I am not overly impressed by the great names and reputations of those who might be trying to beat me to an invention…. Its their ‘ideas’ that appeal to me. I am quite correctly described as ‘more of a sponge than an inventor….’
- Thomas Edison
Notable Quotables
The jet stream is a very strong force and pushing a balloon into it is like pushing up against a brick wall, but once we got into it, we found that, remarkably, the balloon went whatever speed the wind went.
- Richard Branson
War is a game that is played with a smile. If you can’t smile, grin. If you can’t grin, keep out of the way till you can.
- Winston Churchill
I DECLARE I will live victoriously. I was created in the image of God. I have the DNA of a winner. I am wearing a crown of favor. Royal blood flows through my veins. I am the head, never the tail, above never beneath. I will live with purpose, passion, and praise, knowing that I was destined to live in victory. This is my declaration.
- Joel Olsteen
Lack of Persistence.
- Napoleon Hill
The focus is on the future.
- Cheng Yu-tung
A first-generation fortune is the most likely to be given away, but once a fortune is inherited it’s less likely that a very high percentage will go back to society.
- Bill Gates
You cannot consistently perform in a manner which is inconsistent with the way you see yourself.
- Zig Ziglar
If you can dream it, you can do it. -Walt Disney
- Walt Disney
The best customer service is if the customer doesn’t need to call you, doesn’t need to talk to you. It just works.
- Jeff Bezos
Guess Instead of Thinking.
- Napoleon Hill
Do not look like you are playing the fiddle while Rome is burning….stay focussed – Paraphrased from
- David Novak
We’d like to believe that efficient, useful, cost-effective products and services are the way to succeed. That hard work is its own reward. Most marketers carry around a worldview that describes themselves as innovators, not storytellers.
- Seth Godin
Rewards await you if you stay steadfast in your faith.
- Joel Olsteen
The Habit of Saving does not mean that you shall limit your earning capacity, it means just the opposite – that you shall apply this law so that it not only conserves that which you earn, in a systematic manner, but it also places you in the way of greater opportunity and gives you the vision, the self-confidence, the imagination, the enthusiasm, the initiative and leadership actually to increase your earning capacity.
- Napoleon Hill
Working to fulfill someone else’s needs or dreams almost always catches up with you.
- Jack Welch
The criminalization of marijuana did not prevent marijuana from becoming the most widely used illegal substance in the United States and many other countries. But it did result in extensive costs and negative consequences.
- George Soros
What’s also missing is a sense of relationship. People suffer in isolation from one another. In a world without purpose, without meaningful values, what have we to share but our emptiness, the needy fragments of our superficial selves? As a result, most of us scramble about hungrily seeking distraction, in music, in television, in people, in drugs. And most of all we seek things. Things to wear and things to do. Things to fill the emptiness. Things to shore up our eroding sense of self. Things to which we can attach meaning, significance, life. We’ve fast become a world of things. And most people are being buried in the profusion. What most people need, then, is a place of community that has purpose, order, and meaning. A place in which being human is a prerequisite, but acting human is essential. A place where the generally disorganized thinking that pervades our culture becomes organized and clearly focused on a specific worthwhile result. A place where discipline and will become prized for what they are: the backbone of enterprise and action, of being what you are intentionally instead of accidentally. A place that replaces the home most of us have lost. That’s what a business can do; it can create a Game Worth Playing.
- Michael Gerber
Regardless of what position people originally took, once the decision is made, everyone supports it. That’s why it is critical that no one hold anything back during the discussion.
- Patrick M. Lencioni
Every other country is afraid that China is going to take over the world. China is the only country afraid that it won’t.
- Peter Thiel
Like almost everyone who uses e-mail, I receive a ton of spam every day. Much of it offers to help me get out of debt or get rich quick. It would be funny if it weren’t so exciting.
- Bill Gates
Movies always are open to being remade because times change so much, and the tempo of movies changes. I think of it like a James Bond. They can have different actors play the same role… I’ve had people come up to me and say, ‘We want to remake ‘The Jerk’ with so and so.’ And I say, ‘Fine.’ It just doesn’t bother me. It’s an honor actually.
- Steve Martin
To do anything truly worth doing, I must not stand back shivering and thinking of the cold and danger, but jump in with gusto and scramble through as well as I can.
- Og Mandino
I do not believe a man can ever leave his business. He ought to think of it by day and dream of it by night.
- Henry Ford
When one person yells the other should listen. When two people yell, there’s no communication.
- Dale Carnegie
If failure is not an option, then neither is success.
- Seth Godin
I think anything that requires real global breakthroughs requires a degree of intensity and sustained effort that cannot be done part time, so it’s something you have to do around the clock, and that doesn’t compute with our existing educational system.
- Peter Thiel
I have never heard anything about the resolutions of the apostles, but a good deal about their acts.
- Og Mandino
I mean, we’ve built a lot of products that we think are good, and will help people share photos and share videos and write messages to each other. But it’s really all about how people are spreading Facebook around the world in all these different countries. And that’s what’s so amazing about the scale that it’s at today.
- Mark Zuckerberg
I am what I am and, you know, I’m a very lucky guy.
