Checking the results of a decision against its expectations shows executives what their strengths are, where they need to improve, and where they lack knowledge or information.
- Peter Drucker
Notable Quotables
I can’t imagine a day without coffee. I can’t imagine!
- Howard Schultz
I want people to know their palate is a snowflake. We all like different things. Why should we all have the same taste in wines?
- Gary Vaynerchuk
m reasonably optimistic about the future, especially the future of the United States – for the century, at least.
- Elon Musk
Competition means no profits for anybody, no meaningful differentiation, and a struggle for survival.
- Peter Thiel
If you ask an economist what’s driven economic growth, it’s been major advances in things that mattered – the mechanization of farming, mass manufacturing, things like that. The problem is, our society is not organized around doing that.
- Larry Page
I’d rather have 1% of 100 people’s efforts than 100% of my own.
- John D. Rockefeller
In creating an ideavirus, the advertiser creates an environment in which the idea can replicate and spread. It’s the virus that does the work, not the marketer.
- Seth Godin
Even though I’m a hype man myself, I like the practicality of it all. People who understand how to turn a profit. At the end of the day, this is still business so I’m looking for real practical knowledge of how to actually make money, not necessarily raise it.
- Gary Vaynerchuk
You will know (the good from the bad) when you are calm, at peace. Passive. A Jedi uses the Force for knowledge and defense, never for attack.
- Yoda
If you’re low-income in the United States, you have a higher chance of going to jail than you do of getting a four-year degree. And that doesn’t seem entirely fair.
- Bill Gates
Life is not a dress rehearsal.
- Clay Clark
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
Until you make the effort to get to know someone or something, you don’t know anything.
- Ben Horowitz
There’s an entire universe in every single tweet, and it all really depends on the content as far as how it’s going to spread.
- Jack Dorsey
The Field of Dreams conceit is especially popular in Silicon Valley, where engineers are biased toward building cool stuff rather than selling it. But customers will not come just because you build it. You have to make that happen, and it’s harder than it looks.
- Peter Thiel
Any version of Windows is going to have lots of great new things that people use and things that are tough.
- Bill Gates
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
All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence, and then success is sure.
- Mark Twain
The future is here. It’s just not widely distributed yet.
- William Gibson
I’ve always been very happy. I’ve always been easy going and I’ve always been very encouraging, it’s just my personality.
- Joel Olsteen
Expect more than others think possible.
- Howard Schultz
First, only invest in companies that have the potential to return the value of the entire fund.
- Peter Thiel
Sometimes your best investments are the ones you don’t make
- Donald Trump
A politician needs the ability to foretell what is going to happen tomorrow, next week, next month, and next year. And to have the ability afterwards to explain why it didn’t happen.
- Winston Churchill
I like the book. Do you have a problem with that? … I just think it’s a great story of somebody who stood up for what they believe in.
- Travis Kalanick
When you face adversity, you need to remind yourself that whatever is trying to defeat you could very well be what God will use to promote you.
- Joel Olsteen
Once I did bad and that I heard ever. Twice I did good, but that I heard never.
- Dale Carnegie
If you can deny your talents, if you can conceal them from others or, even better, persuade yourself that they weren’t even given to you, you’re off the hook. And being off the hook is a key element of the industrialized school’s promise. It lets parents off the hook, certainly, since the institution takes over the teaching. It lets teachers off the hook, since the curriculum is preordained and the results are tested. And it lets students off the hook, because the road is clearly marked and the map is handed to everyone. If you stay on the path, do your college applications through the guidance office and your job hunting at the placement office, the future is not your fault. That’s the refrain we hear often from frustrated job seekers, frustrated workers with stuck careers, and frustrated students in too much debt. ‘I did what they told me to do and now I’m stuck and it’s not my fault.’ What they’ve exchanged for that deniability is their dreams, their chance for greatness. To go off the path is to claim responsibility for what happens next.
- Seth Godin
We’ve grown from 18% of the profits of the top 25 companies in our industry to 23% of the profits of the top 25 companies in our industry over the last five years. Profits are up over 70%, where the industry profit is up about 35%. Pretty good.
- Steve Ballmer
An artist is someone who uses bravery, insight, creativity, and boldness to challenge the status quo. And an artist takes it personally.
- Seth Godin
Speeches will not distribute the future.
- Jack Dorsey
Don’t go in and tell somebody else how to run their business.
- Carl Icahn
Getting things done in this country, if you want to build something, if you want to start a company, it’s getting to be virtually impossible with all of the bureaucracy and all of the approvals.
