I vividly remember a conversation I had many years ago in 1974, which marked a turning point in my leadership journey. I was sitting at a Holiday Inn with my friend, Kurt Campmeyer, when he asked me if I had a personal growth plan. I didn’t. In fact, I didn’t even know you were supposed to have one.
- John C. Maxwell
Notable Quotables
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
It’s not enough to do good things. You have to let people know what you’re doing.
- Phil Knight
From an operational perspective, this quarter was a home run.
- John Chambers
One does not leave a convivial party before closing time.
- Winston Churchill
Where there is no vision, there is no hope.
- George Washington Carver
Most of us have far more courage than we ever dreamed we possessed.
- Dale Carnegie
How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. The effects are apparent in many countries. Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live. A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property – either as a child, a wife, or a concubine – must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men. Thousands become the brave and loyal soldiers of the faith: all know how to die but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science, the science against which it had vainly struggled, the civilisation of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilisation of ancient Rome.
- Winston Churchill
1. It is better to risk boldness than triviality.2. A bad plan is better than no plan.3. Competitive markets destroy profits.4. Sales matters just as much as product.
- Peter Thiel
There was a moment when I was watching Martin Lawrence and Will Smith in ‘Badboys’ that I felt, you know, inspired. I don’t know if I was proud, because so many people do the work. Everyone’s part of a team that develops over the years and gives people chances. There have been some good moments watching people develop.
- Russell Simmons
Human salvation lies in the hands of the creatively maladjusted.
- Martin Luther King Jr.
Winners Evaluate Themselves In A Positive Manner And Look For Their Strengths As They Work To Overcome Weaknesses.
- Zig Ziglar
I predict at least one of the rookie drivers will win a race this year. With this strong of a group, two or three of them will likely win.
- Ed Clark
Fear is one of the worst things in business.
- Jack Nadel
The thing about hip-hop is that it’s from the underground, ideas from the underbelly, from people who have mostly been locked out, who have not been recognized.
- Russell Simmons
The future is in green energy, it’s in making steel for energy-efficient cars.
- Alexei Mordashov
Focus on being productive instead of busy.
- Timothy Ferriss
I have to be ever vigilant to remain open to other people’s points of view. Just because I’m enthusiastic doesn’t necessarily mean I’m right. I have to always keep the doors open for honest communication or I could enthusiastically lead everyone right over the cliff.
- David Novak
We’ve been able to go deep rather than broad.
- Jack Dorsey
Do it now! can affect every phase of your life. It can help you do the things you should do but don’t feel like doing. It can keep you from procrastinating when an unpleasant duty faces you. But it can also help you do those things that you want to do. It helps you seize those precious moments that, if lost, may never be retrieved.
- Napoleon Hill
The better at communicating you are, and the more people you communicate to, the better your cash flow will be.
- Robert Kiyosaki
Two men looked out from prison bars, One saw the mud, the other saw the stars.
- Dale Carnegie
And the pathetic part of it is that frequently those who have the least justification for a feeling of achievement bolster up their egos by a show of tumult and conceit which is truly nauseating. As Shakespeare put it: … man, proud man, / Drest in a little brief authority, / … Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven / As make the angels weep.
- Dale Carnegie
Often we don’t even realize who we’re meant to be because we’re so busy trying to live out someone else’s ideas. But other people and their opinions hold no power in defining our destiny.
- Oprah Winfrey
Encouragement is the fuel on which hope runs.
- Zig Ziglar
I’ve been to Disneyland, like, 10 times. I’m getting really tired of Disneyland.
- Elon Musk
The bigger we get as a company, the more important it becomes for us to shift responsibility and authority toward the front lines, toward the department manager who’s stocking the shelves and talking to the customer. When we were much smaller, I probably wasn’t as quick to catch on to this idea as I do should have been. But as an avid student of management theory, back in the mid-seventies I started reading the work of W. Edwards Deming, the famous statistician who taught so much to the Japanese about improving their productivity and competitiveness.
- Sam Walton
By my count, more business leaders have failed and derailed because of arrogance than any other character flaw.
- Harvey Mackay
What nerds miss is that it takes hard work to make sales look easy.
- Peter Thiel
Today our challenge is to both imagine and create the new technologies that can make the 21st century more peaceful and prosperous than the 20th.
- Peter Thiel
Luck plays a role in business but whether you succeed or fail depends on many other factors. I haven’t really had a failure.
- Lui Che Woo
By getting your customers to agree with you in small steps along the way, you have a better chance of reaching agreement when it’s time to do business.
