I find out what the world needs. Then I go ahead and try to invent it.
- Thomas Edison
Notable Quotables
It was much easier to reach a few thousand people who really needed our product than to try to compete for the attention of millions of scattered individuals.
- Peter Thiel
The best thinking has been done in solitude. The worst has been done in turmoil.
- Thomas Edison
What chance does a five-foot-seven billionaire Jew who’s divorced really have of becoming president?
- Michael Bloomberg
You cannot be a leader, and ask other people to follow you, unless you know how to follow, too.
- Sam Rayburn
When people are around us, they should leave better off than they were previously. Rather than feeling discouraged or defeated, people should feel challenged and inspired after spending any time with you and me.
- Joel Olsteen
One of the most distinguished psychiatrists living, Dr. Carl Jung, says in his book Modern Man in Search of a Soul (*): During the past thirty years, people from all the civilised countries of the earth have consulted me. I have treated many hundreds of patients. Among all my patients in the second half of life-that is to say, over thirty-five-there has not been one whose problem in the last resort was not that of finding a religious outlook on life. It is safe to say that every one of them fell ill because he had lost that which the living religions of every age have given to their followers, and none of them has been really healed who did not regain his religious outlook.
- Dale Carnegie
There’s a way to do it better – find it.
- Thomas Edison
Don’t be afraid of enemies who attack you. Be afraid of the friends who flatter you.
- Dale Carnegie
I think a newspaper should be provocative, stir ’em up, but you can’t do that on television. It’s just not on.
- Rupert Murdoch
I believe in benevolent dictatorship provided I am the dictator.
- Richard Branson
You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years of trying to get other people interested in you.
- Dale Carnegie
Investing for the poor requires participation from the entire community.
- Bill Gates
If you have enough push, you don’t have to worry about the pull.
- Zig Ziglar
Winning is better than losing, but everybody loses when the war isn’t one worth fighting.
- Peter Thiel
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 build trust with others each time you choose integrity over image, truth over convenience, or honor over personal gain.
- John C. Maxwell
…What I have denied and what my reason compels me to deny, is the existence of a Being throned above us as a god, directing our mundane affairs in detail, regarding us as individuals, punishing us, rewarding us as human judges might. When the churches learn to take this rational view of things, when they become true schools of ethics and stop teaching fables, they will be more effective than they are to-day… If they would turn all that ability to teaching this one thing – the fact that honesty is best, that selfishness and lies of any sort must surely fail to produce happiness – they would accomplish actual things. Religious faiths and creeds have greatly hampered our development. They have absorbed and wasted some fine intellects. That creeds are getting to be less and less important to the average mind with every passing year is a good sign, I think, although I do not wish to talk about what is commonly called theology. The criticisms which have been hurled at me have not worried me. A man cannot control his beliefs. If he is honest in his frank expression of them, that is all that can in justice be required of him. Professor Thomson and a thousand others do not in the least agree with me. His criticism of me, as I read it, charged that because I doubted the soul’s immortality, or ‘personality,’ as he called it, my mind must be abnormal, ‘pathological,’ in other, words, diseased… I try to say exactly what I honestly believe to be the truth, and more than that no man can do. I honestly believe that creedists have built up a mighty structure of inaccuracy, based, curiously, on those fundamental truths which I, with every honest man, must not alone admit but earnestly acclaim. I have been working on the same lines for many years. I have tried to go as far as possible toward the bottom of each subject I have studied. I have not reached my conclusions through study of traditions; I have reached them through the study of hard fact. I cannot see that unproved theories or sentiment should be permitted to have influence in the building of conviction upon matters so important. Science proves its theories or it rejects them. I have never seen the slightest scientific proof of the religious theories of heaven and hell, of future life for individuals, or of a personal God. I earnestly believe that I am right; I cannot help believing as I do… I cannot accept as final any theory which is not provable. The theories of the theologians cannot be proved. Proof, proof! That is what I always have been after; that is what my mind requires before it can accept a theory as fact. Some things are provable, some things disprovable, some things are doubtful. All the problems which perplex us, now, will, soon or late, be solved, and solved beyond a question through scientific investigation. The thing which most impresses me about theology is that it does not seem to be investigating. It seems to be asserting, merely, without actual study. …Moral teaching is the thing we need most in this world, and many of these men could be great moral teachers if they would but give their whole time to it, and to scientific search for the rock-bottom truth, instead of wasting it upon expounding theories of theology which are not in the first place firmly based. What we need is search for fundamentals, not reiteration of traditions born in days when men knew even less than we do now.
- Thomas Edison
My mother taught me something at a young age – she said ‘you are the company you keep’. To define yourself by some label or some level of resources – that’s pretty shallow.
- Howard Schultz
I think time management as a label encourages people to view each 24-hour period as a slot in which they should pack as much as possible.
- Timothy Ferriss
No one knows more about the way you think than you do.
- Seth Godin
China is likely to sustain its pace of economic growth for the next decade.
- Cheng Yu-tung
t’s better to hang out with people better than you. Pick out associates whose behavior is better than yours and you’ll drift in that direction.
