I understood the importance of hiring for strength rather than for lack of weakness, and I understood the meaning of “fit.”
- Ben Horowitz
Notable Quotables
95% financing arrangement offered by Hong Kong Mortgage Corporation Limited in a period of sustained low interest have added impetus to secondary trading activities in the property market.
- Lee Shau Kee
Realize that true happiness lies within you. Waste no time and effort searching for peace and contentment and joy in the world outside. Remember that there is no happiness in having or in getting, but only in giving. Reach out. Share. Smile. Hug. Happiness is a perfume you cannot pour on others without getting a few drops on yourself.
- Og Mandino
I’ve seen more people fail because of liquor and leverage — leverage being borrowed money. You really don’t need leverage in this world much. If you’re smart, you’re going to make a lot of money without borrowing.
- Warren Buffett
We keep moving forward, opening new doors, and doing new things, because we’re curious and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths.
- Walt Disney
Washington is unpredictable these days.
- Stephen Wynn
This is no time for ease and comfort. It is time to dare and endure.
- Winston Churchill
The interview process takes twelve to fifteen hoursof your team’s time. This process is expensive for your team, so you should vet people in advance. A technique I use is to email the references and say, Rate this person one to ten. No one’s going to reply a five or a three by email; that means they hate the candidate. Call me is usually the response for a sub-seven rating. At the same time, nobody is going to reply with a ten. What you’re really looking for is a bunch of eights and nines. This is an exceptionally quick referencing system when you’re trying to triage a list.
- Reid Hoffman
The rich are always going to say that, you know, just give us more money and we’ll go out and spend more and then it will all trickle down to the rest of you. But that has not worked the last 10 years, and I hope the American public is catching on.
- Warren Buffett
Occasionally he stumbled over the truth, but hastily picked himself up and hurried on as if nothing had happened.
- Winston Churchill
Any jerk can have short-term earnings. You squeeze, squeeze, squeeze, and the company sinks five years later.
- Jack Welch
There is one quality which one must possess to win, and that is definiteness of purpose, the knowledge of what one wants, and a burning desire to possess it.
- Napoleon Hill
People don’t care about what someone says about you in a movie – or even what you say, right? They care about what you build. And if you can make something that makes people’s life better, then that’s something that’s really good.
- Mark Zuckerberg
If you have a reputation as a big, stiff bureaucracy, you’re stuck.
- Jack Welch
A blow that would kill a civilized man soon heals on a savage. The higher we go in the scale of life, the greater is the capacity for suffering.
- Dale Carnegie
I think what’s happening for me, it’s fun to see other things besides Facebook and Twitter take hold. The maturity of Tumblr as a real player is exciting. I think Pinterest has proved to be a major player. It’s fun to see Instagram become a major player. It’s fun to watch things like SnapChat, and Vine, try to vie to be the next thing.
- Gary Vaynerchuk
Life’s too short” is repeated often enough to be a cliche, but this time it’s true. You don’t have enough time to be both unhappy and mediocre. It’s not just pointless, it’s painful. Instead of wondering when your next vacation is, maybe you ought to set up a life you don’t need to escape from.
- Seth Godin
It is not so much that I am a blue-blooded oligarch: I just don’t feel like an oligarch.
- Vladimir Potanin
When I hear people debate the ROI of social media? It makes me remember why so many business fail. Most businesses are not playing the marathon. They’re playing the sprint. They’re not worried about lifetime value and retention. They’re worried about short-term goals.
- Gary Vaynerchuk
Entrepreneurs, by definition, shift resources from areas of low productivity and yield to areas of higher productivity and yield.
- Peter Drucker
We are dealing with creatures of emotion, creatures bristling with prejudices and motivated by pride and vanity.
- Dale Carnegie
I don’t think of myself as a poor deprived ghetto girl who made good. I think of myself as somebody who from an early age knew I was responsible for myself, and I had to make good, but on a practical level having dealt with being abandoned by your father, being raised by your alcoholic mom and having severe physical disabilities even today, How do you choose to have the right thoughts?
