That’s the goal, isn’t it? For every crack to be filled with your ideas and innovations and creativity? The only way to achieve this, though, is to be prepared for many of them to fail, to land on pavement, to be perfect yet cease to grow. We can cry about these failures, but that will lead us to hold back on the next idea. Or we can celebrate them, realizing that it’s proof that we’re being promiscuous in our shipping, putting the best work we can into the world, regardless of whether this particular idea actually works. When was the last time you set out to be promiscuous in your failures?
- Seth Godin
Notable Quotables
Anything that won’t sell, I don’t want to invent. Its sale is proof of utility, and utility is success.
- Thomas Edison
The biggest difference is that cults tend to be fanatically wrong about something important. People at a successful startup are fanatically right about something those outside it have missed.
- Peter Thiel
The first thing I would do for anyone who’s trying to lose body fat, for instance, would be to remove foods from the house that he or she would consume during lapses of self-control.
- Timothy Ferriss
We shall draw from the heart of suffering itself the means of inspiration and survival.
- Winston Churchill
Backed by our conviction, we remain committed to investing wholeheartedly to improve the people’s living conditions, regardless of all uncertainties.
- Cheng Yu-tung
I couldn’t figure out what to wear under my clothes. The body shapers were too thick at the time.
- Sara Blakely
I can’t afford to be indifferent to politics, but I don’t have personal ambitions.
- Vagit Alekperov
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
There comes a precious moment in all of our lives when we are tapped on the shoulder and offered the opportunity to do something very special that is unique to us and our abilities, what a tragedy it would be if we are not ready or willing.
- Winston Churchill
Following a period of drastic market fluctuations in Asia during the summer months of the previous year, economies in the region gradually improved and stabilised during the financial year.
- Lee Shau Kee
Blacksmiths sometimes twist a rope tight around the nose of a horse, and by thus inflicting a little pain they distract his attention from the shoeing process. One way to get air out of a glass is to pour in water. Be Absorbed by Your Subject.
- Dale Carnegie
Within the Nasdaq as an example, I do believe that out of the top 100 companies … half of them will not be around five years from now.
- John Chambers
I made a conscious decision not to tell anyone in my life. Now I tell people–don’t tell anyone your idea until you have invested enough of yourself in it that you are not going to turn back. When a person has an idea at that conception moment, it is the most vulnerable–one negative comment could knock you off course.
- Sara Blakely
Nobody’s ever called me Sir Richard. Occasionally in America, I hear people saying Sir Richard and think there’s some Shakespearean play taking place. But nowhere else anyway.
- Richard Branson
If you want the people in the stores to take care of the customers, you have to make sure you’re taking care of the people in the stores. That’s the most important single ingredient of Wal-Mart’s success.
- Sam Walton
People really criticize professional athletes going into the Olympics. People don’t like change. A bunch of people don’t like the Olympics now because we’ve added skateboarding… We’re modernizing the sport.
- Larry Ellison
The challenge is to focus on the work, not on the fear that comes from doing the work.
- Seth Godin
Like my friend Warren Buffett, I feel particularly lucky to do something every day that I love to do. He calls it ‘tap-dancing to work.
- Bill Gates
I prefer the old theaters because the audience is… trapped.
- Jerry Seinfeld
Whether it’s Google or Apple or free software, we’ve got some fantastic competitors and it keeps us on our toes.
- Bill Gates
Get mad, then get over it.
- Colin Powell
OK, I have a nickname. My family calls me ‘Trey’ because I’m William the third. My dad has the same name, which is always confusing because my dad is well known, and I’m also known.
- Bill Gates
Research what they did, how they did it and how you can do it better.
- Jack Nadel
I don’t believe in statistics. I believe in calculus.
- Ben Horowitz
Look at all the billionaires. If I know 15 billionaires, I know 13 unhappy people.
- Russell Simmons
At the end of the day, I guess my feeling is that it was sort of a failure to communicate.
- Phil Knight
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
Even though people are under economic pressure, they still want to support those brands with values that are compatible with their own.
- Howard Schultz
Nearly every person who develops an idea works at it up to the point where it looks impossible, and then gets discouraged. That’s not the place to become discouraged.
