Notable Quotables

Properly run startups place a great deal of emphasis on recruiting and the interview process in order to build their talent base. Too often the investment in people stops there.

- Ben Horowitz

There have only been about a half dozen genuinely important events in the four-billion-year saga of life on Earth: single-celled life, multicelled life, differentiation into plants and animals, movement of animals from water to land, and the advent of mammals and consciousness.

- Elon Musk

I look at Facebook as being more conscientious about operator concerns, we are not 100 percent there, but we are finding consensus.

- Jon Fredrik Baksaas

Many people die at twenty five and aren’t buried until they are seventy five.

- Benjamin Franklin

Whenever you see a successful business, someone once made a courageous decision.

- Peter Drucker

Experience has taught me,” says Sam Wood, that it is safest to drop, as quickly as possible, people who pretend to be what they aren’t.

- Dale Carnegie

If I had been an Italian I am sure that I should have been whole-heartedly with you from the start to finish in your triumphant struggle against the bestial appetites and passions of Leninism.

- Winston Churchill

I don’t think there is any philosophy that suggests having polio is a good thing.

- Bill Gates

The success of the Overseas Chinese is the result of bad times in China itself. The Chinese who left the mother country had to struggle, and that became a culture of its own, passed on from father to son through each generation. Because we have no social security, the Overseas Chinese habit is to save a lot and make a lot of friends.

- Lee Shau Kee

Facebook is uniquely positioned to answer questions that people have, like, what sushi restaurants have my friends gone to in New York lately and liked? These are queries you could potentially do with Facebook that you couldn’t do with anything else, we just have to do it.

- Mark Zuckerberg

Don’t let what you don’t know scare you, because it can become your greatest asset. And if you do things without knowing how they have always been done, you’re guaranteed to do them differently.

- Sara Blakely

You see these dictators on their pedestals, surrounded by the bayonets of their soldiers and the truncheons of their police. On all sides they are guarded by masses of armed men, cannons, aeroplanes, fortifications, and the like – they boast and vaunt themselves before the world, yet in their hearts there is unspoken fear. They are afraid of words and thoughts; words spoken abroad, thoughts stirring at home – all the more powerful because forbidden – terrify them. A little mouse of thought appears in the room, and even the mightiest potentates are thrown into panic. They make frantic efforts to bar our thoughts and words; they are afraid of the workings of the human mind. Cannons, airplanes, they can manufacture in large quantities; but how are they to quell the natural promptings of human nature, which after all these centuries of trial and progress has inherited a whole armoury of potent and indestructible knowledge?

- Winston Churchill

My mission is not to forbid French art. If the quality is there, I buy; if the quality isn’t there, I don’t.

- Francois Pinault

Everybody says they want to be free. Take the train off the tracks and it’s free-but it can’t go anywhere.

- Zig Ziglar

Anything that won’t sell, I don’t want to invent. Its sale is proof of utility, and utility is success.

- Thomas Edison

Japan’s biggest problems are conservatism and cowardice.

- Tadashi Yanai

If you cannot read all your books, at any rate handle, or as it were, fondle them…let them be your friends.

- Winston Churchill

Any product that needs a manual to work is broken.

- Elon Musk

Antitrust is the way that the government promotes markets when there are market failures. It has nothing to do with the idea of free information.

- Bill Gates

No, I’m not settling here. I’m going to keep pressing forward.

- Joel Olsteen

Managers will play every game in the book to avoid identifying their bottom 10. Sometimes they’ll sneak in people who were planning to retire that year or others who already have been told to leave the organization.

- Jack Welch

If any of my competitors were drowning, I’d stick a hose in their mouth

- Ray Kroc

Self-disciplined begins with the mastery of your thoughts. If you don’t control what you think, you can’t control what you do. Simply, self-discipline enables you to think first and act afterward.

- Napoleon Hill

First ask yourself: What is the worst that can happen? Then prepare to accept it. Then proceed to improve on the worst.