- Michael Bloomberg
DAY FOURTEEN I DECLARE that I will use my words to bless people. I will speak favor and victory over my family, friends, and loved ones. I will help call out their seeds of greatness by telling them I’m proud of you, I love you, you are amazing, you are talented, you are beautiful, you will do great things in life.” This is my declaration.
- Joel Olsteen
I have the favor of God. I can do all things through Christ. I am blessed. I’m strong. I’m healthy.
- Joel Olsteen
Already know you that which you need.
- Yoda
10% of Americans hold 73% of the country’s wealth.
- Robert Kiyosaki
I was never the smartest guy in the room. From the first person I hired, I was never the smartest guy in the room. And that’s a big deal. And if you’re going to be a leader – if you’re a leader and you’re the smartest guy in the world – in the room, you’ve got real problems.
- Jack Welch
As you stumble and learn, stumble and learn again, resolve to talk to yourself as if you were your best friend. So no What a #?%$@ idiot! when your BFF smashes an egg on the floor, m’kay? Be cool, like the Fonz.
- Timothy Ferriss
I’m a voracious reader.
- Howard Schultz
When you’re surrounded by people who share a passionate commitment around a common purpose, anything is possible.
- Howard Schultz
In my experience as CEO, I found that the most important decisions tested my courage far more than my intelligence.
- Ben Horowitz
Why not invest your assets in the companies you really like? As Mae West said, ‘Too much of a good thing can be wonderful’.
- Warren Buffett
The Real ReasonNew College Grads Can’t Get Hired shocked many when it reported, The Workforce Solutions Group at St. Louis Community College finds that more than 60% of employers say applicants lack communication and interpersonal skills
- Martha C. White
Network effects businesses must start with especially small markets.
- Peter Thiel
Continuous effort – not strength or intelligence – is the key to unlocking our potential.
- Winston Churchill
Competition is a sin.
- John D. Rockefeller
Anyone who lives within their means suffers from a lack of imagination.
- Oscar Wilde
[On Twitter] We believe that fundamentally we are building a utility.
- Jack Dorsey
Specifically, the following things that cause no trouble when you are small become big challenges as you grow: Communication Common knowledge Decision making.
- Ben Horowitz
Discrimination has a lot of layers that make it tough for minorities to get a leg up.
- Bill Gates
Not only was the casual shoe effort a failure, but it was diluting our trademark and hurting us in running.
- Phil Knight
If you mess up, it’s not your parents’ fault, so don’t whine about your mistakes, learn from them.
- Bill Gates
The outpouring of support from millions of people in the immediate aftermath of the earthquake in Haiti has been impressive.
- Bill Gates
Business in Russia was not being done like in the West, with contracts. In Russia, hundreds of millions of dollars were going forward and backward by word of mouth.
- David Reuben
The guy keeps making speeches about redistribution and maybe we ought to do something to businesses that don’t invest, their holding too much money. We haven’t heard that kind of talk except from pure socialists. Everybody’s afraid of the government and there’s no need soft peddling it, it’s the truth. It is the truth.
- Stephen Wynn
I don’t argue when people say that my message is simple, but I believe Jesus’ message was simple.
- Joel Olsteen
Think of social media as the Internet. I can’t think of anyone betting against the Internet in 2012.
- Gary Vaynerchuk
The main rule to me is to honor God with your life. To life a life of integrity. Not be selfish. You know, help others. But that’s really the essence of the Christian faith.
- Joel Olsteen
Finance epitomizes indefinite thinking because it’s the only way to make money when you have no idea how to create wealth. If they don’t go to law school, bright college graduates head to Wall Street precisely because they have no real plan for their careers. And once they arrive at Goldman, they find that even inside finance, everything is indefinite. It’s still optimistic—you wouldn’t play in the markets if you expected to lose—but the fundamental tenet is that the market is random; you can’t know anything specific or substantive; diversification becomes supremely important.
- Peter Thiel
The reality is that I surround myself with very smart, very strong people – including my ex-wives.
- Ronald Perelman
We are not in the business of iron ore. Whatever captive iron ore sources we have, we use it to make steel.
- Lakshmi Mittal
The word ‘Spanx’ was funny. It made people laugh. No one ever forgot it.
- Sara Blakely
I’ve been fascinated with technology since I was a boy banging around on my father’s adding machine. Back then I’d type in an equation, the device made some cool noises, and out came my answer. I was hooked.
- Michael Dell
I watch mostly independent films.
- Reed Hastings
[On American running shoes] They cost five bucks and gave you blood blisters after five miles. Adidas was taking advantage. And at $30 a pair, Adidas was making a killing.
- Phil Knight
You can succeed at almost anything for which you have unbridled enthusiasm.
- Zig Ziglar
I saw a report yesterday. There’s so much oil, all over the world, they don’t know where to dump it. And Saudi Arabia says, ‘Oh, there’s too much oil.’ They – they came back yesterday. Did you see the report? They want to reduce oil production. Do you think they’re our friends? They’re not our friends.
