Letting your customers set your standards is a dangerous game, because the race to the bottom is pretty easy to win. Setting your own standards–and living up to them–is a better way to profit. Not to mention a better way to make your day worth all the effort you put into it.
- Seth Godin
Notable Quotables
Personally I am very fond of strawberries and cream, but I have found that for some strange reason, fish prefer worms. So when I went fishing, I didn’t think about what I wanted. I thought about what they wanted. I didn’t bait the hook with strawberries and cream. Rather, I dangled a worm or grasshopper in front of the fish and said: Wouldn’t you like to have that? Why not use the same common sense when fishing for people?
- Dale Carnegie
we can not prepare for defeat and expect to live a life in Victory.
- Joel Olsteen
How Many Marriages Would Be Better If the Husband and the Wife Clearly Understood That They’re On the Same Side?
- Zig Ziglar
Diplomacy is the art of telling people to go to hell in such a way that they ask for directions.
- Winston Churchill
He had all the attributes of a perfect man, and, in my opinion, no finer personality ever existed.
- Thomas Edison
A man does what he must – in spite of personal consequences, in spite of obstacles and dangers and pressures – and that is the basis of all human morality.
- Winston Churchill
My relationship with money is that it’s a tool to be self-sufficient, but it’s not something that is a part of who I am.
- Laurene Powell Jobs
I would say the most satisfying thing actually is watching my three children each pick up on their own interests and work many more hours per week than most people that have jobs at trying to intelligently give away that money in fields that they particularly care about.
- Warren Buffett
I’m not looking to exclude people, I’m looking to include them.
- Joel Olsteen
Unrelenting confidence was necessary.
- Ben Horowitz
Golf is a game whose aim is to hit a very small ball into an ever smaller hole, with weapons singularly ill-designed for the purpose.
- Winston Churchill
I feel there’s an existential angst among young people. I didn’t have that. They see enormous mountains, where I only saw one little hill to climb.
- Sergey Brin
There is no such thing as a good tax.
- Winston Churchill
If you are only big in China, you are only a local Chinese company.
- Wang Jianlin
You never know what events are going to transpire to get you home.
- Og Mandino
I think you have a danger of regulating, putting regulations in place which will mean there will be no press in 10 years to regulate.
- Rupert Murdoch
Well, I don’t think there’s any need for people to focus on my career.
- Bill Gates
How will your new job differ from your current job?
- Ben Horowitz
We thought we ought to put that in because it’s the truth but the (like-for-like) number even with those factors taken into account is still very disappointing.
- Simon Wolfson
Success is doing what you want, where you want, when you want, with whom you want and as much as you want.
- Tony Robbins
Many salespeople feel that selling is warfare: the buyer is the enemy and words are ammunition…The seller’s advances are turned aside because they are so predictable, amateurish and easily deflected.
- Jerry Vass
Markets are designed to allow individuals to look after their private needs and to pursue profit. It’s really a great invention and I wouldn’t under-estimate the value of that, but they’re not designed to take care of social needs.
- George Soros
This is the day of dramatization. Merely stating a truth isn’t enough. The truth has to be made vivid, interesting, dramatic. You have to use showmanship. The movies do it. Television does it. And you will have to do it if you want attention.
- Dale Carnegie
Strong managers who make tough decisions to cut jobs provide the only true job security in today’s world. Weak managers are the problem. Weak managers destroy jobs.
- Jack Welch
In difficult times, we’re not supposed to quit believing; we’re not supposed to quit growing.
- Joel Olsteen
KNOWLEDGE will not attract money, unless it is organized, and intelligently directed, through practical PLANS OF ACTION, to the DEFINITE END of ac- cumulation of money. Lack of understanding of this fact has been the source of confusion to millions of people who falsely believe that knowledge is power. It is nothing of the sort! Knowledge is only potential power. It becomes power only when, and if, it is organized into definite plans of action, and directed to a definite end.
- Napoleon Hill
Every time you make the hard, correct decision you become a bit more courageous, and every time you make the easy, wrong decision you become a bit more cowardly. If you are CEO, these choices will lead to a courageous or cowardly company.
- Ben Horowitz
If you are not willing to learn, no one can help you. If you are determined to learn, no one can stop you.
- Zig Ziglar
What one does easily, one does well.
- Andrew Carnegie
I think that business book reporting, it’s all Jim Collins, it’s the story of victory; it’s success bias over and over again.
- Ben Horowitz
Most books on management are written by management consultants, and they study successful companies after they’ve succeeded, so they only hear winning stories.
- Ben Horowitz
On the Internet you get continuous innovation, so every year the streams are a little better.
- Reed Hastings
You can do two things at once, but you can’t focus effectively on two things at once.
- Gary Keller
thoughtless reliance on technology is a liability.
