Notable Quotables

Investing for the poor requires participation from the entire community.

- Bill Gates

Although personally I am quite content with existing explosives, I feel we must not stand in the path of improvement.

- Winston Churchill

Some people regard private enterprise as a predatory tiger to be shot. Others look on it as a cow they can milk. Not enough people see it as a healthy horse, pulling a sturdy wagon.

- Winston Churchill

When Sam feels a certain way, he is relentless. He will just wear you out. He will bring up an idea, and we’ll discuss it and then decide maybe that it’s not something we should be doing right now or ever. Fine. Case closed. But as long as he is convinced that it is the right thing, it just keep coming up week after week – until finally everybody capitulates and says, well it’s easier to do it than to keep fighting this fight. I guess it could be called management by wearing you down.

- David Glass

…What I have denied and what my reason compels me to deny, is the existence of a Being throned above us as a god, directing our mundane affairs in detail, regarding us as individuals, punishing us, rewarding us as human judges might. When the churches learn to take this rational view of things, when they become true schools of ethics and stop teaching fables, they will be more effective than they are to-day… If they would turn all that ability to teaching this one thing – the fact that honesty is best, that selfishness and lies of any sort must surely fail to produce happiness – they would accomplish actual things. Religious faiths and creeds have greatly hampered our development. They have absorbed and wasted some fine intellects. That creeds are getting to be less and less important to the average mind with every passing year is a good sign, I think, although I do not wish to talk about what is commonly called theology. The criticisms which have been hurled at me have not worried me. A man cannot control his beliefs. If he is honest in his frank expression of them, that is all that can in justice be required of him. Professor Thomson and a thousand others do not in the least agree with me. His criticism of me, as I read it, charged that because I doubted the soul’s immortality, or ‘personality,’ as he called it, my mind must be abnormal, ‘pathological,’ in other, words, diseased… I try to say exactly what I honestly believe to be the truth, and more than that no man can do. I honestly believe that creedists have built up a mighty structure of inaccuracy, based, curiously, on those fundamental truths which I, with every honest man, must not alone admit but earnestly acclaim. I have been working on the same lines for many years. I have tried to go as far as possible toward the bottom of each subject I have studied. I have not reached my conclusions through study of traditions; I have reached them through the study of hard fact. I cannot see that unproved theories or sentiment should be permitted to have influence in the building of conviction upon matters so important. Science proves its theories or it rejects them. I have never seen the slightest scientific proof of the religious theories of heaven and hell, of future life for individuals, or of a personal God. I earnestly believe that I am right; I cannot help believing as I do… I cannot accept as final any theory which is not provable. The theories of the theologians cannot be proved. Proof, proof! That is what I always have been after; that is what my mind requires before it can accept a theory as fact. Some things are provable, some things disprovable, some things are doubtful. All the problems which perplex us, now, will, soon or late, be solved, and solved beyond a question through scientific investigation. The thing which most impresses me about theology is that it does not seem to be investigating. It seems to be asserting, merely, without actual study. …Moral teaching is the thing we need most in this world, and many of these men could be great moral teachers if they would but give their whole time to it, and to scientific search for the rock-bottom truth, instead of wasting it upon expounding theories of theology which are not in the first place firmly based. What we need is search for fundamentals, not reiteration of traditions born in days when men knew even less than we do now.

- Thomas Edison

There are men in the world who derive as stern an exaltation from the proximity of disaster and ruin, as others from success.

- Winston Churchill

Advertising is to a genuine article what manure is to land, – it largely increases the product.

- P.T. Barnum

Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.

- Winston Churchill

I am enclosing two tickets to the first night of my new play; bring a friend … if you have one.”— George Bernard Shaw, playwright (to Winston Churchill)”Cannot possibly attend first night; will attend second, if there is one.”— Churchill’s response.

- Winston Churchill

Whether I’m at the office, at home, or on the road, I always have a stack of books I’m looking forward to reading.

- Bill Gates

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

Headlines, in a way, are what mislead you because bad news is a headline, and gradual improvement is not.

- 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

If you’re not uncomfortable in your work as a leader, it’s almost certain you’re not reaching your potential as a leader.

- Seth Godin

The most expensive piece of real estate is the six inches between your right and left ear. It’s what you create in that area that determines your wealth. We are only really limited by our mind.

- Dr. Dolf de Roos

As a general thing, I have not ‘duped the world’ nor attempted to do so… I have generally given people the worth of their money twice told.

- P.T. Barnum

The difference between appreciation and flattery? That is simply. One is sincere and the other insincere. One comes from the heart out, the other from the teeth out. One is unselfish, the other selfish. One is universally admired, the other universally condemned.

