We all know now that the 747 became the flagship jumbo jet of the airline industry, but the decision looks much different from the perspective of the late 1960s. Yet—and this is the key point—Boeing was willing to make the bold move in the face of the risks. As in Boeing’s case, the risks do not always come without pain.
- James C. Collins
Notable Quotables
Effective leadership is putting first things first. Effective management is discipline, carrying it out.
- Stephen R. Covey
A leader is one who sees more than others see, who sees farther than others see and who sees before others see.
- Leroy Eimes
I really had a lot of dreams when I was a kid, and I think a great deal of that grew out of the fact that I had a chance to read a lot.
- Bill Gates
Nobody ever accused me of wisdom of any kind, let alone conventional.
- Phil Knight
The reasonable man adapts himself to the world, the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.
- George Bernard Shaw
Few people are logical. Most of us are prejudiced and biased. Most of us are blighted with preconceived notions, with jealousy, suspicion, fear, envy and pride.
- Dale Carnegie
I’m not averse to making a lot of money. But where does that end? I hang out with people with hundreds of millions of dollars. Is that the standard by which I should measure myself? Where does that take you if you’re in my business? I think it takes you to pretty dark, corrupt places.
- Timothy Ferriss
The Center for Disease Control started out as the malaria war control board based in Atlanta. Partly because the head of Coke had some people out to his plantation, and they got infected with malaria, and partly ’cause all the military recruits were coming down and having a higher fatality rate from malaria while training than in the field.
- Bill Gates
The internet population is going up and up. I am confident that this will be a huge market.
- Robin Li
It’s not how much money you make, but how much money you keep, how hard it works for you, and how many generations you keep it for.
- Robert Kiyosaki
Anyone, even a child, can be taught to develop a positive mental attitude. The method is to repeat positive affirmations such as: Day by day, in every way, through the grace of God, I am getting better and better.
- Napoleon Hill
Although we can’t predict the future, our orders for the first weeks of this quarter are in line with the expectations we discussed in our fourth quarter earnings call.
- John Chambers
The death of my father is probably the biggest thing that I ever faced. Daddy and I were best friends.
- Joel Olsteen
The commercial segment produced the best results.
- John Chambers
To say that there are no secrets left today would mean that we live in a society with no hidden injustices.
- Peter Thiel
I own my business. My business doesn’t own me.
- Cherie Ve Ard
Meeting Franklin Roosevelt was like opening your first bottle of champagne, knowing him was like drinking it.
- Winston Churchill
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
It was not her sex appeal but the obvious relish with which she devoured the hamburger that made my pulse begin to hammer with excitement.
- Ray Kroc
In the Next Society’s corporation, top management will be the company. Everything else can be outsourced.
- Peter Drucker
Visionary companies are so clear about what they stand for and what they’re trying to achieve that they simply don’t have room for those unwilling or unable to fit their exacting standards.
- James C. Collins
Every one of my positions cuts – out half the country. I’m pro-choice, I’m pro-gay rights, I’m pro-immigration, I’m against guns, I believe in Darwin.
- Michael Bloomberg
A friendship founded on business is better than a business founded on friendship.
- John D. Rockefeller
If you say you want to automate cars and save people’s lives, the skills you need for that aren’t taught in any particular discipline. I know – I was interested in working on automating cars when I was a Ph.D. student in 1995.
- Larry Page
The typical factory-centric organization places a premium on not-wrong, and spends no time at all weeding out those who don’t start. In the networked economy, the innovation-focused organization has no choice but to obsess about those who don’t start. Today, not starting is far, far worse than being wrong. If you start, you’ve got a shot at evolving and adjusting to turn your wrong into a right. But if you don’t start, you never get a chance.
- Seth Godin
My experience has shown me that the people who are exceptionally good in business aren’t so because of what they know but because of their insatiable need to know more.
- Michael Gerber
You learn in this business: It you want a friend, get a dog.