- James C. Collins
If you say you want to automate cars and save people’s lives, the skills you need for that aren’t taught in any particular discipline. I know – I was interested in working on automating cars when I was a Ph.D. student in 1995.
- Larry Page
Start calling yourself healed, happy, whole, blessed, and prosperous. Stop talking to God about how big your mountains are, and start talking to your mountains about how big your God is!
- Joel Olsteen
You can make a positive out of the most negative if you work at it hard enough.
- Sam Walton
If this is the only thing I accomplish today, will I be satisfied with my day?
- Timothy Ferriss
When you find an idea that you just can’t stop thinking about, that’s probably a good one to pursue.
- Josh James
Abhor what is evil. Cling to what is good.
- Apostle Paul
Consider this: you are today what you believed about yourself yesterday. And you will be tomorrow what you believe about yourself right now.
- Joel Olsteen
Every worthwhile accomplishment, big or little, has its stages of drudgery and triumph: a beginning, a struggle and a victory.
- Mahatma Gandhi
I DECLARE it is not too late to accomplish everything God has placed in my heart. I have not missed my window of opportunity. God has moments of favor in my future. He is preparing me right now because He is about to release a special grace to help me accomplish that dream. This is my time. This is my moment. I receive it.
- Joel Olsteen
What we do not see, what most of us never suspect of existing, is the silent but irresistible power which comes to the rescue of those who fight on in the face of discouragement.
- Napoleon Hill
If your organization requires success before commitment, it will never have either. Part of leadership (a big part of it, actually) is the ability to stick with the dream for a long time. Long enough that the critics realize that you’re going to get there one way or another…so they follow.
- Seth Godin
The three most charismatic leaders in this century inflicted more suffering on the human race than almost any trio in history: Hitler, Stalin, and Mao. What matters is not the leader’s charisma. What matters is the leader’s mission.
- Peter Drucker
Remember the proverb of Solomon: “He becometh poor that dealeth with a slack hand; but the hand of the diligent maketh rich.
- P.T. Barnum
People who have good relationships at home are more effective in the marketplace.
- Zig Ziglar
If I designed a computer with 200 chips, I tried to design it with 150. And then I would try to design it with 100. I just tried to find every trick I could in life to design things real tiny.
- Steve Wozniak
You don’t have to fear defeat if you believe it may reveal powers that you didn’t know you possessed.
- Napoleon Hill
It’s a lot cheaper to be a pirate than a pioneer.
- Tim Redmond
Only knowledge that is used sticks in your mind.
- Dale Carnegie
It’s not enough to have lived. We should be determined to live for something.
- Winston Churchill
Look yourself in the mirror and ask yourself, what do I want to do everyday for the rest of my life…do that.
- Gary Vaynerchuk
All companies of any size have to continue to push to make sure you get the right leaders, the right team, the right people to be fast acting, and fast moving in the marketplace. We’ve got great leaders, and we continue to attract and promote great new leaders.
- Steve Ballmer
As soon as we associate reading with a test, we’ve missed the point.
- Seth Godin
We are witnessing a seismic change in consumer behavior. That change is being brought about by technology and the access people have to information.
- Howard Schultz
Competition is a sin.
- John D. Rockefeller
In 1984, the Sino-British talks on the future of Hong Kong triggered a confidence crisis. Daunted by the uncertainties over the colony’s future, most developers shied away from construction projects that took considerable time to complete. In that year the Group recognized what the community needed and actively responded to the government’s call for a landmark convention and exhibition venue of international standard to be built in Hong Kong. The Group turned out to be the only developer willing to take financial and operating risks on a long-term basis, thereby laying a solid foundation for Hong Kong to host international conventions and exhibitions. Coupled with its excellent services, Hong Kong soon secured world-wide recognition as an ideal spot of conferences and exhibitions.
- Cheng Yu-tung
Everyone needs a coach. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a basketball player, a tennis player, a gymnast or a bridge player.
- Bill Gates
It’s true that every great entrepreneur is first and foremost a designer.
- Peter Thiel
The strongest oak of the forest is not the one that is protected from the storm and hidden from the sun. It’s the one that stands in the open where it is compelled to struggle for its existence against the winds and rains and the scorching sun.
- Napoleon Hill
Get the right people on the bus and get the wrong people off of the bus.
- Jim Collins
I am not interested in picking up crumbs of compassion thrown from the table of someone who considers himself my master. I want the full menu of rights.
- Bishop Desmond TuTu
Nuclear energy, in terms of an overall safety record, is better than other energy.
- Bill Gates
Your network is the people who want to help you, and you want to help them, and that’s really powerful.
- Reid Hoffman
Failure is an option here. If things are not failing, you are not innovating enough.
- Elon Musk
When people write checks, they are depleting an asset. And when people are using credit cards, they are increasing their liabilities. In other words, credit cards make it so much easier to get deeper and deeper into debt by increasing your monthly liabilties.
