People should pursue what they’re passionate about. That will make them happier than pretty much anything else.
- Elon Musk
Notable Quotables
Send out a cheerful, positive greeting, and most of the time you will get back a cheerful, positive greeting. It’s also true that if you send out a negative greeting, you will, in most cases, get back a negative greeting.
- Zig Ziglar
The first rule of the C.E.O. psychological meltdown is ‘Don’t talk about the psychological meltdown.’
- Ben Horowitz
The bottom line is that you only have the rights you fight for.
- Timothy Ferriss
Don’t let what you don’t know scare you, because it can become your greatest asset. And if you do things without knowing how they have always been done, you’re guaranteed to do them differently.
- Sara Blakely
Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.
- Steve Jobs
The internet was supposed to homogenize everyone by connecting us all. Instead what it’s allowed is silos of interest.
- Seth Godin
[In January 2011] I think Twitter is so unique that we must stay independent.
- Jack Dorsey
If you say too much or mix in multiple pitches, you diffuse your goal. You must give the media a pitch they can hit.
- Michael Levine
Nature is what we know. We do not know the gods of religions. And nature is not kind, or merciful, or loving. If God made me — the fabled God of the three qualities of which I spoke: mercy, kindness, love — He also made the fish I catch and eat. And where do His mercy, kindness, and love for that fish come in? No; nature made us — nature did it all — not the gods of the religions.
- Thomas Edison
Hmm. In the end, cowards are those who follow the dark side.
- Yoda
To lead a meaningful life, one must build trust with others. To enjoy peace, a nation must win the confidence and support of its people. To achieve stable growth, an enterprise must live up to its conviction.
- Cheng Yu-tung
Diplomacy is the art of telling people to go to hell in such a way that they ask for directions.
- Winston Churchill
Don’t fight change; embrace it, and you will step into the fullness of what God has in store.
- Joel Olsteen
I was dyslexic, I had no understanding of schoolwork whatsoever. I certainly would have failed IQ tests. And it was one of the reasons I left school when I was 15 years old. And if I – if I’m not interested in something, I don’t grasp it.
- Richard Branson
Five hundred years before Christ was born, the Greek philosopher Heraclitus told his students that everything changes except the law of change. He said: You cannot step in the same river twice. The river changes every second; and so does the man who stepped in it. Life is a ceaseless change. The only certainty is today. Why mar the beauty of living today by trying to solve the problems of a future that is shrouded in ceaseless change and uncertainty-a future that no one can possibly foretell?
- Dale Carnegie
Some questions that I’ve found to be very effective in one-on-ones: If we could improve in any way, how would we do it? What’s the number-one problem with our organization? Why? What’s not fun about working here? Who is really kicking ass in the company? Whom do you admire? If you were me, what changes would you make? What don’t you like about the product? What’s the biggest opportunity that we’re missing out on? What are we not doing that we should be doing? Are you happy working here?
- Ben Horowitz
For the first time we’re allowing developers who don’t work at Facebook to develop applications just as if they were. That’s a big deal because it means that all developers have a new way of doing business if they choose to take advantage of it. There are whole companies that are forming whose only product is a Facebook Platform application.
- Mark Zuckerberg
Every great business is built around a secret that’s hidden from the outside.
- Peter Thiel
Well, the odds must be against anybody being able to fly around the world in a balloon on the first attempt. All of us who are attempting to go around the world in balloons are effectively flying in experimental craft because these craft cannot be tested.
- Richard Branson
The next time someone tells you we can trim the budget by cutting aid, I hope you will ask whether it will come at the cost of more people dying.
- Bill Gates
Well, yes, I’ve fired a lot of people. Generally I like other people to fire, because it’s always a lousy task. But I have fired many people.
- Donald Trump
Diversity meets adversity.
- Cheng Yu-tung
The successful business executive can handle challenges and solve problems at a remarkable clip.
- Zig Ziglar
Let your motto then always be ‘Excelsior’, for by living up to it there is no such word as fail.
- P.T. Barnum
There’s no reason in 2014, to do shit you hate. NONE.
- Gary Vaynerchuk
As long as you’re green, you’re growing. As soon as you’re ripe, you start to rot.
- Ray Kroc
People don’t want lots and lots of single purpose devices. They do not want to have to learn how to set up something for photos, another thing for music, another thing for video.
- Bill Gates
I didn’t used to wear a watch. Now I have a SPOT watch, which I wear all the time.
- Bill Gates
It’s hard to tell with these Internet startups if they’re really interested in building companies or if they’re just interested in the money. I can tell you, though: If they don’t really want to build a company, they won’t luck into it. That’s because it’s so hard that if you don’t have a passion, you’ll give up.
- Steve Jobs
I am convinced that nothing we do is more important than hiring and developing people. At the end of the day you bet on people, not on strategies.
- Lawrence Bossidy
It might interest you to know that the 1828 Noah Webster Dictionary identifies the optimist in complimentary terms, but says nothing about the pessimist. The word ‘pessimist’ was not in our vocabulary at that time. It’s a modern ‘invention’ which I believe we should ‘dis-invent.’
