If you get up in the morning and think the future is going to be better, it is a bright day. Otherwise, it’s not.
- Elon Musk
Notable Quotables
The strongest oak of the forest is not the one that is protected from the storm and hidden from the sun. It’s the one that stands in the open where it is compelled to struggle for its existence against the winds and rains and the scorching sun.
- Napoleon Hill
Connectivity enables transparency for better government, education, and health.
- Bill Gates
Urm. Put a shield on my saber I must.
- Yoda
We are the most powerful nation on earth. No external power, no terrorist organization, can defeat us. But we can defeat ourselves by getting caught in a quagmire.
- George Soros
Puffery makes you look weak and not very bright. Representation makes you look strong and smart.
- Jerry Vass
It is my practice to try to understand how valuable something is by trying to imagine myself without it.
- Herb Kelleher
An idea that can change the course of the company can come from anywhere.
- Jack Dorsey
In terms of doing work and in terms of learning and evolving as a person, you just grow more when you get more people’s perspectives… I really try and live the mission of the company and… keep everything else in my life extremely simple.
- Mark Zuckerberg
Here’s to the crazy ones…The ones who see things differently. They push thehuman race forward. And while some may see them as thecrazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.
- Steve Jobs
We must restore the emotional relationship that people have to the idea of America, that no matter where you come from, no matter where you live, that you have access to the same opportunities that somebody who is born in privilege.
- Howard Schultz
A broad trend I’m completely obsessed with is mobile commerce. Like completely. I’m completely convinced that everybody’s going to be buying from their mobile devices. Whoever can claim that space or be in that space, I’m very interested in.
- Gary Vaynerchuk
I flunked my exam for university two times before I was accepted by what was considered my city’s worst university, Hangzhou Teachers University. I was studying to be a high school English teacher. In my university, I was elected student chairman and later became chairman of the city’s Students Federation.
- Jack Ma
We take care of the people, the products, and the profits—in that order.” It’s a simple saying, but it’s deep. “Taking care of the people” is the most difficult of the three by far and if you don’t do it, the other two won’t matter. Taking care of the people means that your company is a good place to work.
- Ben Horowitz
My tastes are simple: I am easily satisfied with the best.
- Winston Churchill
No vision is worth the paper it’s printed on unless it is communicated constantly and reinforced with rewards.
- Jack Welch
One out of every five page views in the United States is on Facebook!
- Gary Vaynerchuk
I personally think that money can do very little. And this has been my experience all across.
- Mukesh Ambani
You will find men who want to be carried on the shoulders of others, who think that the world owes them a living. They don’t seem to see that we must all lift together and pull together.
- Henry Ford
Most books on management are written by management consultants, and they study successful companies after they’ve succeeded, so they only hear winning stories.
- Ben Horowitz
In three years, every product my company makes will be obsolete. The only question is whether we will make them obsolete or somebody else will.
- Bill Gates
How can you squander even one more day not taking advantage of the greatest shifts of our generation? How dare you settle for less when the world has made it so easy for you to be remarkable?
- Seth Godin
A little more moderation would be good. Of course, my life hasn’t exactly been one of moderation.
- Donald Trump
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
We can complain because rose bushes have thorns, or rejoice because thorn bushes have roses.
- Abraham Lincoln
Monopoly is therefore not a pathology or an exception. Monopoly is the condition of every successful business.
- Peter Thiel
You know, there is always times where you feel discouraged and things coming against you, but I don’t know if I ever wanted to throw in the towel.
- Joel Olsteen
Said another way, the Entrepreneurial Model has less to do with what’s done in a business and more to do with how it’s done. The commodity isn’t what’s important—the way it’s delivered is. When The Entrepreneur creates the model.
- Michael Gerber
We have before us an ordeal of the most grievous kind. We hav before us many, many long months of struggle and of suffering. You ask what is our policy? I will say: It is to wage war, by sea, land and air, with all our might and with all the strength that God can give us; to wage war against a monstrous tyranny, never surpassed in the dark, lamentable catalogue of human crime. That is our policy. You ask, what is our aim? I answer in one word: Victory…victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory however long and hard the road may be; for without victory, there is not survival. Letter to Hitler
- Winston Churchill
Life is a classroom — only those who are willing to be lifelong learners will move to the head of the class.
- Zig Ziglar
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
Christmas is a season not only of rejoicing but of reflection.
- Winston Churchill
By the end of the war (the civil war) John D. Rockefeller had established the foundations of his personal and professional life and was set to capitalize on the extraordinary opportunities beckoning him in postwar America. From this point forward, there would be no zigzags, or squandered energy, only a single-minded focus on objectives that would make him both the wonder and terror of American business.
