Outsiders are fascinated by the great fortunes being made inside China, but they pay less attention to the wealthy Chinese trying hard to get their money out of the country. Poorer Chinese just save everything they can and hope it will be enough. Every class of people in China takes the future deadly seriously.
- Peter Thiel
Notable Quotables
One of the most powerful forms of communication that affects a business is one over which you have little control (after the conversation has already begun): The communication from your existing customers to your potential customers. At CASHFLOW Technologies, Inc. we attribute a large part of our success to our customers telling other people about us. The power of this word-of-mouth advertising is immeasurable.
- Robert Kiyosaki
What do you need to start a business? Three simple things: know your product better than anyone, know your customer, and have a burning desire to succeed.
- Dave Thomas
I’m in two modes when I’m on Lanai: In engineering mode, I’m trying to find the right place for the reservoir and the desalination plant, and looking at designs for new hotel rooms. The rest of the time, I’m in decompression mode. I’m on Hulopoe Beach, going for a swim, or on my paddleboard surrounded by 100 spinner dolphins.
- Larry Ellison
I tend to approach things from a physics framework. And physics teaches you to reason from first principles rather than by analogy.
- Elon Musk
My worry about the New York Times is that it’s got the only position as a national elitist general-interest paper. So the network news picks up its cues from the Times. And local papers do too. It has a huge influence. And we’d love to challenge it.
- Rupert Murdoch
It is all true, or it ought to be; and more and better besides.
- Winston Churchill
Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into friend
- Martin Luther King Jr.
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
Think of your life as an hourglass. You know there are thousands of grains of sand in the top of the hourglass; and they all pass slowly and evenly through the narrow neck in the middle. Nothing you or I could do would make more than one grain of sand pass through this narrow neck without impairing the hourglass. You and I and everyone else are like this hourglass…if we do not take [tasks] one at a time and let them pass…slowly and evenly, then we are bound to break our own…structure.
- Dale Carnegie
The reason you might choose to embrace the artist within you now is that this is the path to (cue the ironic music) security.
- Seth Godin
Well, I am a Republican, and I would run as a Republican. And I have a lot of confidence in the Republican Party. I don’t have a lot of confidence in the president. I think what’s happening to this country is unbelievably bad. We’re no longer a respected country.
- Donald Trump
Diversity meets adversity.
- Cheng Yu-tung
Today, we’re very dependent on cheap energy. We just take it for granted – all the things you have in the house, the way industry works.
- Bill Gates
The surest foundation of a manufacturing concern is quality. After that, and a long way after, comes cost.
- Andrew Carnegie
Dinosaurs did not walk with humans. The evolutionary record says different. They gambled.
- Steve Martin
In the early days, anybody with a glue pot and a pair of scissors could get into the shoe business…
- Phil Knight
I very much believe the Internet is indeed all it is cracked up to be.
- Jeff Bezos
A company is stronger if it is bound by love rather than by fear.
- Herb Kelleher
Crash diets don’t work.They don’t work for losing weight, they don’t work for making sales quota and they don’t work for getting and keeping a job.The reason they don’t work has nothing to do with what’s on the list of things to be done (or consumed). No, the reason they don’t work is that they don’t change habits, and habits are where our lives and careers and bodies are made.
- Seth Godin
I’m not sure blogs are necessarily the best place to get a pulse on anything. People want to blog for a variety of reasons, and that may or may not be representative.
- Steve Ballmer
We asked ourselves what we wanted this company to stand for. We didn’t want to just sell shoes. I wasn’t even into shoes – but I was pasionate about customer service.
- Tony Hsieh
Art is original. Marcel Duchamp was an artist when he pioneered Dadaism and installed a urinal in a museum. The second person to install a urinal wasn’t an artist, he was a plumber.
- Seth Godin
I usually describe myself as an engineer. That’s basically what I’ve been doing since I was a kid.
- Elon Musk
I think life on Earth must be about more than just solving problems… It’s got to be something inspiring, even if it is vicarious.
- Elon Musk
I enjoy the competition and the process of learning as we compete. The whole thing is just fascinating. I don’t know what I’ll do when I retire. When I go sailing, I look around … anyone want to race? I just love competing as opposed to just going out and watching the sunset.
- Larry Ellison
Nature is a machine. The family is a machine. The life cycle is like a machine.
- Ray Dalio
The most successful companies make the core progression—to first dominate a specific niche and then scale to adjacent markets—a part of their founding narrative.
- Peter Thiel
CREATIVE MONOPOLY means new products that benefit everybody and sustainable profits for the creator. Competition means no profits for anybody, no meaningful differentiation, and a struggle for survival.
- Peter Thiel
Big companies have always needed and cooperated in areas where it made sense.
