It’s true that I run a multi-national group but I have no interests in India. So please tell me, what should my identity be?
- Lakshmi Mittal
Notable Quotables
It doesn’t matter how many people you offend, as long as you’re getting your message to your consumers. I say to those people who do not want to offend anybody: You are going to have a very, very difficult time having meaningful advertising.
- Phil Knight
Information is useless if it is not applied to something important or if you will forget it before you have a chance to apply it.
- Timothy Ferriss
Abundance and scarcity In a society where value is created by the manufacture of goods or the allocation of limited resources, it’s not a surprise that organizations seek scarcity. We hesitate to share, because if I give you this, then I don’t have it any more. We erect barriers and create rules to make it difficult for some people to have access to these limited resources. While we don’t set out to become miserly, it’s an economic instinct, because what’s yours is no long mine. Even though we give lip service to sharing when kids show up for kindergarten classes, most of school is organized around the same ideas. We rank students, we cut players from the roster, we grade on a curve. Success, we teach, is scarce. Our new economy, though, is based on abundance, the abundance that comes from ideas and access. If I benefit when everyone knows my idea, then the more people I give the idea to, the better we all do. If I benefit when I earn a reputation leading, connecting and creating positive change, then I’ll benefit if I can offer these insights to anyone who can benefit from them. With an abundance mindset, we intentionally create goods that can be shared. It’s not based on our traditional factory-based economy, but it works now (in fact, it’s just about all that works)… engaging with the mesh, building communities that benefit from sharing resources instead of destroying them is a strategy that scales. With an abundance mindset, we create ideas and services that do better when people share.
- Seth Godin
They did not die because of sickness or anything but because of hunger. I remember that and how people suffered.
- Lui Che Woo
Another challenge is a phenomenon that I call the Law of Crappy People. The Law of Crappy People states: For any title level in a large organization, the talent on that level will eventually converge to the crappiest person with the title.
- Ben Horowitz
If you treat them like children, then get ready for your company to turn into one big Barney episode.
- Ben Horowitz
Hell, there are no rules here – we’re trying to accomplish something.
- Thomas Edison
I work hard, I eat fishballs and noodles. I drink coffee and tea from a street vendor. I am quite casual about personal wealth, life hasn’t changed at all.
- Lui Che Woo
Companies should not have a singular view of profitability. There needs to be a balance between commerce and social responsibility… The companies that are authentic about it will wind up as the companies that make more money.
- Howard Schultz
I think I’m less afraid of failure than some others.
- Russell Simmons
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
TV is a great big megaphone,” and when you can only afford to spend dozens of dollars acquiring a new customer, you need the biggest megaphone you can find.
- Peter Thiel
A long while ago, a great warrior faced a situation which made it necessary for him to make a decision which insured his success on the battlefield. He was about to send his armies against a powerful foe, whose men outnumbered his own. He loaded his soldiers into boats, sailed to the enemy’s country, unloaded soldiers and equipment, then gave the order to burn the ships that had carried them. Addressing his men before the first battle, he said, ‘You see the boats going up in smoke. That means that we cannot leave these shores alive unless we win! We now have no choice—we win, or we perish!’ They won. Every person who wins in any undertaking must be willing to burn his ships and cut all sources of retreat. Only by so doing can one be sure of maintaining that state of mind known as a burning desire to win, essential to success.
- Napoleon Hill
A smart manager will establish a culture of gratitude. Expand the appreciative attitude to suppliers, vendors, delivery people, and of course, customers.
- Harvey Mackay
I have been very fortunate to be successful in business, and I believe that it is right that people who have this type of wealth should give something back into society.
- Alisher Usmanov
Colleges are the equivalent of the subprime mortgage lenders who…
- Brian Tracy
The best job goes to the person who can get it done without passing the buck or coming back with excuses.
- Napoleon Hill
Those who can win a war well can rarely make a good peace and those who could make a good peace would never have won the war.
- Winston Churchill
Our main business is not to see what lies dimly at a distance, but to do what lies clearly at hand.
- Dale Carnegie
I had learned that for any big idea you had to sell, sell, sell to move the needle at all.
- Jack Welch
I am a man of simple tastes easily satisfied with the best.
- Winston Churchill
Magazines, trade publications and out outlets that relate specifically to your field of interest. If you’re a musician, Billboard, Rolling Stone and Spin top your list; if you’re a chef or restaurateur, the Gourmet or Bon Appetit and the food section of your local paper top yours.
- Michael Levine
If I’d had some set idea of a finish line, don’t you think I would have crossed it years ago?
- Bill Gates
The goal is to get the buyer to like and trust you.
- Clay Clark
You can also make a 10x improvement through superior integrated design.