- Dale Carnegie

I have never known a concern to make a decided success that did not do good, honest work, and even in these days of fiercest competition, when everything would seem to be a matter of price, there lies still at the root of great business success the very much more important factor of quality. The eff …

- Andrew Carnegie

I was born on the other side of the tracks, in public housing in Brooklyn, New York. My dad never made more than $20,000 a year, and I grew up in a family that lost health insurance. So I was scarred at a young age with understanding what it was like to watch my parents lose access to the American dream.

- Howard Schultz

When God puts love and compassion in your heart toward someone, He’s offering you an opportunity to make a difference in that person’s life. You must learn to follow that love. Don’t ignore it. Act on it. Somebody needs what you have.

- Joel Olsteen

If you can’t be remarkable, perhaps you should consider doing nothing until you can.

- Seth Godin

Look, the whole world wants to modernize, and when you look to what they mean by modernizing, they mean Americanize. Would a modern Greek prefer to live in Orange County than Piraeus? Yes. Absolutely.

- Rupert Murdoch

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

Creation is a better means of self-expression than possession; it is through creating, not possessing, that life is revealed.

- Vida D. Scudder

People of excellence go the extra mile to do what’s right.

- Joel Olsteen

An enterprise shall take care of the people’s livelihood, through thick and thin…

- Cheng Yu-tung

There is one thing I would break up over, and that is if she caught me with another woman. I won’t stand for that.

- Steve Martin

Bell took the opposite approach, building multiple restaurants in a single neighborhood to eliminate the competition. It’s a strategy that’s widely used today by many companies like Starbuck’s, Barnes & Noble, and many others, and it worked for Bell.

- David Novak

It was this desire for a feeling of importance that led an uneducated, poverty-stricken grocery clerk to study some law books he found in the bottom of a barrel of household plunder that he had bought for fifty cents. You have probably heard of this grocery clerk. His name was Lincoln.

- Dale Carnegie

I’ve done a number of Super Bowl ads. And that is the best advertising of the year. That is when people realize they’re going to be compared directly against other ads.

- Jerry Seinfeld

If you mess up, it’s not your parents’ fault, so don’t whine about your mistakes, learn from them.

- Bill Gates

Difficult to see. Always in motion is the future..

- Yoda

Big companies have trouble with innovation. Innovation is about bad ideas, or ideas that look like bad ideas. That’s the fundamental thing.

- Ben Horowitz

Don’t be distracted by criticism. Remember, the only taste of success some people have is when they take a bite out of you.

- Zig Ziglar

You know you’re getting old when you get that one candle on the cake. It’s like, ‘See if you can blow this out.’

- Jerry Seinfeld

Capitalism has shortfalls. It doesn’t necessarily take care of the poor, and it underfunds innovation, so we have to offset that.

- Bill Gates

The concept of serviced apartments makes economic sense for tenancies of short to medium term duration – a fact many leading Hong Kong and overseas corporations now appreciate.

- Cheng Yu-tung

The Group launched the ‘Create a New World for Children’ Corporate Alliance Campaign with UNICEF in August 2003 to help and ease the plight of the underprivileged in our society. We both share the same commitment in creating a better environment for disadvantaged children and improving their education opportunities.

- Cheng Yu-tung

We’re pleased with the solid revenue and earnings per share results Cisco delivered during its second quarter, but also especially pleased with our strong order momentum. This proves our strategy is working in terms of the convergence of voice, video and data along with our balanced approach to our customer segments, core and advanced technologies, business and technology architecture and key geographic theaters.

- John Chambers

If your business is not a brand, it is just a commodity.

- Donald Trump

The more you express gratitude for what you have, the more things you’ll have to express gratitude for.

- Zig Ziglar

The passion for art is, as for believers, very religious. It unites people, its message is of common humanity. Art has become my religion – others pray in church. It’s a banality, but you don’t possess art, it possesses you. It’s like falling in love.

- Francois Pinault

Somebody once said that in looking for people to hire, you look for three qualities: integrity, intelligence, and energy. And if you don’t have the first, the other two will kill you. You think about it; it’s true. If you hire somebody without [integrity], you really want them to be dumb and lazy.

- Warren Buffett

You were not created to just get by with an average, unrewarding, or unfulfilling life. God created you to leave your mark on this generation.

- Joel Olsteen

Do you know why the nose of the bull dog is sloped backwards? So it can keep on breathing without ever letting go.

- Winston Churchill

You can’t fault government for seizing that opportunity. But it has an impact on Barbados’ current account deficit and it does bring with it attended risks. And, therefore, you have to ask whether or not the tourism business that is going to be generated from the publicity around the cricket matches will be sustained after the cricket matches are over.