- Ron Chernow
If you will lie about the little things, before long you’ll lie about bigger things.
- Joel Olsteen
If something is expensive to develop, and somebody’s not going to get paid, it won’t get developed. So you decide: Do you want software to be written, or not?
- Bill Gates
The one thing that offends me the most is when I walk by a bank and see ads trying to convince people to take out second mortgages on their home so they can go on vacation. That’s approaching evil.
- Jeff Bezos
We often miss opportunity because it’s dressed in overalls and looks like work.
- Thomas Edison
I didn’t think I would come to this conclusion — but eventually I came to the conclusion that more information is better, even if it is not as full as we would like to see.
- Sergey Brin
If you don’t let people flourish in their jobs, why are they going to stay?
- Joel Olsteen
There is no such thing as failure. Failure is just life trying to move us in another direction.
- Oprah Winfrey
More gold has been mined from the thoughts of men than has been taken from the earth.
- Napoleon Hill
Hard work is about risk. It begins when you deal with the things that you’d rather not deal with: fear of failure, fear of standing out, fear of rejection. Hard work is about training yourself to leap over this barrier, tunnel under that barrier, drive through the other barrier. And after you’ve done that, to do it again the next day.
- Seth Godin
A good idea is never lost. Even though its originator or possessor may die without publicizing it, it will someday be reborn in the mind of another….
- Thomas Edison
I’m a voracious reader.
- Howard Schultz
If you want to spend time saying this is cool, you’re going to get your ass kicked.
- Phil Knight
If you mess up, it’s not your parents’ fault, so don’t whine about your mistakes, learn from them.
- Bill Gates
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
About half my work in education is U.S. political reform around school districts and charter schools, and creating more room for entrepreneurial organizations to develop. And about half on technology, which I look at as a global platform.
- Reed Hastings
I hate how many people think “glass half-empty” when their glass is really four-fifths full. I’m grateful when I have one drop in the glass because I know exactly what to do with it.
- Gary Vaynerchuk
I got a call from the Oprah Winfrey Show. Oprah had chosen Spanx as one of her favorite products in 2000. I had boxes of product in my apartment and I had two weeks notice that she was going to say she loved it on TV and I had no shipping department.
- Sara Blakely
A man does what he must – in spite of personal consequences, in spite of obstacles and dangers and pressures – and that is the basis of all human morality.
- Winston Churchill
If you ask me whether the future is better than today, I would say yes; but the people must be ready to pay for services and pay their taxes.
- Aliko Dangote
I have no sense of nostalgia. Tomorrow is what interests me.
- Francois Pinault
Separate performance from people.
- David Robinson
All a bliss state like California does is spoil you.
- Phil Knight
Eradications are special. Zero is a magic number. You either do what it takes to get to zero and you’re glad you did it; or you get close, give up and it goes back to where it was before, in which case you wasted all that credibility, activity, money that could have been applied to other things.
- Bill Gates
You need to be better not bitter.
- Nate Waters
As much as I love crisp, clean whites, there’s always a time for rich but balanced Chardonnays with oak, especially at Thanksgiving.
- Gary Vaynerchuk
When you marry operating excellence with innovation, you multiply the value of your creativity.
- James C. Collins
When I first joined the Irvine Company, I realized that less than 11,000 acres were designated as open space in the original master plan, and that just didn’t seem adequate to me. So, I began the lengthy process working with public and community organizations to add more open space.
- Donald Bren
Don’t romance Wall Street. You don’t want investors who are only concerned about the quarter, or who are working on their exit strategy from day one. You want shareholders to own you forever. If we have no trading at all, I consider that a tremendous accomplishment.
- Warren Buffett
Facebook is really about communicating and telling stories… We think that people can really help spread awareness of organ donation and that they want to participate in this to their friends. And that can be a big part of helping solve the crisis that’s out there.
- Mark Zuckerberg
To succeed at selling a losing product, you must develop seriously superior sales techniques. In addition, you have to be massively competitive and incredibly hungry to survive in that environment.
- Ben Horowitz
I am a tightwad. That’s one of the main reasons I completed a long questionnaire for a crispy $1 bill. Why else would I spend two or three hours being personally interviewed by these authors? They paid me $100, $200, or $250. Oh, they made me another offer–to donate in my name the money I earned for my interview to my favorite charity. But I told them, I am my favorite charity.