- Larry Page
There are really two things that have to occur in order for a new technology to be affordable to the mass market. One is you need economies of scale. The other is you need to iterate on the design. You need to go through a few versions.
- Elon Musk
One of the first things you learn when you run an engineering organization is that a good quality assurance organization cannot build a high-quality product, but it can tell you when the development team builds a low quality product. Similarly, a high quality human resources organization cannot make you a well-managed company with a great culture, but it can tell you when you and your managers are not getting the job done.
- Ben Horowitz
At your next sales meeting with 20 people, three will take home the money of 17 others. Is it luck, hard work and a great attitude? Or it is persuasive skill – understanding the transactional dynamics of the sales process?
- Jerry Vass
I have thought about some kind of musical involving my music. That would be kind of interesting. I have thought of it in that way, as a creator of something, not so much a performer. So that’s in my head.
- Steve Martin
To change somebody’s behavior, change the level of respect she receives by giving her a fine reputation to live up to. Act as though the trait you are trying to influence is already one of the person’s outstanding characteristics.
- Dale Carnegie
I don’t know of any Internet service that opens on a regional basis.
- Reed Hastings
If I were to retire, I would keep my family’s interest in the company the same and say, Don’t sell.
- Sheldon Adelson
There’s no magic line between an application and an operating system that some bureaucrat in Washington should draw.
- Bill Gates
The Waffle Trainer later became the best-selling training shoe in the United States.
- Phil Knight
And it turns out that tribes, not money, not factories, that can change our world, that can change politics, that can align large numbers of people. Not because you force them to do something against their will. But because they wanted to connect.
- Seth Godin
Act enthusiastic and you will be enthusiastic.
- Dale Carnegie
Dirty Rotten Scoundrels’ is a good one because it not only turned out, I think, to be a really funny movie but it was also a delight to shoot. We were in the South of France, working with Glenne Headly and Michael Caine and Frank Oz the director – who were just fun.
- Steve Martin
This the real world, homie, school finished They done stole your dreams, you dunno who did it.
- Kanye West
I just believe that the interesting time in a career is pre-success, what shaped things, how did you get to this point.
- Steve Martin
I’m a huge believer in clarity.
- Ben Horowitz
Getting things straight in your head is a major achievement because there’s so much clutter out there. You’ve got to push aside the static to really hear the music.
- Stephen Wynn
I DECLARE I will live victoriously. I was created in the image of God. I have the DNA of a winner. I am wearing a crown of favor. Royal blood flows through my veins. I am the head, never the tail, above never beneath. I will live with purpose, passion, and praise, knowing that I was destined to live in victory. This is my declaration.
- Joel Olsteen
If Jesus were here today, he wouldn’t be riding around on a donkey. He’d be taking a plane, he’d be using the media.
- Joel Olsteen
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
It costs nothing, but creates much. It enriches those who receive, without impoverishing those who give. It happens in a flash and the memory of it sometimes lasts forever. None are so rich they can get along without it, and none so poor but are richer for its benefits. It creates happiness in the home, fosters good will in a business, and is the countersign of friends. It is rest to the weary, daylight to the discouraged, sunshine to the sad, and Nature’s best antidote for trouble. Yet it cannot be bought, begged, borrowed, or stolen, for it is something that is no earthly good to anybody till it is given away.
- Dale Carnegie
Humor is the great thing, the saving thing. The minute it crops up, all our irritations and resentments slip away, and a sunny spirit takes their place.
- Mark Twain
Don’t worry that you can’t seem to come up with sure billion dollar winners at first. Just do projects for yourself for fun. You’ll get better and better.
- Steve Wozniak
Southwest Airlines have been such a people-first model for me for so long that it was inspiring just to be physically in a place I already knew so much about. Yet I didn’t fully understand just how far they are willing to go to get the right people in the right seats until well after our best practices tour when someone I know applied for an entry level position with the company.
- David Novak
I believe it’s less risky long-term to embrace change.
- Charles Ergen
The productivity of work is not the responsibility of the worker but of the manager.
- Peter Drucker
We all prospect, and don’t even know we’re doing it. When you start the dating process, you are actually prospecting for the person you want to marry. When you’re interviewing employees, you are prospecting for someone who will best fit your needs.
- Zig Ziglar
There is no such thing as fun for the whole family.
- Jerry Seinfeld
I love the freedom of movement that my phone gives me. That has definitely transformed my life.
- Richard Branson
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
I don’t like to beat people down. They need to be lifted up.
- Joel Olsteen
Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.
- Martin Luther King Jr.
Until you have learned to be tolerant with those who do not always agree with you, you will be neither successful nor happy.
- Napoleon Hill
They did not die because of sickness or anything but because of hunger. I remember that and how people suffered.
- Lui Che Woo
When I hear Mitt Romney say that he believes that Jesus is the Son of God, that He’s the Christ, raised from the dead, that He’s his savior – that’s good enough for me.