- Dale Carnegie

PATIENCE YOU MUST HAVE my young padawan.

- Yoda

Smart people instinctively understand the dangers of entrusting our future to self-serving leaders who use our institutions, whether in the corporate or social sectors, to advance their own interests.

- James C. Collins

I don’t feel under-taxed in any way at all.

- Jack Welch

I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat. We have before us an ordeal of the most grievous kind. We have before us many, many long months of struggle and of suffering. You ask, what is our policy? I can say: It is to wage war, by sea, land and air, with all our might and with all the strength that God can give us; to wage war against a monstrous tyranny, never surpassed in the dark, lamentable catalogue of human crime. That is our policy. You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word: It is victory, victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory, however long and hard the road may be;

- Winston Churchill

You’d believe that a patient with hypertension, if you know you have hypertension or diabetes, you would take your drug every day. The compliance rate is more like 30% or 40%. Which means that 60% of patients don’t take their drugs, and they actually go into these crises, end up in the hospital.

- Patrick Soon-Shiong

Money doesn’t make people happy. People make people happy.

- Stephen Wynn

The power of an air force is terrific when there is nothing to oppose it.

- Winston Churchill

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

This first time through has been hectic, but I expect it to be more stream-lined next year.

- Jack Taylor

The concept of serviced apartments makes economic sense for tenancies of short to medium term duration – a fact many leading Hong Kong and overseas corporations now appreciate.

- Cheng Yu-tung

Being an artist isn’t a genetic disposition or a specific talent. It’s an attitude we can all adopt. It’s a hunger to seize new ground, make connections, and work without a map. If you do those things, you’re an artist.

- Seth Godin

It’s not how far you fall. But how high you bounce that counts.

- Zig Ziglar

Becoming a member of the new rich is not just about working smarter. It’s about building a system to replace yourself.”Most things make no difference. Being busy is a form of mental laziness.”By working only when you are most effective, life is both more productive and more enjoyable. It’s the perfect example of having your cake and eating it, too.

- Timothy Ferriss

Measles will always show you if someone isn’t doing a good job on vaccinations. Kids will start dying of measles.

- Bill Gates

I would make them all learn English: and then I would let the clever ones learn Latin as an honour, and Greek as a treat.

- Winston Churchill

The level of analysis that is done when you see laws created, whether it’s the city or state or federal level – it’s much more horse-trading than analysis.

- Michael Bloomberg

We appreciate size, but only if it is robust growth. Just to be big is not a target.

- Alexei Mordashov

Instead of choosing to focus in the liability column, I chose to focus in the asset column.

- Robert Kiyosaki

Emerson said: Every man I meet is my superior in some way, In that, I learn of him.

- Dale Carnegie

About 80% of our locations are second-generation. In other words, the building used to be, say, a Wal-Mart that moved out to become a Super Wal-Mart, or a Kmart that closed. It seems that such a site becomes available almost every year in every city.

- David Green

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

- Thomas Edison

Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.

- Winston Churchill

We live in an age where everything is based on the short term.

- Howard Schultz

Companies should not have a singular view of profitability. There needs to be a balance between commerce and social responsibility… The companies that are authentic about it will wind up as the companies that make more money.

- Howard Schultz

Little men with little minds and little imaginations go through life in little ruts, smugly resisting all changes which would jar their little worlds.

- Zig Ziglar

Business is never so healthy as when, like a chicken, it must do a certain amount of scratching around for what it gets.

- Henry Ford

I’ve had great fun turning quite a lot of different industries on their head and making sure those industries will never be the same again, because Virgin went in and took them on.

- Richard Branson

If you focus on diversification instead of single-minded pursuit of the very few companies that can become overwhelmingly valuable, you’ll miss those rare companies in the first place.

- Peter Thiel

We ride roughshod over the feelings of others, getting our own way, finding fault, issuing threats, criticising a child or an employee in front of others, without even considering the hurt to the other person’s pride. Whereas a few minutes’ thought, a considerate word or two, a genuine understanding of the other person’s attitude, would go so far toward alleviating the sting!

