Notable Quotables

I have a particular relationship with Vinod Khosla because he’s got a lot of very interesting science-based energy startups.

- Bill Gates

A two-year-old is kind of like having a blender, but you don’t have a top for it.

- Jerry Seinfeld

I’d learned the hard way that when hiring executives, one should follow Colin Powell’s instructions and hire for strength rather than lack of weakness.

- Ben Horowitz

Somebody talked me into writing an autobiography about six or seven years ago. And I said I’d try. We talked into a tape recorder, and after a couple of months, I said, To hell with it. I was so depressed. It was like saying, ‘This is the end.’ I was more interested in what the hell was coming the next day or the next week.

- Rupert Murdoch

the best possible way to prepare for tomorrow is to concentrate with all your intelligence, all your enthusiasm, on doing today’s work superbly today. That is the only possible way you can prepare for the future.

- Dale Carnegie

The banjo is truly an American instrument, and it captures something about our past.

- Steve Martin

The space shuttle was often used as an example of why you shouldn’t even attempt to make something reusable. But one failed experiment does not invalidate the greater goal. If that was the case, we’d never have had the light bulb.

- Elon Musk

All salesmen are actors: their priority is persuasion, not sincerity. That’s why the word “salesman” can be a slur and the used car dealer is our archetype of shadiness. But we only react negatively to awkward, obvious salesmen—that is, the bad ones.

- Peter Thiel

There is only one way under high heaven to get anybody to do anything. Did you ever stop to think of that? Yes, just one way. And that is by making the other person want to do it.

- Dale Carnegie

The problems forced us to take a hard look at what we were doing, what was going wrong, what we were good at, and where we wanted to go.

- Phil Knight

When interviewing candidates, it’s helpful to watch for small distinctions that indicate whether they view the world through the “me” prism or the “team” prism.

- Ben Horowitz

Be remarkable Be generous Create art Make judgment calls Connect people and ideas . . . and we have no choice but to reward you.

- Seth Godin

The problem is not getting rid of fear, but using it properly.

- Zig Ziglar

You’ve probably heard about “first mover advantage”: if you’re the first entrant into a market, you can capture significant market share while competitors scramble to get started. But moving first is a tactic, not a goal. What really matters is generating cash flows in the future, so being the first mover doesn’t do you any good if someone else comes along and unseats you. It’s much better to be the last mover—that is, to make the last great development in a specific market and enjoy years or even decades of monopoly profits. The way to do that is to dominate a small niche and scale up from there, toward your ambitious long-term vision. In this one particular at least, business is like chess. Grandmaster José Raúl Capablanca put it well: to succeed, “you must study the endgame before everything else.

- Peter Thiel

We would betray our values and play into our enemies’ hands if we were to treat Muslims differently than anyone else. In fact, to cave to popular sentiment would be to hand a victory to the terrorists, and we should not stand for that.

- Michael Bloomberg

You know, people talk about this being an uncertain time. You know, all time is uncertain. I mean, it was uncertain back in – in 2007, we just didn’t know it was uncertain. It was – uncertain on September 10th, 2001. It was uncertain on October 18th, 1987, you just didn’t know it.

- Warren Buffett

It’s what we wrestle with every single day. The intersection of comfort, danger, and safety. The balancing act between vulnerability and shame. The opportunity (or the risk) to do art. The willingness to take responsibility for caring enough to make a difference and to have a point of view.

- Seth Godin

So you need two professions: the one you have studied all this time, and your other profession the profession of persuasion that allows you to make good use of all those years of education, practice and dues-paying.

- Jerry Vass

Just because something didn’t work out your way, or somebody disappointed you, that does not change who you are.

- Joel Olsteen

We don’t live in a normal world, we live under a power law.

- Peter Thiel

When you deal with change, you have a couple choices: you can lead it and make the rules, or you can be a fast follower, or you can be a slow follower.

- Charles Ergen

Money will buy you a bed, but not a good night’s sleep, a house, but not a home, a companion, but not a friend.