- Harvey Mackay
A valuable business must start by finding a niche and dominating a small market.
- Peter Thiel
People who sell companies are “investment bankers.” And people who sell themselves are called “politicians.” There’s a reason for these redescriptions: none of us wants to be reminded when we’re being sold.
- Peter Thiel
I’m a catalyst for change. You can’t be an outsider and be successful over 30 years without leaving a certain amount of scar tissue around the place.
- Rupert Murdoch
Good action today will produce good living tomorrow.
- Zig Ziglar
Yes, the Bible should be taught in our schools because it is necessary to understand the Bible if we are to truly understand our own culture and how it came to be. The Bible has influenced every part of western culture from our art, music, and history, to our sense of fairness, charity, and business.
- Joel Olsteen
Customers are the reason we open our doors every day, and keep the machines humming all night long. Customers determine what we eat, where we live, whether we stay in business.
- Harvey Mackay
Automotive franchise laws were put in place decades ago to prevent a manufacturer from unfairly opening stores in direct competition with an existing franchise dealer that had already invested time, money and effort to open and promote their business.
- Elon Musk
I have a list of the hardest, most challenging problems that our company needs to solve and I start at the top and work my way down. And I have a list of the coolest most fascinating things that we can invent and I start at the top of the list and I work my way down.
- Travis Kalanick
Every sale has five basic obstacles: no need, no money, no hurry, no desire, no trust.
- Zig Ziglar
The real opportunity for success lies within the person and not in the job.
- Zig Ziglar
When the pressure is on, great leaders are at the their best.
- Napoleon Hill
As Americans, there are very few things we have confidence in.
- Howard Schultz
Wal-Mart became Wal-Mart by ordinary people joined together to accomplish extraordinary things.
- Sam Walton
An Enemy Called Average
- Jim Collins
I do not believe in failure. It is not failure if you enjoyed the process
- Oprah Winfrey
There is more treasure in books then in all pirate’s loot on Treasure Island.
- Walt Disney
The more you are grateful for what you have the more you will have to be grateful for.
- Zig Ziglar
Opportunity is often missed because it comes dressed in overalls and looks like work.
- Thomas Edison
[On the cost to found Nike] Six hundred dollars each. Twelve hundred dollars total investment.
- Phil Knight
For example, a world without secrets would enjoy a perfect understanding of justice. Every injustice necessarily involves a moral truth that very few people recognize early on: in a democratic society, a wrongful practice persists only when most people don’t perceive it to be unjust. At first, only a small minority of abolitionists knew that slavery was evil; that view has rightly become conventional, but it was still a secret in the early 19th century. To say that there are no secrets left today would mean that we live in a society with no hidden injustices.
- Peter Thiel
That’s what makes death so hard—unsatisfied curiosity. —BERYL MARKHAM, West with the Night1
- James C. Collins
The McDonald brothers were simply not on my wavelength at all. I was obsessed with the idea of making McDonald’s the biggest and the best. They were content with what they had, they didn’t want to be bothered with more risks and more demands.
- Ray Kroc
Projects undreamed of by past generations will absorb our immediate descendants, comforts, activities, amenities, pleasures will crowd upon them, but their hearts will ache and their lives will be barren, if they have not a vision above material things.
- Winston Churchill
I don’t yell at people, I don’t mistreat people. I don’t talk down to people, so no one else in this building, in this vicinity, has the right to do it.
- Oprah Winfrey
No effort has been spared in ensuring the best designs for all our projects.
- Lee Shau Kee
As a general thing, I have not ‘duped the world’ nor attempted to do so… I have generally given people the worth of their money twice told.
- P.T. Barnum
The pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity. The optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.
- Winston Churchill
It is not the man who has too little, but the man who craves more, that is poor.
- Seneca
Innovations that are guided by smallholder farmers, adapted to local circumstances, and sustainable for the economy and environment will be necessary to ensure food security in the future.
- Bill Gates
In 80% of the world, energy will be bought where it is economic. You have to help the rest of the world get energy at a reasonable price.
- Bill Gates
When you have the right staff, potential skyrockets.
- Napoleon Hill
Hay dos errores que podemos cometer en el camino hacia la verdad. No recorrer todo el camino, y no empezar.
- Siddhartha Gautama
Residential properties that were sold by the Group summed up to around 5,800 units and amounted to approximately HK$12.8 billion.
- Lee Shau Kee
The first step to thinking clearly is to question what we think we know about the past.
