A product is viral if its core functionality encourages users to invite their friends to become users too.
- Peter Thiel
Notable Quotables
Far better to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows not victory, nor defeat.
- James C. Collins
You see these dictators on their pedestals, surrounded by the bayonets of their soldiers and the truncheons of their police. On all sides they are guarded by masses of armed men, cannons, aeroplanes, fortifications, and the like – they boast and vaunt themselves before the world, yet in their hearts there is unspoken fear. They are afraid of words and thoughts; words spoken abroad, thoughts stirring at home – all the more powerful because forbidden – terrify them. A little mouse of thought appears in the room, and even the mightiest potentates are thrown into panic. They make frantic efforts to bar our thoughts and words; they are afraid of the workings of the human mind. Cannons, airplanes, they can manufacture in large quantities; but how are they to quell the natural promptings of human nature, which after all these centuries of trial and progress has inherited a whole armoury of potent and indestructible knowledge?
- Winston Churchill
The internet population is going up and up. I am confident that this will be a huge market.
- Robin Li
All the breaks you need in life wait within your imagination, Imagination is the workshop of your mind, capable of turning mind energy into accomplishment and wealth.
- Napoleon Hill
Don’t let schooling interfere with your education.
- Mark Twain
For my part, I consider that it will be found much better by all parties to leave the past to history, especially as I propose to write that history myself.
- Winston Churchill
You may think using Google’s great, but I still think it’s terrible.
- Larry Page
My son likes to go see mines and electric plants, or the Large Hadron Collider, and we’ve had a chance to see a lot of interesting stuff.
- Bill Gates
Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people who have kept on trying when there seemed to be no hope at all.
- Dale Carnegie
The order for the seats amounted to $90,000. Who do you suppose got the order—James Adamson or one of his competitors? From the time of this story until Mr. Eastman’s death.
- Dale Carnegie
Cherish you visions and your dreams as they are the children of your soul, the blue prints of your ultimate achievements.
- Napoleon Hill
Going the extra mile is the action of rendering more and better service than that for which you are presently paid. When you go the extra mile, the Law of Compensation comes into play.
- Napoleon Hill
Always treat your employees exactly as you want them to treat your best customers.
- Stephen R. Covey
I think it’s fair to say that personal computers have become the most empowering tool we’ve ever created. They’re tools of communication, they’re tools of creativity, and they can be shaped by their user.
- Bill Gates
Surround yourself with people who are smarter than you. Pick people who are interested in what you’re interested in.
- Russell Simmons
China’s open-door policy, the favourable local exchange rates, the growing affluence and changing lifestyles in South Asian countries and burgeoning economic activities in the Asia-Pacific Rim are all conducive factors to the continuing tourism boom.
- Cheng Yu-tung
The value we create is directly related to how much valuable information we can produce, how much trust we can earn, and how often we innovate.
- Seth Godin
The accumulation of great fortunes calls for POWER and power is acquired through highly organized and intelligently directed specialized knowledge, but that knowledge does not necessarily have to be in the possession of the man who accumulates the fortune.
- Napoleon Hill
I believe Success is achieved by ordinary people with Extraordinary Determination.
- Zig Ziglar
I’m so optimistic, I’d go after Moby Dick in a rowboat and take the tartar sauce with me.
- Zig Ziglar
The basic problem with the computer in business is not that computer technicians do not understand the managers’ needs. It is that the managers do not take the time and trouble to think through their needs and to communicate them to the computer people.6 How the computer people satisfy the needs of the manager is their business. What the needs are is the manager’s business. To expect the computer people to define the information needs of the managers is abdication.
- Peter Drucker
Wal-Mart’s leaders had obviously made a point of educating and informing everyone at all levels about all aspects of the company, and that shows a real respect for their people.
- David Novak
Salga de la rutina, extienda su visión y comience a dar gracias a Dios por las bendiciones explosivas que llegarán a su camino.
