The main thing that’s missing in energy is an incentive to create things that are zero-CO2-emitting and that have the right scale and reliability characteristics.
- Bill Gates
Notable Quotables
I’m for the Wall Street Occupiers. But will they accept me when they find out I sell packaged mortgage default instruments to children?
- Steve Martin
You shouldn’t do things differently just because they’re different. They need to be… better.
- Elon Musk
For 20-plus years I looked at thousands of storyboard for corporate and product ads, and I never allowed one advertisement on the air that I didn’t like.
- Jack Welch
Crankiness is at the essence of all comedy. My wife and I were discussing the different types of cranky. There’s entertaining cranky, annoying cranky, angry cranky.
- Jerry Seinfeld
There is no man living who isn’t capable of doing more than he thinks he can do.
- Henry Ford
If you learn late, you pass it on to people so they can learn early. It’s a step process.
- Russell Simmons
It’s the power of the brand. We’ve never formally advertised.
- Sara Blakely
We do not need to teach students to embrace the status quo.
- Seth Godin
Every company starts only once.
- Peter Thiel
Waste is worse than loss. The time is coming when every person who lays claim to ability will keep the question of waste before him constantly. The scope of thrift is limitless.
- Thomas Edison
If you cannot persuade people to do things, you simply will not be a success because you are not an island unto yourself. Everything in life is about persuading people to do what you want them to do.
- David Robinson
Management is doing things right. Leadership is doing the right things.
- Peter Drucker
I have this system where if I buy three or four new things, I give away three or four things. Sometimes, it’s a very painful system, but shopping is even better when you know that someone else who needs it will be getting. Keep the clothing karma going, I say.
- Sara Blakely
Just as the process of repealing national alcohol prohibition began with individual states repealing their own prohibition laws, so individual states must now take the initiative with respect to repealing marijuana prohibition laws.
- George Soros
The Beatles created something that never trailed off. What a gift that was to their fans. If you’re into the Beatles, you loved them from beginning to end.
- Jerry Seinfeld
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’m a job creator.
- Stephen Wynn
We all know now that the 747 became the flagship jumbo jet of the airline industry, but the decision looks much different from the perspective of the late 1960s. Yet—and this is the key point—Boeing was willing to make the bold move in the face of the risks. As in Boeing’s case, the risks do not always come without pain.
- James C. Collins
If parents pass enthusiasm along to their children, they will leave them an estate of incalculable value….
- Thomas Edison
I care about our employees more than anybody in my company. I care about my kids, too, but that doesn’t mean I give them everything that they want.
- Charles Ergen
Differentiation favors people who are energetic and extroverted and undervalues people who are shy and introverted, even if they are talented.
- Jack Welch
Change is not threatening.
- Stephen Wynn
It’s God’s will for you to live in prosperity instead of poverty. It’s God’s will for you to pay your bills and not be in debt.
- Joel Olsteen
The odds of me coming into the rocket business, not knowing anything about rockets, not having ever built anything, I mean, I would have to be insane if I thought the odds were in my favor.
- Elon Musk
The pancreas is by far the most complex organ in the body.
- Patrick Soon-Shiong
To be candid, some people have given positive thinking a bad name. I can’t stand to hear some gung-ho individual say that with positive thinking you can just do ‘anything.’ If you think about that one for a moment, you recognize the absurdity of it.
- Zig Ziglar
Statistics suggest that when customers complain, business owners and managers ought to get excited about it. The complaining customer represents a huge opportunity for more business.
- Zig Ziglar
It it impossible to comprehend Rockefeller’s breathtaking ascent without realizing that he always moved into battle backed by adundant cash. Whether riding out downturns or coasting on booms, he kept plentiful reserves and won many bidding contests simply because his war chest was deeper. Rockefeller vividly described the way he had hastily enlisted the aid of bankers to snap up one rifinery: It required many hundreds of thousands of dollars and in cash, securities would not answer. I received the message at about noon, and had to get off on the 3 o’clock train. I drove from bank to bank asking each president or cashier, whomever I could find first, to get ready for me all the funds he could possibly lay hands on. I told them I would be back to get the money later. I rounded up all of our banks in the city, and made a secondary journey to get the money, and kept going until I secured the necessary amount. With this I was off on the 3 o’clock train and closed the transaction.
