Notable Quotables

Contrary to popular belief, my experience has shown me that the people who are exceptionally good in business aren’t so because of what they know but because of their insatiable need to know more.

- Michael Gerber

Every time I find myself stressed out, it’s because I do things primarily driven by growth.

- Timothy Ferriss

Bill Campbell developed an excellent methodology for measuring executives in a balanced way that will help you achieve this. He breaks performance down into four distinct areas.

- Ben Horowitz

Many companies today are reducing hours of full-time people to get under the minimum so they don’t have to pay health care costs. I just shake my head because that’s not going to build long-term value and trust with your people.

- Howard Schultz

Success is never final. Failure is never fatal. It is courage that counts.

- Winston Churchill

If you do not conquer self, you will be conquered by self.

- Napoleon Hill

The minute there’s a map, there is no art. Paint by numbers is not art. Paint by numbers is a mechanical activity.

- Seth Godin

The boss would be present at the beginning of each session, laying out the rationale for the Work-Out. He or she would also commit to two things: to give an on-the-spot yes or no to 75 percent of the recommendations that came out of the session, and to resolve the remaining 25 percent within thirty days. The boss would then disappear until the end of the session, so as not to stifle open discussion, returning only at the end to make good on his or her promise.

- Jack Welch

I have lots of sources of information about what’s going on at the company. I think I have a pretty good pulse on where we are and what people are thinking.

- Steve Ballmer

There’s no substitute for a full-time dad. Dads who are fully engaged with their kids overwhelmingly tend to produce children who believe in themselves and live full lives.

- Tony Dungy

1. Why is it foolish to launch a new business with millions of dollars in TV ads?2. Are the market leaders in every industry more vulnerable to sudden successes by the competition than ever before?3. Should book publishers issue the paperback edition of a book before the hardcover?4. What’s the single most important asset a company can create—and what is the simple thing that can kill it?5. Every ad needs to do one of two things to succeed…yet most ads do neither. What’s the right strategy?6. Does the Net create a dynamic that fundamentally changes the way everything is marketed?7. How can every business…big and small…use ideavirus marketing to succeed?

- Seth Godin

I believe that every right implies a responsibility; every opportunity, an obligation; every possession, a duty.

- John D. Rockefeller

Everything begins with a decision. Then, we have to manage that decision for the rest of your life.

- John C. Maxwell

If you don’t plan your time, someone else will help you waste it.

- Zig Ziglar

Rarely do we find men who willingly engage in hard, solid thinking. There is an almost universal quest for easy answers and half-baked solutions. Nothing pains some people more than having to think.

- Martin Luther King Jr.

Short cycle business are being impacted by credit, and are being impacted by gasoline prices, food, distribution businesses, chemical business.

- Jack Welch

I could never have imagined that firing 67 people on national television would actually make me more popular, especially with the younger generation.

- Donald Trump

Every company needs people with different skill sets and passions. But early on, everybody should be willing to wear ten different hats. They can’t have the attitude that something isn’t their job or their responsibility. They have to have the MacGyver mentality and do whatever it takes to get the job done. – Tony Hsieh (CEO of Zappos)

- Tony Hsieh

Only when the tide goes out do you discover who’s been swimming naked

- Warren Buffett

The formula for handling Inherent Objections: 1. Isolate the Objection 2. Minimize the Objection 3. Offset the Objection with Benefits

- Jerry Vass

They were going to get it all right the first time right… Open to change.

- Jack Dorsey

In my opinion, education is the finest gift an individual can give a young person.

- Donald Bren

If you are going to run a successful business you are going to have to be committed to your customers 100% of the time. If customers consistently tell you that they don’t like a certain product or service you offer or an employee that you have working for you, you must be willing to act based upon their feedback if you find it to be factual.

- Clay Clark

Most people have never thought through how they’re going to allocate their time. You need to make a decision in advance.

- Clayton M. Christensen

Despite the office rent in Hong Kong generally declining, the Group’s rental is resilient as the major rental properties owned by the Group are retail shopping properties situated in the new towns and mass transportation network.

- Lee Shau Kee

In life and in business, you need to be good-hearted and trustworthy, and to have integrity. This is the way to build long-term relationships. It is also important to be optimistic and to look at challenges as opportunities.

- Henry Sy

Remember the proverb of Solomon: “He becometh poor that dealeth with a slack hand; but the hand of the diligent maketh rich.

