If you can’t make it good, at least make it look good.
- Bill Gates
Notable Quotables
…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
On engagement, we’re already seeing that mobile users are more likely to be daily active users than desktop users. They’re more likely to use Facebook six or seven days of the week.
- Mark Zuckerberg
We need to understand the difference between discipline and punishment. Punishment is what you do to someone, discipline is what you do for someone.
- Zig Ziglar
Mobile is a lot closer to TV than it is to desktop.
- Mark Zuckerberg
[On the Nike name in 2011] I quite like it now.
- Phil Knight
Any fool can criticise, condemn and complain – and most fools do. But it takes character and self-control to be understanding and forgiving.
- Dale Carnegie
Over the years, Hong Kong has been confronted with various challenges. On every occasion, we were able to rely on our unique qualities – resourcefulness, perseverance, diligence and passion for excellence – to rise above our difficulties.
- Cheng Yu-tung
It’s hard for me to imagine how a $50 million marketing campaign is ever appropriate for any business to launch an ideavirus. If you need to interrupt that many people, you’re doing something wrong.
- Seth Godin
AIDS itself is subject to incredible stigma.
- Bill Gates
Simply changing one three-letter word can often spell the difference between failure and success in changing people without giving offense or arousing resentment. Many people begin their criticism with sincere praise followed by the word but” and ending with a critical statement. For example, in trying to change a child’s careless attitude toward studies, we might say, We’re really proud of you, Johnnie, for raising your grades this term. But if you had worked harder on your algebra, the results would have been better.” In this case, Johnnie might feel encouraged until he heard the word but.” He might then question the sincerity of the original praise. To him, the praise seemed only to be a contrived lead-in to a critical inference of failure. Credibility would be strained, and we probably would not achieve our objectives of changing Johnnie’s attitude toward his studies. This could be easily overcome by changing the word but” to and.” We’re really proud of you, Johnnie, for raising your grades this term, and by continuing the same conscientious efforts next term, your algebra grade can be up with all the others.
- Dale Carnegie
I’m a creative guy. And I only do businesses as a result of like I’ve – I’m try to find what my gifts are and give them immediately. As soon as I get them and I understand, I give them back.
- Russell Simmons
When I cut the feet out of my pantyhose that one time, I saw it as my sign. I had been visualizing being self employed prior to this happening. It was my mental preparation meeting the opportunity in that moment.
- Sara Blakely
I consider myself a “social ecologist,” concerned with man’s man-made environment the way the natural ecologist studies the biological environment…..the discipline itself boasts an old and distinguished lineage. Its greatest document is Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America. But no one is as close to me in temperament, concepts, and approach as the mid-Victorian Englishman Walter Bagehot. Living (as I have) in an age of great social change, Bagehot first saw the emergence of new institutions: civil service and cabinet government, as cores of a functioning democracy, and banking as the center of a functioning economy. A hundred years after Bagehot, I was first to identify management as the new social institution of the emerging society of organizations and, a little later, to spot the emergence of knowledge as the new central resource, and knowledge workers as the new ruling class of a society that is not only “postindustrial” but postsocialist and, increasingly, post-capitalist. As it had been for Bagehot, for me too the tension between the need for continuity and the need for innovation and change was central to society and civilization.
- Peter Drucker
It doesn’t matter how many times you fail. It doesn’t matter how many times you almost get it right. No one is going to know or care about your failures, and neither should you. All you have to do is learn from them and those around you because all that matters in business is that you get it right once. Then everyone can tell you how lucky you are.
- Mark Cuban
I’ve come to believe that all my past failure and frustration were actually laying the foundation for the understandings that have created the new level of living I now enjoy.
- Tony Robbins
Know your numbers’ is a fundamental precept of business.
- Bill Gates
The biggest cowards are managers who don’t let people know where they stand.
- Jack Welch
Play by the rules, but be ferocious.
- Phil Knight
We will go forward… we will never go back.
