Notable Quotables

I will chum with you, and suffer when you suffer, and laugh when you laugh. I will bite my tongue when impatient words come. I will keep saying as if it were a ritual: He is nothing but a boy — a little boy!

- Dale Carnegie

Create a definite plan for carrying out your desire and begin at once, whether you are ready or not to put this plan into action.

- Napoleon Hill

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

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

Our goal all along was that fans would come in and wouldn’t notice any loss of amenities there for them, and I’m very comfortable that’s going to be the case.

- Ed Clark

I trust that everything happens for a reason, even when we’re not wise enough to see it.

- Oprah Winfrey

Pick the best people, face the reality (the way it is), speak with candor to everything, never lose sight of the relationship with the constituency.

- Jack Welch

Once we finished Christmas Rappin’ we began shopping it around town. There was interest, but no one was biting. The industry’s attitude was that Rapper’s Delight despite its U.S. sales and international appeal was an unrepeatable fluke. We identified Polygram which had a great roster of funk and R&B acts (Kool and the Gang, the Gap Band, Parliament) as the best place for Kurtis, so we made up a gang of test pressings and took them to clubs all over the city. Response in the street from DJs and club goers was great. So to hype up PolyGram we placed fake orders for the record into their system by telling retailers and wholesalers to order the 12 inch through PolyGram. PolyGram didn’t own it yet, but we created an appetite for Christmas Rappin that led them to buy it…So in the fall of 1979 Kurtis Blow signed with Mercury Records a division of Polygram Records, making him the first rapper on a major label…Christmas eve 1979 was the first time that I heard Christmas Rappin’ on the radio; I was upstairs at my family’s house. Frankie Crocker the biggest radio DJ in New York played it on WBLS.

- Russell Simmons

If this market transition truly evolves the way that I think it’s most likely to, the worst decision you could make is not to move.

- John Chambers

We believed in our idea – a family park where parents and children could have fun together.

- Walt Disney

Most discussions of decision making assume that only senior executives make decisions or that only senior executives’ decisions matter. This is a dangerous mistake.

- Peter Drucker

Get the right people on the bus and get the wrong people off of the bus.

- Jim Collins

We were pretty schizophrenic. We were going to take on the world, but we couldn’t make payroll.

- Phil Knight

I first thought maybe I’d do a banjo presentation record, where I’d play a couple of songs and get a bunch of other players to do the rest. Then I realized I had enough of my own songs to do an album of them.

- Steve Martin

Money isn’t the most important thing in life, but it’s reasonably close to oxygen on the ‘gotta have it’ scale.

- Zig Ziglar

A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.

- Winston Churchill

Creating ideas that spread and connecting the disconnected are the two pillars of our new society, and both of them require the posture of the artist.

- Seth Godin

Most of the exercise I get is from standing and walking all day from one laboratory table to another. I derive more benefit and entertainment from this than some of my friends and competitors get from playing games like golf.

- Thomas Edison

Successful storytelling builds brand equity, and businesses with high brand equity don’t need to draw as much attention to themselves and their achievements as those that are still establishing their value to the customer.

- Gary Vaynerchuk

In many places where coffee is grown, deforestation is a major issue. With Starbucks’ position in the marketplace and the respect and relationships we have, we can – and have, in some cases – been able to educate and influence people.

- Howard Schultz

I want to promote poetry to the point where you got all the baldhead kids running around doing poetry, getting the music out of the way and having only words, the spoken word, and then see what happens.

- Russell Simmons

Certainly, none of us enjoy going through struggles, but you have to understand that your struggle may be an opportunity for advancement and promotion. The very thing you are fighting against so tenaciously may be the springboard that catapults you to a new level of excellence. Your challenges may become your greatest assets.

- Joel Olsteen

One of the great things about Lanai is that the weather is always fabulous. Always 82 degrees and sunny. The problem is that, like California now, Lanai needs more water.

- Larry Ellison

Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.”

- Confucius

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.

- Peter Thiel

The bad thing about young people starting a company is that sometimes they do it for the wrong reasons or because they have the wrong skill set, but the good thing is that they don’t have any of the old paradigms baked into them, so they have a lot of the bright new ideas that are harder to come by as you get older.