- Zig Ziglar

I don’t think of myself as a poor deprived ghetto girl who made good. I think of myself as somebody who from an early age knew I was responsible for myself, and I had to make good, but on a practical level having dealt with being abandoned by your father, being raised by your alcoholic mom and having severe physical disabilities even today, How do you choose to have the right thoughts?

- Oprah Winfrey

More than that, internal peace is what enables a startup to survive at all. When a startup fails, we often imagine it succumbing to predatory rivals in a competitive ecosystem. But every company is also its own ecosystem, and factional strife makes it vulnerable to outside threats. Internal conflict is like an autoimmune disease: the technical cause of death may be pneumonia, but the real cause remains hidden from plain view.

- Peter Thiel

The path of least resistence is the path of the loser.

- H.G. Wells

The moment a leader allows himself to become the primary reality people worry about, rather than reality being the primary reality, you have a recipe for mediocrity, or worse. This is one of the key reasons why less charismatic leaders often produce better long-term results than their more charismatic counterparts.

- James C. Collins

Darwin Smith stands as a classic example of what we came to call a Level 5 leader—an individual who blends extreme personal humility with intense professional will.

- James C. Collins

Look, the whole world wants to modernize, and when you look to what they mean by modernizing, they mean Americanize. Would a modern Greek prefer to live in Orange County than Piraeus? Yes. Absolutely.

- Rupert Murdoch

I am so busy doing nothing… that the idea of doing anything – which as you know, always leads to something – cuts into the nothing and then forces me to have to drop everything.

- Jerry Seinfeld

The more we thought, the more they all sounded boring compared to Apple. You didn’t have to have a real specific reason for choosing a name when you were a little tiny company of two people; you choose any name you want.

- Steve Wozniak

Hard things are hard because there are no easy answers or recipes. They are hard because your emotions are at odds with your logic. They are hard because you don’t know the answer and you cannot ask for help without showing weakness.

- Ben Horowitz

There are no longer any great jobs where someone else tells you precisely what to do.

- Seth Godin

The words Think and Thank are inscribed in many of the Cromwellian churches of England. These words ought to be inscribed in our hearts, too: Think and Thank. Think of all we have to be grateful for, and thank God for all our boons and bounties.

- Dale Carnegie

The annals of business are filled with stories of companies that thought they had it made and could milk their enterprises without having to bother about improving their products or services. It’s amazing how fast they found their markets disappearing.

- Harvey Mackay

Q1 was a solid quarter for Cisco, with balanced execution across most of our geographies, market segments and product categories, … We are especially pleased with the improving business momentum in the U.S. and Asia Pacific, the strength of our product families and the accelerated growth of the commercial marketplace, which has become our fastest growing customer segment.

- John Chambers

L.A. is only where you live, because otherwise it’s just a sprawling mass of everything, and I think if you live in L.A., you get a little network of places you go, and people you see, and when you leave town, you do miss those places and your friends.

- Steve Martin

If you are a parent, you have probably already realized that your children are always watching what you do. And just as children watch their parents and emulate their behavior, so do employees who are watching their bosses.

- John C. Maxwell

Self-centered leaders manipulate when they move people for personal benefit. Mature leaders motivate by moving people for mutual benefit.

- John C. Maxwell

I believe the true road to preeminent success in any line is to make yourself master of that line.

- Andrew Carnegie

Plan and execute your first failure so that you no longer have to fear it.

- John C. Maxwell

Software substitution, whether it’s for drivers or waiters or nurses – it’s progressing. Technology over time will reduce demand for jobs, particularly at the lower end of skill set.

- Bill Gates

Sales were limited by how many shoes we had, shoes were limited by how many dollars we had to order them.

- Phil Knight

People tend to over-weigh risks on a personal level. It’s one thing if you’ve got a mortgage to pay and kids to support, so that if you were to deviate from your job, well, how are you going to feed your family and pay the rent? That’s understandable, but let’s say you’re young and you’re just coming out of college, what are your risks? You’re not going to starve, certainly not in any kind of modern economy. It’s so easy to earn enough money just to live somewhere and eat food. Very easy to do. So I don’t know what they’re afraid of. Mostly afraid of failure, I think, but people should be less risk averse, when there’s not much at risk.