- Michael Bloomberg
I consider my ability to arouse enthusiasm among my people the greatest asset I possess, and the way to develop the best that is in a person is by appreciation and encouragement. There is nothing else that so kills the ambitions of a person as criticisms from superiors. I never criticize anyone. I believe in giving a person incentive to work. So I am anxious to praise but loath to find fault. If I like anything, I am hearty in my approbation and lavish in my praise.
- Charles M. Schwab
The habit of doing more than is necessary can only be earned through practice.
- Seth Godin
All companies of any size have to continue to push to make sure you get the right leaders, the right team, the right people to be fast acting, and fast moving in the marketplace. We’ve got great leaders, and we continue to attract and promote great new leaders.
- Steve Ballmer
I mean we all need a second chance sometimes.
- Joel Olsteen
The power of this new era is simple: if you want to (need to, must!) lead, then you can. It’s easier than ever and we need you. But if this isn’t the right moment, if this isn’t the right cause, then hold off. Generous and authentic leadership will always defeat the selfish efforts of someone doing it just because she can.
- Seth Godin
Thoughts mixed with definiteness of purpose, persistence, and a burning desire are powerful things.
- Napoleon Hill
Animation is different from other parts. Its language is the language of caricature, Our most difficult job was to develop the cartoon’s unnatural but seemingly natural anatomy for humans and animals.
- Walt Disney
On Facebook, the definition of great content is not the content that makes the most sales, but the content that people most want to share with others.
- Gary Vaynerchuk
True happiness… is not attained through self-gratification, but through fidelity to a worthy purpose.
- Helen Keller
I have to be ever vigilant to remain open to other people’s points of view. Just because I’m enthusiastic doesn’t necessarily mean I’m right. I have to always keep the doors open for honest communication or I could enthusiastically lead everyone right over the cliff.
- David Novak
In the old world, you devoted 30% of your time to building a great service and 70% of your time to shouting about it. In the new world, that inverts.
- Jeff Bezos
Be courageous. I have seen many depressions in business. Always America has emerged from these stronger and more prosperous. Be brave as your fathers before you. Have faith! Go forward!
- Thomas Edison
No genuine leader is ever too busy to do anything which may be required of him in his capacity as leader. When a man, whether he is a leader of followers, admits he is too busy to change his plans, or to give attention to any emergency, he admits his inefficiency. The successful leader must be the master of all details connected with his position.
- Napoleon Hill
The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function.
- James C. Collins
We need to put ourselves in the shoes of our customers. That is my new battle cry. Live and breathe Starbucks the way our customers do.
- Howard Schultz
In 2008, Box had a good way for companies to store their data safely and accessibly in the cloud. But people didn’t know they needed such a thing—cloud computing hadn’t caught on yet. That summer, Blake was hired as Box’s third salesperson to help change that. Starting with small groups of users who had the most acute file sharing problems, Box’s sales reps built relationships with more and more users in each client company. In 2009, Blake sold a small Box account to the Stanford Sleep Clinic, where researchers needed an easy, secure way to store experimental data logs. Today the university offers a Stanford-branded Box account to every one of its students and faculty members, and Stanford Hospital runs on Box. If it had started off by trying to sell the president of the university on an enterprise-wide solution, Box would have sold nothing. A complex sales approach would have made Box a forgotten startup failure; instead, personal sales made it a multibillion-dollar business.
- Peter Thiel
A penguin cannot become a giraffe, so just be the best penguin you can be.
- Gary Vaynerchuk
I have thought about some kind of musical involving my music. That would be kind of interesting. I have thought of it in that way, as a creator of something, not so much a performer. So that’s in my head.
- Steve Martin
Time is your most precious gift because you only have a set amount of it.
- Rick Warren
I used to have this debate with Steve Jobs, and he would always say, ‘You guys are doing too much stuff.’ He did a good job of doing one or two things really well. We’d like to have a bigger impact on the world by doing more things.
- Larry Page
Find a job that you will be happy with and work hard at.
- Lee Shau Kee
The foundation stones for a balanced success are honesty, character, integrity, faith, love and loyalty.
- Zig Ziglar
What most people know but don’t realize they know is that the world is almost entirely solar-powered already. If the sun wasn’t there, we’d be a frozen ice ball at three degrees Kelvin, and the sun powers the entire system of precipitation. The whole ecosystem is solar-powered.
