Notable Quotables

You can’t get too much done in life if you only work on days when you feel good.

- Jerry West

The Cul-de-Sac ( French for “dead end” ) … is a situation where you work and work and work and nothing much changes.

- Seth Godin

You must have a vision and not just a vision but you must have a plan that would make you fulfil that vision.

- Aliko Dangote

I think sometimes the critics want me to beat people down, and that’s not in me. I want to lift people up.

- Joel Olsteen

Good business leaders create a vision, articulate the vision, passionately own the vision, and relentlessly drive it to completion.

- Jack Welch

People really criticize professional athletes going into the Olympics. People don’t like change. A bunch of people don’t like the Olympics now because we’ve added skateboarding… We’re modernizing the sport.

- Larry Ellison

Ability can take you to the top, but it takes character to keep you there.

- Zig Ziglar

By far the most difficult skill I learned as a C.E.O. was the ability to manage my own psychology. Organizational design, process design, metrics, hiring and firing were all relatively straightforward skills to master compared with keeping my mind in check.

- Ben Horowitz

I’m enamored with the art world. Anytime you look at anything that’s considered artistic, there’s a commercial world around it: the ballet, opera, any kind of music. It can’t exist without it.

- Steve Martin

If you cannot read all your books…fondle them—peer into them, let them fall open where they will, read from the first sentence that arrests the eye, set them back on the shelves with your own hands, arrange them on your own plan so that you at least know where they are. Let them be your friends; let them, at any rate, be your acquaintances.

- Winston Churchill

If you run a corporation, your job is to maximize the return on investment for your investors. Good for you. But by the same token, we have to remember that corporations have no compassion. That’s why legislation and regulations are necessary.

- Russell Simmons

Remember happiness doesn’t depend upon who you are or what you have it depends solely on what you think.

- Dale Carnegie

As long as you’re green, you’re growing. As soon as you’re ripe, you start to rot.

- Ray Kroc

Thus far then have we travelled along the terrible road we chose at the call of duty. The mood of Britain is wisely and rightly averse from every form of shallow or premature exultation. This is no time for boasts or glowing prophecies, but there is this: A year ago our position looked forlorn, and well nigh desperate to all eyes but our own. To-day we may say aloud before an awe-struck world: ‘We are still masters of our fate. We are still captain of our souls.

- Winston Churchill

Investing for the poor requires participation from the entire community.

- Bill Gates

I’m considered homophobic and crazy about these things and old fashioned. But I think that the family – father, mother, children – is fundamental to our civilisation.

- Rupert Murdoch

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

I’m personally a moderate and a registered independent, so I’m not strongly Democratic or strongly Republican.

- Elon Musk

We are continuing to see a number of signs that could be interpreted with the appropriate caveats as optimistic.

- John Chambers

Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower.

- Steve Jobs

The greatest thing about being a comedian is knowing other comedians. And you get to talk to them. Its the most fun.

- Jerry Seinfeld

The Internet moves very fast. In the old world, we could afford to sit and analyze forever. But in the new world, the first mover has the advantage.

- Raymond Kwok

What is a movie star? A movie star is many things. They can be tall, short, thin, or skinny. They can be Democrats… or skinny.

- Steve Martin

When we are harassed and reach the limit of our own strength, many of us then turn in desperation to God-There are no atheists in foxholes. But why wait till we are desperate? Why not renew our strength every day? Why wait even until Sunday? For years I have had the habit of dropping into empty churches on weekday afternoons. When I feel that I am too rushed and hurried to spare a few minutes to think about spiritual things, I say to myself: Wait a minute, Dale Carnegie, wait a minute. Why all the feverish hurry and rush, little man? You need to pause and acquire a little perspective. At such times, I frequently drop into the first church that I find open. Although I am a Protestant, I frequently, on weekday afternoons, drop into St. Patrick’s Cathedral on Fifth Avenue, and remind myself that I’ll be dead in another thirty years, but that the great spiritual truths that all churches teach are eternal. I close my eyes and pray. I find that doing this calms my nerves, rests my body, clarifies my perspective, and helps me revalue my values. May I recommend this practice to you?

- Dale Carnegie

Great investments may look crazy but really may not be.

- Peter Thiel

In life, you don’t have a level of confrontation and the nonsense you run into when you’re a CEO. CEOs aren’t born.

- Ben Horowitz

It’s lonely at the top. Ninety-nine percent of people in the world are convinced they are incapable of achieving great things, so they aim for the mediocre. The level of competition is thus fiercest for ‘realistic’ goals, paradoxically making them the most time and energy-consuming.

- Timothy Ferriss

But if you expect an indefinite future ruled by randomness, you’ll give up on trying to master it.

- Peter Thiel

From an operational perspective, this quarter was a home run.

- John Chambers

Learn to do common things uncommonly well, we must always keep in mind that anything that helps fill the dinner pail is valuable.

