Notable Quotables

Great achievers are driven, not so much by the pursuit of success, but by the fear of failure.

- Larry Ellison

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

- Winston Churchill

America’s leaders need to put their feet in the shoes of working Americans.

- Howard Schultz

I think if you do something and it turns out pretty good, then you should go do something else wonderful, not dwell on it for too long. Just figure out what’s next.

- Steve Jobs

Part of being a winner is knowing when enough is enough. Sometimes you have to give up the fight and walk away, and move on to something that’s more productive.

- Donald Trump

Fascinatingly, as companies begin to struggle, the third category always seems to grow much faster than the first. In addition, the sudden wave of “semi-performance-related attrition” usually happens in companies that claim to have a “super-high talent bar.” How do all these superstar employees suddenly go from great to crap?

- Ben Horowitz

You can abuse me, you can strike me, so long as you let me have my own.

- Ron Chernow

It is a mistake to try to look too far ahead. The chain of destiny can only be grasped one link at a time.

- Winston Churchill

Never, never, never believe any war will be smooth and easy, or that anyone who embarks on the strange voyage can measure the tides and hurricanes he will encounter. The statesman who yields to war fever must realize that once the signal is given, he is no longer the master of policy but the slave of unforeseeable and uncontrollable events.

- Winston Churchill

I’d work in the store all day, then take off around closing and drive that windy road over the Mississippi River, and then into Tennessee with an old homemade trailer I had hitched to my car. I’d stuff that car and trailer with whatever I could get good deals on – usually on soft lines, ladies panties and nylons, men’s shirts and I’d bring them back, price them low and just blow that stuff out of the store.

- Sam Walton

If you hold on to what you want so tightly, it almost becomes an idol.

- Joel Olsteen

It’s insane to me to ask anybody to be what they’re not. Know what you know the best, love the most. That’s always going to be the answer to the thing that you have the best shot at winning at.

- Gary Vaynerchuk

Ten or twelve men, especially between brothers and between fathers and sons; but the offspring of these unions are counted as the children of the man with whom a particular woman cohabited first.

- Winston Churchill

If you think about computing, there isn’t just one way to compute, just like there’s not just one way to move around. You can have shoes, you can have a car, you can have a bicycle, submarine, rocket, plane, train, glider, whatever. Because you have one doesn’t mean you get rid of another one… But PCs continue to be important.

- Michael Dell

The stark differences between man and machine mean that gains from working with computers are much higher than gains from trade with other people. We don’t trade with computers any more than we trade with livestock or lamps. And that’s the point: computers are tools, not rivals.

- Peter Thiel

The politics of partisanship and the resulting inaction and excuses have paralyzed decision-making, primarily at the federal level, and the big issues of the day are not being addressed, leaving our future in jeopardy.

- Michael Bloomberg

I built a steel plant from the grassroots, so I learned all the nuts and bolts. When there was a problem, I would be able to guide them, though I am not a technical person.

- Lakshmi Mittal

Hold a picture of yourself long and steadily enough in your mind’s eye, and you will be drawn toward it.

- Napoleon Hill

Ultimately, it comes down to taste. It comes down to trying to expose yourself to the best things that humans have done and then try to bring those things into what you’re doing. Picasso had a saying: good artists copy, great artists steal. And we have always been shameless about stealing great ideas, and I think part of what made the Macintosh great was that the people working on it were musicians and poets and artists and zoologists and historians who also happened to be the best computer scientists in the world.

- Steve Jobs

The first time you say something, it’s heard. The second time, it’s recognized, and the third time it’s learned.

- John C. Maxwell

With a decrease in the number of pirates, there has been an increase in global warming over the same period. Therefore, global warming is caused by a lack of pirates. Even more compelling: Somalia has the highest number of Pirates AND the lowest Carbon emissions of any country. Coincidence?

- Timothy Ferriss

EVERY MOMENT IN BUSINESS happens only once. The next Bill Gates will not build an operating system. The next Larry Page or Sergey Brin won’t make a search engine. And the next Mark Zuckerberg won’t create a social network. If you are copying these guys, you aren’t learning from them.

- Peter Thiel

The air of the English is down-to-earth. They care about details; there’s a tradition, but there’s also a counter-culture: the younger generation versus the older generation and so on. But then that’s well blended into a happy balance and crystallised into common sense.

