I decline utterly to be impartial between the fire brigade and the fire.
- Winston Churchill
Notable Quotables
Personal initiative is the power that inspires the completion of that which one begins. It is the power that starts all action. No person is free until he learns to do his own thinking and gains the courage to act on his own.
- Napoleon Hill
the Mach3—leaving hundreds of millions of people to a more painful daily battle with stubble.19
- James C. Collins
Every man lives in two realms: the internal and the external. The internal is that realm of spiritual ends expressed in art, literature, morals, and religion. The external is that complex of devices, techniques, mechanisms, and instrumentalities by means of which we live.
- Martin Luther King Jr.
Since Henry Ford. It is changing the way every idea is handled, every product is created, every person interacts. It’s not going to be willing to make a detour around your gig, it’s not going to be interested in giving you a permanent sinecure. No, the revolution doesn’t care.
- Seth Godin
There is only one valid definition of business purpose: to create a customer.
- Peter Drucker
We are interested in others when they are interested in us.
- Dale Carnegie
Don’t do the natural thing, the impulsive thing. That is usually wrong.
- Dale Carnegie
I cannot discover that anyone knows enough to say what is and what is definitely not possible.
- Henry Ford
Management always bears in mind to ‘lend a hand’ to Hong Kong and Mainland China while we are working hard for shareholders’ benefits.
- Cheng Yu-tung
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
These are not dark days: these are great days – the greatest days our country has ever lived.
- Winston Churchill
A full and fair discussion is essential to democracy.
- George Soros
She came up with what is now the Swoosh for $35 which is a pretty good bargain.
- Phil Knight
I try to build a full personality for each of our cartoon characters – to make them personalities.
- Walt Disney
I’m in the shoe business. Look at these things. They’re called Tigers. I faked out the company. I’m the US distributor. Come with me.
- Phil Knight
Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning.
- Bill Gates
Encourage yourself.
- Joel Olsteen
As a comedian, I found this thing, this profession, that suits my mind and life force. To drop it to do something else? I just don’t get that.
- Jerry Seinfeld
MARCH 25 From Glory to Glory But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord. 2 CORINTHIANS 3:18 KJV THE SCRIPTURE SAYS we are God’s workmanship” (Ephesians 2:10), which implies that you are a work in progress.” Throughout our lives, God is continually shaping us into the people He wants us to be. The key to future success is to not be discouraged about your past or present while you are in the process of being completed.” God loves you unconditionally. You may not understand everything you are going through right now. But hold your head high, knowing that God is in control and He has a great plan and purpose for your life. Your dreams may not have turned out exactly as you’d hoped, but the Bible says that God’s ways are better and higher than our ways.
- Joel Olsteen
There’s always been a lot of information about your activities. Every phone number you dial, every credit-card charge you make. It’s long since passed that a typical person doesn’t leave footprints.
- Bill Gates
When we try to drill and practice someone into subservient obedience, we’re stamping out the artist that lives within.
- Seth Godin
How dare you settle for less when the world has made it so easy for you to be remarkable?
- Seth Godin
The only real security that a man can have in this world is a reserve of knowledge, experience and ability.
- Henry Ford
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
There is always plenty of capital for those who can create practical plans for using it.
- Napoleon Hill
I find it fascinating that a lot of business books that do well are from people who’ve never made any money in business.
- Gary Vaynerchuk
Freedom is only part of the story and half the truth…. That is why I recommend that the Statue of Liberty on the East Coast be supplanted by a Statue of Responsibility on the West Coast.
- Viktor E. Frankl
If we were motivated by money, we would have sold the company a long time ago and ended up on a beach.
- Larry Page
Well, real estate is always good, as far as I’m concerned.
- Donald Trump
Nothing can be more abhorrent to democracy than to imprison a person or keep him in prison because he is unpopular. This is really the test of civilization.
- Winston Churchill
Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.
- Winston Churchill
We beat our expectations in the run up to Christmas and this time last year we had particularly high stock levels leading to a bigger clearance.
- Simon Wolfson
Never fear to negotiate, but never negotiate out of fear.