- Elon Musk

I understood the importance of hiring for strength rather than for lack of weakness, and I understood the meaning of “fit.”

- Ben Horowitz

If a man will devote his time to securing facts in an impartial, objective way, his worries will usually evaporate in the light of knowledge.

- Dale Carnegie

If you decide that you’re going to do only the things you know are going to work, you’re going to leave a lot of opportunity on the table.

- Jeff Bezos

Through the wisdom of its government leaders and the entrepreneurship of its private sector, India has rapidly risen to become a major force in the global economy, … Cisco believes that the Internet, and related technologies, will be a key enabler for India to achieve its goal of becoming a developed nation.

- John Chambers

You can’t spend as much money as I have, even if you try. I’ve been trying.

- Larry Ellison

I think frugality drives innovation, just like other constraints do. One of the only ways to get out of a tight box is to invent your way out.

- Jeff Bezos

One day a friend came by the job site and asked them separately what they were doing. The first said, Aw, we’re just laying brick. We’ve been doing this for thirty years. It’s so boring. One brick on top of the other.” Then the friend asked the second bricklayer. He just lit up. Why, we’re building a magnificent skyscraper,” he said. This structure is going to stand tall for generations to come. I’m just so excited that I could be a part of it.” Each bricklayer’s happiness or lack of it was based on their perspective. You can be laying a brick or you can be building a beautiful skyscraper. The choice is up to you. You can go to work each day and just punch in on the clock and dread being there and do as little as possible. Or you can show up with enthusiasm and give it your best, knowing that you’re making the world a better place.

- Joel Olsteen

By giving people the power to share, we’re making the world more transparent.

- Mark Zuckerberg

The worst that could happen wasn’t crashing and burning, it was accepting terminal boredom as a tolerable status quo.

- Timothy Ferriss

Some city-council people are really awesome, but most are uninspired. I meet with them as little as possible.

- Travis Kalanick

And the pathetic part of it is that frequently those who have the least justification for a feeling of achievement bolster up their egos by a show of tumult and conceit which is truly nauseating. As Shakespeare put it: … man, proud man, / Drest in a little brief authority, / … Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven / As make the angels weep.

- Dale Carnegie

It’s lonely at the top. Ninety-nine percent of people in the world are convinced they are incapable of achieving great things, so they aim for the mediocre. The level of competition is thus fiercest for ‘realistic’ goals, paradoxically making them the most time and energy-consuming.

- Timothy Ferriss

Of course, it’s easier to copy a model than to make something new. Doing what we already know how to do takes the world from 1 to n, adding more of something familiar. But every time we create something new, we go from 0 to 1. The act of creation is singular, as is the moment of creation, and the result is something fresh and strange.

- Peter Thiel

A great business has to have a conscience. You have to know who you are and who you are not.

- Howard Schultz

When screening engineers from other companies, its smart to value engineers from great companies more than those from mediocre companies.

- Ben Horowitz

If everything seems under control, you’re just not going fast enough.

- Mario Andretti

Whoever is first to dominate the most important segment of a market with viral potential will be the last mover in the whole market.

- Peter Thiel

I’ve never preached one sermon on money, on just finances. I want to stay away from it.

- Joel Olsteen

If you always do what you’ve always done, you’re always going to get what you’ve always gotten.

- Zig Ziglar

I’ve been fascinated with technology since I was a boy banging around on my father’s adding machine. Back then I’d type in an equation, the device made some cool noises, and out came my answer. I was hooked.

- Michael Dell

Starting a new South Indian restaurant is a really hard way to make money. If you lose sight of competitive reality and focus on trivial differentiating factors—maybe you think your naan is superior because of your great-grandmother’s recipe—your business is unlikely to survive.