- Donald Trump
What man actually needs is not a tensionless state but rather the striving and struggling for a worthwhile goal, a freely chosen task.
- Viktor E. Frankl
We just sort of factor all that information into the computer between the ears and come up with conclusions.
- Phil Knight
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
The best things that capture your imagination are ones you hadn’t thought of before and that aren’t talked about in the news all the time.
- Steve Wozniak
If you find yourself plagued by a recurrent worry, train yourself to think of something else. Your conscious mind can concentrate on only one thought at a time, and driving the negativity away will free you up to move forward again.
- Harvey Mackay
We must not let our standards be determined by the gentlemen of the oposition.
- Winston Churchill
I started NetSuite. NetSuite was my idea. I called up Evan Goldberg and said, ‘We’re going to do ERP on the Internet, software-as-a-service.’ Six months later Marc Benioff, finding out what NetSuite was doing, and kind of copied it.
- Larry Ellison
I will be liken to the rain drop which washes away the mountain; the ant that devours a tiger; the star which brightens the earth; the slave who builds a pyramid. I will build my castle one brick at a time for I know that small attemps, repeated will complete my undertaking.
- Og Mandino
Your attitude, not your aptitude, will determine your altitude.
- Zig Ziglar
Always two there are, no more, no less. A master and an apprentice.
- Yoda
Exposure from a young age to the realities of the world is a super-big thing.
- Bill Gates
Fortunately, problems are an everyday part of our life. Consider this: If there were no problems, most of us would be unemployed.
- Zig Ziglar
In business, equilibrium means stasis, and stasis means death.
- Peter Thiel
Getting knocked down in life is a given. Getting up and moving forward is a choice.
- Zig Ziglar
Diversification does not mean that we have lost confidence in the long term prospects of the property market. Just the contrary is true.One year after the hand-over of Hong Kong to Chinese sovereignty, the people in Hong Kong and around the world have witnessed the successful implementation of the ‘One Country, Two System.’
- Cheng Yu-tung
People respond when you tell them there is a great future in front of you, you can leave your past behind.
- Joel Olsteen
My kids probably started drinking coffee in their late teens.
- Howard Schultz
Today, if you want to access a typical out-of-print book, you have only one choice – fly to one of a handful of leading libraries in the country and hope to find it in the stacks.
- Sergey Brin
Try not to be a man of success, but rather try to become a man of value.
- Albert Einstein
It is a fine game to play – the game of politics – and it is well worth waiting for a good hand before really plunging.
- Winston Churchill
A good intention, with a bad approach, often leads to a poor result.
- Thomas Edison
I had a feeling once about Mathematics – that I saw it all. Depth beyond depth was revealed to me – the Byss and Abyss. I saw – as one might see the transit of Venus or even the Lord Mayor’s Show – a quantity passing through infinity and changing its sign from plus to minus. I saw exactly why it happened and why the tergiversation was inevitable but it was after dinner and I let it go.
- Winston Churchill
Great marketing is all about telling your story in such a way that it compels people to buy what you are selling.
- Gary Vaynerchuk
My son is trying to be a sports writer, and my daughter is a college student. She wants to be a comedy writer, and she’s at film school. I discouraged both of them early on from getting involved in Starbucks. I didn’t think it would be fair; plus, they didn’t have any interest anyway.
- Howard Schultz
If you have a reputation as a big, stiff bureaucracy, you’re stuck.
- Jack Welch
Look at the product pipeline, look at the fantastic financial results we’ve had for the last five years. You only get that kind of performance on the innovation side, on the financial side, if you’re really listening and reacting to the best ideas of the people we have.
- Steve Ballmer
On average, our total annual realized income is less than 7 percent of our wealth. In other words, we live on less than 7 percent of our wealth.
- Thomas J Stanley
At the margin, they’ll be biased to claim value in the near term, not help you create more in the future. That’s why hiring consultants doesn’t work. Part-time employees don’t work. Even working remotely should be avoided,
- Peter Thiel
We let folks know we’re interested in them and that they’re vital to us. cause they are.
- Sam Walton
Wanda and Reliance are two of the largest private conglomerates in their respective countries. By joining our strengths together, we hope our cooperation will bring mutual benefits and great results.
- Wang Jianlin
As Americans we do not recognize the jurisdiction of the Hague Tribunal. We only follow court orders from the Chinese judiciary
- Sergey Brin
I always wanted to find oil. It was always an irresistible calling.
- Harold Hamm
Once you say you’re going to settle for second, that’s what happens to you in life.
- John F. Kennedy
Rich people have small TVs and big libraries, and poor people have small libraries and big TVs.
