Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.
- Albert Einstein
Notable Quotables
After the Apple II was introduced, then came the Commodore and the Tandy TRS-80.
- Steve Wozniak
You cannot climb the ladder of success dressed in the costume of failure.
- Zig Ziglar
You can either endure the difficult or do the difficult.
- Michael Levine
Let me remind everyone in this room that we are not changing guidance.
- John Chambers
Personal discipline, when it becomes a way of life in our personal, family, and career lives, will enable us to do some incredible things.
- Zig Ziglar
Stop selling. Start helping.
- Zig Ziglar
Of my mental cycles, I devote maybe 10% to business thinking. Business isn’t that complicated. I wouldn’t want that on my business card.
- Bill Gates
You don’t have to start from scratch to do something interesting. You don’t have to start from scratch to have a massive impact on the world. You have to have a good idea. You have to convince other people of those good ideas. And you have to push as quickly as possible.
- Jack Dorsey
Every noteworthy achievement met with some sort of temporary setback before success came.
- Napoleon Hill
E – Energize Others
- Jack Welch
Bloodshed, gentlemen, no doubt is lamentable. I have seen some of it–more perhaps than many of those who talk about it with such levity. But there are worse things than bloodshed, even on an extreme scale. . . . The trampling down of law and order which, under the conditions of a civilised state, assure life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness–all this would be worse than bloodshed.
- Winston Churchill
There is no class so pitiably wretched as that which possesses money and nothing else.
- Andrew Carnegie
Konosuke Matsushita was a visionary entrepreneur. He started working very young as a teenager, and he eventually created Panasonic to become a truly global company.
- Tadashi Yanai
Should surveillance be usable for petty crimes like jaywalking or minor drug possession? Or is there a higher threshold for certain information? Those aren’t easy questions.
- Bill Gates
You may think using Google’s great, but I still think it’s terrible.
- Larry Page
With an export-driven economy, Hong Kong is unavoidably affected by any hiccup in the outside world.
- Cheng Yu-tung
If you want to be enthusiastic, act enthusiastic.
- Dale Carnegie
If you have a lot of [visionaries], you’ll have a lot of great ideas, something awesome that people will love; but you never get it done. It doesn’t ship. Nothing happens. If you have too many [execution oriented] people on your team, you’re executing like mad, things are getting built, and you’re shipping like crazy – but you’re building something that nobody wants. If you have a good balance of both in your company, you’re more likely to stay on track. Those people compliment each other.
- Caterina Fake
Control your own destiny or someone else will.
- Jack Welch
Practice, practice, PRACTICE in speaking before an audience will tend to remove all fear of audiences, just as practice in swimming will lead to confidence and facility in the water. You must learn to speak by speaking.
- Dale Carnegie
Man’s only limitation within reason lies in his development and use of his imagination
- Napoleon Hill
If you give, you will be blessed.
- Joel Olsteen
Hip-hop is a voice for voiceless poor people.
- Russell Simmons
The path of least resistance makes all rivers, and some men, crooked.
- Napoleon Hill
I came over from Wal-Mart to help set up Sam’s. Since we were patterned after PRICE CLUBS, sometimes we copied them without exactly knowing what we were doing. We were bringing a West Coast idea to the Midwest, and we didn’t know how it would be received. I remember one idea that didn’t transfer too well. Price Club had a huge stack of wine in front of its stores. We bought the same amound for our stores in the Midwest and we learned the hard way that Midwesterners aren’t exactly wine drinkers. (on competition)
- Ron Loveles
Never succumb to the temptation of bitterness.
- Martin Luther King Jr.
[In April 2013] Being anonymous is an important part of democracy. I think it’s a critical part of democracy.
- Jack Dorsey
Anyone who prefers owning a part of your company to being paid in cash reveals a preference for the long term and a commitment to increasing your company’s value in the future. Equity can’t create perfect incentives, but it’s the best way for a founder to keep everyone in the company broadly aligned.
- Peter Thiel
If you want your life to be more rewarding, you have to change the way you think.
- Oprah Winfrey
The way management treats associates is exactly how the associates will treat the customers
- Sam Walton
Does it make sense to go to college, or should I instead be a plumber?
- Michael Bloomberg
I don’t mind saying, you know, that I don’t take a salary from the church, and God has blessed me with more money than I could imagine from my books. It’s been printed all over, so I don’t feel like I am hiding anything.