- Warren Buffett
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
I believe the true road to preeminent success in any line is to make yourself master of that line.
- Andrew Carnegie
Unemployment in America today is too high. And part of the reason, unfortunately, is that many companies cannot fill the high-skilled jobs increasingly at risk of going overseas.
- Michael Bloomberg
Rockefeller succeeded because he believed in the long –term prospects of the business and never treated it as a mirage that would soon fade.
- Ron Chernow
In fact, stories only magnify the need to have something remarkable (and honest) to say.
- Seth Godin
You’ve got to take a big jump to make it. You’ve got to have great big balls.
- Forrest Ray
Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful.
- Albert Schweitzer
The goal is to get the buyer to like and trust you.
- Clay Clark
It’s about stories. If I can tell the story to America, whether it’s Riesling or a boxer from Harlem, it will sell. I know on my gravestone it’s going to be, ‘Storyteller.’
- Gary Vaynerchuk
If you’re a person struggling to eat and stay healthy, you might have heard about Michael Jordan or Muhammad Ali, but you’ll never have heard of Bill Gates.
- Bill Gates
Everything in our society is so purposeful.
- Sara Blakely
That’s one of our biggest challenges – getting the people to the product immediately in a consistent way.
- Jack Dorsey
High expectations are the key to everything.
- Sam Walton
An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last.
- Winston Churchill
Don’t be intimidated by what you don’t know. That can be your greatest strength and ensure that you do things differently from everyone else.
- Sara Blakely
Surround yourself only with those that uplift you.
- Oprah Winfrey
I don’t think we’re going to run out of important things to do, compared with the resources that we have. There are many, many problems in the world that need solving.
- Larry Page
Hope is the power that gives a person the confidence to step out and try.
- Zig Ziglar
If a business does well, the stock eventually follows.
- Warren Buffett
Humans are distinguished from other species by our ability to work miracles. We call these miracles technology.
- Peter Thiel
I think that society has to be careful not to shift all of its resources to the elderly versus the young.
- Bill Gates
Another hero was Tom Swift, in the books. What he stood for, the freedom, the scientific knowledge and being and engineer gave him the ability to invent solutions to problems. He’s always been a hero to me. I buy old Tom Swift books now and read them to my own children.
- Steve Wozniak
Each close you use should be an educational process by which you are able to raise the value in the prospect’s mind.
- Zig Ziglar
For many of us, the happiest future is one that’s precisely like the past, except a little better.
- Seth Godin
Often any decision, even the wrong decision, is better than no decision.
- Ben Horowitz
There is no education like adversity.
- Benjamin Disraeli
Technological advance seemed to accelerate automatically, so the Boomers grew up with great expectations but few specific plans for how to fulfill them.
- Peter Thiel
An individual artist needs only a thousand true fans in her tribe. It’s enough.
- Seth Godin
Contrary to popular belief, my experience has shown me that the people who are exceptionally good in business aren’t so because of what they know but because of their insatiable need to know more.
- Michael Gerber
A prisoner of war is a man who tries to kill you and fails, and then asks you not to kill him.
- Winston Churchill
You can’t manage what you can’t measure.
- Peter Drucker
Study, along the lines which the theologies have mapped, will never lead us to discovery of the fundamental facts of our existence. That goal must be attained by means of exact science and can only be achieved by such means. The fact that man, for ages, has superstitiously believed in what he calls a God does not prove at all that his theory has been right. There have been many gods – all makeshifts, born of inability to fathom the deep fundamental truth. There must be something at the bottom of existence, and man, in ignorance, being unable to discover what it is through reason, because his reason has been so imperfect, undeveloped, has used, instead, imagination, and created figments, of one kind or another, which, according to the country he was born in, the suggestions of his environment, satisfied him for the time being. Not one of all the gods of all the various theologies has ever really been proved. We accept no ordinary scientific fact without the final proof; why should we, then, be satisfied in this most mighty of all matters, with a mere theory?Destruction of false theories will not decrease the sum of human happiness in future, any more than it has in the past… The days of miracles have passed. I do not believe, of course, that there was ever any day of actual miracles. I cannot understand that there were ever any miracles at all. My guide must be my reason, and at thought of miracles my reason is rebellious. Personally, I do not believe that Christ laid claim to doing miracles, or asserted that he had miraculous power…Our intelligence is the aggregate intelligence of the cells which make us up. There is no soul, distinct from mind, and what we speak of as the mind is just the aggregate intelligence of cells. It is fallacious to declare that we have souls apart from animal intelligence, apart from brains. It is the brain that keeps us going. There is nothing beyond that.Life goes on endlessly, but no more in human beings than in other animals, or, for that matter, than in vegetables. Life, collectively, must be immortal, human beings, individually, cannot be, as I see it, for they are not the individuals – they are mere aggregates of cells.There is no supernatural. We are continually learning new things. There are powers within us which have not yet been developed and they will develop. We shall learn things of ourselves, which will be full of wonders, but none of them will be beyond the natural.
- Thomas Edison
I think of L.A. as truly the melting pot. It’s basically a mini-country unto itself.