- John Chambers

[On the Swoosh] It was 1971 and Ford had spent $2 million getting a trademark. We didn’t have $2 million. So I went by the graphic arts department at Portland State

- Phil Knight

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

- Henry Kissinger

When people are around us, they should leave better off than they were previously. Rather than feeling discouraged or defeated, people should feel challenged and inspired after spending any time with you and me.

- Joel Olsteen

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

- Elon Musk

I shopped for body shapers for the first time in my life and I was horrified. They were thick – it was like wearing workout clothes and they all had a leg band on one side that showed through the pants.

- Sara Blakely

I think that more flow of information, the ability to stay connected to more people makes people more effective as people. And I mean, that’s true socially. It makes you have more fun, right. It feels better to be more connected to all these people. You have a richer life.

- Mark Zuckerberg

In times of great stress or adversity, it’s always best to keep busy, to plow your anger and your energy into something positive.

- Lee Iacocca

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

- Thomas Edison

We were guerilla marketers, and we still are, a little bit.

- Phil Knight

Unrestrained competition can drive people into actions that they would otherwise regret.

- George Soros

We have to innovate for a specific reason, and that reason comes from the market. Otherwise, we’ll end up making museum pieces.

- Phil Knight

We gradually came to the realization that we were hurting not just ourselves but the Chinese people.

- Sergey Brin

I believe that God’s dream is that we be successful in our careers, and that we be able to send our kids to college. I don’t mean that everyone is going to be rich, and I preach a lot on blooming where you’re planted. But I don’t have the mindset that money is a bad thing.

- Joel Olsteen

The most serious mistakes are not being made as a result of wrong answers. The true dangerous thing is asking the wrong questionl

- Peter Drucker

Company cultures are like country cultures. Never try to change one. Try, instead, to work with what you’ve got.

- Peter Drucker

We need to show mercy. I mean, because as much mercy as you show people, that’s the mercy you’re going to be receiving.

- Joel Olsteen

It’s fine to celebrate success but it is more important to heed the lessons of failure.

- Bill Gates

The ability of a successful company to add functionality to its product has long been upheld.

- Bill Gates

There’s this great quote…which says ‘The future has already arrived. It’s just not evenly distributed yet.’

- Jack Dorsey

I choose a lazy person to do a hard job. Because a lazy person will find an easy way to do it.

- Bill Gates

EVERY MOMENT IN BUSINESS happens only once. The next Bill Gates will not build an operating system. The next Larry Page or Sergey Brin won’t make a search engine. And the next Mark Zuckerberg won’t create a social network. If you are copying these guys, you aren’t learning from them.

- Peter Thiel

Starting a new South Indian restaurant is a really hard way to make money. If you lose sight of competitive reality and focus on trivial differentiating factors—maybe you think your naan is superior because of your great-grandmother’s recipe—your business is unlikely to survive.

- Peter Thiel

If that doesn’t seem dominant enough, consider the fact that the word “google” is now an official entry in the Oxford English Dictionary—as a verb.

- Peter Thiel

People who can put themselves in the place of other people, who can understand the workings of their minds, need never worry about what the future has in store for them.

- Dale Carnegie

We need to put ourselves in the shoes of our customers. That is my new battle cry. Live and breathe Starbucks the way our customers do.

- Howard Schultz

The first question which the priest and the Levite asked was: ‘If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?’ But… the good Samaritan reversed the question: ‘If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?’

- Martin Luther King Jr.

Take every opportunity to inject self-confidence into those who have earned it. Use ample praise, the more specific the better.

- Jack Welch

I think the move by Mr. Greenspan was welcomed by everyone here.

- Jack Welch

You watch television and see what’s going on on this debt ceiling issue. And what I consider to be a total lack of leadership from the President and nothing’s going to get fixed until the President himself steps up and wrangles both parties in Congress.

- Stephen Wynn

Life’s too short to fight the forces of change. Life’s too short to hate what you do all day. Life’s way too short to make mediocre stuff.

- Seth Godin

Those who keep the peace of their inner selves in the midst of the tumult of the modern city are immune from nervous diseases.

- Dale Carnegie

We’re seeing an explosion in new approaches, new models and new forms of interaction. This growth comes from change, insight and exploration, not obedience.

- Seth Godin

It is time to restore the American precept that each individual is accountable for his actions.

- Ronald Reagan

Persistence is to the character of man as carbon is to steel.

- Napoleon Hill

The Group recorded totals sales of around 3,300 property units from which approximately HK$6,810 million was generated from sales revenues attributable to the Group.

- Lee Shau Kee

Most entrepreneurial ideas will sound crazy, stupid and uneconomic, and then they’ll turn out to be right.

- Reed Hastings

If you have your health, if you have people in your life to love, you are blessed. Slow down and enjoy the simple things in life.

- Joel Olsteen

Emerson said: Every man I meet is my superior in some way, In that, I learn of him.

- Dale Carnegie

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