- Joel Olsteen
Here’s to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes… The ones who see things differently — they’re not fond of rules… You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them, but the only thing you can’t do is ignore them because they change things… They push the human race forward, and while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius, because the ones who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world, are the ones who do.
- Steve Jobs
You see these dictators on their pedestals, surrounded by the bayonets of their soldiers and the truncheons of their police. On all sides they are guarded by masses of armed men, cannons, aeroplanes, fortifications, and the like – they boast and vaunt themselves before the world, yet in their hearts there is unspoken fear. They are afraid of words and thoughts; words spoken abroad, thoughts stirring at home – all the more powerful because forbidden – terrify them. A little mouse of thought appears in the room, and even the mightiest potentates are thrown into panic. They make frantic efforts to bar our thoughts and words; they are afraid of the workings of the human mind. Cannons, airplanes, they can manufacture in large quantities; but how are they to quell the natural promptings of human nature, which after all these centuries of trial and progress has inherited a whole armoury of potent and indestructible knowledge?
- Winston Churchill
The laws of business physics have been broken in terms of how many customers you can acquire and how fast. No one in history has ever acquired 450 million customers in the same amount of time that WhatsApp did
- Ben Horowitz
Customers have different need states and life experiences.
- Howard Schultz
Your first projects aren’t the greatest things in the world, and they may have no money value, they may go nowhere, but that is how you learn – you put so much effort into making something right if it is for yourself.
- Steve Wozniak
In a vacuum of feedback, there is almost no chance that your company will perform optimally.
- Ben Horowitz
Starbucks is in my blood. It is such a part of me that letting it unravel simply was not an option.
- Howard Schultz
The typical small business owner is only 10 percent Entrepreneur, 20 percent Manager, and 70 percent Technician.
- Michael Gerber
One thing is certain in business. You and everyone around you will make mistakes.
- Richard Branson
Most kids cannot ask questions. They can memorize, but they cannot learn.
- Terry Fischer
Do you know of the water and the moon? The river flows endlessly, yet it never disappears. The moon waxes and wanes, yet it never grows bigger or smaller. Therefore, if you look in the eyes of change, everything in this world changes in an instant. But if you look in the eyes of stability, everything in the world, including humanity, is eternal. Dozens of worlds have demonstrated precisely the truth of the changing universe. The changes of the water and the moon happen on their appearances, but never on their physical natures. Therefore, whether changes happen depends on people’s mind and view. Since nothing remains permanent in the world, change is just the eternal fact.
- Cheng Yu-tung
I like the fact that I can meet anyone now and have a conversation.
- Larry Page
Connectivity enables transparency for better government, education, and health.
- Bill Gates
In low-income countries, getting to a health post is hard. It’s very expensive.
- Bill Gates
Keeping score is for games, not friendships.
- John C. Maxwell
Yes, the Bible should be taught in our schools because it is necessary to understand the Bible if we are to truly understand our own culture and how it came to be. The Bible has influenced every part of western culture from our art, music, and history, to our sense of fairness, charity, and business.
- Joel Olsteen
Make it easy to believe.
- Seth Godin
Most of our wives are planners and meticulous budgeters. In fact, only 18 percent of us disagreed with the statement Charity begins at home. Most of us will tell you that our wives are a lot more conservative with money than we are.
- Thomas J Stanley
[On his son Matt dying in 2004 in a scuba diving accident] It aged me much faster than anything you can imagine…
- Phil Knight
People going nowhere want company.
- Brian Tracy
A preposition is a terrible thing to end a sentence with.
- Winston Churchill
The Chinese government still would like to see U.S. Internet companies explore the Chinese market, providing they are willing to abide by Chinese law. I think companies like Facebook should think about the Chinese market.
- Robin Li
It’s so easy to tweet from wherever you are.
- Jack Dorsey
We are still masters of our fate.We are still captains of our souls.
- Winston Churchill
Only when we are brave enough to explore the darkness will we discover the infinite power of our light.
- Brene Brown
Today’s stock price is X, tommorrow’s is up to you.
- Sam Walton
The polar opposite business cliché warns that “the best product doesn’t always win.
- Peter Thiel
This implies two very strange rules for VCs. First, only invest in companies that have the potential to return the value of the entire fund. This is a scary rule, because it eliminates the vast majority of possible investments. (Even quite successful companies usually succeed on a more humble scale.) This leads to rule number two: because rule number one is so restrictive, there can’t be any other rules.