- Peter Thiel
The first three-and-a-half months of calendar year 2001 have been extremely challenging for many of us in high-tech.
- John Chambers
There is no class so pitiably wretched as that which possesses money and nothing else.
- Andrew Carnegie
What’s dangerous is not to evolve.
- Jeff Bezos
There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work, learning from failure.
- Colin Powell
Learn to speak God’s favor over every area of your life. Remember, the more favor-minded you are, the more of God’s favor you’re going to experience.
- Joel Olsteen
Keep in mind, just because you don’t know the answer doesn’t mean that one does not exist. You simply haven’t discovered it yet.
- Joel Olsteen
Twenty years ago, the top 100 companies in the Fortune 500 either dug something out of the ground or turned a natural resource (iron ore or oil) into something you could hold. Today, fewer than half of the companies on the list do that. The rest make unseemly profits by trafficking in ideas.
- Seth Godin
For me, privacy and security are really important. We think about it in terms of both: You can’t have privacy without security.
- Larry Page
A company should limit its growth based on its ability to attract enough of the right people.
- James C. Collins
The kids are a big part of my schedule.
- Bill Gates
Dreamline Questions:What are you good at?What could you be the best at?What makes you happy?What excites you?What makes you feel accomplished and good about yourself?What are you most proud of having accomplished in your life? Can you repeat this or further develop it?What do you enjoy sharing or experiencing with other people?
- Timothy Ferriss
I believe entertainment can aspire to be art, and can become art, but if you set out to make art you’re an idiot.
- Steve Martin
When I was a CEO, the books on management that I read weren’t very much help after the first few months on the job. They were all designed to give you directions on how not to screw up your company.
- Ben Horowitz
You always hear the phrase, money doesn’t buy you happiness. But I always in the back of my mind figured a lot of money will buy you a little bit of happiness. But it’s not really true. I got a new car because the old one’s lease expired.
- Sergey Brin
And people who take risk intelligently can usually actually make a lot more progress than people who don’t.
- Reid Hoffman
You reinforce the behaviors that you reward, he explained. If you reward candor, you’ll get it.
- Jack Welch
I was leading a lot of idea and the vision for where the product was going. Ev [Evan Williams] was funding and supporting what we were doing. He put the shelter over our heads. And Biz [Stone] was just an amazingly creative guy.
- Jack Dorsey
It is no use saying, ‘We are doing our best.’ You have got to succeed in doing what is necessary.
- Winston Churchill
Write like you talk. Often.
- Seth Godin
Bad decisions made with good intentions, are still bad decisions.
- James C. Collins
Believe that giving up is the same thing as being realistic.
- Seth Godin
History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people.
- Martin Luther King Jr.
With comedy, you have no place to go but more comedy, so you’re never off the hook.
- Steve Martin
I like thinking big. If you’re going to be thinking anything, you might as well think big.
- Donald Trump
What do you want? is too imprecise to produce a meaningful and actionable answer.
- Timothy Ferriss
Mr. Ford’s most rapid strides became noticable from the time he became a personal friend of Thomas A. Edison, and you will begin to understand what the influence of one mind upon another can accomplish.
- Napoleon Hill
The thing you fear most has no power. Your fear of it is what has the power. Facing the truth really will set you free.
- Oprah Winfrey
I was the night foreman of a galvanizing factory, which is hot and smelly and dirty and miserable.
- Ronald Perelman
Every morning when I wake up, I make up my mind to solve as many problems before returning home.
- Aliko Dangote
May all of your creations have just the right flavor.
- Timothy Ferriss
The future of Windows is to let the computer see, listen and even learn.
- Bill Gates
Being too humble can cost you. Not talking about your accomplishments can hit you in the pocketbook. It’s those who visibly take credit for accomplishments who are rewarded with promotions and gem assignments, writes Klaus. As our economy has resulted in less job stability, self-promotion has become more important. Even if you aren’t an entrepreneur, says Klaus, you need to think like one and start talking up your most valuable product: you.
- Peggy Klaus
The challenge with being an initiator of projects is that you are never, ever done.
- Seth Godin
Nothing sedates rationality like large doses of effortless money
- Warren Buffett
A lot of stuff I do out of pure obsessiveness.
- Jerry Seinfeld
My motivation for all my companies has been to be involved in something that I thought would have a significant impact on the world.
- Elon Musk
Just as the process of repealing national alcohol prohibition began with individual states repealing their own prohibition laws, so individual states must now take the initiative with respect to repealing marijuana prohibition laws.
- George Soros
Litigation is the basic legal right which guarantees every corporation its decade in court.
- David Porter
I love the presentation from the more flamboyant guy, who excitedly presents his plans.
- Jack Welch
Why does a 67-year-old guy who got his start running an athletic shoe company think he can enter a field famous for gobbling up fortunes.
