Notable Quotables

We’ve been trained to prefer being right to learning something, to prefer passing the test to making a difference, and most of all, to prefer fitting in with the right people, the people with economic power. Now it’s your turn to stand up and stand out.

- Seth Godin

Fortunately we’re not a public company – we’re a private group of companies, and I can do what I want.

- Richard Branson

Keep your dreams alive. Understand to achieve anything requires faith and belief in yourself, vision, hard work, determination and dedication. Remember all things are possible for those who believe.

- Gail Devers

Remember you’re not entitled to anything. You have to earn your success every day, and you will make mistakes like everyone else.

- Harvey Mackay

Wartime CEO is too busy fighting the enemy to read management books written by consultants who have never managed a fruit stand.

- Ben Horowitz

If you are nervous about making the jump or simply putting it off out of fear of the unknown, here is your antidote. Write down your answers to these questions, and keep in mind that thinking a lot will not prove as fruitful or as prolific as simply brain vomiting on the page. Write and do not edit – aim for volume. Spend a few minutes on each answer.1. Define your nightmare, the absolute worst that could happen if you did what you are considering.2. What steps could you take to repair the damage or get things back on the upswing, even if temporarily?3. What are the outcomes or benefits, both temporary and permanent, of more probably scenarios?4. If you were fired from your job today, what would you do to get things under financial control?5. What are you putting off out of fear?6. What is it costing you – financially, emotionally, and physically – to postpone action?7. What are you waiting for?

- Timothy Ferriss

I think it’d be crazy not to have the plan encompass the entire reservoir. If we have (the smaller map), we’ve got a bunch of other folks telling us what they want to see happen in our community.

- Jack Taylor

China and India will, separately and together, unleash an explosion of demand.

- Mukesh Ambani

Experience has proven that the best educated people are often those who are known as self-made, or self-educated. It takes more than a college degree to make one a person of education. Any person who is educated is one who has learned to get whatever he wants in life without violating the rights of others. Education consists no so much of knowledge, but of knowledge effectively and peristently applied. Men are paid nor merely for tha they know, but more particulary for what they do with that which they know.

- Napoleon Hill

Understand that the right to choose your own path is a sacred privilege. Use it. Dwell in possibility.

- Oprah Winfrey

Corruption is one of the most common reasons I hear in views that criticize aid.”

- Bill Gates

Cultural industries will be the next engine for growth after real estate, and Wanda will make cultural industries our long-term focus.

- Wang Jianlin

Enforce functional training by withholding new employee requisitions. As Andy Grove writes, there are only two ways for a manager to improve the output of an employee: motivation and training. Therefore, training should be the most basic requirement for all managers in your organization. An effective way to enforce this requirement is by withholding new employee requisitions from managers until they’ve developed a training program for the TBH, “To Be Hired.”

- Ben Horowitz

I think very early on in life we all learn what we’re good at and what we’re not good at, and we stay where it’s safe.

- Sara Blakely

As a leader, the first person I need to lead is me. The first person that I should try to change is me.

- John C. Maxwell

I want to own the New York Jets, that’s what I want. And I absolutely believe I am going to own the Jets.

- Gary Vaynerchuk

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

With communication technology in general, there’s a kind of certain critical mass of people. Once you get to 15% of the world’s entire population using one communication technology, that’s a big deal. It’s beyond the theoretical at this point. The people who think it’s a fad have probably not been paying that much attention.

- Ben Horowitz

Any business today that embraces the status quo as an operating principle is going to be on a death march.

- Howard Schultz

Being a CEO is the nuts! A whole jumble of thoughts come to mind: Over the top. Wild. Fun. Outrageous. Crazy. Passion. Perpetual Motion. The give and take. Meetings into the night. Incredible friendships. Fine wine. Celebrations. Great golf courses. Big decisions in the real game. Crises and pressure. Lots of swings. A few home runs. The thrill of winning and the pain of losing. It’s as good as it gets. You get paid a lot, but the real payoff is the fun…

- Jack Welch

Tweeting is really only good for one thing – it’s just good for tweeting… It is rewarding, because it’s just its own reward. It’s sort of like heaven.