- Jack Nadel
Simply changing one three-letter word can often spell the difference between failure and success in changing people without giving offense or arousing resentment. Many people begin their criticism with sincere praise followed by the word but” and ending with a critical statement. For example, in trying to change a child’s careless attitude toward studies, we might say, We’re really proud of you, Johnnie, for raising your grades this term. But if you had worked harder on your algebra, the results would have been better.” In this case, Johnnie might feel encouraged until he heard the word but.” He might then question the sincerity of the original praise. To him, the praise seemed only to be a contrived lead-in to a critical inference of failure. Credibility would be strained, and we probably would not achieve our objectives of changing Johnnie’s attitude toward his studies. This could be easily overcome by changing the word but” to and.” We’re really proud of you, Johnnie, for raising your grades this term, and by continuing the same conscientious efforts next term, your algebra grade can be up with all the others.
- Dale Carnegie
For get this quite clear, every time we have to decide between Europe and the open sea, it is always the open sea we shall choose. Every time I have to decide between you [Charles de Gaulle] and Roosevelt, I shall always choose Roosevelt.
- Winston Churchill
I probably have about four or five cups of coffee a day. I make myself an espresso macchiato when I wake, which is a shot of espresso and just a dollop of steamed milk. Then, if I’m going to do some work at home, I would make myself a French press. It’s the best way to make conventional coffee.
- Howard Schultz
When you work under the cloud of anxiety, the best strategy is to play it safe, because if (when!) it fails, you’ll be blameless.
- Seth Godin
Making small changes to things that already exist might lead you to a local maximum, but it won’t help you find the global maximum.
- Peter Thiel
When you have a dream that you can’t let go of, trust your instincts and pursue it. But remember: Real dreams take work, They take patience, and sometimes they require you to dig down very deep. Be sure you’re willing to do that.
- Harvey Mackay
For years we thought of ourselves as a production-oriented company, meaning we put all our emphasis on designing and manufacturing the products. But now we understand the most important thing we do is market the product… Nike is a marketing-oriented company, and the product is our most important marketing tool.
- Phil Knight
Being an Entrepreneur is like eating glass and staring into the abyss of death
- Elon Musk
We are the masters of our fate.
- Winston Churchill
Capitalism is this wonderful thing that motivates people, it causes wonderful inventions to be done. But in this area of diseases of the world at large, it’s really let us down.
- Bill Gates
The profile of homebuyers in Hong Kong is becoming more diverse and a wider range of marketing channels is thus needed to promote the Group’s Hong Kong property projects.
- Lee Shau Kee
What I’m trying to say is that for the average investor, what I would encourage them to do is to understand that there’s inflation and growth. It can go higher and lower and to have four different portfolios essentially that make up your entire portfolio that gets you balanced.
- Ray Dalio
I think very early on in life we all learn what we’re good at and what we’re not good at, and we stay where it’s safe.
- Sara Blakely
Everybody is going to have their critics. It’s easy to get discouraged in life.
- Joel Olsteen
Unfavorable hereditary back ground.
- Napoleon Hill
Unfortunately, there seems to be far more opportunity out there than ability…. We should remember that good fortune often happens when opportunity meets with preparation.
- Thomas Edison
The Value of a Smile at Christmas It costs nothing, but creates much. It enriches those who receive, without impoverishing those who give. It happens in a flash and the memory of it sometimes lasts forever. None are so rich they can get along without it, and none so poor but are richer for its benefits. It creates happiness in the home, fosters good will in a business, and is the countersign of friends.
- Dale Carnegie
Too often, we have tended to fall into a trap of creating plain hamburgers.
- Tadashi Yanai
Meetings are an addictive, highly self-indulgent activity that corporations and other organizations habitually engage in only because they cannot actually masturbate.
- Dave Barry
That’s what makes death so hard—unsatisfied curiosity. —BERYL MARKHAM, West with the Night1
- James C. Collins
The music industry is a strange combination of having real and intangible assets: pop bands are brand names in themselves, and at a given stage in their careers Their name alone can practically guarantee hit records.