- Elon Musk
Every day I meet people who have so much to give but have been bullied enough or frightened enough to hold it back. It’s time to stop complying with the system and draw your own map. You have brilliance in you, your contribution is essential, and the art you create is precious. Only you can do it, and you must.
- Seth Godin
In my experience as CEO, I found that the most important decisions tested my courage far more than my intelligence.
- Ben Horowitz
As a rule, theory does not precede practice. Its role is to structure and codify already proven practice. Its role is to convert the isolated and “atypical” from exception to “rule” and “system,” and therefore into something that can be learned and taught and, above all, into something that can be generally applied.
- Peter Drucker
On my desk I have three screens, synchronized to form a single desktop. I can drag items from one screen to the next. Once you have that large display area, you’ll never go back, because it has a direct impact on productivity.
- Bill Gates
Productivity is grounded in the PC. Where does the computing power come from? How would you run ‘USA Today’ without PCs? Run a hospital without PCs? People don’t want products, they want solutions.
- Michael Dell
The UK desperately needs less government and freer markets.
- Rupert Murdoch
I’ve always taught that a poor economy is the best opportunity for salespeople because the naysayers and grumblers have already given up, leaving more territory, more opportunities to be successful than in a good economy when virtually all salespeople are out there, giving it their best.
- Zig Ziglar
I’m not a tech guy. I’m looking at the technology with the eyes of my customers, normal people’s eyes.
- Jack Ma
Around the survivors a perimeter create.
- Yoda
That Newport store was really the beginning of where Walmart is today. We did everything. We would wash windows, sweep floors, trim windows. We did all the stockroom work, checked the freight in. Everything it took to run a store. We had to keep expenses to a minimum. That is where it started, years ago. Our money was made by controlling expenses. That, and Sam always being so ingenius. He never stopped trying to do something different. One thing, though: I never forgave him for was making me clean out that damned ice cream machine.
- Bud Walton
You have enough people against you… be for yourself.
- Joel Olsteen
Bush’s war in Iraq has done untold damage to the United States. It has impaired our military power and undermined the morale of our armed forces. Our troops were trained to project overwhelming power. They were not trained for occupation duties.
- George Soros
The reality is that I surround myself with very smart, very strong people – including my ex-wives.
- Ronald Perelman
If we don’t allow ourselves to make mistakes, we will never invest in things that are radical.
- Jeff Clavier
The Silver Spoon, the best-selling Italian cookbook of the last 50 years.
- Timothy Ferriss
I’m from the country and I like it that way.
- Tracy Byrd
The Value of a Smile at Christmas It costs nothing, but creates much. It enriches those who receive, without impoverishing those who give. It happens in a flash and the memory of it sometimes lasts forever. None are so rich they can get along without it, and none so poor but are richer for its benefits. It creates happiness in the home, fosters good will in a business, and is the countersign of friends.
- Dale Carnegie
We woke up one day, and all the sudden Starbucks was in the middle of this political crossfire between the people who want to bring a gun into Starbucks and the people who want to prevent it. It is a very difficult, fragile situation.
- Howard Schultz
When you have one million dollars, you’re a lucky person. When you have 10 million dollars, you’ve got trouble, a lot of headaches. When you have more than one billion dollars, or a hundred million dollars, that’s a responsibility you have – it’s the trust of people on you, because people believe you can spend money better than the others.
- Jack Ma
We are the safest large city in America, but any crime rate is too high.
- Michael Bloomberg
Ethics to me is very important.
- Prince Al Waleed Bin Talal Alsaud
It has been almost a decade since the handover of Hong Kong in 1997. Hong Kong has gone through both good times and bad times. During the past decade, Hong Kong has undoubtedly played an increasingly important role in the economic development of China.
- Cheng Yu-tung
You can be happy where you are.
- Joel Olsteen
If my mother hadn’t been the most patient person in the world, I might never have gone to school.
- Ben Horowitz
Everything about my journey to get Spanx off the ground entailed me having to be a salesperson – from going to the hosiery mills to get a prototype made to calling Saks Fifth Avenue and Neiman Marcus. I had to position myself to get five minutes in the door with buyers.