- Patrick Soon-Shiong
When you want to do your homework, fill out your tax return, or see all the choices for a trip you want to take, you need a full-size screen.
- Bill Gates
Use what you have to run toward your best – that’s how I now live my life.
- Oprah Winfrey
The ladder of success is never crowded at the top.
- Napoleon Hill
When you develop yourself to the point where your belief in yourself is so strong that you know that you can accomplish anything you put your mind to, your future will be unlimited.
- Brian Tracy
It is not the employer who pays the wages. Employers only handle the money. It is the customer who pays the wages.
- Henry Ford
The information about your project is objective, but your presentation is subjective. When your own subjectivity collides with that of the media, there’s plenty of room for confusion,misinterpretation and disinterest. That is why you must know precisely how to pitch before you make that first phone call or mail a press release.
- Michael Levine
If you want to earn more, learn more.
- Zig Ziglar
Exercise is better than any medicine I can take, exercise and sleep.
- Aliko Dangote
The craftsman and the artist say, “Here, I made this.” The workingman is asked to follow instructions.
- Seth Godin
Possession of Power That Was Not Acquired Through Self Effort.
- Napoleon Hill
Look around. If you don’t see any salespeople, you’re the salesperson.
- Peter Thiel
In the Networked Age, we’re all like the little kid from The Sixth Sense. If you’re not seeing networks when you enter a room, you might want to check your pulse.
- Reid Hoffman
Honesty and integrity are absolutely essential for success in life – all areas of life. The really good news is that anyone can develop both honesty and integrity.
- Zig Ziglar
Self-disciplined begins with the mastery of your thoughts. If you don’t control what you think, you can’t control what you do. Simply, self-discipline enables you to think first and act afterward.
- Napoleon Hill
My father left me with a clear sense that the media was something different.
- Rupert Murdoch
If you want to build a dynasty, you need to always be focused on getting better and beating last year’s performance in everything you do. You want to eliminate peaks and valleys, what we call boom, splat, and go for a good steady incline.
- David Novak
If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss.
- Bill Gates
The road doesn’t have to be infinite after all. Take the hidden paths.
- Peter Thiel
I prefer the old theaters because the audience is… trapped.
- Jerry Seinfeld
Whatever your income, always live below your means.
- Thomas J Stanley
If you go to a bad movie, it’s two hours. If you’re in a bad movie, it’s two years.
- Jerry Seinfeld
Because we publicists are hired guns, reported don’t often put much stock in our pleas and arguments, at least not a first. I was told by one entertainment reporter from a large metropolitan paper, Publicists don’t believe in what they are selling. They’re just paid pitchmen.
- Michael Levine
I could either watch it happen or be a part of it.
- Elon Musk
It is no achievement to walk a tightrope laid flat on the floor.
- Ray Kroc
After all God doesn’t want you to be an imitation of someone else. You should be the original you were created to be. There is an anointing on your life, an empowerment. Not to be somebody else, but to be you. If you let people squeeze you into their molds and you bow down to their pressure to try to please your critics, it not only takes away your uniqueness, but it also lessens the favor on your life.
- Joel Olsteen
My best friend is the one who brings out the best in me.
- Henry Ford
Great investments may look crazy but really may not be.
- Peter Thiel
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
I’m in the shoe business. Look at these things. They’re called Tigers. I faked out the company. I’m the US distributor. Come with me.
- Phil Knight
An old battleax of a woman said to Winston Churchill, “If you were my husband I would put poison in your tea.” Churchill’s response, “Ma’am if you were my wife I would drink it.
- Winston Churchill
Love your family, work super hard, live your passion.
- Gary Vaynerchuk
My greatest strength as a consultant is to be ignorant and ask a few questions.
- Peter Drucker
David Novak CEO of YUM Brands (on crisis management)
- David Novak
Out of clutter, find simplicity.
- Albert Einstein
There are ways of fighting for your interests. I never do something in business that I wouldn’t do in life.
- Vladimir Potanin
Investing in Chicago property is just Wanda’s first move into the U.S. real estate market.
- Wang Jianlin
The doctor of the future will give no medicine, but will interest his patients in the care of the human body, in diet, and in the cause and prevention of disease.
- Thomas Edison
Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will.
- Mahatma Gandhi
I’ve actually made a prediction that within 30 years a majority of new cars made in the United States will be electric. And I don’t mean hybrid, I mean fully electric.
- Elon Musk
It is equally important that diversification is an ongoing process.
- Cheng Yu-tung
The librarian isn’t a clerk who happens to work in a library. A librarian is a data hound, a guide, a sherpa and a teacher. The librarian is the interface between reams of data and the untrained but motivated user.
- Seth Godin
I trust that everything happens for a reason, even when we’re not wise enough to see it.
- Oprah Winfrey
It is not necessary to do extraordinary things to get extraordinary results.
- Warren Buffett
Becoming a member of the new rich is not just about working smarter. It’s about building a system to replace yourself.”Most things make no difference. Being busy is a form of mental laziness.”By working only when you are most effective, life is both more productive and more enjoyable. It’s the perfect example of having your cake and eating it, too.
- Timothy Ferriss