- Joel Olsteen
You don’t even really need a place. But you feel like you’re doing something. That is what coffee is. And that is one of the geniuses of the new coffee culture.
- Jerry Seinfeld
I think my whole life, because of where I came from, I had a fear of failure.
- Howard Schultz
Seizing new ground, making connections between people or ideas, working without a map—these are works of art, and if you do them, you are an artist, regardless of whether you wear a smock, use a computer, or work with others all day long.
- Seth Godin
I really had a lot of dreams when I was a kid, and I think a great deal of that grew out of the fact that I had a chance to read a lot.
- Bill Gates
We are always listening to ideas presented by our customers and in an effort to keep up with their demands, we are adding those quality improvements to Atlanta Motor Speedway. The changes we have planned are a direct result of fan input and are aimed at giving our fans options they currently don’t have.
- Ed Clark
All bibles are man-made.
- Thomas Edison
My training of cold-calling and everyone under the sun telling me no, and my keeping going, was a huge part of the first two years of Spanx.
- Sara Blakely
I think there’s plenty of room for blogs that exist to pay the blogger, or blogs that exist to turn a profit. That’s just not the kind of blog I’m writing, and I’m not the kind of blogger that could do that.
- Seth Godin
I’ve never heard of him. I don’t know anything about the speaker so there’s nothing that makes me want to get up early and go to it. I might catch it on TV.
- John Chambers
You cannot tailor make your situation in life, but you can tailor make your attitudes to those situations.
- Zig Ziglar
Keep it simple. Tell the truth. People can smell the truth.
- Stephen Wynn
From an evolutionary standpoint, human consciousness has not been around very long. A little light just went on after four and a half billion years. How often does that happen? Maybe it is quite rare.
- Elon Musk
I don’t think it’s a big deal to show opera glasses to someone searching for binoculars that you somehow infer is a woman. But you don’t want to pop up ads for H.I.V. drugs on someone’s page, because you inferred they have H.I.V., when their boss is standing there looking at their computer
- Sergey Brin
Contrary to popular belief, I don’t spend a whole lot of time following soccer. But as I have traveled around the world to better understand global development and health, I’ve learned that soccer is truly universal. No matter where I go, that’s what kids are playing. That’s what people are talking about.
- Bill Gates
It’s OK for China to invent cancer drugs that cure patients in the United States. We want them to catch up. But as the leader, we want to keep setting a very, very high standard. We don’t want them to catch up because we’re slowing down or, even worse, going into reverse.
- Bill Gates
We were looking to guide and help people who want to start small businesses.
- David Nilssen
Without a sense of fairness and justice, no leader can command and retain the respect of his followers.
- Napoleon Hill
Being able to see an activity log of where a kid has been going on the Internet is a good thing.
- Bill Gates
I like to play cards. I’m not very good, because I don’t want to calculate, I just play by instinct. But I’ve learned a lot of business philosophy by playing poker.
- Jack Ma
If you need 15 minutes in the sun to trigger a melanin response, 15 minutes is your MED for tanning. More than 15 minutes is redundant and will just result in burning and a forced break from the beach. During this forced break from the beach, let’s assume one week, someone else who heeded his natural 15-minute MED will be able to fit in four more tanning sessions. He is four shades darker, whereas you have returned to your pale pre-beach self.
- Timothy Ferriss
I’ve always been interested in science – one of my favourite books is James Watson’s ‘Molecular Biology of the Gene.
- Bill Gates
Company cultures are like country cultures. Never try to change one. Try, instead, to work with what you’ve got.
- Peter Drucker
Passion isn’t project-specific. It’s people-specific.
- Seth Godin
Any great founders need to get out of the way of the company.
- Jack Dorsey
The only way to get the best of an argument is to avoid it.