- Sara Blakely
Good thinkers always prime the pump of ideas. They always look for things to get the thinking process started, because what you put in always impacts what comes out.
- John C. Maxwell
A lot of people have it a lot worse than you do.
- Joel Olsteen
Residential properties that were sold by the Group summed up to around 5,800 units and amounted to approximately HK$12.8 billion.
- Lee Shau Kee
No man will make a great leader who wants to do it all himself or get all the credit for doing it.
- Andrew Carnegie
The ladder of success is never crowded at the top.
- Napoleon Hill
Those who keep the peace of their inner selves in the midst of the tumult of the modern city are immune from nervous diseases.
- Dale Carnegie
Every patient is a consumer, and every consumer is a potential patient. What NantWorks is doing is building the world the way Da Vinci saw it, and augmenting every frame a human being sees as they work, live and play.
- Patrick Soon-Shiong
Who you attract is not determined by what you want. It’s determined by who you are.
- John Maxwell
Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.”
- Confucius
For Africa to move forward, you’ve really got to get rid of malaria.
- Bill Gates
Life is too short to spend your precious time trying to convince a person who wants to live in gloom and doom otherwise. Give lifting that person your best shot, but don’t hang around long enough for his/her bad attitude to pull you down. Instead, surround yourself with optimistic people.
- Zig Ziglar
I prefer the old theaters because the audience is… trapped.
- Jerry Seinfeld
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
Look around. If you don’t see any salespeople, you’re the salesperson.
- Peter Thiel
I really believed that fear is contagious.
- Joel Olsteen
Nobody’s ever called me Sir Richard. Occasionally in America, I hear people saying Sir Richard and think there’s some Shakespearean play taking place. But nowhere else anyway.
- Richard Branson
Why don’t we have enough teachers of math and science in the public schools? One answer is well, if they knew the subject well, they’d also know enough to work for Google or Goldman Sachs or God knows where.
- James Simons
Wealth, like happiness, is never attained when sought after directly. It comes as a by-product of providing a useful service.
- Henry Ford
The global economy has experienced considerable slowdown in recent times. However there has been one notable exception: China.
- Cheng Yu-tung
The local property market remained volatile throughout the period under review due to negative developments occurring both in the local as well as overseas markets.
- Lee Shau Kee
China and India will, separately and together, unleash an explosion of demand.
- Mukesh Ambani
While there’s always room for improvement, … we were very pleased with our results in what is a seasonally-challenging quarter.
- John Chambers
If parents pass enthusiasm along to their children, they will leave them an estate of incalculable value….
- Thomas Edison
Religion is all bunk.
- Thomas Edison
PRINCIPLE 1 The only way to get the best of an argument is to avoid it. PRINCIPLE 2 Show respect for the other person’s opinions. Never say, You’re wrong.” PRINCIPLE 3 If you are wrong, admit it quickly and emphatically. PRINCIPLE 4 Begin in a friendly way. PRINCIPLE 5 Get the other person saying yes, yes” immediately. PRINCIPLE 6 Let the other person do a great deal of the talking. PRINCIPLE 7 Let the other person feel that the idea.
- Dale Carnegie
Passion can overcome fear – the fear of losing, of failing, of being traditional.
- Seth Godin
People think, ‘Jack, you do too much.’
- Jack Ma
Make failure your teacher, not your undertaker.
- Zig Ziglar
If all we do with these tools is teach compliance and consumption, that’s all we’re going to get. School can and must do more than train the factory workers of tomorrow.
- Seth Godin
The Negro needs the white man to free him from his fears. The white man needs the Negro to free him from his guilt.
- Martin Luther King Jr.
Human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable… Every step toward the goal of justice requires sacrifice, suffering, and struggle; the tireless exertions and passionate concern of dedicated individuals.
- Martin Luther King Jr.
Many salespeople feel that selling is warfare: the buyer is the enemy and words are ammunition…The seller’s advances are turned aside because they are so predictable, amateurish and easily deflected.
- Jerry Vass