- Robert Kiyosaki
With the casino and the beds, our passengers will have at least two ways to get lucky on one of our flights.
- Richard Branson
I think a simple rule of business is, if you do the things that are easier first, then you can actually make a lot of progress.
- Mark Zuckerberg
Sometimes what works 40 years ago doesn’t work today.
- Joel Olsteen
Capitalism has worked very well. Anyone who wants to move to North Korea is welcome.
- Bill Gates
This is not checkers; this is motherfuckin’ chess. Technology businesses tend to be extremely complex. The underlying technology moves, the competition moves, the market moves, the people move. As a result, like playing three-dimensional chess on Star Trek, there is always a move. You think you have no moves? How about taking your company public with $2 million in trailing revenue and 340 employees, with a plan to do $75 million in revenue the next year? I made that move. I made it in 2001, widely regarded as the worst time ever for a technology company to go public. I made it with six weeks of cash left. There is always a move.
- Ben Horowitz
It’s really a full-time job to manage our lives.
- Sara Blakely
I find that I have about six bloggable ideas a day. I also find that writing twice as long a post doesn’t increase communication, it usually decreases it. And finally, I found that people get antsy if there are unread posts in their queue.
- Seth Godin
Never hold discussions with the monkey when the organ grinder is in the room.
- Winston Churchill
DAY TWENTY I DECLARE that I am calm and peaceful. I will not let people or circumstances upset me. I will rise above every difficulty, knowing that God has given me the power to remain calm. I choose to live my life happy, bloom where I am planted, and let God fight my battles. This is my declaration.
- Joel Olsteen
During the past financial year, development properties sold by the Group amounted to approximately HK$3,592 million in total attributable sales proceeds, representing around 1,700 units…
- Lee Shau Kee
Look, winning and losing can’t be quantified. They are states of mind, and losing happens only when you give up. Seen that way, then, the world can be filled with winners, and there is room for them all.
- 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
Crowded classrooms and half-day sessions are a tragic waste of our greatest national resource – the minds of our children.
- Walt Disney
We so much time putting these organizations and public figures on this massive, massive pedestal, but we have to remember they go through all the small details of live that we do. And you can make them human again and you can interact with them.
- Jack Dorsey
I don’t feel under-taxed in any way at all.
- Jack Welch
People are always coming up to me and saying, ‘I heard your dad’s speech, and it’s really great.’ And they’ll mention some place I didn’t even know my dad was going to.
- Bill Gates
I know this world is ruled by infinite intelligence. Everything that surrounds us- everything that exists – proves that there are infinite laws behind it. There can be no denying this fact. It is mathematical in its precision.
- Thomas Edison
We must not let our standards be determined by the gentlemen of the oposition.
- Winston Churchill
You have to think anyway, so why not think big?
- Donald Trump
Yes, they broke the law, but we can’t deport them. Let’s get over this pointing fingers and do something about that, whether it – they have to pay a fine, learn to speak English, the history, you can do that. And then you have to give visas for the skills we need.
- Michael Bloomberg
Winners never quit and quitters never win.
- Vince Lombardi
Leadership is a combination of strategy and character. If you must be without one, be without the strategy.”
- General H. Norman Schwarzkopf
Everyone is in favor of free speech. Hardly a day passes without its being extolled, but some people’s idea of it is that they are free to say what they like, but if anyone else says anything back, that is an outrage.
- Winston Churchill
Tell your child, your spouse, or your employee that he or she is stupid or dumb at a certain thing, has no gift for it, and is doing it all wrong, and you have destroyed almost every incentive to try to improve.
- Dale Carnegie
The Entrepreneurial Model has less to do with what’s done in a business and more to do with how it’s done. The commodity isn’t what’s important—the way it’s delivered is.
- Michael Gerber
I think everyone’s against abortion.
- Rupert Murdoch
People’s favorite topic is themselves.
- Dale Carnegie
Real leaders don’t care [about receiving credit]. If it’s about your mission, about spreading the faith, about seeing something happen, not only do you not care about credit, you actually want other people to take credit…There’s no record of Martin Luther King, Jr. or Gandhi whining about credit. Credit isn’t the point. Change is.
- Seth Godin
GE’s businesses turned in a terrific first quarter. Our products and services are being well received in unusually robust global markets.
- Jack Welch
It is important that all of us, however old or young, have a mindset that enables us to capture all the opportunities that changes in the world are bringing to us. A mindset that is characterized by creativity and initiative, harnessed by focus and discipline. In our company, this mindset is requisite and indelible.
- Cheng Yu-tung
Countries which receive aid do graduate. Within a generation, Korea went from being a big recipient to being a big aid donor. China used to get quite a bit of aid; now it’s aid-neutral.
- Bill Gates