- Tadashi Yanai

Patience, persistence and perspiration make an unbeatable combination for success.

- Napoleon Hill

The challenge is to focus on the work, not on the fear that comes from doing the work.

- Seth Godin

They have done great things within what you would call established American sports. Freddy has the potential to bring soccer almost for the first time into the public’s consciousness. Soccer in the United States isn’t really part of the culture. What it needs, I think, is a superhero, and he clearly could be it. Now, that’s putting a lot of pressure on him, but the kid’s got all the potential to do that.

- Phil Knight

We are a country of artisans and a country of manufacturing. I think Japanese textile technology is the best in the world.

- Tadashi Yanai

Your faith is very important. I have done the math, and you are going to be dead a whole lot longer that you will be alive.

- Zig Ziglar

The typical small business owner is only 10 percent Entrepreneur, 20 percent Manager, and 70 percent Technician.

- Michael Gerber

I believe in motivating with humor. … – David Novak CEO OF Yum! Brands

- David Novak

You can literally force yourself to be courteous, happy and enthusiastic with every person you meet. After you have forced yourself to be so for a short period of time… the habit takes over.

- Zig Ziglar

Don Juan in Carlos Castaneda’s A Separate Peace: “The difference between a warrior and an ordinary man is that a warrior sees everything as a challenge, while an ordinary man sees everything as either a blessing or a curse.

- Michael Gerber

The outpouring of support from millions of people in the immediate aftermath of the earthquake in Haiti has been impressive.

- Bill Gates

Here’s how I work: It’s 2013, and most marketers are operating like it’s 2009. I’m always trying to market like it’s 2015, but not like it’s 2020. A lot of my contemporaries who understand where the world is going, go too far out, and aren’t practical. I have always prided myself on being visionary, with a heavy practicality.

- Gary Vaynerchuk

With DNA, you have to be able to tell which genes are turned on or off. Current DNA sequencing cannot do that. The next generation of DNA sequencing needs to be able to do this. If somebody invents this, then we can start to very precisely identify cures for diseases.

- Elon Musk

Brands mature over time, like a marriage. The bond you feel with your spouse is different than when you first met each other. Excitement and discovery are replaced by comfort and depth.

- Gary Vaynerchuk

Maintain a pragmatic approach, keep up with the multitude of trials and strive to remain its level of attainment in order for achieving sound performance and scaling new heights.

- Cheng Yu-tung

You won’t get anything unless you have the vision to imagine it.

- John Lennon

Americans reading the paper, listening to the news every single day, and all you hear is things are getting worse and worse. And that has a psychological effect on consumer confidence. That’s what consumer confidence is.

- Howard Schultz

No one has a transparent view of the world. In fact, we all carry around a personal worldview—the biases and experiences and expectations that color the way we perceive the world.

- Seth Godin

Biofuels such as ethanol require enormous amounts of cropland and end up displacing either food crops or natural wilderness, neither of which is good.

- Elon Musk

I don’t spend any time thinking about my place in history, ever. If people say I changed things, it’s nice, and I take it – but if I could give it to a charity it would be useful. I really believe now that my only job in life is to achieve a state of comfort and happiness.

- Russell Simmons

Most people are fast to stop you before you get started but hesitate to get in the way if you’re moving.

- Timothy Ferriss

While the uncertainties that the economic climate holds are a challenge for all companies, we are confident that by drawing from the strengths of our people, as well as on our core values of quality, initiative, trust and creativity, we will maintain our focus and strategic direction.

- Cheng Yu-tung

My rule of life prescribed as an absolutely sacred rite smoking cigars and also the drinking of alcohol before, after and if need be during all meals and in the intervals between them.

- Winston Churchill

I want to get involved in things that makes a difference in peoples lives and lifts them up. I don’t want to be a part of anything that’s not inspiring or helpful to the community that I’m serving.

- Russell Simmons

I look at Google and think they have a strong academic culture. Elegant solutions to complex problems.

- Mark Zuckerberg

Your ability to use the principle of autosuggestion will depend, very largely, upon your capacity to concentrate upon a given desire until that desire becomes a burning obsession.

- Napoleon Hill

Be willing to make the mistakes and realizing that something can happen later – the patience are some of the things I would advise.