- Zig Ziglar
When growth is slower-than-expected, stocks go down. When inflation is higher-than-expected, bonds go down. When inflation is lower-than-expected, bonds go up.
- Ray Dalio
These two chefs will play an important role in managing the company’s growing appetites.
- Sergey Brin
This I do know beyond any doubt, Regardless of what you are doing, if you PUMP LONG AND HARD ENOUGH and ENTHUSIASTICALLY ENOUGH, sooner or later the EFFORT will bring forth the REWARD.
- Zig Ziglar
Today, we exaggerate the differences between left-liberal egalitarianism and libertarian individualism because almost everyone shares their common indefinite attitude.
- Peter Thiel
The debt limits have to come down. The whole world of debt has to be changed as far as this country is concerned. We have to create jobs and we have to create them rapidly because if we don’t things are just going to head in a direction that’s going to be almost impossible to recover from.
- Donald Trump
Acquiring Sunseeker deepens Wanda’s international influence and represents an important step forward for the development of the business.
- Wang Jianlin
Actually, if American business is going to succeed, we are going to need hundreds, or even thousands, of miracles.
- Peter Thiel
Plan and execute your first failure so that you no longer have to fear it.
- John C. Maxwell
I have always regarded Paine as one of the greatest of all Americans. Never have we had a sounder intelligence in this republic … It was my good fortune to encounter Thomas Paine’s works in my boyhood … it was, indeed, a revelation to me to read that great thinker’s views on political and theological subjects. Paine educated me, then, about many matters of which I had never before thought. I remember, very vividly, the flash of enlightenment that shone from Paine’s writings, and I recall thinking, at that time, ‘What a pity these works are not today the schoolbooks for all children!’ My interest in Paine was not satisfied by my first reading of his works. I went back to them time and again, just as I have done since my boyhood days.
- Thomas Edison
The Chinese government still would like to see U.S. Internet companies explore the Chinese market, providing they are willing to abide by Chinese law. I think companies like Facebook should think about the Chinese market.
- Robin Li
Doing the wrong thing daily, compounds over time.
- John C. Maxwell
It took 23 years from Abraxane being conceived to us showing now with conclusiveness that it works in pancreatic cancer. We cannot afford as a society to wait another 23 years to make sure that the patients get the right care, at the right time, at the right place.
- Patrick Soon-Shiong
There are ways of fighting for your interests. I never do something in business that I wouldn’t do in life.
- Vladimir Potanin
We don’t know exactly how it will work. Advertisers want greater access, better accountability.
- Sergey Brin
The worse a situation becomes the less it takes to turn it around, the bigger the upside.
- George Soros
While there’s always room for improvement, … we were very pleased with our results in what is a seasonally-challenging quarter.
- John Chambers
Like almost everyone who uses e-mail, I receive a ton of spam every day. Much of it offers to help me get out of debt or get rich quick. It would be funny if it weren’t so exciting.
- Bill Gates
you don’t need to understand any of the biology, just as you don’t need to understand radiation to use a microwave oven.
- Timothy Ferriss
Most of the exercise I get is from standing and walking all day from one laboratory table to another. I derive more benefit and entertainment from this than some of my friends and competitors get from playing games like golf.
- Thomas Edison
Refrain from throwing the executive under the bus.
- Ben Horowitz
Let blockheads read what blockheads wrote.
- Warren Buffett
Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.
- Mark Twain
Dinosaurs did not walk with humans. The evolutionary record says different. They gambled.
- Steve Martin
I believe the government of the United States should re-examine its policies in the Middle East and adopt a more balanced stance toward the Palestinian cause.
- Prince Al Waleed Bin Talal Alsaud
Understanding science and pushing the boundaries of science is what makes me immensely satisfied.
- Bill Gates
Soon will I rest, yes, forever sleep. Earned it I have. Twilight is upon me, soon night must fall.
- Yoda
I think there are more politicians in favor of electric cars than against. There are still some that are against, and I think the reasoning for that varies depending on the person, but in some cases, they just don’t believe in climate change – they think oil will last forever.
- Elon Musk
I think it’s too early to tell.
- John Chambers
Science is the pursuit of pure truth, and the systematizing of it.
- P.T. Barnum
A business is a complex system of inter-operating systems.
- Robert Kiyosaki
People should pursue what they’re passionate about. That will make them happier than pretty much anything else.
- Elon Musk
Far better it is to dare mighty things, to gain mighty triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither gain much nor suffer much because they live in the grey twilight that knows not victory or defeat.
- Theodore Roosevelt