- George Washington Carver

Look back in forgiveness, forward in hope, down in compassion, and up with gratitude.

- Zig Ziglar

It means the ability to go, go, go – to thrive on action and relish change. People with positive energy are generally extroverted and optimistic. They make conversation and friends easily. They start the day with enthusiasm and usually end it that way too, rarely seeming to tire in the middle. They don’t complain about working hard: they love to work. They also love to play. People with positive energy just love life.

- Jack Welch

This proves our strategy is working in terms of the convergence of voice, video and data.

- John Chambers

The ultimate connection is when you are connected to the creator of the universe.

- Joel Olsteen

People development should be a daily event, integrated into every aspect of your regular goings-on.

- Jack Welch

Most people consider me an optimist because I laughingly state that I would take my last two dollars and buy a money belt.

- Zig Ziglar

He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it. He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it.

- Martin Luther King Jr.

People have been indoctrinated so completely by their jobs that they don’t want to know how something works, they’re willing to accept that perhaps the laws of nature don’t work as they expect, and by the way, can I have the remote?

- Seth Godin

When a study was made a few years ago on runaway wives, what do you think was discovered to be the main reason wives ran away? It was lack of appreciation.

- Dale Carnegie

Most good ideas are already out there, and to learn about them, all you have to do is ask the right people.

- David Novak

If I was down to my last dollar, I would spend it on public relations.

- Bill Gates

The reason a lot of people do not recognize opportunity is because it usually goes around wearing overalls looking like hard work.

- Thomas Edison

Once you go from 10 people to 100, you already don’t know who everyone is. So at that stage you might as well keep growing, to get the advantages of scale.

- Sergey Brin

The most important quality for an investor is temperament, not intellect. You need a temperament that neither derives great pleasure from being with the crowd or against the crowd.

- Warren Buffett

Golf is a game whose aim is to hit a very small ball into an ever smaller hole, with weapons singularly ill-designed for the purpose.

- Winston Churchill

One of my lifelong practices is to pay my obligations on time, especially my suppliers. Even in my early years as retailer, I didn’t delay my payments to suppliers, because I tell my kids that we have to be considerate to suppliers and think of their own hinyong or how they have to protect their sense of trustworthiness with others.

- Henry Sy

If you really believe that you’re making a difference and that you can leave a legacy of better schools and jobs and safer streets, why would you not spend the money? The objective is to improve the schools, bring down crime, build affordable housing, clean the streets – not to have a fair fight.

- Michael Bloomberg

For those that have fixed exchange-rate regimes, you will need a greater amount of foreign reserves. That’s the case in Belize, it’s the case in the Eastern Caribbean zone and it’s also the case in Barbados. In those cases, the level of reserve coverage is one of credit weakness. Where you have a bit more flexibility in the exchange rate ? for instance, Jamaica ? you would require a smaller amount of international reserves.

- John Chambers

There’s only one trick in software, and that is using a piece of software that’s already been written.

- Bill Gates

Good shareholder activists have incredible interest in the company because they own a lot of it.

- Ben Horowitz

The boss would be present at the beginning of each session, laying out the rationale for the Work-Out. He or she would also commit to two things: to give an on-the-spot yes or no to 75 percent of the recommendations that came out of the session, and to resolve the remaining 25 percent within thirty days. The boss would then disappear until the end of the session, so as not to stifle open discussion, returning only at the end to make good on his or her promise.

- Jack Welch

I demand pretty aggressive goal setting and a commitment to measured progress towards those goals because I don’t like surprises. I don’t even like good surprises.

- Abigail Johnson

There’s nothing like the endorphins from being fit, and the incredible endorphin rush that goes with that.

- Richard Branson

Companies, exist and evolve over time and in fact they have multiple founding moments.

- Jack Dorsey

The people who skip the hard questions are in the majority, but they are not in demand.

- Seth Godin

Colleges are the equivalent of the subprime mortgage lenders who…

- Brian Tracy

Never again clutter your days or nights with so many menial and unimportant things that you have no time to accept a real challenge when it comes along. This applies to play as well as work. A day merely survived is no cause for celebration. You are not here to fritter away your precious hours when you have the ability to accomplish so much by making a slight change in your routine. No more busy work. No more hiding from success. Leave time, leave space, to grow. Now. Now! Not tomorrow!

- Og Mandino

It’s not about toughness, it’s not about attitude. Companies don’t fail for lack of cash or attitude. Companies fail for lack of brains and effort.

- Mark Cuban

The internet population is going up and up. I am confident that this will be a huge market.

- Robin Li

Anyone who has held an iDevice or a smoothly machined MacBook has felt the result of Steve Jobs’s obsession with visual and experiential perfection. But the most important lesson to learn from Jobs has nothing to do with aesthetics. The greatest thing Jobs designed was his business. Apple imagined and executed definite multi-year plans to create new products and distribute them effectively.

- Peter Thiel

I really believe that you cannot use the stock market as a proxy for the economy.

