Notable Quotables

It’s all a risk. Always. That’s not true, actually. The only exception: it’s a certainty that there’s risk. The safer you play your plans for the future, the riskier it actually is. That’s because the world is certainly, definitely, and more than possibly changing.

- Seth Godin

In fact, technology has been the story of human progress from as long back as we know. In 100 years people will look back on now and say, ‘That was the Internet Age.’ And computers will be seen as a mere ingredient to the Internet Age.

- Reed Hastings

I’m not afraid to call a wine that tastes like Skittles or green peppers mixed with orange marmalade. I’ll say, ‘It tastes like chicken.’ I mean, that’s not what people think of when they think of wine, but that’s what it tastes like to me and it hits home.

- Gary Vaynerchuk

Look after the customers and the business will take care of itself.

- Ray Kroc

When I am myself, I am happy and have a good result.

- Jack Ma

People who are using it to sell things on Craigslist to holding garage sales – campaigns – the Obama campaign and the Romney campaign both used Square to raise funds.

- Jack Dorsey

For the first time in a very long time, I believe the external factors are slowly starting to be more positive, … This is still a minority view, held by a minority of our customers, but we’ve seen early indications that the recovery could be gaining momentum.

- John Chambers

Don’t use your words to describe the situation. Use your words to change the situation.

- Joel Olsteen

Luke: What’s in there? Yoda: Only what you take with you.

- Yoda

My natural inclination to be improv rather than an educated character serves me well.

- Gary Vaynerchuk

China will become the IT (information technology) center of the world. We believe in giving something back and truly becoming a Chinese company.

- John Chambers

I think the most important factor in getting out of the recession actually is just the regenerative capacity of – of American capitalism.

- Warren Buffett

Always remember, a cat looks down on man, a dog looks up to man, but a pig will look man right in the eye and see his equal.

- Winston Churchill

I don’t know of any Internet service that opens on a regional basis.

- Reed Hastings

Honesty and integrity are absolutely essential for success in life – all areas of life. The really good news is that anyone can develop both honesty and integrity.

- Zig Ziglar

I do think a founder has special permission to make sweeping changes across an organization.

- Michael Dell

I have always respected education, which is why I actually went back secretly and taught school for eight years.

- Steve Wozniak

When people are around us, they should leave better off than they were previously. Rather than feeling discouraged or defeated, people should feel challenged and inspired after spending any time with you and me.

- Joel Olsteen

God never promised that we wouldn’t have challenges. In fact, He said just the opposite. His word says, ‘Be truly glad!…these trials are only to test your faith, to see whether or not it is strong and pure…’ so if your faith remains strong after being tried in the test tube of fiery trials, it will bring you much praise and glory and honor on the day of His return.

- Joel Olsteen

For all their bitching about what’s holding them back, most people have a lot of trouble coming up with the defined dreams they’re being held from.

- Timothy Ferriss

EVERYBODY SELLS Nerds might wish that distribution could be ignored and salesmen banished to another planet. All of us want to believe that we make up our own minds, that sales doesn’t work on us. But it’s not true. Everybody has a product to sell—no matter whether you’re an employee, a founder, or an investor. It’s true even if your company consists of just you and your computer. Look around. If you don’t see any salespeople, you’re the salesperson.

- Peter Thiel

Delight in smooth sounding platitudes, refusal to face unpleasant facts … genuine love of peace and pathetic belief that love can be its sole foundation … the utter devotion of the Liberals to sentiment apart from reality …though free from wickedness or evil design, played a definite part in the unleashing upon the world of horrors and miseries [WWII]

- Winston Churchill

One day a friend came by the job site and asked them separately what they were doing. The first said, Aw, we’re just laying brick. We’ve been doing this for thirty years. It’s so boring. One brick on top of the other.” Then the friend asked the second bricklayer. He just lit up. Why, we’re building a magnificent skyscraper,” he said. This structure is going to stand tall for generations to come. I’m just so excited that I could be a part of it.” Each bricklayer’s happiness or lack of it was based on their perspective. You can be laying a brick or you can be building a beautiful skyscraper. The choice is up to you. You can go to work each day and just punch in on the clock and dread being there and do as little as possible. Or you can show up with enthusiasm and give it your best, knowing that you’re making the world a better place.

- Joel Olsteen

And here is the prime condition of success, the great secret. Concentrate your energy, thoughts and capital exclusively upon the business in which you are engaged in. Having begun in one line, resolve to fight it out on that line; to lead in it. Adopt every improvement, have the best machinery and know the most about it.

- Andrew Carnegie

The most serious mistakes are not being made as a result of wrong answers. The true dangerous thing is asking the wrong questionl

- Peter Drucker

I’m interested in things that change the world or that affect the future and wondrous, new technology where you see it, and you’re like, ‘Wow, how did that even happen? How is that possible?’

- Elon Musk

Death is a natural part of life. Rejoice for those around you who transform into the Force. Mourn them do not. Miss them do not. Attachment leads to jealously. The shadow of greed, that is.

- Yoda

I remember one time I didn’t want to spend any money on motels so we all slept in sleeping bags on the floor of one of our guys’ houses. His furniture hadn’t gotten there yet.