- Zig Ziglar
I would like to see anyone be able to achieve their dreams, and that’s what this organization does.
- Sergey Brin
Some countries, like Saudi Arabia, where the population growth is very high, whereby you don’t have the mortgage low yet. Still the demand outstrips supply by much.
- Prince Al Waleed Bin Talal Alsaud
You have to get lost in the woods of your own doing and discover a way out. You have to find the right path over the creek, under the rock-whatever mechanism is good for your body’s size and your stride and your cadence and your tolerance for wet or cold or humid weather. That kind of learning comes from having a tolerance for failure, and extracting lessons from your failures.
- Marc Ecko
Following a period of drastic market fluctuations in Asia during the summer months of the previous year, economies in the region gradually improved and stabilised during the financial year.
- Lee Shau Kee
Life is not a portfolio: not for a startup founder, and not for any individual. An entrepreneur cannot “diversify” herself: you cannot run dozens of companies at the same time and then hope that one of them works out well. Less obvious but just as important, an individual cannot diversify his own life by keeping dozens of equally possible careers in ready reserve.
- Peter Thiel
I would summarize the quarter as a solid quarter from a revenue and earnings per share perspective and a strong quarter from an orders perspective.
- John Chambers
He possessed a sense of calling in both religion and business, with Christianity and capitalism forming the twin pillars of his life.
- Ron Chernow
When you get a thing the way you want it, leave it alone.
- Winston Churchill
When I hung in, he saw character, and that was the end of it. Later, it was funny to watch him hazing other guys the same way – funny after you’d been through the cycle.
- Phil Knight
I don’t like accidental success. It’s what Bill Gates calls ‘random,’ a term he uses with the opposite of respect.
- Masayoshi Son
God wants us to prosper financially, to have plenty of money, to fulfill the destiny He has laid out for us.
- Joel Olsteen
I felt like Samson with a fresh haircut. But that dream of what the company could be sustained me.
- Ray Kroc
It takes half your life before you discover life is a do-it-yourself project.
- Napoleon Hill
Since Henry Ford. It is changing the way every idea is handled, every product is created, every person interacts. It’s not going to be willing to make a detour around your gig, it’s not going to be interested in giving you a permanent sinecure. No, the revolution doesn’t care.
- Seth Godin
As long as people are clear on what they need to do and what’s going on, you’re very likely to succeed. When nobody is clear, then you’re guaranteed to fail.
- Ben Horowitz
If you run a business, if you are responsible for a lot of people, you come to grips with the reality that you have to have discipline. You have to protect the enterprise in order to take care of the employees. So, therefore, you can’t be wasteful. You can’t squander things, or you jeopardize other people.
- Stephen Wynn
That doesn’t mean the opposite ideas are automatically true: you can’t escape the madness of crowds by dogmatically rejecting them. Instead ask yourself: how much of what you know about business is shaped by mistaken reactions to past mistakes? The most contrarian thing of all is not to oppose the crowd but to think for yourself.
- Peter Thiel
Being financially rich and having the ability to live like a millionaire are fundamentally two very different things.
- Timothy Ferriss
My own view is that every company requires a long-term view.
- Jeff Bezos
Love him or hate him, Trump is a man who is certain about what he wants and sets out to get it, no holds barred. Women find his power almost as much of a turn-on as his money.
- Donald Trump
We are asking the nations of Europe between whom rivers of blood have flowed to forget the feuds of a thousand years.
- Winston Churchill
We are waiting for the long-promised invasion. So are the fishes.
- Winston Churchill
Often, it is in trying times that the greatest endeavours are realised.
- Cheng Yu-tung
The more people I serve, the richer I become.
- Robert Kiyosaki
Keep doing the right. God is building character in you, and you are passing that test. Remember, the greater the struggle, the greater the reward.
- Joel Olsteen
There may be times when you just have to love people from a distance.
- Joel Olsteen
I know why logs spit. I know what it is to be consumed.
- Winston Churchill
I will say that walking down the street, getting on the subway, taking the elevator, if there’s one or two people and they say, ‘Great job, Mayor,’ that is a real turn-on. I mean, anybody that wouldn’t find that satisfying, rewarding, exciting, thrilling – I think they should see the doctor.
- Michael Bloomberg
People think, ‘Jack, you do too much.’
- Jack Ma
Churchill was in the lavatory in the House of Commons and his secretary knocked on the door and said: Excuse me Prime Minister, but the Lord Privy Seal wishes to speak to you. After a pause Churchill replied: Tell His Lordship: I’m sealed on The Privy and can only deal with one shit at a time.
- Winston Churchill
I never worry about action, but only inaction.
- Winston Churchill
We can’t wait for Washington. Business leaders are going to have to galvanize their own constituencies and do everything they can to demonstrate confidence in the economy, and I think that can be contagious.