- Dale Carnegie

You may never get to that perfect world that you’re waiting for where everything’s going to be perfect and you got that much money and your house paid off.

- Joel Olsteen

There is a strong tendency to get used to and accept very bad things that would be shocking if seen with fresh eyes.

- Ray Dalio

You want to be a bit compulsive in your art or craft or whatever you do. You want to be focused on it.

- Steve Martin

An open society is a society which allows its members the greatest possible degree of freedom in pursuing their interests compatible with the interests of others.

- George Soros

Poker is a game where you don’t have to have the best hand to win. Poker is really reading other people and reading human emotion, which certainly comes into play in business.

- Charles Ergen

The reason we should do a carbon tax is because it’s the right thing to do. It’s economics 101, elementary stuff.

- Elon Musk

You can’t move people to action unless you first move them with emotion. The heart comes before the head…to lead yourself use your head, to lead others use your heart.

- John Maxwell

A person can perform only from strength. One cannot build performance on weakness, let alone on something one cannot do at all.

- Peter Drucker

We are more fascinated today by statistical predictions of what the country will be thinking in a few weeks’ time than by visionary predictions of what the country will look like 10 or 20 years from now.

- Peter Thiel

The chief function of the body is to carry the brain around.

- Thomas Edison

Pain, suffering, death I feel. Something terrible has happened. Young Skywalker is in pain. Terrible pain.

- Yoda

Listen, son: I am saying this as you lie asleep, one little paw crumpled under your cheek and the blond curls stickily wet on your damp forehead. I have stolen into your room alone. Just a few minutes ago, as I sat reading my paper in the library, a stifling wave of remorse swept over me. Guiltily I came to your bedside. There are the things I was thinking, son: I had been cross to you. I scolded you as you were dressing for school because you gave your face merely a dab with a towel. I took you to task for not cleaning your shoes. I called out angrily when you threw some of your things on the floor. At breakfast I found fault, too. You spilled things. You gulped down your food. You put your elbows on the table. You spread butter too thick on your bread. And as you started off to play and I made for my train, you turned and waved a hand and called, ‘Goodbye, Daddy!’ and I frowned, and said in reply, ‘Hold your shoulders back!’ Then it began all over again in the late afternoon. As I came up the road I spied you, down on your knees, playing marbles. There were holes in your stockings. I humiliated you before your boyfriends by marching you ahead of me to the house. Stockings were expensive – and if you had to buy them you would be more careful! Imagine that, son, from a father! Do you remember, later, when I was reading in the library, how you came in timidly, with a sort of hurt look in your eyes? When I glanced up over my paper, impatient at the interruption, you hesitated at the door. ‘What is it you want?’ I snapped. You said nothing, but ran across in one tempestuous plunge, and threw your arms around my neck and kissed me, and your small arms tightened with an affection that God had set blooming in your heart and which even neglect could not wither. And then you were gone, pattering up the stairs. Well, son, it was shortly afterwards that my paper slipped from my hands and a terrible sickening fear came over me. What has habit been doing to me? The habit of finding fault, of reprimanding – this was my reward to you for being a boy. It was not that I did not love you; it was that I expected too much of youth. I was measuring you by the yardstick of my own years. And there was so much that was good and fine and true in your character. The little heart of you was as big as the dawn itself over the wide hills. This was shown by your spontaneous impulse to rush in and kiss me good night. Nothing else matters tonight, son. I have come to your bedside in the darkness, and I have knelt there, ashamed! It is a feeble atonement; I know you would not understand these things if I told them to you during your waking hours. But tomorrow I will be a real daddy! 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!’ I am afraid I have visualized you as a man. Yet as I see you now, son, crumpled and weary in your cot, I see that you are still a baby. Yesterday you were in your mother’s arms, your head on her shoulder. I have asked too much, too much. Instead of condemning people, let’s try to understand them. Let’s try to figure out why they do what they do. That’s a lot more profitable and intriguing than criticism; and it breeds sympathy, tolerance and kindness. ‘To know all is to forgive all.