- Steve Martin

Don’t ever criticize yourself. Don’t go around all day long thinking, ‘I’m unattractive, I’m slow, I’m not as smart as my brother.’ God wasn’t having a bad day when he made you… If you don’t love yourself in the right way, you can’t love your neighbour. You can’t be as good as you are supposed to be.

- Joel Olsteen

I agree with people like Richard Dawkins that mankind felt the need for creation myths. Before we really began to understand disease and the weather and things like that, we sought false explanations for them. Now science has filled in some of the realm – not all – that religion used to fill.

- Bill Gates

I try to learn from the past, but I plan for the future by focusing exclusively on the present. That’s where the fun is.

- Donald Trump

Twitter was around communication and visualizing what was happening in the world in real-time. Square was allowing everyone to accept the form of payment people have in their pocket today, which is a credit card.

- Jack Dorsey

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

Faith in your new apprentice, misplaced may be. As is your faith in the dark side of the Force.

- Yoda

The rumours of the demise of the U.S. manufacturing industry are greatly exaggerated.

- Elon Musk

I don’t want to hear the specials. If they’re so special, put ’em on the menu.

- Jerry Seinfeld

Gold is a kind of mortar and offers a form of capital preservation. We’re still bullish about gold.

- Lee Shau Kee

No matter what any of us has—and how grateful we are for what we have—no one has it all.

- Sheryl Sandberg

In contrast, investing time and energy in your relationship with your spouse and children typically doesn’t offer that same immediate sense of achievement. Kids misbehave every day. It’s really not until 20 years down the road that you can put your hands on your hips and say, “I raised a good son or a good daughter.” You can neglect your relationship with your spouse, and on a day-to-day basis, it doesn’t seem as if things are deteriorating. People who are driven to excel have this unconscious propensity to underinvest in their families and overinvest in their careers—even though intimate and loving relationships with their families are the most powerful and enduring source of happiness.

- Clayton M. Christensen

Keep everybody guessing as to what your next trick is going to be.

- Sam Walton

It’s true that every great entrepreneur is first and foremost a designer.

- Peter Thiel

If you treat your wife like a thoroughbred, you’ll never end up with a nag.

- Zig Ziglar

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

You are the only person on earth who can use your ability. It’s an awesome responsibility.

- Zig Ziglar

The three short years I spent at Harvard, where I lived with excellent people, taught me not only that I must know how to choose my partners but also that choosing excellent partners is a skill you can learn. Obviously, when you spend time with the best, you learn how to choose among them.

- Jorge Paulo Lemann

Advances in the technology of telecommunications have proved an unambiguous threat to totalitarian regimes everywhere.

- Rupert Murdoch

If you don’t cut off negative information it will depress you. Step out of the natural and say, This may be impossible with men, but I know with God all things are possible.

- Joel Olsteen

Choosing to be positive and having a grateful attitude is going to determine how you’re going to live your life.

- Joel Olsteen

PEACETIME CEO/WARTIME CEO Peacetime CEO knows that proper protocol leads to winning. Wartime CEO violates protocol in order to win. Peacetime CEO focuses on the big picture and empowers her people to make detailed decisions. Wartime CEO cares about a speck of dust on a gnat’s ass if it interferes with the prime directive. Peacetime CEO builds scalable, high-volume recruiting machines. Wartime CEO does that, but also builds HR organizations that can execute layoffs. Peacetime CEO spends time defining the culture. Wartime CEO lets the war define the culture. Peacetime CEO always has a contingency plan. Wartime CEO knows that sometimes you gotta roll a hard six. Peacetime CEO knows what to do with a big advantage. Wartime CEO is paranoid. Peacetime CEO strives not to use profanity. Wartime CEO sometimes uses profanity purposefully. Peacetime CEO thinks of the competition as other ships in a big ocean that may never engage. Wartime CEO thinks the competition is sneaking into her house and trying to kidnap her children. Peacetime CEO aims to expand the market. Wartime CEO aims to win the market. Peacetime CEO strives to tolerate deviations from the plan when coupled with effort and creativity. Wartime CEO is completely intolerant. Peacetime CEO does not raise her voice. Wartime CEO rarely speaks in a normal tone. Peacetime CEO works to minimize conflict. Wartime CEO heightens the contradictions. Peacetime CEO strives for broad-based buy-in. Wartime CEO neither indulges consensus building nor tolerates disagreements. Peacetime CEO sets big, hairy, audacious goals. Wartime CEO is too busy fighting the enemy to read management books written by consultants who have never managed a fruit stand. Peacetime CEO trains her employees to ensure satisfaction and career development. Wartime CEO trains her employees so they don’t get their asses shot off in the battle. Peacetime CEO has rules like “We’re going to exit all businesses where we’re not number one or two.” Wartime CEO often has no businesses that are number one or two and therefore does not have the luxury of following that rule.