- Sam Walton

Everybody is going to have their critics. It’s easy to get discouraged in life.

- Joel Olsteen

Being busy does not always mean real work. The object of all work is production or accomplishment and to either of these ends there must be forethought, system, planning, intelligent and honest purpose as well as perspiration. Seeming to do is not doing.

- Thomas Edison

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

Man will occasionally stumble upon the truth but most times he will pick himself up and continue on.

- Winston Churchill

Let’s find and remedy all our weaknesses before our enemies get a chance to say a word. That is what Charles Darwin did. …When Darwin completed the manuscript of his immortal book The Origin Of Species he realized that the publication of his revolutionary concept of creation would rock the intellectual and religious worlds. So he became his own critic and spent another 15 years checking his data, challenging his reasoning, and criticizing his conclusions.

- Dale Carnegie

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

The successful man will profit from his mistakes and try again in a different way.

- Dale Carnegie

Our road to success has included its shares of ups and downs, as we have had to cope with the often volatile nature of our chosen fields of specialisation. Yet, thanks to the strong foundations established by the dedication and hard work of our employees, we have always been able to weather the storms.

- Cheng Yu-tung

The human brain is an incredible pattern-matching machine.

- Jeff Bezos

A peace talk is always difficult, always complicated.

- Jack Ma

Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.

- Albert Einstein

The industry growth is there, and it’s there probably for the next decade. So how well we execute will determine what role we play.

- John Chambers

I think it’s fair to say that our distribution system today is the envy certainly of everyone in our industry, and in alot of others as well…We’ve spend almost $700 million builing up the current computer and satellite systems we have….You can’t generate sales unless you have the product there when the customer wants it.The math is pretty simple: if we both sell the same goods for the same price at retail, we’ll earn 2.5 percent more profit than they will right there.

- Sam Walton

This implies two very strange rules for VCs. First, only invest in companies that have the potential to return the value of the entire fund. This is a scary rule, because it eliminates the vast majority of possible investments. (Even quite successful companies usually succeed on a more humble scale.) This leads to rule number two: because rule number one is so restrictive, there can’t be any other rules.

- Peter Thiel

A good practice is to have the employee send you the agenda in advance. This will give her a chance to cancel the meeting if nothing is pressing.

- Ben Horowitz

Globalization has made copper and other minerals more valuable, and Ghana and Kenya have recently discovered mineral resources.

- Bill Gates

In line with the objective to diversify the business of your Group, Henderson Cyber was established to focus on businesses in the telecommunications and information technology fields.

- Lee Shau Kee

Outstanding leaders go out of their way to boost the self-esteem of their personnel. If people believe in themselves, it’s amazing what they can accomplish.

- Sam Walton

What is Oracle? A bunch of people. And all of our products were just ideas in the heads of those people – ideas that people typed into a computer, tested, and that turned out to be the best idea for a database or for a programming language.

- Larry Ellison

Success in the knowledge economy comes to those who know themselves – their strengths, their values, and how they best perform.

- Peter Drucker

Whether you think that you can, or that you can’t, you are usually right.

- Henry Ford

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

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

- Bill Gates

In life, you can blame a lot of people and you can wallow in self-pity, or you can pick yourself up and say, ‘Listen, I have to be responsible for myself.’

- Howard Schultz

No matter how senior you get in an organization, no matter how well you’re perceived to be doing, your job is never done. Every day, you get up and the world is changing; your customers are expecting more from you. Your competitors are putting pressure on you by doing more and trying to beat you here and beat you there.

- Abigail Johnson

I am optimistic that we can achieve a better future. It’s not true that the Philippines is a hopeless case.

- Henry Sy

If you can dream it, then you can achieve it. You will get all you want in life if you help enough other people get what they want.

- Zig Ziglar

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

[On Twitter and Japan] We’ve had massive success in Japan… In Japan, it’s not 140 characters, it’s 140 words. So you could write a little mini-novel. This is a whole story in the universe.

- Jack Dorsey

It isn’t what you have or who you are or where you are or what you are doing that makes you happy or unhappy. It is what you think about it.

- Dale Carnegie

We sold ‘Seinfeld’ all over the world but it was a very specific kind of show. In some countries it went down really well, in others they hated it.

- Jerry Seinfeld

After I met my partner, Mr. Protherow, we decided to start a banking project, and at the same time we started to think already about a business on a bigger scale. At the very beginning we thought more about gaining money, to have a normal life with our families, etc.

- Vladimir Potanin

In the Soviet Union I was the head of all oil production. And you know in the Soviet Union, you didn’t get that job unless you were really worth it.

- Vagit Alekperov

I grew up in a house where my father encouraged my brother and me to fail. I specifically remember coming home and saying, ‘Dad, Dad, I tried out for this or that and I was horrible,’ and he would high-five me and say, ‘Way to go.’

- Sara Blakely

[On exporting sports shoes from Japan to the US]The best hope for exports lay with Onitsuka Company. So I made a cold call on them.