- Phil Knight
Failed plans should not be interpreted as a failed vision. Visions don’t change, they are only refined. Plans rarely stay the same, and are scrapped or adjusted as needed. Be stubborn about the vision, but flexible with your plan.
- John C. Maxwell
3D is a way of organizing things, particularly as we’re getting much more media information on the computer, a lot more choices, a lot more navigation than we’ve ever had before.”-Bill Gates, Entrepreneur and founder of Microsoft
- Bill Gates
Nobody believes in completely unadulterated capitalism.
- Bill Gates
If you want a successful business, your people must feel that you are working for them—not that they are working for you.
- Sam Walton
Some great people are leaders and others are more lucky, in the right place at the right time. I’d put myself in the latter category. But I’d never call myself a normal designer of anything.
- Steve Wozniak
I’d say my mother made more of a difference to me than anyone else did. I know that’s a conventional and perhaps mundane answer, but my family was blown apart at the start of World War II.
- Herb Kelleher
Some companies out there quote a start of production that is substantially in advance of when customers get their cars.
- Elon Musk
The first rule of organizational design is that all organizational designs are bad.
- Ben Horowitz
An organization’s ability to learn, and translate that learning into action rapidly, is the ultimate competitive advantage.
- Jack Welch
I’m enamored with the art world. Anytime you look at anything that’s considered artistic, there’s a commercial world around it: the ballet, opera, any kind of music. It can’t exist without it.
- Steve Martin
This is why so many small and medium-sized businesses don’t use tools that bigger firms take for granted. It’s not that small business proprietors are unusually backward or that good tools don’t exist: distribution is the hidden bottleneck.
- Peter Thiel
Motivation is the fuel, necessary to keep the human engine running.
- Zig Ziglar
I don’t know why you should be proud of something. It doesn’t make you any better or worse. You are what you are.
- Michael Bloomberg
An association of men who will not quarrel with one another is a thing which has never yet existed, from the greatest confederacy of nations down to a town meeting
- Thomas Jefferson
The Overseas Chinese habit is to save a lot and make a lot of friends.
- Lee Shau Kee
We are stripped bare by the curse of plenty.
- Winston Churchill
Many brilliant people believe that ideas move mountains. But bulldozers move mountains, ideas show where the bulldozers should go to work.
- Peter Drucker
Faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. HEBREWS 11:1.
- Joel Olsteen
Some things are much easier to see in others than in yourself
- Ben Horowitz
If you give, you will be blessed.
- Joel Olsteen
I know there’s a farmer out there somewhere who never wants a PC and that’s fine with me.
- Bill Gates
Great business is defined by its ability to generate cash flows in the future.
- Peter Thiel
Measuring and establishing facts at every step of the process. Without facts, assumptions and misperceptions will defeat whatever reason and good judgment can be brought to effort
- Service Profit Chain
Man’s only limitation within reason lies in his development and use of his imagination
- Napoleon Hill
Change almost never fails because it’s too early. It almost always fails because it’s too late.
- Seth Godin
Poisonous people do not deserve your time. To think otherwise is masochistic. The best way to approach a potential break is simple: Confide in them honestly but tactfully and explain your concerns. If they bite back, your conclusions have been confirmed. Drop them like any other bad habit. If they promise to change, first spend at least two weeks apart to develop other positive influences in your life and diminish psychological dependency. The next trial period should have a set duration and consist of pass-or-fail criteria. If this approach is too confrontational for you, just politely refuse to interact with them. Be in the middle of something when the call comes, and have a prior commitment when the invitation to hang out comes. Once you see the benefits of decreased time with these people, it will be easier to stop communication altogether.
- Timothy Ferriss
Don’t wait. The time will never be just right.
- Napoleon Hill
Remember to celebrate milestones as you prepare for the road ahead.
- Nelson Mandela
It’s nice to be important, but more important to be nice. You don’t know who your top customers will be five years from now or where you will be in 10 years. You may have a fancy title, but you will always need help from the people around you.
- Harvey Mackay
When you simplify… When you get down to the essence, you fix so many things.
- Jack Dorsey
I wouldn’t say I have a lack of fear. In fact, I’d like my fear emotion to be less because it’s very distracting and fries my nervous system.
- Elon Musk
The difficult task is to marry relentless discipline with creativity, neither letting discipline inhibit creativity nor letting creativity erode discipline.
- James C. Collins
If you don’t know how it works, find out. If you’re not sure if it will work, try it. If it doesn’t make sense, play with it until it does. If it’s not broken, break it. If it might not be true, find out.
- Seth Godin
The worst day of a man’s life is when he sits down and begins thinking about how he can get something for nothing.
- Thomas Jefferson