- Ben Horowitz

As I get, I give. Giving as you get is critical. It has everything to do with being happy for yourself, and making others happy is the cause of making yourself happy, and it’s the cycle of giving and getting.

- Russell Simmons

There has never been a statue erected in honor of a critic.

- Zig Ziglar

Your premium brand had better be delivering something special, or it’s not going to get the business.

- Warren Buffett

We, too, need to be patient, especially when it comes to reaching new goals.

- George Foreman

I was the night foreman of a galvanizing factory, which is hot and smelly and dirty and miserable.

- Ronald Perelman

Humor is the great thing, the saving thing. The minute it crops up, all our irritations and resentments slip away, and a sunny spirit takes their place.

- Mark Twain

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

- Bill Gates

The only way to get the best of an argument is to avoid it.

- Dale Carnegie

Real leaders don’t care [about receiving credit]. If it’s about your mission, about spreading the faith, about seeing something happen, not only do you not care about credit, you actually want other people to take credit…There’s no record of Martin Luther King, Jr. or Gandhi whining about credit. Credit isn’t the point. Change is.

- Seth Godin

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

This is not checkers; this is motherfuckin’ chess. Technology businesses tend to be extremely complex. The underlying technology moves, the competition moves, the market moves, the people move. As a result, like playing three-dimensional chess on Star Trek, there is always a move. You think you have no moves? How about taking your company public with $2 million in trailing revenue and 340 employees, with a plan to do $75 million in revenue the next year? I made that move. I made it in 2001, widely regarded as the worst time ever for a technology company to go public. I made it with six weeks of cash left. There is always a move.

- Ben Horowitz

Quality is much better than quantity. One home run is much better than two doubles.

- Steve Jobs

To model yourself after Steve Jobs is like, ‘I’d like to paint like Picasso, what should I do? Should I use more red?’

- Larry Ellison

Follow effective action with quiet reflection. From the quiet reflection will come even more effective action.

- Peter Drucker

Ally yourself with a group of as many people as you may need for the creation and carrying out of your plan or plans for the accumulation of money…Compliance with this instruction is absolutely essential. Do not neglect it.

- Napoleon Hill

The future of Windows is to let the computer see, listen and even learn.

- Bill Gates

For a successful entrepreneur it can mean extreme wealth. But with extreme wealth comes extreme responsibility. And the responsibility for me is to invest in creating new businesses, create jobs, employ people, and to put money aside to tackle issues where we can make a difference.

- Richard Branson

When you do things the right way, you have nothing to lose because you have nothing to fear.

- Zig Ziglar

Do the thing you fear most and the death of fear is certain.

- Mark Twain

I’m so optimistic, I’d go after Moby Dick in a rowboat and take the tartar sauce with me.

- Zig Ziglar

We remain confident about the market opportunity ahead of us over the next three to five years.

- John Chambers

We, we – as I say, ,we go in and shake up other industries and I think, you know, we do it differently and I think that indutjrises are not quite the same as a result of Virgin attacking the market.

- Richard Branson

As a company gets big, the information that informs decision-making gets massive. Depending upon the prism through which you view the business, your perspective will vary. If two people are in charge, this variance will cause conflict and delay.

- Ben Horowitz

Out-innovating them is the way to beat China. And to do everything that we do in this country to support innovative policy, that drives innovation and new products and more jobs and creates jobs. You can’t – you can’t put a wall up around here. We tried that in the ’30s. It didn’t work.

- Jack Welch

You absolutely cannot make a series of good decisions without first confronting the brutal facts. The good-to-great companies operated.

- James C. Collins

Now everyone takes it for granted that you can look up movie reviews, track locations, and order stuff online. I wish there was a way we could take it away from people for a day so they could remember what it was like without it.

- Bill Gates

I think we are not serious about attacking the long-term debt problem, and that’s one of the things that he’s going to have to find a way to get on the agenda.

- Michael Bloomberg

I run a bunch of charities and I say this line to people: ‘I am somebody who has always been helped.’ A little thing like that can make people believe it.

- Russell Simmons

When I do something, it is all about self-discovery. I want to learn and discover my own limits.

- Larry Ellison

Think and Thank. Think of all we have to be grateful for, and thank God for all our boons and bounties.

- Dale Carnegie

Learning to be a CEO through classroom training would be like learning to be an NFL quarterback through classroom training.