- Peter Thiel
The average person puts only 25% of his energy and ability into his work. The world takes off its hat to those who put in more than 50% of their capacity, and stands on its head for those few and far between souls who devote 100%.
- Andrew Carnegie
Show me a thoroughly satisfied man and I will show you a failure.
- Thomas Edison
Life’s too short to spend it trying to keep others happy. You can’t please everyone. To fulfill your destiny, stay true to your heart.
- Joel Olsteen
Everything popular is wrong.
- Oscar Wilde
The question I ask myself like almost every day is, ‘Am I doing the most important thing I could be doing?’ … Unless I feel like I’m working on the most important problem that I can help with, then I’m not going to feel good about how I’m spending my time.
- Mark Zuckerberg
The problem is not getting rid of fear, but using it properly.
- Zig Ziglar
If you don’t believe in yourself, no one else will.
- Donald Trump
We don’t get a chance to do that many things, and every one should be really excellent. Because this is our life. Life is brief, and then you die, you know? And we’ve all chosen to do this with our lives. So it better be damn good. It better be worth it.
- Steve Jobs
Today’s “best practices” lead to dead ends, the best paths are new and untried.
- Peter Thiel
If they really don’t want to buy the flats, I’ll take their deposits.
- Lee Shau Kee
A magnificent blueprint, a loyal team and a well-coordinated organization… the same applies from ruling a country to maintaining a family.
- Cheng Yu-tung
In the world of education, the more mistakes a person makes, the less intelligent that person is thought to be. In the world of entrepreneurship, mistakes are opportunities to learn something new, something not known previously. In the world of entrepreneurship, the more mistakes a person makes, the more a person learns. There is a bit of magic in every mistakes, so when you make mistakes, take the time to learn from them, and you’ll have more magic in your life.
- Robert Kiyosaki
Don’t be afraid of new arenas.
- Elon Musk
I want to get involved in things that makes a difference in peoples lives and lifts them up. I don’t want to be a part of anything that’s not inspiring or helpful to the community that I’m serving.
- Russell Simmons
Market leadership can translate directly to higher revenue, higher profitability, greater capital velocity, and correspondingly stronger returns on invested capital.
- Jeff Bezos
The challenge, it turns out, isn’t in perfecting your ability to know when to start and when to stand by.
- Seth Godin
If you want to create and capture lasting value, don’t build an undifferentiated commodity business.
- Peter Thiel
I notice a difference from the moment I meditate.
- Ray Dalio
I’m a huge believer in clarity.
- Ben Horowitz
Everybody understands the market in this area is consolidating.
- John Chambers
Canada sets aside 36 percent of their visas for people with skills they think their country needs. We set aside six percent. We educate the doctors, and then don’t give ’em a green card.
- Michael Bloomberg
There is only one valid definition of business purpose: to create a customer.
- Peter Drucker
Some companies out there quote a start of production that is substantially in advance of when customers get their cars.
- Elon Musk
Start believing today that things are going to change for the better. Your best days are still out in front of you.
- Joel Olsteen
A prisoner of war is a man who tries to kill you and fails, and then asks you not to kill him.
- Winston Churchill
There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work, learning from failure.
- Colin Powell
The game of life does not proceed like a mathematical calculation on the principle that two and two make four. Sometimes they make five, or minus four, and sometimes the blackboard topples over in the middle of the sum and the pedagogue is left with a black eye.
- Winston Churchill
It’s been a long career, and I’ve made some mistakes along the way.
- Rupert Murdoch
Nigeria has moved into low-middle-income, but their north is very poor, and the health care systems there have broken down.
- Bill Gates
Our fatigue is often caused not by work, but by worry, frustration and resentment.
- Dale Carnegie
In energy, you have to plan and do research way in advance, sometimes decades in advance to get a new system that’s safer, doesn’t require us to go around the world to get all our oil.
- Bill Gates
I am prepared to try anything once.
- Richard Branson
No matter what’s happening, choose to be happy. Don’t focus on what’s wrong. Find something positive in your life. Thank God for the small things.
- Joel Olsteen
When you are winning a war almost everything that happens can be claimed to be right and wise.
- Winston Churchill
We are not trying to entertain the critics. I’ll take my chances with the public.
- Walt Disney
Use what you have to run toward your best – that’s how I now live my life.
- Oprah Winfrey
Fear is one of the worst things in business.
- Jack Nadel
Surround yourself with the right people
- Tony Hsieh
Every great business is built on friendship.
- JC Penney