- Carl Icahn
Thoughts mixed with definiteness of purpose, persistence, and a burning desire are powerful things.
- Napoleon Hill
We want Google to be the third half of your brain.
- Sergey Brin
There is no sale without the story, no knockout without the setup.
- Gary Vaynerchuk
I DECLARE God is going before me making crooked places straight. He has already lined up the right people, the right opportunities and solutions to problems I haven’t had. No person, no sickness, no disappointment, can stop His plan. What he promised will come to pass.
- Joel Olsteen
Les tengo buenas noticias: Usted no se tiene que mantener a la par de nadie. Usted puede correr su propia carrera y ser un individuo. Dios le ha dado la gracia para hacer lo que Él le ha llamado a hacer y no le ha dado la gracia para hacer lo que todos los demás están haciendo. Usted no tiene que ser la mejor mamá del mundo, sólo sea la mejor mamá que usted puede ser. Posiblemente, yo nunca seré el mejor pastor del mundo. Quizá no seré el mejor esposo ni el mejor padre, pero he decidido ser lo mejor que yo puedo ser y no me sentiré mal conmigo. Si otra persona puede hacer lo que hago mejor que yo, que bueno, yo no estoy en una competencia ni me estoy comparando con nadie. A mi manera de pensar, ¡yo soy el mejor! Y sé que estoy haciendo lo mejor que puedo. Eso es lo que nos enseña la Escritura. Dice: Así que, cada uno someta a prueba su propia obra…1.
- Joel Olsteen
Leadership is a combination of strategy and character. If you must be without one, be without the strategy.”
- General H. Norman Schwarzkopf
Age doesn’t matter: an open mind does.
- Timothy Ferriss
When you revolutionize education, you’re taking the very mechanism of how people be smarter and do new things, and you’re priming the pump for so many incredible things.
- Bill Gates
There’ll always be serendipity involved in discovery.
- Jeff Bezos
I’m trying to change the culture in New York City, that’s hard enough!
- Michael Bloomberg
A woodpecker can tap twenty times on a thousand trees and get nowhere, but stay busy. Or he can tap twenty-thousand times on one tree and get dinner.
- Seth Godin
We did it Disneyland, in the knowledge that most of the people I talked to thought it would be a financial disaster – closed and forgotten within the first year.
- Walt Disney
The belief that the world is getting worse, that we can’t solve extreme poverty and disease, isn’t just mistaken. It is harmful.
- Bill Gates
People tend to over-weigh risks on a personal level. It’s one thing if you’ve got a mortgage to pay and kids to support, so that if you were to deviate from your job, well, how are you going to feed your family and pay the rent? That’s understandable, but let’s say you’re young and you’re just coming out of college, what are your risks? You’re not going to starve, certainly not in any kind of modern economy. It’s so easy to earn enough money just to live somewhere and eat food. Very easy to do. So I don’t know what they’re afraid of. Mostly afraid of failure, I think, but people should be less risk averse, when there’s not much at risk.
- Elon Musk
Dream more than others think practical.
- Howard Schultz
Being great at everything is not an actionable message.
- Floris Maljers
In ninth grade, I came up with a new form of rebellion. I hadn’t been getting good grades, but I decided to get all A’s without taking a book home. I didn’t go to math class, because I knew enough and had read ahead, and I placed within the top 10 people in the nation on an aptitude exam.
- Bill Gates
I’m a Silicon Valley guy. I just think people from Silicon Valley can do anything.
- Elon Musk
Seizing new ground, making connections between people or ideas, working without a map—these are works of art, and if you do them, you are an artist, regardless of whether you wear a smock, use a computer, or work with others all day long.
- Seth Godin
Learning to ignore things is one of the great paths to inner peace.
- Robert J. Sawyer
The alternative to tourism The linchpin, the engaged one, the graceful actor in an unfolding play—these people don’t seek to only inspect. They’re not traveling in order to tick a checkbox. Instead, they open themselves to the world they bought a ticket to, knowing full well that they will be changed.