- Phil Knight

mean that you can’t do anything else but pray. But it does mean that you are always ready and willing to go before God with any concern or praise. Nothing is too small or too big for prayer. Prayer is simply opening your heart and connecting with God. It’s taking His promises and applying them to your life. Prayer processes the plan of God. You should bathe your life in prayer. Pray for wisdom, peace, and patience. Pray for your relationships, your job, and your children. Pray for your country and leaders. Pray with others, knowing that when two or more are gathered in His name, He is there.

- Joel Olsteen

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

You don’t have to hold a position in order to be a leader.

- Henry Ford

I always try to put a seed of hope into people’s hearts. I’m not there to teach them doctrine necessarily, but to let them know that God is a good God, and has a plan for their lives. Hopefully, that will restore their faith, or draw them into faith.

- Joel Olsteen

Q1 was a solid quarter for Cisco, with balanced execution across most of our geographies, market segments and product categories, … We are especially pleased with the improving business momentum in the U.S. and Asia Pacific, the strength of our product families and the accelerated growth of the commercial marketplace, which has become our fastest growing customer segment.

- John Chambers

I’m not a businessman — I’m a business, man.

- Jay-Z

Never consider the possibility of failure. As long as you persist, you will be successful.

- Brian Tracy

In practice, a large market will either lack a good starting point or it will be open to competition.

- Peter Thiel

I’m a pretty conservative guy. But for some reason in business, I have always been pretty driven to buck the system, to innovate, to take things beyond where we’ve been. On the one hand, in the community, I really am an establishment kind of guy; on the other hand, in the marketplace, I have always been a maverick who enjoys shaking things up and creating a little anarchy. And sometimes the establishments made me mad…

- Sam Walton

I got my first computer in the 6th grade or so. As soon as I got it, I was interested in finding out how it worked and how the programs worked and then figuring out how to write programs at just deeper and deeper levels within the system.

- Mark Zuckerberg

Leading, not following We’ve been trained to follow. In fact, the very nature of training has following built right into it. We follow instructions. We follow the rules. We follow the leader. The challenge in a six-billion person world is that we don’t have a shortage of followers. Followers are easy to find, and the tools for compliance are more powerful (but less useful) than ever. Now the economy is demanding leaders. Human beings who can engage in what it really means to be a person—to forge connections, to see a path and to make a difference.

- Seth Godin

I’ve learned that it doesn’t matter how many times you failed…You only have to be right once…I was an idiot lots of times, and I learned from them all.

- Mark Cuban

You were born to win, but to be a winner, you must plan to win, prepare to win, and expect to win.

- Zig Ziglar

The plot is certainly sensational, but it hardly represents what actually happened. It is difficult to believe that the European emigrants by whom America has been populated took away with them all the virtues and left behind them all the vices of the races from which they had sprung; or that a few generations of residence on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean is sufficient to create an order of beings definitely superior in morals, in culture, and in humanity to their prototypes in Europe. The American.

- Winston Churchill

The worst pandemic in modern history was the Spanish flu of 1918, which killed tens of millions of people. Today, with how interconnected the world is, it would spread faster.

- Bill Gates

The lawyers I worked with ran a valuable business, and they were impressive individuals one by one. But the relationships between them were oddly thin. They spent all day together, but few of them seemed to have much to say to each other outside the office. Why work with a group of people who don’t even like each other? Many seem to think it’s a sacrifice necessary for making money. But taking a merely professional view of the workplace, in which free agents check in and out on a transactional basis, is worse than cold: it’s not even rational. Since time is your most valuable asset, it’s odd to spend it working with people who don’t envision any long-term future together.

- Peter Thiel

I was reading an article in the ‘New York Times;’ it talked about being in the zone, and being in the zone you’re so focused that time ceases to exist. It’s when you think, ‘Oh, I’ve been doing this for five hours and didn’t even know it.’ It’s the difference between hard work and going, ’12 o’clock, not moving.’

- Steve Martin

[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

If you are not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you’ve launched too late.

- Reid Hoffman

Brand is just a perception, and perception will match reality over time. Sometimes it will be ahead, other times it will be behind. But brand is simply a collective impression some have about a product.

- Elon Musk

If past history was all there was to the game, the richest people would be librarians.

- Warren Buffett

Differentiation (rating and evaluating people) Develops Great Organizations. Differentiation is hard, anybody who finds it easy doesn’t belong in the organization, and anyone who can’t do it falls in the same category…It is important for companies to continually remove the bottom 10 percent of their employees anually.

- Jack Welch

Success is the doing, not the getting; in the trying, not the triumph. Success is a personal standard, reaching for the highest that is in us, becoming all that we can be. If we do our best, we are a success.

- Zig Ziglar

Decided only to be undecided, resolved to be irresolute, adamant for drift, solid for fluidity, all-powerful to be impotent.

- Winston Churchill

While 9:00 to 5:00 and what happens in the job is important… what happens from 5:00 – 9:00 while you’re off the job is INFINITELY more important.

- Zig Ziglar

To solve a problem or to reach a goal, you don’t need to know all the answers in advance. But you must have a clear idea of the problem or the goal you want to reach.

- W. Clement Stone

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