- P.T. Barnum

Let us accept the natural order in which we move. Let us reconcile ourselves to the mysterious rhythm of our destinies, such as they must be in this world of space and time. Let us treasure our joys but not bewail our sorrows. The glory of light cannot exist without its shadows. Life is a whole, and good and ill must be accepted together. The journey has been enjoyable and well worth making – once.

- Winston Churchill

At the age of four, you were an artist. And at seven, you were a poet.

- Seth Godin

There are certain things I will automate, but when it comes to quality control, I want to keep a very close eye.

- Timothy Ferriss

The Asian brand, which I admire for having become a global success, is Samsung. In comparison, we’re just starting, but I believe that we at Uniqlo will be the next Asian brand to do well globally.

- Tadashi Yanai

I would say this for Montserrat? one of its credit weaknesses is that it’s in a zone that depends greatly on external savings.

- John Chambers

Passion can overcome fear – the fear of losing, of failing, of being traditional.

- Seth Godin

We are approaching a new age of synthesis. Knowledge cannot be merely a degree or a skill… it demands a broader vision, capabilities in critical thinking and logical deduction without which we cannot have constructive progress.

- Li Ka-shing

It’s a mystery to me the way that contemporary art galleries function.

- Steve Martin

Sometimes adversity is what you need to face in order to become successful.

- Zig Ziglar

The maxim, “Nothing prevails but perfection,” may be spelled PARALYSIS.

- Winston Churchill

Oracle’s got 100+ enterprise applications live in the #cloud; today, SAP’s got nothin’ but SuccessFactors until 2020.

- Larry Ellison

The fatal temptation is to describe your market extremely narrowly so that you dominate it by definition.

- Peter Thiel

Make failure your teacher, not your undertaker.

- Zig Ziglar

I believe you have to be willing to be misunderstood if you’re going to innovate.

- Jeff Bezos

Expect the unexpected. And whenever possible, be the unexpected. I try to live by that on a daily basis.

- Jack Dorsey

Will this business still be around a decade from now? Numbers alone won’t tell you the answer, instead you must think critically about the qualitative characteristics of your business.

- Peter Thiel

What you study is more important than how you study. Students are subordinate to materials, much like novice cooks are subordinate to recipes. If you select the wrong material, the wrong textbook, the wrong group of words, it doesn’t matter how much (or how well) you study. It doesn’t matter how good your teacher is. One must find the highest-frequency material. Material beats method.

- Timothy Ferriss

Cultures, for better or worse, are very stable.

- Jeff Bezos

About the only thing ordinary salespeople agree upon is the idea that you must sell yourself first.

- Jerry Vass

Churchill: The strangling of Bolshevism at its birth would have been an untold blessing to the human race.Mr. Seymour Cocks (Labor Party): “If that had happened we should have lost the 1939 -45 war”.Churchill: No, it would have prevented that war.

- Winston Churchill

If you argue and rankle and contradict, you may achieve a victory sometimes; but it will be an empty victory because you will never get your opponent’s good will.

- Dale Carnegie

Optimists are those who go after Moby dick in a row boat with a bucket of tarter sauce.

- Zig Ziglar

Using people to leverage a refined process multiplies production, using people as a solution to a poor process multiplies problems.

- Timothy Ferriss

I would call lack of candor the biggest dirty little secret in business, basically blocks smart ideas, fast action, and good people contributing all the stuff they’ve got. It’s a killer.

- Jack Welch

Most people are fast to stop you before you get started but hesitate to get in the way if you’re moving.

- Timothy Ferriss

The leader of the market today may not necessarily be the leader tomorrow.

- Ma Huateng

Appreciate everything your associates do for the business.

- Sam Walton

The culture was strong enough to transcend the original company.

- Peter Thiel

It is not good to demonstrate your luxury and your wealth: to rub it in the faces of others is insulting. So you should be modest, try not to insult people by showing that you can do what they cannot.

- Vladimir Potanin

You’ve been destined to live in victory, destined to overcome, destined to leave your mark on this generation.

- Joel Olsteen

The secret is not to give up hope. It’s very hard not to because if you’re really doing something worthwhile I think you will be pushed to the brink of hopelessness before you come through the other side.

- George Lucas

The Global Fund is a central player in the progress being achieved on HIV, TB and malaria. It channels resources to help countries fight these diseases. I believe in its impact because I have seen it firsthand.