- Dale Carnegie
Sometimes, “never let them see you sweat,” is truly bad advice. The work of an individual who cares often exposes the grit and determination and effort that it takes to be present.Perfecting your talk, refining your essay and polishing your service until all elements of you disappear might be obvious tactics, but they remove the thing we were looking for: you.
- Seth Godin
Ultimately, it comes down to taste. It comes down to trying to expose yourself to the best things that humans have done and then try to bring those things into what you’re doing. Picasso had a saying: good artists copy, great artists steal. And we have always been shameless about stealing great ideas, and I think part of what made the Macintosh great was that the people working on it were musicians and poets and artists and zoologists and historians who also happened to be the best computer scientists in the world.
- Steve Jobs
The cost of being wrong is less than the cost of doing nothing.
- Seth Godin
Ever since Justin Timberlake portrayed him in The Social Network, Sean has been perceived as one of the coolest people in America. JT is still more famous, but when he visits Silicon Valley, people ask if he’s Sean Parker.
- Peter Thiel
The possibilities of creative effort connected with the subconscious mind are stupendous and imponderable. They inspire one with awe.
- Napoleon Hill
I don’t create companies for the sake of creating companies, but to get things done.
- Elon Musk
You have to be pretty driven to make it happen. Otherwise, you will just make yourself miserable.
- Elon Musk
It’s important that the company be a family, that people feel that they’re part of the company, and that the company is like a family to them. When you treat people that way, you get better productivity.
- Larry Page
the Mach3—leaving hundreds of millions of people to a more painful daily battle with stubble.19
- James C. Collins
You watch television and see what’s going on on this debt ceiling issue. And what I consider to be a total lack of leadership from the President and nothing’s going to get fixed until the President himself steps up and wrangles both parties in Congress.
- Stephen Wynn
Rockets are cool. There’s no getting around that.
- Elon Musk
If I do you a favor you will reciprocate even in greater measure if possible. Through the proper use of this law / can get you to do whatever I wish you to do. If I wish you to dislike me and to lend your influence toward damaging me, I can accomplish this result by inflicting upon you the sort of treatment that I want you to inflict upon me through retaliation.
- Napoleon Hill
Your story is a symphony, not a note.
- Seth Godin
Powerful you have become, the dark side I sense in you.
- Yoda
The Overseas Chinese habit is to save a lot and make a lot of friends.
- Lee Shau Kee
We must recognize that as the dominant power in the world we have a special responsibility. In addition to protecting our national interests, we must take the leadership in protecting the common interests of humanity.
- George Soros
If you say too much or mix in multiple pitches, you diffuse your goal. You must give the media a pitch they can hit.
- Michael Levine
We don’t know a millionth of one percent about anything.
- Thomas Edison
I do not think that there is any other quality so essential to success of any kind as the quality of perseverance. It overcomes almost everything, even nature.
- John D. Rockefeller
I think there will be PCs at every price point.
- Bill Gates
Credit is a promise to deliver money. It will produce GDP but you’ll create credit… So you reach a certain point that that you can’t do that anymore… There are choices. And how do we best support, apportion the money? How much is going to be transferred?
- Ray Dalio
Intellectual property has the shelf life of a banana.
- Bill Gates
I’m not for gay marriage, but I’m not for discriminating against people.
- Joel Olsteen
When you set down the path to create art, whatever sort of art it is, understand that the path is neither short not easy. That means you must determine if the route is worth the effort. If it’s not, dream bigger.
- Seth Godin
The first thing I ever invested in was Twitter. Blaine Cook, former CTO, was leaving the company and asked me if I wanted to buy his stock.
- Gary Vaynerchuk
Windows 8 is key to the future, the Surface computer.
- Bill Gates
Everything man creates or acquires begins in the form of desire, that desire is taken on the first lap of its journey, from the abstract to the concrete, into the workshop of the imagination, where plans for its transition are created and organized.
- Napoleon Hill
I was the only westerner to succeed in a place that’s like a toilet, and you always come out of a toilet with a smell.