- Howard Schultz

The victory of success is half won when one gains the habit of setting goals and achieving them. Even the most tedious chore will become endurable as you parade through each day convinced that every task, no matter how menial or boring, brings you closer to fulfilling your dreams.

- Og Mandino

I DECLARE it is not too late to accomplish everything God has placed in my heart. I have not missed my window of opportunity. God has moments of favor in my future. He is preparing me right now because He is about to release a special grace to help me accomplish that dream. This is my time. This is my moment. I receive it.

- Joel Olsteen

I’m a big fan of Mashable and TechCrunch and other outlets like that, but TechMeme obviously does an amazing job of aggregating.

- Gary Vaynerchuk

You may think using Google’s great, but I still think it’s terrible.

- Larry Page

When an entrepreneur has an object in his line of vision, he should dismiss all other considerations from his mind, abandon all other activities, and charge directly at that object, continuing to charge until the object has been secured.

- Paul Johnson

The annals of business are filled with stories of companies that thought they had it made and could milk their enterprises without having to bother about improving their products or services. It’s amazing how fast they found their markets disappearing.

- Harvey Mackay

If you are not willing to learn, no one can help you. If you are determined to learn, no one can stop you.

- Zig Ziglar

You will give birth to more in the future than you’ve lost in the past.

- Joel Olsteen

If I designed a computer with 200 chips, I tried to design it with 150. And then I would try to design it with 100. I just tried to find every trick I could in life to design things real tiny.

- Steve Wozniak

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

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

When I used to play sports, I’d be the one cheering the team on, ‘Come on, we can beat these guys!’ That’s just in me.

- Joel Olsteen

But the Mahommedan religion increases, instead of lessening, the fury of intolerance. It was originally propagated by the sword, and ever since, its votaries have been subject, above the people of all other creeds, to this form of madness. In a moment the fruits of patient toil, the prospects of material prosperity, the fear of death itself, are flung aside. The more emotional Pathans are powerless to resist. All rational considerations are forgotten. Seizing their weapons, they become Ghazis—as dangerous and as sensible as mad dogs: fit only to be treated as such. While the more generous spirits among the tribesmen become convulsed in an ecstasy of religious bloodthirstiness, poorer and more material souls derive additional impulses from the influence of others, the hopes of plunder and the joy of fighting. Thus whole nations are roused to arms. Thus the Turks repel their enemies, the Arabs of the Soudan break the British squares, and the rising on the Indian frontier spreads far and wide. In each case civilisation is confronted with militant Mahommedanism. The forces of progress clash with those of reaction. The religion of blood and war is face to face with that of peace.

- Winston Churchill

Obviously Tesla is about helping solve the consumption of energy in a sustainable manner, but you need the production of energy in a sustainable manner.

- Elon Musk

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

If you want to increase your success rate, double your rate of failure.

- Thomas J Watson

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

Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently.

- Henry Ford

[In June 2011] I mean, what is Twitter? Ask 100 people, ‘what is the world?’ and you’ll get a thousand different answers. The same is true for Twitter. It’s different things to different people. Twitter is the world.

- Jack Dorsey

I think a newspaper should be provocative, stir ’em up, but you can’t do that on television. It’s just not on.

- Rupert Murdoch

I mostly eat healthy. I just do. I’m not a vegan for health reasons – although obviously I’m 20 pounds lighter than when I started. I stayed 20 pounds lighter. I feel better. My friends say I look better. All that’s true. But I’m a vegan for compassionate reasons

- Russell Simmons

I am going to enjoy some other things apart from business.

- Jack Ma

If you’re using first-class land for biofuels, then you’re competing with the growing of food. And so you’re actually spiking food prices by moving energy production into agriculture.

- Bill Gates

There comes a time when you ought to start doing what you want. Take a job that you love. You will jump out of bed in the morning. I think you are out of your mind if you keep taking jobs that you don’t like because you think it will look good on your resume. Isn’t that a little like saving up sex for your old age?

- Warren Buffett

I said a long time ago that Foursquare can make cities better. You have these augmented realities like Foursquare and Twitter and Facebook that provide these virtual nodes and instant feedback from anywhere, adding annotation around a physical places.

- Jack Dorsey

The Minden prospect originated this past summer through a large acreage acquisition from a major oil company and Cabot now controls 3,500 acres over the area. We are pleased with our initial results and will remain active in this area throughout 2006. On forty-acre spacing, the prospect has the potential for 80 plus locations.

- Dan Dinges

By altering our attitudes we can alter our lives.

- Zig Ziglar

If you can’t be remarkable, perhaps you should consider doing nothing until you can.

- Seth Godin

What important truth do very few people agree with you on?” This question sounds easy because it’s straightforward. Actually, it’s very hard to answer. It’s intellectually difficult because the knowledge that everyone is taught in school is by definition agreed upon.

- Peter Thiel

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