- Dale Carnegie

Learn from the past, but don’t live there. Build on what you know so that you don’t repeat mistakes. Resolve to learn something new every day. Because every 24 hours, you have the opportunity to have the best day of your company’s life.

- Harvey Mackay

The competitor to be feared is one who never bothers about you at all, but goes on making his own business better all the time.

- Henry Ford

Whatever the trend in exchange rates or whatever the external factors, a manufacturing company is always faced with the mission of transforming itself into a company that can produce higher value-added to absorb the increase in the cost of living in the country it’s operating in.

- Fujio Mitarai

Winners expect to win, they expect victory, and they expect success!

- Zig Ziglar

If you look at the purported dangers of salt or fat, there is no consensus of support in scientific literature. So I would ask first: ‘Is it possible to have an informed government that actually follows the science?’ From what I’ve seen, it’s not likely.

- Timothy Ferriss

Americans are in a cycle of fear which leads to people not wanting to spend and not wanting to make investments, and that leads to more fear. We’ll break out of it. It takes time.

- Warren Buffett

Madness is rare in individuals—but in groups, parties, nations, and ages it is the rule,” Nietzsche wrote (before he went mad).

- Peter Thiel

The difference between appreciation and flattery? That is simply. One is sincere and the other insincere. One comes from the heart out, the other from the teeth out. One is unselfish, the other selfish. One is universally admired, the other universally condemned.

- Dale Carnegie

I don’t know how you can justify leaving any engagement behind in the social Web of 2011.

- Gary Vaynerchuk

Until man duplicates a blade of grass, nature can laugh at his so-called scientific knowledge….

- Thomas Edison

Find a job that you will be happy with and work hard at.

- Lee Shau Kee

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.

- Mark Twain

I think we are living in a time where the consumer has lots of choices, whether it’s coffee, newspapers or whatever it is. And there is parity in the market place, and as a result of that, the consumer is beginning to make decisions, not just on what things cost and the convenience of it.

- Howard Schultz

We got so much better so quickly it was hard to believe. We totally stood Kmart off in those small towns of ours. Almost from the beginning, they weren’t very successful at taking our customers away in Jeff City and Poplar Bluff. Once Kmart arrived, we worked even harder at pleasing our customers, and they stayed loyal. This gave us a great surge of confidence in ourselves. But at that time our sales were 5 percent of Kmart’s. (through competition) Wal-Mart has lowered the gross margin in retailing from around 35 percent in the early 60s to only 22 percent today.

- Sam Walton

Starting and growing a business is as much about the innovation, drive and determination of the people who do it as it is about the product they sell.

- Elon Musk

I don’t look to jump over 7-foot bars: I look around for 1-foot bars that I can step over.

- Warren Buffett

Time has its role to play in one’s behaviour and how one conducts himself in society. With the passage of time, we master our lives better and become more refined and polished, step by step.

- Cheng Yu-tung

Train yourself to let go of everything you fear to lose.

- Yoda

If your message is not getting heard, then it doesn’t much matter what it is…Breaking through the clutter is such a powerful concept that even when it’s done badly it can still work. Once I graduated from college I needed a job quickly. I was applying to advertising agencies, so rather than send out a typical one-page resume, I made up this dinky little brochure. It had my picture on the front and on the back a little poem I had written about why someone should hire me… – David Novak CEO of Yum! Brands

- David Novak

Therefore, every startup should start with a very small market. Always err on the side of starting too small. The reason is simple: it’s easier to dominate a small market than a large one. If you think your initial market might be too big, it almost certainly is.

- Peter Thiel

If you cannot do great things, do small things in a great way.

- Napoleon Hill

There is no monopoly on becoming a millionaire. If you’re jealous of those with more money, don’t just sit there and complain – do something to make more money yourself.

- Gina Rinehart

Solving big problems is easier than solving little problems.

- Sergey Brin

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