- Howard Schultz
What is comedy? Comedy is the art of making people laugh without making them puke.
- Steve Martin
Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time, for that is the stuff life is made of.
- Benjamin Franklin
I’m skeptical that the novel will be ‘re-invented.’
- Jeff Bezos
It turns out that is exactly what product strategy is all about—figuring out the right product is the innovator’s job, not the customer’s job. The customer only knows what she thinks she wants based on her experience with the current product. The innovator can take into account everything that’s possible, but often must go against what she knows to be true. As a result, innovation requires a combination of knowledge, skill, and courage.
- Ben Horowitz
There is no such thing as Something for nothing.
- Napoleon Hill
Real estate is the key cost of physical retailers. That’s why there’s the old saw: location, location, location.
- Jeff Bezos
The royal road to a man’s heart is to talk to him about the things he treasures most.
- Dale Carnegie
Courage is on display every day, and only the courageous wring the most out of life.
- Zig Ziglar
In the early days of aviation, there was a great deal of experimentation and a high death rate.
- Elon Musk
I think everything I have done in my life, my reasons at the time were right no matter how things worked out.
- Steve Wozniak
I like the word ‘autopilot’ more than I like the word ‘self-driving.’ ‘Self-driving’ sounds like it’s going to do something you don’t want it to do. ‘Autopilot’ is a good thing to have in planes, and we should have it in cars.
- Elon Musk
The world has been very careful to pick very few diseases for eradication, because it is very tough.
- Bill Gates
The problem we have with America is that you come over here and want to make a deal. We meet you and want to form a relationship from which we can make a deal. We meet you and want to form a relationship from which we can make many deals. Most importantly and the basis of everything is that we have a relationship where we honor and trust each other.
- Akio Morita
It seems like a good cause. I’ve been watching it on TV and, it makes me want to help.
- Ed Clark
When companies fail, or fail to grow, it’s almost always because they don’t invest in the people, the systems, and the processes they need.
- Howard Schultz
We don’t live in a normal world, we live under a power law.
- Peter Thiel
Extolling the virtues of conservation of energy, Churchill advised, “Never stand when you can sit, and never sit when you can lie down.
- Winston Churchill
[On a small business class taught at university by Frank Shallenberger] Shallenberger started by defining the type of person who was an entrepreneur, and I realized he was talking to me.
- Phil Knight
Short cycle business are being impacted by credit, and are being impacted by gasoline prices, food, distribution businesses, chemical business.
- Jack Welch
A good culture is like the old RIP routing protocol: Bad news travels fast. Good news travels slow.
- Ben Horowitz
Forty to 60 I would say is your prime. That’s when you know the most, you’ve seen the most, you understand the most, and you still have some physical energy.
- Jerry Seinfeld
Save your first bucket of gold… then use it for investments.
- Lee Shau Kee
Be factual. Lying is really, really a bad idea, mostly because they’ll find you out. And then you’ll never get another item in that outlet for as long as they remember you, which will be forever.
- Michael Levine
This isn’t stealing this is standing on the shoulders of giants.
- David Novak
Contrary to popular belief, I don’t spend a whole lot of time following soccer. But as I have traveled around the world to better understand global development and health, I’ve learned that soccer is truly universal. No matter where I go, that’s what kids are playing. That’s what people are talking about.
- Bill Gates
I am a tightwad. That’s one of the main reasons I completed a long questionnaire for a crispy $1 bill. Why else would I spend two or three hours being personally interviewed by these authors? They paid me $100, $200, or $250. Oh, they made me another offer–to donate in my name the money I earned for my interview to my favorite charity. But I told them, I am my favorite charity.
- Thomas J Stanley
Let us never negotiate out of fear, but let us never fear to negotiate.
- John F. Kennedy
I’ve never been one to dwell on reverses.
- Sam Walton
As technology continues to virtualize money, brick ‘n mortar banks have become as superfluous as traditional bookstores.
- Reid Hoffman
Once you start doing only what you’ve already proven you can do, you’re on the road to death.
- Jerry Seinfeld
Salvation and Christ’s love is a gift. You don’t earn it. You’ve got to receive that gift.
- Joel Olsteen
If Vancouver did not succeed as Starbucks from ’87 on, our entire international business, which is now thousands of stores and a significant amount of growth and profit, may not have existed.
- Howard Schultz
I have no interest in gender or race or anything like that. But everyone else is kind of, with their calculating – is this the exact right mix? I think that’s – to me it’s anti-comedy. It’s more about PC-nonsense.
- Jerry Seinfeld
One of the statistics that always amazes me is the approval of the Chinese government, not elected, is over 80 percent. The approval of the U.S. government, fully elected, is 19 percent. Well, we elected these people and they didn’t elect those people. Isn’t it supposed to be different? Aren’t we supposed to like the people that we elected?
- Bill Gates
Laughter is America’s most important export.
- Walt Disney
You need to be around people who know more than you and have more talent than you. Don’t be intimidated by them, be inspired.
- Joel Olsteen
