, one little paw crumpled under your cheek and the blond curls stickily wet on your damp forehead. I have stolen into your room alone. Just a few minutes ago, as I sat reading my paper in the library, a stifling wave of remorse swept over me. Guiltily I came to your bedside. There are the things I was thinking, son: I had been cross to you. I scolded you as you were dressing for school because you gave your face merely a dab with a towel. I took you to task for not cleaning your shoes. I called out angrily when you threw some of your things on the floor. At breakfast I found fault, too. You spilled things. You gulped down your food. You put your elbows on the table. You spread butter too thick on your bread. And as you started off to play and I made for my train, you turned and waved a hand and called, ‘Goodbye, Daddy!’ and I frowned, and said in reply, ‘Hold your shoulders back!’ Then it began all over again in the late afternoon. As I came up the road I spied you, down on your knees, playing marbles. There were holes in your stockings. I humiliated you before your boyfriends by marching you ahead of me to the house. Stockings were expensive – and if you had to buy them you would be more careful! Imagine that, son, from a father! Do you remember, later, when I was reading in the library, how you came in timidly, with a sort of hurt look in your eyes? When I glanced up over my paper, impatient at the interruption, you hesitated at the door. ‘What is it you want?’ I snapped. You said nothing, but ran across in one tempestuous plunge, and threw your arms around my neck and kissed me, and your small arms tightened with an affection that God had set blooming in your heart and which even neglect could not wither. And then you were gone, pattering up the stairs. Well, son, it was shortly afterwards that my paper slipped from my hands and a terrible sickening fear came over me. What has habit been doing to me? The habit of finding fault, of reprimanding – this was my reward to you for being a boy. It was not that I did not love you; it was that I expected too much of youth. I was measuring you by the yardstick of my own years. And there was so much that was good and fine and true in your character. The little heart of you was as big as the dawn itself over the wide hills. This was shown by your spontaneous impulse to rush in and kiss me good night. Nothing else matters tonight, son. I have come to your bedside in the darkness, and I have knelt there, ashamed! It is a feeble atonement; I know you would not understand these things if I told them to you during your waking hours. But tomorrow I will be a real daddy! 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!’ I am afraid I have visualized you as a man. Yet as I see you now, son, crumpled and weary in your cot, I see that you are still a baby. Yesterday you were in your mother’s arms, your head on her shoulder. I have asked too much, too much. 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

The U.S. Treasury prints “In God We Trust” on the dollar, the ECB might as well print “Kick the Can Down the Road” on the euro.

- Peter Thiel

Founding Fathers of U.S. set up processes, checks and balances designed to insure that their values lived on long after their passing.

- Jim Collins

[Introducing himself to Sony co-founder Akio Morita] I have six of your TVs in my house.

- Phil Knight

In a position to be more accommodating. There are some lights at the end of the tunnel. If political leaders in Europe can put things in order, things will be better. These days, much relies on politics.

- Lee Shau Kee

In short, I conceive that a great part of the miseries of mankind are brought upon them by the false estimates they have made of the value of things, and by their giving too much for their whistles.

- Dale Carnegie

My dream was to set up my own e-commerce company. In 1999, I gathered 18 people in my apartment and spoke to them for two hours about my vision. Everyone put their money on the table, and that got us $60,000 to start Alibaba. I wanted to have a global company, so I chose a global name.

- Jack Ma

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