- Jack Dorsey

You know, I love all kinds of activism. I certainly think blacks deserve to have something whether it is affirmative action or an opportunity that should be opened up to them. But at the same time I believe that people of color are not the only poor people in America and all over the world.

- Russell Simmons

If you always do what you’ve always done, you’re always going to get what you’ve always gotten.

- Zig Ziglar

All the adversity I’ve had in my life, all my troubles and obstacles, have strengthened me… You may not realize it when it happens, but a kick in the teeth may be the best thing in the world for you.

- Walt Disney

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

Word of mouth works now, much more than ever. @-reply every single person.

- Gary Vaynerchuk

Do the hard jobs first. The easy jobs will take care of themselves.

- Dale Carnegie

In a budget, how important is art versus music versus athletics versus computer programming? At the end of the day, some of those trade-offs will be made politically.

- Bill Gates

Don’t be afraid of enemies who attack you. Be afraid of the friends who flatter you.

- Dale Carnegie

Rockefeller succeeded because he believed in the long –term prospects of the business and never treated it as a mirage that would soon fade.

- Ron Chernow

Great investments may look crazy but really may not be.

- Peter Thiel

Opportunity often comes disguised in the form of misfortune, or temporary defeat.

- Napoleon Hill

Think of yourself as on the threshold of unparalleled success. A whole, clear, glorious life lies before you. Achieve! Achieve!

- Andrew Carnegie

It is incontestable and deplorable that Negroes have committed crimes, but they are derivative crimes. They are born of the greater crimes of the white society.

- Martin Luther King Jr.

There are two main drivers of asset class returns – inflation and growth.

- Ray Dalio

You are what you are and you are where you are because of what has gone into your mind. You change what you are and you change where you are by changing what goes into your mind.

- Zig Ziglar

The love of a foster mother for her charge appears absolutely irrational.

- Winston Churchill

This whole phenomenon of the computer in a library is an amazing thing.

- Bill Gates

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

We can be certain that cities around the world will compete for the jobs that the next revival of the financial services industry will bring.

- Michael Bloomberg

At the age of 30, one can overcome difficulties. By the age of 40, one has thorough appreciation of and insights into the world and becomes firmly self-assured without being carried away by all those irregularities in life.

- Cheng Yu-tung

When dealing with people, remember you are not dealing with creatures of logic, but with creatures bristling with prejudice and motivated by pride and vanity.

- Dale Carnegie

A peace talk is always difficult, always complicated.

- Jack Ma

I wish HP nothing but the best. I think HP is an icon. Those of us who had their careers in the Valley think of Dave Packard and Bill Hewlett as role models. We would love to be half as good as they were.

- Larry Ellison

Positively defined, a startup is the largest group of people you can convince of a plan to build a different future. A new company’s most important strength is new thinking: even more important than nimbleness, small size affords space to think.

- Peter Thiel

Entrepreneurs are always biased to understate the scale of competition, but that is the biggest mistake a startup can make.

- Peter Thiel

The past is prophetic in that it asserts loudly that wars are poor chisels for carving out peaceful tomorrows.

- Martin Luther King Jr.

Too often we judge people based on our own backgrounds and experiences, but when you understand people’s stories, it’s easier to understand their demeanor.

- Joel Olsteen

Be courageous. I have seen many depressions in business. Always America has emerged from these stronger and more prosperous. Be brave as your fathers before you. Have faith! Go forward!

- Thomas Edison

The Minden prospect originated this past summer through a large acreage acquisition from a major oil company and Cabot now controls 3,500 acres over the area. We are pleased with our initial results and will remain active in this area throughout 2006. On forty-acre spacing, the prospect has the potential for 80 plus locations.

- Dan Dinges

A startup is the largest group of people you can convince of a plan to build a different future. A new company’s most important strength is new thinking: even more important than nimbleness, small size affords space to think.

- Peter Thiel

Facing a market which awaited exploration and development, the Group decided to become a pioneer in its economic reform by taking up the responsibility to engage in the development of the Mainland.

- Cheng Yu-tung

I have no use for people who throw their weight around as celebrities, or for those who fawn over you just because you are famous.

- Walt Disney

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

There is always plenty of capital for those who can create practical plans for using it.

- Napoleon Hill

The Silver Spoon, the best-selling Italian cookbook of the last 50 years.

- Timothy Ferriss

We’ve got to put a lot of money into changing behavior.

- Bill Gates

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