- Thomas Edison
Cutting prices or putting things on sale is not sustainable business strategy. The other side of it is that you can’t cut enough costs to save your way to prosperity.
- Howard Schultz
Anything you’re interested in the world – whether it be Charlie Rose or JetBlue or a public figure or your local coffee shop – they’re on Twitter and broadcasting what is interesting to them.
- Jack Dorsey
Long-range planning does not deal with the future decisions, but with the future of present decisions.
- Peter Drucker
The first quality that is needed is audacity.
- Winston Churchill
It’s no fun to protest on an empty stomach.
- Michael Bloomberg
However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results.
- Winston Churchill
The challenge of the retail business is the human condition.
- Howard Schultz
Figure out what the impact areas are in your business.
- Chet Holmes
Ability can take you to the top, but it takes character to keep you there.
- Zig Ziglar
You can design and create, and build the most wonderful place in the world. But it takes people to make the dream a reality.
- Walt Disney
Getting things straight in your head is a major achievement because there’s so much clutter out there. You’ve got to push aside the static to really hear the music.
- Stephen Wynn
I define anxiety as experiencing failure in advance…and if you have anxiety about initiating a project, then of course you will associate risk with failure.
- Seth Godin
The length of this document defends it well against the risk of its being read.
- Winston Churchill
Opportunity often comes disguised in the form of misfortune, or temporary defeat.
- Napoleon Hill
I would prefer not to be involved in party politics.
- George Soros
Well, in war, you can only be killed once. But in politics, many times.
- Winston Churchill
I’ve operated and launched newspapers all over the world.
- Rupert Murdoch
Say ‘Hello’ in tones that bespeak how pleased you are to have the person call.
- Dale Carnegie
There is no man living who isn’t capable of doing more than he thinks he can do.
- Henry Ford
People are the key to success or extraordinary success.
- Azim Premji
It is not necessary to do extraordinary things to get extraordinary results.
- Warren Buffett
If you’re going through hell, keep going.
- Winston Churchill
When I was in college, I was debating to try my hand at show business, or to become a professor. I just thought of the risk of not going into show business and always wondering if I would’ve had a chance. Because that’s where my real heart was.
- Steve Martin
You know, in Saudi Arabia, there is a body of 40 people – 34 people exactly, that once the succession comes, they will meet and they will elect a king in there.
- Prince Al Waleed Bin Talal Alsaud
I’m honest enough to say I don’t know everything. You know, I don’t. I don’t understand all of God. I don’t understand, you know, some kind of why bad things happen.
- Joel Olsteen
I actually credit Twitter with fine-tuning some joke-writing skills. I still feel like I’m working at it.
- Steve Martin
London, a city where creativity and innovation have always flourished, provides a significant home for Starbucks and a significant gateway into Europe.
- Howard Schultz
Of all the things I’ve done, the most vital is coordinating those who work with me and aiming their efforts at a certain goal.
- Walt Disney
The road doesn’t have to be infinite after all. Take the hidden paths.
- Peter Thiel
There is no middle ground: either don’t throw any punches, or strike hard and end it quickly.
- Peter Thiel
I was about twenty and the Beatles were meditating and I heard about it and they had a center in New York and I came to the center and I learned about it.
- Ray Dalio
Management will endeavour to actively encourage staff to broaden their experiences and job knowledge for extensive application in the process of improving the Group’s operational and competitive performance. Combined with our strengths in both entrepreneurial spirit and managerial professionalism, this would result in the creation of a leading edge honed in a relentless drive for operational excellence in the Group’s future pursuits.
- Cheng Yu-tung
The few who knew what might be learned, Foolish enough to put their whole heart on show, And reveal their feelings to the crowd below, Mankind has always crucified and burned.
- Peter Thiel
For now, if the Hong Kong environment doesn’t change, then in the long term, investing in Hong Kong is best.
- Lee Shau Kee
The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool.
- Richard P. Feynman
Market the change; be bold. Remember don’t be a bad ad, be a good one.
