Notable Quotables

There are a great many wetless” bathing suits worn at the seashore, but no one ever learns to swim in them. To plunge is the only way.

- Dale Carnegie

The 1990s have a good image. We tend to remember them as a prosperous, optimistic decade that happened to end with the internet boom and bust. But many of those years were not as cheerful as our nostalgia holds. We’ve long since forgotten the global context for the 18 months of dot-com mania at decade’s end.

- Peter Thiel

If you sell business-to-business, get a letter off to your client within an hour or two of your meeting…Start with something personal from the meeting and include a compliment.

- Chet Holmes

I think failure is nothing more than life’s way of nudging you that you are off course. My attitude to failure is not attached to outcome, but in not trying. It is liberating. Most people attach failure to something not working out or how people perceive you. This way, it is about answering to yourself.

- Sara Blakely

In 20 years from now we will all be able to click and watch TV.

- Reed Hastings

Literature is one of the most interesting and significant expressions of humanity.

- P.T. Barnum

All a bliss state like California does is spoil you.

- Phil Knight

If you can discipline yourself to read, you can free up two years of your life for the good stuff!

- Seth Godin

Harnessing steam power required many innovations, as William Rosen chronicles in the book ‘The Most Powerful Idea in the World.

- Bill Gates

Live an active life among people who are doing worthwhile things, keep eyes and ears and mind and heart open to absorb truth, and then tell of the things you know, as if you know them. The world will listen, for the world loves nothing so much as real life.

- Dale Carnegie

You can’t have a mid-life crisis in the airline industry because every day is a crisis.

- Herb Kelleher

Happiness doesn’t depend on outward conditions. It depends on inner conditions. It isn’t what you have or who you are or where you are or what you are doing that makes you happy or unhappy. It is what you think about it.

- Dale Carnegie

We just tried to get our shoes on the feet of runners.

- Phil Knight

Good habits formed at youth make all the difference.

- Aristotle

It’s not about how to get started, it’s about how to get noticed.

- Steve Case

If anyone thinks they’d rather be in a different part of history, they’re probably not a very good student of history. Life sucked in the old days. People knew very little, and you were likely to die at a young age of some horrible disease. You’d probably have no teeth by now. It would be particularly awful if you were a woman.

- Elon Musk

They were making a deal for a property that clearly was a property that we wanted to own, so we had to act, and act as quickly as we could, and make the offer more attractive,

- Jack Welch

In business, if you don’t kick and hug, you don’t love.

- Clay Clark

If you are against yourself, you will never reach your highest potential. And when you criticize yourself, you’re criticizing God.

- Joel Olsteen

I have no interest in gender or race or anything like that. But everyone else is kind of, with their calculating – is this the exact right mix? I think that’s – to me it’s anti-comedy. It’s more about PC-nonsense.

- Jerry Seinfeld

We just sort of factor all that information into the computer between the ears and come up with conclusions.

- Phil Knight

The greatest of all mistakes is to do nothing because you think you can only do a little.

- Zig Ziglar

To me, the idea and expectation that the day is slowly and surely coming when we will be able to honestly say we are our brother’s keeper and not his oppressor is very beautiful .

- Thomas Edison

Well, today the Grammys is much much better than the Oscars. I think the differences in the shows are that the Grammys are much wilder. The Oscars is much more people in the industry. And people dress wilder, I think, at the Grammys.

- Steve Martin

Don’t go into the new year holding a grudge from last year. Leave the hurts and disappointments behind.

- Joel Olsteen

I don’t think we like the precedent of it, and so we’re fighting it. I think we’re right.

- Sergey Brin

Learning is not done to you, it is something you choose to do.

- Seth Godin

To enjoy peace, a nation must win the confidence and support of its people.

- Cheng Yu-tung

One of the main reasons people fail to reach their full potential is because they are unwilling to risk anything. They are fearful of losing, failing, or getting hurt and just want to do the things they believe will keep them safe.

- Zig Ziglar

There is more treasure in books then in all pirate’s loot on Treasure Island.

- Walt Disney

My rule of life prescribed as an absolutely sacred rite smoking cigars and also the drinking of alcohol before, after and if need be during all meals and in the intervals between them.

- Winston Churchill

One of the key problems today is that politics is such a disgrace, good people don’t go into government.

- Donald Trump

We’re extremely adroit at hiding our fear. Most of our lives in public are spent papering over, rationalizing, and otherwise denying our fear. We go to war because we’re afraid, and we often go to spiritual events for the very same reason.

- Seth Godin

We have to innovate for a specific reason, and that reason comes from the market. Otherwise, we’ll end up making museum pieces.

- Phil Knight

If you learn to pray bold prayers… it allows God to do big things in your life.

- Joel Olsteen

I loved doing ‘Pennies from Heaven.’ Because you have to understand that I’d been doing comedy for 15 to 20 years, and suddenly along came the opportunity to do this beautiful film. It was so emotional to me. I loved it. I don’t think it was a good career move, but I have no regrets about doing it.

- Steve Martin

To grow your company explosively you must have leaders, not just efficient managers.

- John Maxwell

The culture was strong enough to transcend the original company.

- Peter Thiel

You know, the diversity that America has is so special. It’s starting to really become a cool thing for young people.

- Russell Simmons

Create a vision and personalize it. People need to say, I understand it, I’m excited about it, and I can make it happen.

- David Novak

People who can put themselves in the place of other people, who can understand the workings of their minds, need never worry about what the future has in store for them.

- Dale Carnegie

A difficult time can be more readily endured if we retain the conviction that our existence holds a purpose, a cause to pursue, a person to love, a goal to achieve.

- John C. Maxwell

People who don’t take risks generally make about two big mistakes a year. People who do take risks generally make about two big mistakes a year.