- Donald Trump
A waitress goes up to Winston Churchill and says, ‘Sir, your drunk.’ To which he replies, ‘I may be drunk, miss, but in the morning I will be sober and you will still be ugly.
- Winston Churchill
Some things you can only learn in the struggle. When it’s easy, when everything is going your way, that doesn’t take any faith.
- Joel Olsteen
The team with the best players wins.
- Jack Welch
If Alibaba cannot become a Microsoft or Wal-Mart, I will regret it for the rest of my life.
- Jack Ma
A man has not right to occupy another man’s time unnnecessary
- Ron Chernow
Whatever the trend in exchange rates or whatever the external factors, a manufacturing company is always faced with the mission of transforming itself into a company that can produce higher value-added to absorb the increase in the cost of living in the country it’s operating in.
- Fujio Mitarai
Only by believing in and looking for secrets could you see beyond the convention to an opportunity hidden in plain sight.
- Peter Thiel
Many people are unhappy and are not experiencing life to its fullest because they’ve closed their hearts to compassion, they are motivated by only what they want and what they think they need. They rarely do anything for anybody else unless they have an ulterior goal in mind. They are self-involved and self-centered.
- Joel Olsteen
Be a peg, hammered into the frozen ground, immovable.
- Winston Churchill
In day-to-day life, you have stimulus to behave unethically, but in the long term, it always pays off to be ethical.
- Jorge Paulo Lemann
A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual doom.
- Martin Luther King Jr.
I don’t need you to be funny. I don’t want to be entertained.
- Jerry Seinfeld
I haven’t failed,I have just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.
- Zig Ziglar
There is no middle ground: either don’t throw any punches, or strike hard and end it quickly.
- Peter Thiel
There is a resurgence of anti-Semitism in Europe. The policies of the Bush administration and the Sharon administration contribute to that. It’s not specifically anti-Semitism, but it does manifest itself in anti-Semitism as well.
- George Soros
By spring of ’98, each company’s stock had more than quadrupled. Skeptics questioned earnings and revenue multiples higher than those for any non-internet company. It was easy to conclude that the market had gone crazy.
- Peter Thiel
Some great people are leaders and others are more lucky, in the right place at the right time. I’d put myself in the latter category. But I’d never call myself a normal designer of anything.
- Steve Wozniak
I attract a crowd, not because I’m an extrovert or I’m over the top or I’m oozing with charisma. It’s because I care.
- Gary Vaynerchuk
This approach appeals to the media’s innate curiosity.Whereas a fastball stresses logic over emotion, the curveball stresses emotion over logic.
- Michael Levine
The Net is not television. It is the finest direct-marketing mechanism in the history of mankind. It is direct mail with free stamps, and it allows you to create richer and deeper relationships than you’ve ever been able to create before.
- Seth Godin
The killer app that got the world ready for appliances was the light bulb. So the light bulb is what wired the world. And they weren’t thinking about appliances when they wired the world. They were really thinking about – they weren’t putting electricity into the home. They were putting lighting into the home.
- Jeff Bezos
The tablet is not mainstream. Reading off the screen is not mainstream.
- Bill Gates
Whether you think that you can, or that you can’t, you are usually right.
- Henry Ford
The internet population is going up and up. I am confident that this will be a huge market.
- Robin Li
Although personally I am quite content with existing explosives, I feel we must not stand in the path of improvement.
- Winston Churchill
I am wired like a CEO and care a great deal about the bottom line, but I care about my customers even more than that. That’s always been my competitive advantage.
- Gary Vaynerchuk
The “non-profit” institution neither supplies goods or services not controls. Its “product” is neither a pair of shoes nor an effective regulation. Its product is a changed human being. The non-profit institutions are human-change agents. Their “product” is a cured patient, a child that learns, a young man or woman grown into a self-respecting adult; a changed human life altogether.
- Peter Drucker
Whenever a high-profile leader dies, people immediately attempt to summarize that person’s life in a sentence. Often, critics and commentators get caught up looking at the leader’s style, or which political or philosophical camp they represented.
- John C. Maxwell
Even if you don’t have the perfect idea to begin with, you can likely adapt.
- Victoria Ransom
Our international success started out first because we became the No. 1 casual wear brand in our home market of Japan. Then, we set up stores in the world’s major fashion centers of New York, Paris and London.
- Tadashi Yanai
If everyone is moving forward together, then success takes care of itself.
- Henry Ford
Once we realize that imperfect understanding is the human condition there is no shame in being wrong, only in failing to correct our mistakes.
- George Soros
The social network is the paradigm of the modern service application.
- Larry Ellison
It’s the moments where you feel most like hiding or dying that you can make the biggest difference as a CEO.
- Ben Horowitz
The work relationship has to be based on mutual respect. Psychological despotism is basically contemptuous—far more contemptuous than the traditional Theory X. It does not assume that people are lazy and resist work, but it assumes that the manager is healthy while everybody else is sick. It assumes that the manager is strong while everybody else is weak. It assumes that the manager knows while everybody else is ignorant. It assumes that the manager is right, whereas everybody else is stupid. These are the assumptions of foolish arrogance.
- Peter Drucker