- Peter Thiel

We’ve fallen into a trap of ever-widening orbits of contact, and there is a total disregard for the present moment.

- Jerry Seinfeld

The entrepreneur builds an enterprise, the technician builds a job.

- Michael Gerber

What we know about the destination resort business is clearly established. But it’s all about one thing, and one thing only. All of the razzmatazz and jazz we hear about facilities and everything else doesn’t amount to a hill of beans. It’s customer experience that determines the longevity and endurance of these enterprises.

- Stephen Wynn

Well, I don’t think there’s any need for people to focus on my career.

- Bill Gates

In order to build a great technology company, you have to hire lots of incredibly smart people. It’s a total waste to have lots of big brains but not let them work on your biggest problems. A brain, no matter how big, cannot solve a problem it doesn’t know about.

- Ben Horowitz

If our company isn’t good enough to win, then do we need to exist at all?

- Ben Horowitz

My dad had a church of 90 people when I was born. It was just, over the years it continued to grow.

- Joel Olsteen

You can’t build any kind of organization if you’re not going to surround yourself with people who have experience and skill base beyond your own.

- Howard Schultz

People shouldn’t have to spend a lot of money to get high-quality clothing.

- Tadashi Yanai

The Habit of Saving does not mean that you shall limit your earning capacity, it means just the opposite – that you shall apply this law so that it not only conserves that which you earn, in a systematic manner, but it also places you in the way of greater opportunity and gives you the vision, the self-confidence, the imagination, the enthusiasm, the initiative and leadership actually to increase your earning capacity.

- Napoleon Hill

A lot of the things that will really improve the world fortunately aren’t dependent on Washington doing something different.

- Bill Gates

Stand by your principles and be comfortable with confrontation. So few people are, so when the people with the red tape come, it becomes a negotiation.

- Travis Kalanick

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

- Lee Shau Kee

Esta es la clave: las únicas promesas que se avivarán en su vida y terminarán convirtiéndose en realidad son las promesas en las que usted se levanta y dice: Sí, eso es para mí”. Tiene que entrar en acuerdo con Dios y permitir que eso eche raíz.

- Joel Olsteen

It’s not going out to people who aren’t going to go shopping. You’ve already got the people who are shopping.

- Jack Taylor

At Facebook, we build tools to help people connect with the people they want and share what they want, and by doing this we are extending people’s capacity to build and maintain relationships.

- Mark Zuckerberg

Think about how Google talks about its business. It certainly doesn’t claim to be a monopoly.

- Peter Thiel

I think Yahoo is a great company, with great assets.

- Jack Ma

Every great man, every successful man, no matter what the field of endeavor, has known the magic that lies in these words: every adversity has the seed of an equivalent or greater benefit.

- W. Clement Stone

The quality of a leader is reflected in the standards they set for themselves

- Ray Kroc

The relationships we have with people are extremely important to success on and off the job.

- Zig Ziglar

You can design and create, and build the most wonderful place in the world. But it takes people to make the dream a reality.

- Walt Disney

It is important for a husband to understand that his words have tremendous power in his wife’s life. He needs to bless her with words. She’s given her life to love and care for him, to partner with him, to create a family together, to nurture his children. If he is always finding fault in something she’s doing, always putting her down, he will reap horrendous problems in his marriage and in his life. Moreover, many women today are depressed and feel emotionally abused because their husbands do not bless them with their words. One of the leading causes of emotional breakdowns among married women is the fact that women do not feel valued. One of the main reasons for that deficiency is because husbands are willfully or unwittingly withholding the words of approval women so desperately desire. If you want to see God do wonders in your marriage, start praising your spouse. Start appreciating and encouraging her. Every single day, a husband should tell his wife, I love you. I appreciate you. You’re the best thing that ever happened to me.” A wife should do the same for her husband. Your relationship would improve immensely if you’d simply start speaking kind, positive words, blessing your spouse instead of cursing him or her.

- Joel Olsteen

Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.

- Albert Einstein

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