- Oprah Winfrey
I always want to listen to people and receive good criticism, but I just don’t have to answer to them; I have to answer to God.
- Joel Olsteen
Employers have decided that having the breadth of knowledge that’s associated with a four-year degree is often something they want to see in the people they give that job to.
- Bill Gates
I had already started the learning process by organizing a tour of some of the best companies out there to find out exactly what it was that made them great. I went back to the Partners’ Council and asked them to help me study the best practices of the best companies we could find. We would then use then findings to strengthen our company.
- David Novak
You cannot expect to live a positive life if you hang with negative people.
- Joel Olsteen
We live well below our means. We wear inexpensive suits and drive American-made cars. Only a minority of us drive the current-model-year automobile. Only a minority ever lease our motor vehicles.
- Thomas J Stanley
It’s not an experiment if you know it’s going to work.
- Jeff Bezos
Only the Dark Lord of the Sith knows of our weakness. If informed the senate is, multiply our adversaries will.
- Yoda
There’s no substitute for a full-time dad. Dads who are fully engaged with their kids overwhelmingly tend to produce children who believe in themselves and live full lives.
- Tony Dungy
I think if you do something and it turns out pretty good, then you should go do something else wonderful, not dwell on it for too long. Just figure out what’s next.
- Steve Jobs
There is surely nothing quite so useless as doing with great efficiency what should not be done at all.
- Peter Drucker
Churchill used words for different purposes: to argue for moral and political causes, to advocate courses of action in the social, national and international spheres, and to tell the story of his own life and that of Britain and its place in the world.
- Winston Churchill
Going from PayPal, I thought: ‘Well, what are some of the other problems that are likely to most affect the future of humanity?’ Not from the perspective, ‘What’s the best way to make money?
- Elon Musk
Structure a deal and create a plan around it.
- Jack Nadel
Polio’s pretty special because once you get an eradication, you no longer have to spend money on it; it’s just there as a gift for the rest of time.
- Bill Gates
One can steal ideas, but no one can steal execution or passion.
- Timothy Ferriss
It is a mistake to hire huge numbers of people to get a complicated job done. Numbers will never compensate for talent in getting the right answer (two people who don’t know something are no better than one), will tend to slow down progress, and will make the task incredibly expensive.
- Elon Musk
A record isn’t like a movie – you can get it together pretty fast.
- Steve Martin
People always fear change. People feared electricity when it was invented, didn’t they? People feared coal, they feared gas-powered engines… There will always be ignorance, and ignorance leads to fear. But with time, people will come to accept their silicon masters.
- Bill Gates
To avoid criticism say nothing, do nothing, be nothing.
- Elbert Hubbard
Why don’t we have enough teachers of math and science in the public schools? One answer is well, if they knew the subject well, they’d also know enough to work for Google or Goldman Sachs or God knows where.
- James Simons
You embrace the top 20, deal with the middle 70, and you face into the bottom 10, and you do what’s right for them and for you.
- Jack Welch
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.
Hope for the best, but prepare for the worst.
- Jack Nadel
I have always said that everyone is in sales. Maybe you don’t hold the title of salesperson, but if the business you are in requires you to deal with people, you, my friend, are in sales.
- Zig Ziglar
Get the facts.
- David Novak
If you are nervous about making the jump or simply putting it off out of fear of the unknown, here is your antidote. Write down your answers to these questions, and keep in mind that thinking a lot will not prove as fruitful or as prolific as simply brain vomiting on the page. Write and do not edit – aim for volume. Spend a few minutes on each answer.1. Define your nightmare, the absolute worst that could happen if you did what you are considering.2. What steps could you take to repair the damage or get things back on the upswing, even if temporarily?3. What are the outcomes or benefits, both temporary and permanent, of more probably scenarios?4. If you were fired from your job today, what would you do to get things under financial control?5. What are you putting off out of fear?6. What is it costing you – financially, emotionally, and physically – to postpone action?7. What are you waiting for?