- Ron Chernow
A good engineering interview will include some set of difficult problems to solve. It might even require that the candidate write a short program. In addition, it will test the candidate’s knowledge of the tools she uses in great depth.
- Ben Horowitz
I think the thing we see is that as people are using video games more, they tend to watch passive TV a bit less. And so using the PC for the Internet, playing video games, is starting to cut into the rather unbelievable amount of time people spend watching TV.
- Bill Gates
Autonomy was shopped to us. We looked at the price and thought it was absurdly high.
- Larry Ellison
Your first projects aren’t the greatest things in the world, and they may have no money value, they may go nowhere, but that is how you learn – you put so much effort into making something right if it is for yourself.
- Steve Wozniak
I was about twenty and the Beatles were meditating and I heard about it and they had a center in New York and I came to the center and I learned about it.
- Ray Dalio
He has all of the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire.
- Winston Churchill
A beautiful deleveraging balances the three options. In other words, there is a certain amount of austerity, there is a certain amount of debt restructuring, and there is a certain amount of printing of money. When done in the right mix, it isn’t dramatic.
- Ray Dalio
It is impossible to divide the interest of a country and a company that works on its soil.
- Vagit Alekperov
It’s fine to celebrate success but it is more important to heed the lessons of failure.
- Bill Gates
Europe has always represented a major strategic opportunity to achieve our goal of creating and building an enduring global brand.
- Howard Schultz
Initiative = Happiness
- Seth Godin
Commit to your business. Believe in it more than anybody else.
- Sam Walton
The bottom line is that you need to do follow-up or you will be mediocre.
- Chet Holmes
Mediocrity results first and foremost from management failure, not technological failure.
- James C. Collins
Restlessness is discontent and discontent is the first necessity of progress. Show me a thoroughly satisfied man and I will show you a failure.
- Thomas Edison
Everything we did we were setting the tone for the world.
- Steve Wozniak
Trees will improve property values, take pollutants out of the air, help with water runoff.
- Michael Bloomberg
Since when has the world of computer software design been about what people want? This is a simple question of evolution. The day is quickly coming when every knee will bow down to a silicon fist, and you will all beg your binary gods for mercy.
- Bill Gates
Quality is remembered long after price is forgotten.
- Anonymous
So here we are.
- Seth Godin
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
You can’t manage what you can’t measure.
- Peter Drucker
I think Twitter is the future of communications and Square will be the payment network.
- Jack Dorsey
If we could do high-speed rail in California just half a notch above what they’ve done on the Shanghai line in China, and if we had a straight path from L.A. to San Francisco, as well as the milk run, at least that would be progress.
- Elon Musk
I produced Run DMC. I produced some early records, lots of records early on.
- Russell Simmons
If you can discipline yourself to read, you can free up two years of your life for the good stuff!
- Seth Godin
We have to get control of our borders. You can only do that if you make companies obey the law and not hire undocumented or illegals. They can only do that is if they have a Social Security Card that has biometrics so they know whether the person is legal or not.
- Michael Bloomberg
A barber lathers a man before he shaves him.
- Dale Carnegie
I am a better investor because I am a businessman, and a better businessman because I am an investor.
- Warren Buffett
When you walk in God’s favor, His blessings will chase you down and overtake you.
- Joel Olsteen
I once dieted so religiously I quit eating in church.
- Zig Ziglar
I’ve never heard of him. I don’t know anything about the speaker so there’s nothing that makes me want to get up early and go to it. I might catch it on TV.
- John Chambers
Groupon looked like a very high valuation, but any investment in a great company at any stage is almost always a good investment.
- Ben Horowitz
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
Think and grow rich.
- Napoleon Hill
If you don’t let people flourish in their jobs, why are they going to stay?
- Joel Olsteen
Once a decision is made…problems have to be solved.
- Theodore Roosevelt
So much of what we call management consists of making it difficult for people to work.