- Peter Drucker

The industrialist (your boss, perhaps) demands that everything be proven, efficient, and risk free. The artist seeks none of these. The value of art is in your willingness to stare down the risk and to embrace the void of possible failure.

- Seth Godin

People who add value to others do so intentionally. I say that because to add value, leaders must give of themselves, and that rarely occurs by accident.

- John C. Maxwell

Be careful with whom you associate, especially when you feel emotionally vulnerable, because negative people can steal the dream right out of your heart.

- Joel Olsteen

In the early days, anybody with a glue pot and a pair of scissors could get into the shoe business…

- Phil Knight

The employees who share innovative ideas may also be the folks who have some hidden talents that would help incorporate their suggestions.

- Harvey Mackay

I have had problems when I have had money, and I have had problems when I haven’t had money. I have learned that if you are going to have problems, it’s better to have money.

- Zig Ziglar

You want your customers to value your service.

- Jeff Bezos

Many of life’s failures are experienced by people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.

- Thomas Edison

A penguin cannot become a giraffe, so just be the best penguin you can be.

- Gary Vaynerchuk

Every act you have ever performed since the day you were born was performed because you wanted something.

- Andrew Carnegie

I am not influenced by the techniques or fashions of any other motion picture company.

- Walt Disney

The first time you say something, it’s heard. The second time, it’s recognized, and the third time it’s learned.

- John C. Maxwell

There are GMO skeptics more in Europe maybe than in other places, but not exclusively.

- Bill Gates

Ohhh. Great warrior.Wars not make one great.

- Yoda

I put forward a pretty general theory that financial markets are intrinsically unstable. That we really have a false picture when we think about markets tending towards equilibrium.

- George Soros

I have been brought up and trained to have the utmost contempt for people who get drunk.

- Winston Churchill

I’m Phil Knight, and I don’t believe in advertising.

- Phil Knight

I was born on the other side of the tracks, in public housing in Brooklyn, New York. My dad never made more than $20,000 a year, and I grew up in a family that lost health insurance. So I was scarred at a young age with understanding what it was like to watch my parents lose access to the American dream.

- Howard Schultz

China gets their oil from Libya. Why isn’t China involved? They’re going out spending billions of dollars a day on trying to take over the world economically. And we’re spending billions and billions and billions of dollars on policing the world. Why isn’t China involved with Libya? That – we don’t get oil from Libya, China does.

- Donald Trump

When I was CEO, and I’d listen to music, a lot of people listen to music and you get inspiration from it. And a lot of things in hip hop are very instructive for being in business. Particularly, hip hop is a lot about business, and so it was very useful for me in any job.

- Ben Horowitz

It’s important to supplement a great product vision with a strong discipline around the metrics, but if you substitute metrics for product vision, you will not get what you want.

- Ben Horowitz

I’m not gonna give up, shut up, or let up… as a matter of fact, I’m just getting warmed up.

- Zig Ziglar

Beverages have to be created. And they’re created by looking at what trend is in, say, the fashion industry – what color’s hot right now.

- Howard Schultz

One of the cornerstones of what I believe will be the future is wave after wave of applications.

- John Chambers

I’ve always thought if we don’t want to enforce laws on the books, we should remove them from the books. But when you have laws, you breed contempt if you don’t enforce them.

- Michael Bloomberg

It’s almost always harder to raise capital than you thought it would be, and it always takes longer. So plan for that.

- Richard Harroch

Don’t equate activity with efficiency. You are paying your key people to see the big picture. Don’t let them get bogged down in a lot of meaningless meetings and paper shuffling. Announce a Friday afternoon off once in a while. Cancel a Monday morning meeting or two. Tell the cast of characters you’d like them to spend the amount of time normally spent preparing for attending the meeting at their desks, simply thinking about an original idea.

- Harvey Mackay

You do not get what you want. You get what you negotiate.

- Harvey Mackay

Acquiring Sunseeker deepens Wanda’s international influence and represents an important step forward for the development of the business.

- Wang Jianlin

Everybody was writing about computers and electronics, but all I really knew about was running. It’s what I’ve chosen to do with my life.

- Phil Knight

We have the best flat land, you can grow anything in the cheapest possible way; turning Nigeria around is not really that difficult. Nigeria is really the best place to invest, it is one of the places to make money; all over the world it (Nigeria) is the best kept secret actually in terms of investment.

- Aliko Dangote

You need to follow your own heart in light of God’s word and do what you feel is right and good for you.

- Joel Olsteen

I like a woman with a head on her shoulders. I hate necks.

- Steve Martin

I’ve got the greatest job in the world. There’s no other job in government where cause and effect is so tightly coupled where you can make a difference every day in so many different ways and in so many different people’s lives. It’s a great challenge.

- Michael Bloomberg

Great achievers are driven, not so much by the pursuit of success, but by the fear of failure.

- Larry Ellison

I have taken six companies public, and three of those are Fortune 1000 companies, but the key to my success has been my ability to sell other people on my dreams.

- Wayne Huizenga

Japanese businesspeople and companies are lacking in individuality.

- Tadashi Yanai

People always fear change. People feared electricity when it was invented, didn’t they? People feared coal, they feared gas-powered engines… There will always be ignorance, and ignorance leads to fear. But with time, people will come to accept their silicon masters.

- Bill Gates

My favorite writers are all Jews – David, Solomon, Matthew, Mark – well, you get the picture.

- Zig Ziglar

Why not invest your assets in the companies you really like? As Mae West said, ‘Too much of a good thing can be wonderful’.

- Warren Buffett

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

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

I’m trying to change the culture in New York City, that’s hard enough!

- Michael Bloomberg

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