- Peter Thiel
When you are the first person whose beliefs are different from what everyone else believes, you are basically saying, ‘I’m right and everyone else is wrong.’ That’s a very unpleasant position to be in. It’s at once exhilaration and the same time an invitation to be attacked.
- Larry Ellison
There are two kinds of cultures in this world: cultures where what you do matters and cultures where all that matters is who you are. You can be the former or you can suck.
- Ben Horowitz
Work hard and persevere.
- Lee Shau Kee
Work in your areas of your greatest strengths.
- John Maxwell
You have to act and act now.
- Larry Ellison
Don’t settle in the land of barely enough. That is where you are, it is not who you are. That’s your location, it’s not your identity. No matter what it looks like, have an abundant mentality.
- Joel Olsteen
When completed the new facility will have the capacity to accommodate approximately 3,000 staff.
- John Chambers
Judge not, that ye be not judged.
- Dale Carnegie
We’re introducing separate rooms with double beds in all our planes so people can actually go with their partner and have a proper night’s sleep.
- Richard Branson
Expect to make some mistakes when you try new and different approaches. Sometimes colossal failures lead to spectacular successes.
- Harvey Mackay
Effective people know when to stop assessing and make a tough call, even without total information. Little is worse than a manager who can’t cut bait.
- Jack Welch
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
When it call comes down to it, nothing trumps execution.
- Gary Vaynerchuk
I have never heard anything about the resolutions of the apostles, but a good deal about their acts.
- Og Mandino
The local property market witnessed a slowdown following the 9-11 incident in the United States, under an environment of high unemployment and sustained deflation in Hong Kong. On the whole, property prices showed a slight decline as compared with the price levels recorded in the previous financial year.
- Lee Shau Kee
Harnessing steam power required many innovations, as William Rosen chronicles in the book ‘The Most Powerful Idea in the World.
- Bill Gates
Great companies have high cultures of accountability, it comes with this culture of criticism I was talking about before, and I think our culture is strong on that.
- Steve Ballmer
I trust that everything happens for a reason, even when we’re not wise enough to see it.
- Oprah Winfrey
While we remain cautious about the implications of a brief pause in the current 10-year expansion of the U.S. economy, we believe that Cisco has never been better positioned to help our customers solve their two most important business issues: Increasing productivity and creating new sources of revenue.
- John Chambers
If a man’s heart is rankling with discord and ill feeling toward you, you can’t win him to your way of thinking with all the logic in Christendom. Scolding parents and domineering bosses and husbands and nagging wives ought to realize that people don’t want to change their minds. They can’t be forced or driven to agree with you or me. But they may possibly be led to, if we are gentle and friendly, ever so gentle and ever so friendly.
- Dale Carnegie
The Loire Valley is grossly underestimated. The prices are fair, and the wines are real.
- Gary Vaynerchuk
I was always fascinated by the decision-making process and the managerial process and just business in general.
- Ronald Perelman
The outside perception and inside perception of Microsoft are so different. The view of Microsoft inside Microsoft is always kind of an underdog thing.
- Bill Gates
Taking care of your employees is extremely important and very, very visible.
- Larry Ellison
If money is your hope for independence you will never have it. The only real security that a man will have in this world is a reserve of knowledge, experience, and ability.
- Henry Ford
How you get up in the morning will play a big part in how high you go up in life.
- Zig Ziglar
Strategy is empty without change, empty without passion, and empty without people willing to confront the void.
- Seth Godin
So long as I can stay mentally alert – inquiring, curious – I want to keep going. I love my wife and my children, but I don’t want to sit around at home with them. We go on safaris and things like that. I can do that for a couple of weeks a year. I’m just not ready to stop, to die.
- Rupert Murdoch
The word ‘Spanx’ was funny. It made people laugh. No one ever forgot it.
- Sara Blakely
As God himself, sir, does not propose to judge man until the end of his days.Why should you and I?
- Dr. Spencer Johnson
It turns out that is exactly what product strategy is all about—figuring out the right product is the innovator’s job, not the customer’s job. The customer only knows what she thinks she wants based on her experience with the current product. The innovator can take into account everything that’s possible, but often must go against what she knows to be true. As a result, innovation requires a combination of knowledge, skill, and courage.
- Ben Horowitz
Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.
- Winston Churchill
There are not many companies in China that dare to say in public, ‘We don’t offer bribes’, or companies that operate only by market rules.
- Wang Jianlin
By fighting you never get enough, but by yielding you get more than you expected.
- Dale Carnegie