- Joel Olsteen
One must never forget when misfortunes come that it is quite possible they are saving one from something much worse; or that when you make some great mistake, it may very easily serve you better than the best-advised decision. Life is a whole, and luck is a whole, and no part of them can be separated from the rest.
- Winston Churchill
Leaders who are kind of insecure or egocentric, they basically sabotage themselves.
- John C. Maxwell
Comparing Apple to Netflix is like comparing apples to oranges, especially if the oranges made so many mistakes that people stopped eating oranges and just went back to Blockbuster.
- Reed Hastings
Making it good at scale means admitting that it must be different and embracing the changes that you’ll need to make to keep things from falling apart.
- Ben Horowitz
If you fail to plan, then you plan to fail.
- Harvey Mackay
This is not the end its only the beginning
- Winston Churchill
It’s not manufacturers trying to rip anybody off or anything like that. There’s nobody getting rich writing software that I know of.
- Bill Gates
The market is fast-moving, fast-growing. Things that are true today may not be true tomorrow.
- Robin Li
I wouldn’t ever say if you’re having tough times then there must be something wrong with you or your attitude. Life’s a fight. It’s a good fight of faith. I encourage people to stay up, stay hopeful, stay faith-filled.
- Joel Olsteen
Good product managers know the market, the product, the product line, and the competition extremely well and operate from a strong basis of knowledge and confidence. A good product manager is the CEO of the product. Good product managers take full responsibility and measure themselves in terms of the success of the product.
- Ben Horowitz
We only get to play this game one time…one life.
- Gary Vaynerchuk
Luke: What’s in there? Yoda: Only what you take with you.
- Yoda
Alibaba is an ecosystem that helps small business to grow.
- Jack Ma
We were trading things before we were using language to communicate.
- Jack Dorsey
The greater the obstacle, the more glory in overcoming it.
- Moliere
The cold harsh reality is that we have to balance the budget.
- Michael Bloomberg
War metaphors invade our everyday business language: we use headhunters to build up a sales force that will enable us to take a captive market and make a killing. But really it’s competition, not business, that is like war:
- Peter Thiel
People don’t buy for logical reasons. They buy for emotional reasons.
- Zig Ziglar
I shall pass this way but once. Therefore any good that I can do or any kindness that I can show-let me do it now. Let me not defer nor neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again.
- Dale Carnegie
Like any well designed software product, Windows is designed, developed and tested as an integrated whole.
- Bill Gates
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
The habit of doing more than paid for. One of the penalties of leadership is the necessity of willingness upon the part of the leader to do more than he requires of his followers.
- Napoleon Hill
Let go of yesterday. Let today be a new beginning and be the best that you can, and you’ll get to where God wants you to be.
- Joel Olsteen
Many leaders of big organizations, I think, don’t believe that change is possible. But if you look at history, things do change, and if your business is static, you’re likely to have issues.
- Larry Page
Dios ve el valor que usted tiene, y sabe en lo que le está convirtiendo. A veces nos miramos a nosotros mismos y pensamos: Tengo muchas imperfecciones. Tengo mal genio. Tengo un problema con mi boca. No soy tan disciplinado”. Vemos el barro, pero Dios ve la hermosa taza. La buena noticia es que usted no es un producto terminado. Dios sigue obrando, y si trabaja usted con Dios y le permite eliminar esas impurezas, Él hará más con su vida de lo que usted nunca soñó.
- Joel Olsteen
A person can perform only from strength. One cannot build performance on weakness, let alone on something one cannot do at all.
- Peter Drucker
Those who build great companies understand that the ultimate throttle on growth for any great company is not markets, or technology, or competition, or products. It is one thing above all others: the ability to get and keep enough of the right people. The management team.
- James C. Collins
They intoxicate themselves with work so they won’t see how they really are.
- Aldous Huxley
Ability may get you to the top, but it takes character to keep you there.
- John Wooden
I believe you have to be willing to be misunderstood if you’re going to innovate.
- Jeff Bezos
I feel that people I trusted – I don’t know who, on what level – have let me down, and I think they have behaved disgracefully, and it’s for them to pay. And I think, frankly, that I’m the best person to see it through.
- Rupert Murdoch
Let’s simplify this entire world.
- Jack Dorsey
Six out of 10 Americans believe the American dream is dead according to a recent poll.
- CBSNews.com
Well I think any author or musician is anxious to have legitimate sales of their products, partly so they’re rewarded for their success, partly so they can go on and do new things.
- Bill Gates
It’s flattering to people who stop you and say that you’ve helped them and all. But, again, you know, you’ve got to stay humble because as quick as you came up, you can come down.
- Joel Olsteen
Some of the things I see around town are just disgusting.
- Jack Taylor