- Bill Gates

I attract a crowd, not because I’m an extrovert or I’m over the top or I’m oozing with charisma. It’s because I care.

- Gary Vaynerchuk

So, the judgment that you have to make is (a) is this market really much bigger (more than an order of magnitude) than has been exploited to date? and (b) are we going to be number one? If the answer to either (a) or (b) is no, then you should consider selling.

- Ben Horowitz

In the Next Society’s corporation, top management will be the company. Everything else can be outsourced.

- Peter Drucker

At the very beginning I actually felt a bit nervous. I didn’t have much experience in gaming.

- Lui Che Woo

A lot of preachers’ kids are some of the most rebellious kids in the world. I never was like that.

- Joel Olsteen

Well, we’re about 24 million subscribers today, and that’s up from about 15 million a year ago, so it’s a very high rate of growth, and that’s what’s exciting about the business – more and more people are getting smart TVs, they’re watching Netflix on their iPads.

- Reed Hastings

If you spend your time, worth $20-25 per hour, doing something that someone else will do for $10 per hour, it’s simply a poor use of resources.

- Timothy Ferriss

The only antidote is simplicity. The simplicity of leading through truth and trust. Ceaselessly seeking the former, relentlessly building the latter. In every decision, in every action. Truth is a determined pursuit, a personal and unquenchable fire, burning to know what is really happening inside the company and out.

- Jack Welch

A wartime C.E.O. may not delegate. They make every decision based on the next product release. They may use a lot of profanity.

- Ben Horowitz

A baboon in a forest is a matter of legitimate speculation, a baboon in a zoo is an object of public curiosity, but a baboon in your wife’s bed is a cause of the gravest concern.

- Winston Churchill

So how does the machine work that you have a financial crisis? How does deleveraging work – what is the nature of that machine? And what is human nature, and how do you raise a community of people to run a business?

- Ray Dalio

The millionaires and billionaires who chose to invest in Australia are actually those who most help the poor and our young. This secret needs to be spread widely.

- Gina Rinehart

The librarian is the interface between reams of data and the untrained but motivated user.

- Seth Godin

I will take as a given that, for most people, somewhere between six and seven billion of them, the perfect job is the one that takes the least time.

- Timothy Ferriss

Not life, but good life, is to be chiefly valued.

- Socrates

God can do in a split second what might otherwise take you many years.

- Joel Olsteen

The first ten minutes of sorting through clothing was like choosing which child of mine should live or die.

- Timothy Ferriss

Why do I drive a truck? What am I supposed to haul my dogs around in, a Rolls-Royce?

- Sam Walton

I think we are not serious about attacking the long-term debt problem, and that’s one of the things that he’s going to have to find a way to get on the agenda.

- Michael Bloomberg

After its return to China, Hong Kong has become an inseparable part of this large country by exerting its business strengths to become a vital member of the country and developing its four pillar industries, namely finance, commerce, shipping and professional services.

- Cheng Yu-tung

Only the Dark Lord of the Sith knows of our weakness. If informed the senate is, multiply our adversaries will.

- Yoda

The advance of technology is based on making it fit in so that you don’t really even notice it, so it’s part of everyday life.

- Bill Gates

And well you should not. For my ally in the Force. And a powerful ally it is. Life creates it, makes it grow. It’s energy surrounds us and binds us. Luminous beings are we…(Yoda pinches Luke’s shoulder)…not this crude matter. (a sweeping gesture) You must feel the Force around you. (gesturing) Here, between you…me…the tree…the rock…everywhere! Yes, even between this land and that ship!

- Yoda

I have been up against tough competition all my life. I wouldn’t know how to get along with it.

- Walt Disney

A much better idea would have been to give the problem to the people who could not only fix it, but who would also be personally excited and motivated to do so.

- Ben Horowitz

If you are not in the process of becoming the person you want to be, you are automatically engaged in becoming the person you don’t want to be.

- Dale Carnegie

Our line of business structure has served us very well in the past, when customer segments and product requirements were very distinct. Today, the differences have blurred between these customer segments and Cisco is in a unique position to provide the industry’s broadest family of products united under a consistent architecture designed to help our customers improve productivity and profitability.

- John Chambers

I believe that uncertainty is really my spirit’s way of whispering, I’m in flux. I can’t decide for you. Something is off-balance here.

- Oprah Winfrey

It helps to have founded and run a company if you’re going to help somebody run a company who is a founder.

- Ben Horowitz

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