- David Reuben
Never hold discussions with the monkey when the organ grinder is in the room.
- Winston Churchill
Satellite broadcasting makes it possible for information-hungry residents of many closed societies to bypass state-controlled television channels.
- Rupert Murdoch
Freedom does not come automatically, it is achieved. And it is not gained in a single bound
- Rollo May
We base our investment strategies on quality, trust, synergy and initiative.
- Cheng Yu-tung
Watching how customers actually use a product provides much more reliable information than can be gleaned from a verbal interview or a focus group.
- Clayton M. Christensen
Don’t wait for the right answer and the golden path to present themselves.This is precisely why you’re stuck. Starting without seeing the end is difficult, so we often wait until we see the end, scanning relentlessly for the right way, the best way and the perfect way.The way to get unstuck is to start down the wrong path, right now.Step by step, page by page, interaction by interaction. As you start moving, you can’t help but improve, can’t help but incrementally find yourself getting back toward your north star.You might not end up with perfect, but it’s significantly more valuable than being stuck.Don’t just start. Continue. Ship. Repeat.
- Seth Godin
From age 16, I lived and breathed wine. I read every magazine and book about wine.
- Gary Vaynerchuk
I tend to approach things from a physics framework. And physics teaches you to reason from first principles rather than by analogy.
- Elon Musk
Advertising works most effectively when it’s in line with what people are already trying to do. And people are trying to communicate in a certain way on Facebook – they share information with their friends, they learn about what their friends are doing – so there’s really a whole new opportunity for a new type of advertising model within that.
- Mark Zuckerberg
I believe in motivating with humor. … – David Novak CEO OF Yum! Brands
- David Novak
Advances in the technology of telecommunications have proved an unambiguous threat to totalitarian regimes everywhere.
- Rupert Murdoch
Doing the best at this moment puts you in the best place for the next moment.
- Oprah Winfrey
People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.
- John C. Maxwell
Everyone has an idea. But it’s really about executing the idea and attracting other people to help you work on the idea.
- Jack Dorsey
You can either endure the difficult or do the difficult.
- Michael Levine
The dangers of unchecked bureauracy are a constant thorn in the CEO’s side.
- Jack Welch
Our international success started out first because we became the No. 1 casual wear brand in our home market of Japan. Then, we set up stores in the world’s major fashion centers of New York, Paris and London.
- Tadashi Yanai
People are skeptical of many televangelists, and I’m sensitive to that.
- Joel Olsteen
[B]y being so long in the lowest form I gained an immense advantage over the cleverer boys. They all went on to learn Latin and Greek and splendid things like that. But I was taught English. We were considered such dunces that we could learn only English. Mr. Somervell — a most delightful man, to whom my debt is great — was charged with the duty of teaching the stupidest boys the most disregarded thing — namely, to write mere English. He knew how to do it. He taught it as no one else has ever taught it. Not only did we learn English parsing thoroughly, but we also practised continually English analysis. . . Thus I got into my bones the essential structure of the ordinary British sentence — which is a noble thing. And when in after years my schoolfellows who had won prizes and distinction for writing such beautiful Latin poetry and pithy Greek epigrams had to come down again to common English, to earn their living or make their way, I did not feel myself at any disadvantage. Naturally I am biased in favour of boys learning English. I would make them all learn English: and then I would let the clever ones learn Latin as an honour, and Greek as a treat. But the only thing I would whip them for would be not knowing English. I would whip them hard for that.
- Winston Churchill
Our chief want is someone who will inspire us to be what we know we could be.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
If I hadn’t given my money away, I’d have had more than anyone else on the planet.
- Bill Gates
I’ve missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life and that is why I succeed.
- Michael Jordan
We live well below our means. We wear inexpensive suits and drive American-made cars. Only a minority of us drive the current-model-year automobile. Only a minority ever lease our motor vehicles.
- Thomas J Stanley