- David Novak
Direct results always come first. In the care and feeding of an organization, they play the role calories play in the nutrition of the human body.
- Peter Drucker
When the Internet first came, I thought it was just the beacon of freedom. People could communicate with anyone, anywhere, and nobody could stop it.
- Steve Wozniak
To make meetings less boring, leaders must look for legitimate reasons to provoke and uncover relevant, constructive ideological conflict.
- Patrick M. Lencioni
One of the penalties of leadership is the necessity of willingness upon the part of the leader to do more than he requires of his followers.
- Napoleon Hill
Creativity dies in an indisciplined environment.
- James C. Collins
We base our investment strategies on quality, trust, synergy and initiative.
- Cheng Yu-tung
God wants you to be a winner, not a whiner.
- Joel Olsteen
No vision is worth the paper it’s printed on unless it is communicated constantly and reinforced with rewards.
- Jack Welch
[On January 30, 1964] With a hearty ichi ban Blue Ribbon Sports got off the ground on Monday with an order for 300 pairs of shoes.
- Phil Knight
The higher the level of leadership people want to reach, the greater the sacrifices they will have to make?
- John Maxwell
It’s lonely at the top. Ninety-nine percent of people in the world are convinced they are incapable of achieving great things, so they aim for the mediocre. The level of competition is thus fiercest for ‘realistic’ goals, paradoxically making them the most time and energy-consuming.
- Timothy Ferriss
To avoid criticism say nothing, do nothing, be nothing.
- Elbert Hubbard
The golden years become lower-middle-class life revisited. That’s a bittersweet ending.
- Timothy Ferriss
Encouragement and hope are the two most powerful qualities any person can provide to others.
- Zig Ziglar
I declare to you, from the bottom of my heart, that no Socialist system can be established without a political police…No Socialist Government conducting the entire life and industry of the country could afford to allow free, sharp, or violently-worded expressions of public discontent. They would have to fall back on some form of Gestapo, no doubt very humanely directed in the first instance.
- Winston Churchill
In the ’30s, the Keynesian stuff worked at least in the sense that you could print money without inflation because there was all this productivity growth happening. That’s not going to work today.
- Peter Thiel
I am not influenced by the techniques or fashions of any other motion picture company.
- Walt Disney
Eventually you won’t think of ‘the Internet business.’ You’ll think of it more like news, weather, sports, but even that taxonomy isn’t clear.
- Bill Gates
Do you remember the things you were worrying about a year ago? How did they work out? Didn’t you waste a lot of fruitless energy on account of most of them? Didn’t most of them turn out all right after all?
- Dale Carnegie
God is faithful to His word. All of His promises are Yes” and Amen.” That means if you will do your part and believe even though it looks impossible, and not let your mind, your emotions, or other people talk you out of it, then God promises in due season and at the right time He will bring it to pass. It may not happen the way you expect it or on your timetable, but God is a faithful God. It will happen.
- Joel Olsteen
Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will.
- Mahatma Gandhi
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)
[On signing up Michael Jordan in 1984 when he was just 21 years old] We could see that he was a charismatic guy who jumps over the moon and is very competitive, but nobody could have predicted what he would become to our culture.
- Phil Knight
Companies such as Echelon are poised to help drive this change with Cisco and extend the power of the Internet from business to the home.
- John Chambers
There are ways of fighting for your interests. I never do something in business that I wouldn’t do in life.
- Vladimir Potanin
My wife and I tried to breakfast together, but we had to stop or our marriage would have been wrecked.
- Winston Churchill
More gold has been mined from the thoughts of men than has been taken from the earth.
- Napoleon Hill
The surest foundation of a manufacturing concern is quality. After that, and a long way after, comes cost.
- Andrew Carnegie
Exercise is overrated.
- Timothy Ferriss
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
It is not the man who has too little, but the man who craves more, that is poor.
- Seneca
Veal is a very young beef and, like a very young girlfriend, it’s cute but boring and expensive.
- P.J. O'Rourke
Don’t complain about the snow on your neighbor’s roof when your own doorstep is unclean.
- Confucius
You can accomplish anything in life, provided that you do not mind who gets the credit.
- Harry Truman