- Seth Godin
Tip #17 – Perceived value is what sells. Real value is what repeats.
- Jack Nadel
As we go forward, I hope we’re going to continue to use technology to make really big differences in how people live and work.
- Sergey Brin
I was not an easy student, and I had to apply myself diligently to prepare my lessons, said Rockefeller, who described himself accurately as reliable but not brilliant.
- John D. Rockefeller
An employer has no business with a man’s personality. Employment is a specific contract calling for a specific performance, and nothing else. Any attempt by an employer to go beyond this is usurpation. It is an immoral as well as illegal intrusion of privacy.
- Peter Drucker
Ending a sentence with a preposition is something up with which I will not put.
- Winston Churchill
When SAP, and, specifically Hasso Plattner, said they’re going to build this in-memory database and compete with Oracle, I said. God, get me the name of that pharmacist, they must be on drugs.
- Larry Ellison
The interesting products out on the Internet today are not building new technologies. They’re combining technologies. Instagram, for instance: Photos plus geolocation plus filters. Foursquare: restaurant reviews plus check-ins plus geo.
- Jack Dorsey
If you investigate companies that have failed, you will find that many employees knew about the fatal issues long before those issues killed the company. If the employees knew about the deadly problems, why didn’t they say something? Too often the answer is that the company culture discouraged the spread of bad news, so the knowledge lay dormant until it was too late to act. A healthy company culture encourages people to share bad news. A company that discusses its problems freely and openly can quickly solve them. A company that covers up its problems frustrates everyone involved. The resulting action item for CEOs: Build a culture that rewards—not punishes—people for getting problems into the open where they can be solved.
- Ben Horowitz
Every sale has 5 basic obstacles: need, money, hurry, desire, trust.
- Zig Ziglar
Your list is like a garden, tend it well.
- Michael Levine
Surround yourself with only people who are going to lift you higher.
- Oprah Winfrey
Every company starts only once.
- Peter Thiel
Building companies involves creating great wealth. If that means I am an oligarch, OK, it’s fine. But if being an oligarch is about buying football clubs, it is not for me.
- Alexei Mordashov
Every morning when I wake up, I make up my mind to solve as many problems before returning home.
- Aliko Dangote
Nobody can give you freedom. Nobody can give you equality or justice or anything. If you’re a man, you take it.
- Malcolm X
Meeting sports athletes that are the best in the world is a thrill to this day.
- Phil Knight
Storytelling is the game. It’s what we all do. It’s why Nike is Nike, it’s why Apple is Apple, it’s why Walt Disney built Disney World and it’s why Vince McMahon makes a billion dollars.
- Gary Vaynerchuk
God himself, sir, does not propose to judge man until the end of his days. Why should you and I?
- Dale Carnegie
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
If you don’t change the direction you are going, then you’re likely to end up where you’re heading…
- John C. Maxwell
If you want something new, you have to stop doing something old.
- Peter Drucker
When you expect your employees to act like adults, they generally do. If you treat them like children, then get ready for your company to turn into one big Barney episode.
- Ben Horowitz
There is one thing I would break up over, and that is if she caught me with another woman. I won’t stand for that.
- Steve Martin
Does it make sense to go to college, or should I instead be a plumber?
- Michael Bloomberg
Starting a new South Indian restaurant is a really hard way to make money. If you lose sight of competitive reality and focus on trivial differentiating factors—maybe you think your naan is superior because of your great-grandmother’s recipe—your business is unlikely to survive.
- Peter Thiel
We are the masters of our fate.