- Timothy Ferriss
Remember that this is what separates the women from the girls. If you want to be great, this is the challenge. If you don’t want to be great, then you never should have started a company.
- Ben Horowitz
Thinking about what might happen if we ran completely out of money—laying off all the employees that I’d so carefully selected and hired, losing all my investors’ money, jeopardizing all the customers who trusted us with their business—made it difficult to concentrate on the possibilities. Marc Andreessen attempted to cheer me up with a not-so-funny-at-the-time joke: Marc: “Do you know the best thing about startups?” Ben: “What?” Marc: “You only ever experience two emotions: euphoria and terror. And I find that lack of sleep enhances them both.
- Ben Horowitz
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
1. Why is it foolish to launch a new business with millions of dollars in TV ads?2. Are the market leaders in every industry more vulnerable to sudden successes by the competition than ever before?3. Should book publishers issue the paperback edition of a book before the hardcover?4. What’s the single most important asset a company can create—and what is the simple thing that can kill it?5. Every ad needs to do one of two things to succeed…yet most ads do neither. What’s the right strategy?6. Does the Net create a dynamic that fundamentally changes the way everything is marketed?7. How can every business…big and small…use ideavirus marketing to succeed?
- Seth Godin
Figure out what the impact areas are in your business.
- Chet Holmes
A public-opinion poll is no substitute for thought.
- Warren Buffett
There is always room for those who can be relied upon to delivery the goods when they say they will.
- Napoleon Hill
Great marketing is all about telling your story in such a way that it compels people to buy what you are selling.
- Gary Vaynerchuk
I have far more respect for the person with a single idea who gets there than for the person with a thousand ideas who does nothing….
- Thomas Edison
We need to and must protect privacy. But I think that people will be willing and even eager to share medical information about themselves for the greater good of mankind.
- Patrick Soon-Shiong
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
The world is changing… I don’t, as a consumer, want advertising that’s not relevant. If we’re going to take a side, let’s take the side of the consumer.
- Charles Ergen
The market … demands a signal from you that you’re serious, powerful, accepted, and safe.
- Seth Godin
When a country has the skill and self-confidence to take action against its biggest problems, it makes outsiders eager to be a part of it.
- Bill Gates
I used to believe that a good product sold itself.
- Phil Knight
You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backward. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.
- Steve Jobs
I don’t think of work as work and play as play. It’s all living.
- Richard Branson
Everything important to us—the universe, the planet, the country, your company, your life, and this very moment—is singular.
- Peter Thiel
Don’t fight change; embrace it, and you will step into the fullness of what God has in store.
- Joel Olsteen
All great programmers learn the same way. They poke the box. They code something and see what the computer does. They change it and see what the computer does. They repeat the process again and again until they figure out how the box works.
- Seth Godin
I don’t think it’s a big deal to show opera glasses to someone searching for binoculars that you somehow infer is a woman. But you don’t want to pop up ads for H.I.V. drugs on someone’s page, because you inferred they have H.I.V., when their boss is standing there looking at their computer
- Sergey Brin
In Silicon Valley, when you’re a private company, the entrepreneur can do no wrong.
- Ben Horowitz
If You Have A Lemon, Make A Lemonade That is what a great educator does. But the fool does the exact opposite. If he finds that life has handed him a lemon, he gives up and says: I’m beaten. It is fate. I haven’t got a chance. Then he proceeds to rail against the world and indulge in an orgy of selfpity. But when the wise man is handed a lemon, he says: What lesson can I learn from this misfortune? How can I improve my situation? How can I turn this lemon into a lemonade?
- Dale Carnegie
There’s never been a doctor who served many patients who, despite their best efforts, did not lose some of them to death. But they understood that was part of life itself.