- Richard Branson
The real question for me is, do people have the tools that they need in order to make those decisions well? And I think that it’s actually really important that Facebook continually makes it easier and easier to make those decisions… If people feel like they don’t have control over how they’re sharing things, then we’re failing them.
- Mark Zuckerberg
My supply of Scotch caution never has been small; but I was apparently something of a daredevil now and then to the manufacturing fathers of Pittsburgh. They were old and I was young, which made all the difference.
- Andrew Carnegie
Great CEOs face the pain. They deal with the sleepless nights, the cold sweats, and what my friend the great Alfred Chuang (legendary cofounder and CEO of BEA Systems) calls “the torture.” Whenever I meet a successful CEO, I ask them how they did it. Mediocre CEOs point to their brilliant strategic moves or their intuitive business sense or a variety of other self-congratulatory explanations. The great CEOs tend to be remarkably consistent in their answers. They all say, “I didn’t quit.
- Ben Horowitz
Few companies that installed computers to reduce the employment of clerks have realized their expectations… They now need more, and more expensive clerks even though they call them ‘operators’ or ‘programmers.’
- Peter Drucker
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
Given the uncertainty going into the Y2K quarter, we are very pleased with our quarterly results.
- John Chambers
Google’s done a super good job on search. Apple’s done a great job on the iPod.
- Bill Gates
You cannot expect victory and plan for defeat.
- Joel Olsteen
More business decisions occur over lunch and dinner than any other time, yet no MBA courses are given on the subject.
- Peter Drucker
I believe that Ronald Reagan will someday make this country what it once was… an arctic wilderness.
- Steve Martin
MANAGING STRICTLY BY NUMBERS IS LIKE PAINTING BY NUMBERS Some things that you want to encourage will be quantifiable, and some will not. If you report on the quantitative goals and ignore the qualitative ones, you won’t get the qualitative goals, which may be the most important ones. Management purely by numbers is sort of like painting by numbers—it’s strictly for amateurs. At HP, the company wanted high earnings now and in the future. By focusing entirely on the numbers, HP got them now by sacrificing the future. Note that there were many numbers as well as more qualitative goals that would have helped: Was our competitive win rate increasing or declining? Was customer satisfaction rising or falling? What did our own engineers think of the products? By managing the organization as though it were a black box, some divisions at HP optimized the present at the expense of their downstream competitiveness. The company rewarded managers for achieving short-term objectives in a manner that was bad for the company. It would have been better to take into account the white box. The white box goes beyond the numbers and gets into how the organization produced the numbers. It penalizes managers who sacrifice the future for the short term and rewards those who invest in the future even if that investment cannot be easily measured. CLOSING THOUGHT It is easy to see that there are many ways for leaders to be misinterpreted. To get things right, you must recognize that anything you measure automatically creates a set of employee behaviors. Once you determine the result you want, you need to test the description of the result against the employee behaviors that the description will likely create. Otherwise, the side-effect behaviors may be worse than the situation you were trying to fix.
- Ben Horowitz
People with the right kind of ambition would not likely use the word play to describe their effort to work as a team to build something substantial. Finally, people who use the “me” prism find it natural and obvious to speak in terms of “building out my résumé” while people who use the “team” prism find such phrases to be somewhat uncomfortable and awkward, because they clearly indicate an individual goal that is separate from the team goal.
- Ben Horowitz
It is predicated on the assumption that you dislike what you are doing during the most physically capable years of your life. This is a nonstarter—nothing can justify that sacrifice.
- Timothy Ferriss
There’s a fascinating statistic: One out of every four people in America has visited New York since 9/11. It is astounding. Now, I don’t know how you count it; it’s some people coming multiple times.
- Michael Bloomberg
For those already successful, money can become a controlling factor in life and make you a slave to it. One way to avoid that – Philanthropy.
- Lee Shau Kee
But the three rules I always stuck with were 1) Be on time 2) No profanity and 3) Never criticize a teammate.
- David Novak
Get your fire back.