- Ben Horowitz

To me, failure means not trying; failure isnt the outcome. If i have to look at myself in the mirror and say, ‘I didnt try that because I was scared,’ that is failure.

- Sara Blakely

Christmas is the perfect time to celebrate the love of God and family and to create memories that will last forever. Jesus is God’s perfect, indescribable gift. The amazing thing is that not only are we able to receive this gift, but we are able to share it with others on Christmas and every other day of the year.

- Joel Olsteen

Don’t go in and tell somebody else how to run their business.

- Carl Icahn

The best executive is the one who has sense enough to pick good men to do what he wants done, and self-restraint to keep form meddling with them while they do it.

- Theodore Roosevelt

There’s very little advice in men’s magazines, because men don’t think there’s a lot they don’t know. Women do. Women want to learn. Men think, ‘I know what I’m doing, just show me somebody naked.’

- Jerry Seinfeld

Oracle’s latest database, version 12c, was specifically designed for the cloud. Oracle 12c makes all your Oracle applications multitenant applications without you having to make any changes whatsoever to your applications.

- Larry Ellison

Make a point to continually search for a better way of doing things, even when things are going well, to ensure that a better alternative has not been overlooked and to keep your creative talents in practice.

- John C. Maxwell

Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.

- Antoine de Saint-Exup

Younglings, younglings gather ’round.

- Yoda

We expect all our businesses to have a positive impact on our top and bottom lines. Profitability is very important to us or we wouldn’t be in this business.

- Jeff Bezos

If you learn a profession well and work hard, your future is secure and you will inevitably rise to the top, drive a fast car, and find beautiful people of the opposite sex pursuing you relentlessly. Like so many romantic promises, this is an illusion. What your parents and professors don’t tell you is that the closer you get to the top, the better you must know how to sell because everyone at the top sells better. If you are going to the top of your profession you must sell well, too.

- Jerry Vass

We are always listening to ideas presented by our customers and in an effort to keep up with their demands, we are adding those quality improvements to Atlanta Motor Speedway. The changes we have planned are a direct result of fan input and are aimed at giving our fans options they currently don’t have.

- Ed Clark

Most of us (97 percent) are homeowners. We live in homes currently valued at an average of $320,000. About half of us have occupied the same home for more than twenty years. Thus, we have enjoyed significant increases in the value of our homes.

- Thomas J Stanley

We who in engage in nonviolent direct action are not the creators of tension. We merely bring to the surface the hidden tension that is already alive.

- Martin Luther King Jr.

We live well below our means. We wear inexpensive suits and drive American-made cars. Only a minority of us drive the current-model-year automobile. Only a minority ever lease our motor vehicles.

- Thomas J Stanley

If you think your people are negative, then you had better check your attitude. Who you are is who you attract. This is the LAW of Magnetism.

- John Maxwell

You can make something big when young that will carry you through life. Look at all the big startups like Microsoft, Apple, Google, Facebook, Twitter, etc. They were all started by very young people who stumbled on something of unseen value. You’ll know it when you hit a home run.