- Zig Ziglar
I contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle.
- Winston Churchill
Never Cease to Proclaim in Fearless Tones the Great Principles of Freedom
- Winston Churchill
Nobody wanted to believe Jack Ma.
- Jack Ma
If people want capital gains taxed more like the highest rate on income, that’s a good discussion. Maybe that’s the way to help close the deficit.
- Bill Gates
Many people who come to me with a business plan or to ask for money look like a mice that has been chewed by a cat. No matter how good their plan, their physical appearance is a limiting factor. In public speaking, it is said that body language accounts for approximately 55% of communication. Voice tone 35%, and words 10%. If you remember President Kennedy, JFK, he had 100% working for him and it physically attractive as he was, we can all do our best to dress and groom appropriately to make our points stronger.
- Robert Kiyosaki
Too often the strong, silent man is silent only because he does not know what to say, and is reputed strong only because he has remained silent.
- Winston Churchill
Think global, but start local.
- Jack Nadel
What separates people is not the presence or absence of difficulty, but how they deal with the inevitable difficulties of life.”
- James C. Collins
To be sure, the fundamental task of management remains the same: to make people capable of joint performance through common goals, common values, the right structure, and the training and development they need to perform and to respond to change.
- Peter Drucker
The successful business executive can handle challenges and solve problems at a remarkable clip.
- Zig Ziglar
Remember you’re not entitled to anything. You have to earn your success every day, and you will make mistakes like everyone else.
- Harvey Mackay
The microprocessor is a miracle.
- Bill Gates
From the start, I wanted PayPal to be tightly knit instead of transactional.
- Peter Thiel
Venture-backed companies create 11% of all private sector jobs. They generate annual revenues equivalent to an astounding 21% of GDP.
- Peter Thiel
Adversity can strengthen you if you have the will to grind it out.
- Ray Kroc
Follow your instincts. That’s where true wisdom manifests itself.
- Oprah Winfrey
The young athlete who aspires to greatness, generally speaking, learns a number of things from several different coaches. The first one taught him the fundamentals; the second one instilled discipline in him and taught him more of the techniques that must be mastered to excel.
- Zig Ziglar
John, never lend money to your friends; it will spoil your friendships.
- John D. Rockefeller
The craftsman and the artist say, “Here, I made this.” The workingman is asked to follow instructions.
- Seth Godin
President Bush is endangering our safety, hurting our vital interests, and undermining American values.
- George Soros
Sometimes you do have to fight. Where that’s true, you should fight and win. There is no middle ground: either don’t throw any punches, or strike hard and end it quickly.
- Peter Thiel
The challenge, it turns out, isn’t in perfecting your ability to know when to start and when to stand by.
- Seth Godin
You will never change what you tolerate.
- Joel Olsteen
There is a certain amount of dissatisfaction that goes with knowing your time, talent and abilities are not being properly used.
- Zig Ziglar
[Introducing himself to Sony co-founder Akio Morita] I have six of your TVs in my house.
- Phil Knight
I really believed that fear is contagious.
- Joel Olsteen
Trump has been very influential in helping me expand by vision. Sometimes I talk to Donald two or three times a day, and he’s taught me many things. The best thing was a story he tells me about buying a building. When he built Trump Tower he also bought the rights to use the Tiffany name on the building. It was gonna be Tiffany Tower. He late father said, Yeah right. When you change your name to Tiffany, you call it Tiffany Tower. But for now, you call it Trump. Over a period of years whenever he was in trouble, his name and his promotion of himself as a brand are what saved him. I keep that lesson in mind. I remember how connecting Def Comedy Jam to Def Jam records helped both entities – associating HBO with an established hip-hop brand helped get the show on the air, while linking the label to a hot TV show helped the label survive a cold period.
- Russell Simmons
Later these tales would be retold and embellished by the genius of Mallory, Spenser, and Tennyson.
- Winston Churchill