- Ben Horowitz

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

Seeing his education soley in utilitarian terms, he studied hard, but showed no intellectual playfulness.

- Ron Chernow

The dream in your heart may be bigger than the environment in which you find yourself.

- Joel Olsteen

Okay, let’s talk about cartoon labels for half a second – some people think anything with a dog or a car or a colorful alien is garbage, which is not true. Look at Big Moose Red. It’s, like, a $6 wine with a cheesy label, and it’s actually a solid wine.

- Gary Vaynerchuk

There is a revolution happening, and within two years I think that Wi-Fi and Netflix will be built into all the televisions.

- Reed Hastings

My general attitude to life is to enjoy every minute of every day. I never do anything with a feeling of, ‘Oh God, I’ve got to do this today.’

- Richard Branson

Selling is problem solving, not hustling. Aggressiveness propels you into the mean streets, but ruin sales.

- Jerry Vass

For a company to be valuable it must grow and endure, but many entrepreneurs focus only on short-term growth. They have an excuse: growth is easy to measure, but durability isn’t.

- Peter Thiel

Get closer than ever to your customers. So close, in fact, that you tell them what they need well before they realize it themselves.

- Steve Jobs

It is not the strongest of the species that survive, or the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.

- Charles Darwin

Money is fun to make, fun to spend and fun to give away.

- Sara Blakely

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

If you are going to be successful, you must develop persistence. How do you do that? It is not easily condensed in one simple statement, but one thing you can be sure of is that your must define your purpose.

- Zig Ziglar

The only thing worse than being blind is having sight but no vision.

- Helen Keller

If we all did the things we are capable of doing, we would literally astound ourselves.

- Thomas Edison

Definiteness of purpose is the starting point from which one must begin. He recognized, too that definiteness of purpose of takes on animation, life, and power when backed by a burning desire to translate that purpose into its material equivalent. – Napoleon Hill (on leadership and vision)

- Napoleon Hill

I try to speak in everyday language. I feel like God has gifted me to take Bible principles and make them practical.

- Joel Olsteen

If you aren’t willing to own a stock for ten years, don’t even think about owning it for ten minutes. Put together a portfolio of companies whose aggregate earnings march upward over the years, and so also will the portfolio’s market value

- Warren Buffett

You’ve got to listen to what God’s telling you and not to what other people may tell you. People will try to talk you out of the dream in your heart.

- Joel Olsteen

The commonsense rules of the real world” are a fragile collection of socially reinforced illusions.

- Timothy Ferriss

I have an obligation to use what I know to try to bring real, usable medical science to every doctor and bedside and patient.

- Patrick Soon-Shiong

The great majority of people are “wandering generalities” rather than “meaningful specifics”. The fact is that you can’t bit a target that you can’t see. If you don’t know where you are going, you will probably end up somewhere else. You have to have goals.

- Zig Ziglar

Sam hired me in 1970 as a district manager in charge of new store openings. He had eighteen Wal-Marts and some variety stores doing about $31 million a year. I moved my family and as the van was unloading furniture into our rented house, they called from the office and said, Can you set up this new store in Missouri? My wife, who had three babies and a moving van to deal with, helped me find some clothes and I left. I didn’t see her again for two weeks. Then there was a managers’ meeting so I didn’t see her again for two more weeks. It would be safe to say that in those days we all worked a minimum of 16 hours a day.

- Jack Shewmaker

When I was in my 40s, Microsoft was my primary activity.

- Bill Gates

One of the main reasons people fail to reach their full potential is because they are unwilling to risk anything. They are fearful of losing, failing, or getting hurt and just want to do the things they believe will keep them safe.

- Zig Ziglar

What shall I do with all my books?’ was the question, and the answer, ‘Read them,’ sobered the questioner. But if you cannot read them, at the very least handle them and, as it were, fondle them. Peer into them. Let them fall open as they will. Read on from the first sentence that turns the eye. Then turn to another. Make a voyage of discovery, taking soundings of uncharted seas. Set them back on their shelves with your own hands. Arrange them on your own plan, so that if you do not know what is in them, you at least know where they are. If they cannot be your friends, let them at any rate be your acquaintances. If they cannot enter the circle of your life, do not deny them at least a nod of recognition.

- Winston Churchill

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