- Peter Drucker
When you are committed to doing what’s right, you are sowing seeds for God’s blessings. You will never go wrong by taking the high road and doing more that is required.
- Joel Olsteen
We don’t know exactly how it will work. Advertisers want greater access, better accountability.
- Sergey Brin
Strange as it sounds, great leaders gain authority by giving it away.
- Napoleon Hill
Who told you that something was wrong with you?
- Joel Olsteen
Don’t confuse the complex with the difficult. Most situations are simple—many are just emotionally difficult to act upon.
- Timothy Ferriss
My job is making money, helping other people make money. I am spending money, trying to make sure more people get rich, because you cannot spend a lot of money, right? So my job is spending money, helping others. This is a headache.
- Jack Ma
The challenge is not just to build a company that can endure, but to build one that is worthy of enduring.
- Jim Collins
As we look ahead into the next century, leaders will be those who empower others.
- Bill Gates
The government used to be able to coordinate complex solutions to problems like atomic weaponry and lunar exploration. But today, after 40 years of indefinite creep, the government mainly just provides insurance; our solutions to big problems are Medicare, Social Security, and a dizzying array of other transfer payment programs. It’s no surprise that entitlement spending has eclipsed discretionary spending every year since 1975. To increase discretionary spending we’d need definite plans to solve specific problems. But according to the indefinite logic of entitlement spending, we can make things better just by sending out more checks.
- Peter Thiel
There is more treasure in books then in all pirate’s loot on Treasure Island.
- Walt Disney
I don’t think there’s a… boundary between digital media and print media. Every magazine is doing an online version.
- Bill Gates
In the short term, the market is a popularity contest. In the long term, the market is a weighing machine.
- Warren Buffett
Weak desires bring weak results.
- Napoleon Hill
Life is actually far better than it is in the movies. And it takes longer.
- Seth Godin
You don’t have to start from scratch to have a massive impact on the world.
- Jack Dorsey
A man is about as big as the things that make him angry.
- Winston Churchill
Definiteness of purpose is the starting point from which one must begin. He recognized, too that definiteness of purpose of takes on animation, life, and power when backed by a burning desire to translate that purpose into its material equivalent. – Napoleon Hill (on leadership and vision)
- Napoleon Hill
Take a chance! All life is a chance. The man who goes farthest is generally the one who is willing to do and dare.
- Dale Carnegie
I’m truly passionate about basketball. I’m not as passionate about baseball as I am about basketball, but I watch baseball and I watch football. I love sports in general.
- Patrick Soon-Shiong
Growth inside fuels growth outside.
- John C. Maxwell
Strategic quitting is the secret of successful organizations.
- Seth Godin
I am excited for the opportunity to pursue new interests, including my work with a few public company boards, several universities in the U.S. and the UK and ophthalmic charities whose goals are to improve eye health in emerging markets.
- David Pyott
Direct results always come first. In the care and feeding of an organization, they play the role calories play in the nutrition of the human body.
- Peter Drucker
Thank you is probably the most important thing that a leader can say.
- David Novak
To make an embarrassing admission, I like video games. That’s what got me into software engineering when I was a kid. I wanted to make money so I could buy a better computer to play better video games – nothing like saving the world.
- Elon Musk
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
First comes thought; then organization of that thought, into ideas and plans; then transformation of those plans into reality. The beginning, as you will observe, is in your imagination.
- Napoleon Hill
Fulfilling the vision of the Irvine Ranch master plan has been a lifetime dedication and lifetime passion, and I am hopeful the heritage of our Irvine stewardship will live on in many new ways.
- Donald Bren
I started thinking about joy. Everything in our society is so purposeful. Let’s bring joy back to the experience.
- Sara Blakely
The two most important requirements for major success are: first, being in the right place at the right time, and second, doing something about it.
- Ray Kroc
You spend so much time in the world of virtual that the actual – which nothing is more actual than stand-up – it’s a painful experience for the audience, and the comedian a lot of time – we miss that.
- Jerry Seinfeld
God can do in a split second what might otherwise take you many years.
- Joel Olsteen
The hottest place in Hell is reserved for those who remain neutral in times of great moral conflict.
- Martin Luther King Jr.