- Steve Wozniak

Embrace what you don’t know, especially in the beginning because what you don’t know can become your greatest asset. It ensures that you will be doing things absolutely differently from everybody else.

- Sara Blakely

Transferring your passion to your job is far easier than finding a job that happens to match your passion.

- Seth Godin

Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time.

- Thomas Edison

I try to make my life about service, and hope that one day we can all ‘see’ a little better because God is with everyone and everywhere.

- Russell Simmons

Peter Drucker once observed that the drive for mergers and acquisitions comes less from sound reasoning and more from the fact that doing deals is a much more exciting way to spend your day than doing actual work.

- James C. Collins

Change is powerful, but change always comes with the possibility of failure as its partner. “This might not work” isn’t merely something to be tolerated; it’s something you must seek out.

- Seth Godin

This is indicative of how quickly CEO caution can put the foot on the brake.

- John Chambers

Some people are averse to change, but the advertising model is going to change with or without the Hopper. What we’re saying to the broadcasters is, ‘There’s a way for you not to put your head in the sand.’

- Charles Ergen

I believe Success is achieved by ordinary people with Extraordinary Determination.

- Zig Ziglar

Nobody wanted to gamble on that first Wal-Mart. I think Bud put in 3 percent, and Don Whitaker – whom I had hired to manage the store from TG&Y store out in Abilene, Texas, and I had to put up 95 percent of the dollars. Helen and I had to sign all the notes along with me, and her statement allowed us to borrow more than I could alone. We pledges houses and property, everything we had.. But in those days we were always borrowed to the hilt. We were about to go into the discount business for real now. And from the time those doggone Wal-Marts opened until almost today, it has been a little challenging.

- Sam Walton

Forty years ago, Richard Branson, who ultimately founded Virgin Air, found himself in a similar situation in an airport in the Caribbean. They had just canceled his flight, the only flight that day. Instead of freaking out about how essential the flight was, how badly his day was ruined, how his entire career was now in jeopardy, the young Branson walked across the airport to the charter desk and inquired about the cost of chartering a flight out of Puerto Rico. Then he borrowed a portable blackboard and wrote, “Seats to Virgin Islands, $39.” He went back to his gate, sold enough seats to his fellow passengers to completely cover his costs, and made it home on time.

- Seth Godin

It is exactly because we are a city that embraces freedom, that welcomes everyone and encourages their dreams, that New York remains on the front lines in the war on terror.

- Michael Bloomberg

Look at Microsoft, Google, and Facebook. They have all entered many sectors, and actually, in many of those sectors, they weren’t as early as Tencent.

- Ma Huateng

The evolving social and digital media platforms and highly innovative and relevant payment capabilities are causing seismic changes in consumer behavior and creating equally disruptive opportunities for business.

- Howard Schultz

It is not the man who has too little, but the man who craves more, that is poor.

- Seneca

Google’s search algorithms, for example, return results better than anyone else’s. Proprietary technologies for extremely short page load times and highly accurate query autocompletion add to the core search product’s robustness and defensibility.

- Peter Thiel

On every occasion, we were able to rely on our unique qualities – resourcefulness, perseverance, diligence and passion for excellence – to rise above our difficulties.

- Cheng Yu-tung

There is slow growth, but it is positive slow growth. At the same time, ratios of debt-to-incomes go down. That’s a beautiful deleveraging.

- Ray Dalio

Facebook was not originally created to be a company. It was built to accomplish a social mission – to make the world more open and connected.

- Mark Zuckerberg

You will give birth to more in the future than you’ve lost in the past.

- Joel Olsteen

Mars is the only place in the solar system where it’s possible for life to become multi-planetarian.

- Elon Musk

[Medco] had a different culture with respect to spending money. I believe health care demands that we be as frugal as possible and pay money for things that matter. We’re pretty frugal. Everybody has the same size offices. Everybody has the same size cube. There are no perks.

- George Paz

We can believe that we know where the world should go. But unless we’re in touch with our customers, our model of the world can diverge from reality. There’s no substitute for innovation, of course, but innovation is no substitute for being in touch, either.

- Steve Ballmer

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