- Joel Olsteen
If your access to health care involves your leaving work and driving somewhere and parking and waiting for a long time, that’s not going to promote healthiness.
- Larry Page
The U.S. Treasury prints “In God We Trust” on the dollar, the ECB might as well print “Kick the Can Down the Road” on the euro.
- Peter Thiel
Well, in war, you can only be killed once. But in politics, many times.
- Winston Churchill
You can make positive deposits in your own economy every day by reading and listening to powerful, positive, life-changing content and by associating with encouraging and hope-building people.
- Zig Ziglar
At its zenith Sears accounted for more than 2 percent of all retail sales in the United States. It pioneered several innovations critical to the success of today’s most admired retailers: for example, supply chain management, store brands, catalogue retailing, and credit card sales. The esteem in which Sears’ management was held shows in this 1964 excerpt from Fortune: “How did Sears do it? In a way, the most arresting aspect of its story is that there was no gimmick. Sears opened no big bag of tricks, shot off no skyrockets. Instead, it looked as though everybody in its organization simply did the right thing, easily and naturally. And their cumulative effect was to create an extraordinary powerhouse of a company.
- Clayton M. Christensen
Count your blessings. Once you realize how valuable you are and how much you have going for you, the smiles will return, the sun will break out, the music will play, and you will finally be able to move forward the life that God intended for you with grace, strength, courage, and confidence.
- Og Mandino
Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goal.
- Henry Ford
In general, the apparel industry isn’t about continual process improvement or making the perfect piece of denim; it’s about chasing trends.
- Tadashi Yanai
I like sports, and I enjoy playing basketball and lifting weights.
- Joel Olsteen
Believe in your idea, trust your instincts, and don’t be afraid to fail. It took me two years from the time I had the idea for Spanx until the time I had a product in hand ready to sell into stores. I must have heard the word “no” a thousand times. If you believe in your idea 100%, don’t let anyone stop you! Not being afraid to fail is a key part of the success of Spanx.
- Sara Blakely
I also have in mind that seemingly wealthy, but most terribly impoverished class of all, who have accumulated dross, but know not how to use it, or get rid of it, and thus have forged their own golden or silver fetters. —HENRY DAVID THOREAU (1817–1862)
- Timothy Ferriss
Although personally I am quite content with existing explosives, I feel we must not stand in the path of improvement.
- Winston Churchill
There’s nothing funnier than the human animal.
- Walt Disney
When a subject becomes totally obsolete we make it a required course.
- Peter Drucker
Effective philanthropy requires a lot of time and creativity – the same kind of focus and skills that building a business requires.
- Bill Gates
Someone is sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago.
- Warren Buffett
Where there is no vision, there is no hope.
- George Washington Carver
Rank does not confer privilege or give power. It imposes responsibility.
- Peter Drucker
Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.
- Samuel Beckett
You learn how to be book smart in school, but you better not forget that you also need to be street smart.
- Harvey Mackay
It isn’t until you come to a spiritual understanding of who you are – not necessarily a religious feeling, but deep down, the spirit within – that you can begin to take control.
- Oprah Winfrey
People don’t want lots and lots of single purpose devices. They do not want to have to learn how to set up something for photos, another thing for music, another thing for video.
- Bill Gates
Twenty years ago, the top 100 companies in the Fortune 500 either dug something out of the ground or turned a natural resource (iron ore or oil) into something you could hold. Today, fewer than half of the companies on the list do that. The rest make unseemly profits by trafficking in ideas.
- Seth Godin
The elevator to success is not running, you must climb the stairs.
- Zig Ziglar
It’s the moments where you feel most like hiding or dying that you can make the biggest difference as a CEO.
- Ben Horowitz
Proclaim this among the nations: Prepare war. Stir up the mighty men. Let all the warriors draw near. Let them come up. Beat your plowshares into swords, And your pruning hooks into spears. Let the weak say, I am strong.
- Joel 3:9
We are a country of artisans and a country of manufacturing. I think Japanese textile technology is the best in the world.
- Tadashi Yanai
Once I did bad and that I heard ever. Twice I did good, but that I heard never.
- Dale Carnegie