- Thomas J Stanley
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
Two metrics set the limits for effective distribution. The total net profit that you earn on average over the course of your relationship with a customer (Customer Lifetime Value, or CLV) must exceed the amount you spend on average to acquire a new customer (Customer Acquisition Cost, or CAC). In general, the higher the price of your product, the more you have to spend to make a sale—and the more it makes sense to spend it.
- Peter Thiel
You must make a decision that you are going to move on. It wont happen automatically. You will have to rise up and say, ‘I don’t care how hard this is, I don’t care how disappointed I am, I’m not going to let this get the best of me. I’m moving on with my life.
- Joel Olsteen
Always try to learn from other peoples mistakes, not your own – It is much cheaper that way!
- Donald Trump
Intolerance.
- Napoleon Hill
Always pass on what you have learned.
- Yoda
You either trust someone day one until they prove you wrong, or you say, ‘I don’t trust you until you show me I can trust you.’ I’m the latter.
- Charles Ergen
My first account was Neiman Marcus. I cold-called them just like I had cold-called businesses when I was selling fax machines for seven years.
- Sara Blakely
We will be one of the most productive residential developers in China in the next few years.
- Lee Shau Kee
Woody’s Allen’s great line about relationships. A relationship is like a shark, it either has to move forward or it dies. And that’s true about your company.
- Larry Ellison
In Silicon Valley, you get this feeling that you have to be out here. But it’s not the only place to be. If I were starting now, I would have stayed in Boston. [Silicon Valley] is a little short-term focused and that bothers me.
- Mark Zuckerberg
When there is no enemy within, the enemies outside cannot hurt you.
- Winston Churchill
I feel very strongly that SpaceX would not have been able to get started, nor would we have made the progress that we have, without the help of NASA.
- Elon Musk
You’ve been destined to live in victory, destined to overcome, destined to leave your mark on this generation.
- Joel Olsteen
I’m trying to make God more relevant in our society. And I think talking in everyday terms and making sure people can understand it – I think that’s important.
- Joel Olsteen
You cannot create a piece of art merely for money. Doing it as part of commerce so denudes art of wonder that it ceases to be art.
- Seth Godin
Form the habit of systematic saving by putting aside a definite percentage of your income. Money in the bank gives one a very safe foundation of courage…
- Napoleon Hill
The human brain is an incredible pattern-matching machine.
- Jeff Bezos
Never, never, never believe any war will be smooth and easy, or that anyone who embarks on the strange voyage can measure the tides and hurricanes he will encounter. The statesman who yields to war fever must realize that once the signal is given, he is no longer the master of policy but the slave of unforeseeable and uncontrollable events.
- Winston Churchill
Perhaps the CEO’s most important operational responsibility is designing and implementing the communication architecture for her company.
- Ben Horowitz
The way of the warrior: keep death in mind at all times. If a warrior keeps death in mind at all times and lives as though each day might be his last, he will conduct himself properly in all his actions.
- Principle of the Bushido
New research shows that you will be dead longer than you will be alive.
- Zig Ziglar
Some people find fault like there is a reward for it.
- Zig Ziglar
I don’t know about you, but most of my exchanges with cashiers are not that meaningful.
- Jeff Bezos
The thing about the banjo is, when you first hear it, it strikes many people as ‘What’s that?’ There’s something very compelling about it to certain people; that’s the way I was; that’s the way a lot of banjo players and people who love the banjo are.
- Steve Martin
No one lives long enough to learn it all..
- Brian Tracy
Start where you stand and with what you have
- George Washington Carver
After the Apple II was introduced, then came the Commodore and the Tandy TRS-80.
- Steve Wozniak
Embrace what you don’t know, especially in the beginning because what you don’t know can become your greatest asset. It ensures that you will be doing things absolutely differently from everybody else.
- Sara Blakely
I readily absorb ideas from every source, frequently starting where the last person left off.
- Thomas Edison
Establish good internal controls over the handling of cash. The people who record the cash receipts on the bank deposits must be different from those who post it to the accounts receivable and general ledger.
- Robert Kiyosaki
The sweltering summer of the Negro’s legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality.
- Martin Luther King Jr.
The biggest cowards are managers who don’t let people know where they stand.
- Jack Welch
John, never lend money to your friends; it will spoil your friendships.
- John D. Rockefeller
A man has not right to occupy another man’s time unnnecessary
- Ron Chernow
Of course I needed somebody to run my new store, and I didn’t have much money, so I did something that I would do for the rest of my run in the retail business without any shame or embarrassment whatsoever: nose around other people’s stores searching for good talent. That’s when I made my first real hire, the first manager, Willard Walker.
- Sam Walton