- Winston Churchill
The Roman world, like an aged man, wished to dwell in peace and tranquillity and to enjoy in philosophic detachment the good gifts which life has to bestow upon the more fortunate classes. But new ideas disturbed the internal conservatism, and outside the carefully guarded frontiers vast masses of hungry, savage men surged and schemed. The essence of the Roman peace was toleration of all religions and the acceptance of a universal system of government. Every generation after the middle of the second century saw an increasing weakening of the system and a gathering movement towards a uniform religion. Christianity asked again all the questions which the Roman world deemed answered for ever, and some that it had never thought of.
- Winston Churchill
It is always wise to look ahead, but difficult to look further than you can see.
- Winston Churchill
Make it just like a Mac.
- Bill Gates
The secret of his success? I will speak ill of no man, and speak all the good I know of everybody.
- Dale Carnegie
Always go to the expert.
- Jack Nadel
Patience is a virtue, and I’m learning patience. It’s a tough lesson.
- Elon Musk
Keep the big picture in mind. There are always opportunities and possibilities, and thinking too small can negate a lot of them.
- Donald Trump
Slow Dance: Have you ever watched kids, On a merry-go-round? Or listened to the rain, Slapping on the ground? Ever followed a butterfly’s erratic flight? Or gazed at the sun into the fading night? You better slow down. Don’t dance too fast. Time is short. The music won’t last. Do you run through each day, On the fly? When you ask: How are you? Do you hear the reply? When the day is done, do you lie in your bed, With the next hundred chores, Running through your head? You’d better slow down, Don’t dance too fast. Time is short, The music won’t last. Ever told your child we’ll do it tomorrow? And in your haste, Not see his sorrow? Ever lost touch, Let a good friendship die, Cause you never had time, To call and say Hi? You’d better slow down. Don’t dance so fast. Time is short. The music won’t last. When you run so fast to get somewhere, You miss half the fun of getting there. When you worry and hurry through your day, It is like an unopened gift thrown away. Life is not a race. Do take it slower. Hear the music, Before the song is over.
- Timothy Ferriss
Success is one thing you can’t pay for. You buy it on the installment plan and make payments every day.
- Zig Ziglar
We’re running the most dangerous experiment in history right now, which is to see how much carbon dioxide the atmosphere… can handle before there is an environmental catastrophe.
- Elon Musk
Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.
- Samuel Beckett
The hottest place in Hell is reserved for those who remain neutral in times of great moral conflict.
- Martin Luther King Jr.
As God himself, sir, does not propose to judge man until the end of his days.Why should you and I?
- Dr. Spencer Johnson
Everything in our society is so purposeful.
- Sara Blakely
Indeed, if there is any one secret” to an enduring great company, it is the ability to manage continuity and change—a discipline that must be consciously practiced, even by the most visionary of companies.
- James C. Collins
Those convinced against their will are of the same opinion still.
- Dale Carnegie
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
I think that business book reporting, it’s all Jim Collins, it’s the story of victory; it’s success bias over and over again.
- Ben Horowitz
Typically, your corporate e-mail account is not, today, that spam-targeted. It’s more the free e-mail accounts that are spam-targeted.
- Bill Gates
With the right pitch, you’ll get no argument. This is where the salesmanship comes in…It requires of you a substantial degree of self-confidence to pull it off, but your belief in your own project will help you muster that.
- Michael Levine
You never achieve success unless you like what you are doing.
- Dale Carnegie
Better to be called a cult—or even a mafia
- Peter Thiel
There certainly is a case to be made that taxes should be more progressive.
- Bill Gates
God is a good God, and He gives good things to his children. No matter who has denigrated you or how much pain you’ve experienced in life, no matter how many setbacks you have suffered, you cannot allow yourself to accept that as the way life is supposed to be. No, God has better things in store for you. You must reprogram your mind with God’s word; change that negative, defeated self-image, and start seeing yourself as winning, coming out on top. Start seeing that marriage as restored. See your business as flourishing. See your children as enjoying the good things of God. You must see it through your eyes of faith, and then it will begin to happen.
- Joel Olsteen
At the end of the day you have to keep emotions away.
- Lakshmi Mittal
