Notable Quotables

You can’t win an argument. You can’t because if you lose it, you lose it; and if you win it, you lose it.

- Dale Carnegie

If you’re trying to create a company, it’s like baking a cake. You have to have all the ingredients in the right proportion.

- Elon Musk

So much of the downstream revenue is linked to that initial excitement, to how much revenue is produced in the domestic box office. For example, what we pay for a film three years later is highly correlated to how well it did in the box office.

- Reed Hastings

Oh, I think there are a lot of people who would be buying and selling online today that go up there and they get the information, but then when it comes time to type in their credit card they think twice because they’re not sure about how that might get out and what that might mean for them.

- Bill Gates

The warrior mentality, the very fight to survive, is truly what created our culture.

- Herb Kelleher

If you don’t cut off negative information it will depress you. Step out of the natural and say, This may be impossible with men, but I know with God all things are possible.

- Joel Olsteen

Today, we’re very dependent on cheap energy. We just take it for granted – all the things you have in the house, the way industry works.

- Bill Gates

We see no indications in the marketplace that the radical Internet business transformation in practices like customer service, supply-chain management, employee training, empowerment, and e-commerce that is taking place around the world today is slowing — in fact, we believe it is accelerating globally.

- John Chambers

A company is the strangest place of all for an indefinite optimist: why should you expect your own business to succeed without a plan to make it happen? Darwinism may be a fine theory in other contexts, but in startups, intelligent design works best.

- Peter Thiel

Our business practices are no different than those of our competitors, but we are bigger, and thus more visible, so we get more flack.

- Phil Knight

Because there have been no settlements reached for the securities action with any of the less-involved banks, it is difficult to know what reserves are prudent.

- Ed Clark

I am quite serious when I say that I do not believe there are, on the whole earth besides, so many intensified bores as in these United States. No man can form an adequate idea of the real meaning of the word, without coming here.

- Warren Buffett

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

A word of encouragement from a teacher to a child can change a life. A word of encouragement from a spouse can save a marriage. A word of encouragement from a leader can inspire a person to reach her potential.

- John C. Maxwell

What is the one sentence summary of how you change the world? Always work hard on something uncomfortably exciting!

- Larry Page

When we began Starbucks, what I wanted to try to do was to create a set of values, guiding principles, and culture.

- Howard Schultz

A company should limit its growth based on its ability to attract enough of the right people.

- James C. Collins

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

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

Too few people in computer science are aware of some of the informational challenges in biology and their implications for the world. We can store an incredible amount of data very cheaply

- Sergey Brin

My popularity, my happiness and sense of worth depend to no small extent upon my skill in dealing with people.

- Dale Carnegie

The word cellulite, for example, first appeared in the April 15, 1968, issue of Vogue magazine, and this invented disease soon had a believer base worldwide: Vogue began to focus on the body as much as on the clothes, in part because there was little they could dictate with the anarchic styles.… In a stunning move, an entire replacement culture was developed by naming a problem” where it had scarcely existed before, centering it on the women’s natural state, and elevating it to the existential female dilemma… . The number of diet- related articles rose 70 percent from 1968 to 1972.

- Timothy Ferriss

Our success has really been based on partnerships from the very beginning.

- Bill Gates

Among the things you can give and still keep are your word, a smile, and a grateful heart.

- Zig Ziglar

To be Jedi is to face the truth, and choose. Give off light, or darkness, Padawan. Be a candle, or the night.

- Yoda

A definite view, by contrast, favors firm convictions. Instead of pursuing many-sided mediocrity and calling it “well-roundedness,” a definite person determines the one best thing to do and then does it. Instead of working tirelessly to make herself indistinguishable, she strives to be great at something substantive—to be a monopoly of one. This is not what young people do today, because everyone around them has long since lost faith in a definite world. No one gets into Stanford by excelling at just one thing, unless that thing happens to involve throwing or catching a leather ball.

- Peter Thiel

Work like hell. I mean you just have to put in 80 to 100 hour weeks every week. [This] improves the odds of success. If other people are putting in 40 hour work weeks and you’re putting in 100 hour work weeks, then even if you’re doing the same thing you know that… you will achieve in 4 months what it takes them a year to achieve.

- Elon Musk

Politics and government are certainly among the most important of practical human interests.

- P.T. Barnum

If you think the people you attract could be better, then it’s time for you to improve yourself.

- Napoleon Hill

A company will be most successful if the senior managers optimize for the company’s success (think of this as a global optimization) as opposed to their own personal success (local optimization).

- Ben Horowitz

As kids, we all worked for the company in one way or another. I got to work behind the candy counter or run the popcorn stand when I was five years old. The business was part of life, and it was always included in the dinner conversation. We learned a lot about the debt it took to open new stores, and I worried about it. I remember confiding to my girlfriend one time – crying and saying, I don’t know what we’re going to do. My daddy owes so much, and he won’t quit opening.

- Alice Walton

When interviewing candidates, it’s helpful to watch for small distinctions that indicate whether they view the world through the “me” prism or the “team” prism.

- Ben Horowitz

Work is a rubber ball. If you drop it, it will bounce back. The other four balls– family, health, friends, integrity– are made of glass. If you drop one of these, it will be irrevocably scuffed, nicked, perhaps even shattered

- Gary Keller

I think that maybe inside any business, there is someone slowly going crazy.

- Michael Gerber

The internet was supposed to homogenize everyone by connecting us all. Instead what it’s allowed is silos of interest.

- Seth Godin

In the modern world of business, it is useless to be a creative, original thinker unless you can also sell what you create.

- David Ogilvy

Humor can often be effective and with this style, it’s emphasized. Appeal to the journalist’s heightened sense of the unusual. Stunts, sideshows, ancillary themes are put to work here.

- Michael Levine

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

- Reed Hastings

Look at our society. Everyone wants to be thin, but nobody wants to diet. Everyone wants to live long, but few will exercise. Everybody wants money, yet seldom will anyone budget or control their spending.

- John C. Maxwell

Play like you’re ten points behind in the final quarter. I’ve always heard this defined as operational cadence – creating a rat-a-tat-tat rhythm of doing business that drives the relentless pursuit of results. Whatever I’ve learned about creating a sense of urgency started when I worked for Howard Davis at Tracy Locke. He really knew how to push people. Everything had to be done yesterday. And I was one of the people who go pushed. Howard was a master of intimidation. Everyone knew if you didn’t give him what he wanted, he was going to find another way to get it, and if your weren’t part of the solution then you were part of the problem. The clients loved Howard because they knew he’d kill for them (and none of us wanted to be killed). It wasn’t always comfortable, but it taught me the value of constantly putting pressure on myself and the people who work for me. In corporate America, pressure is a way of life, so rather that resist it or merely accept it, you have to learn to use it as a personal motivator.

- David Novak

I should be only paying for things that matter. I shouldn’t be paying for things that don’t matter. And, if Walgreen wants a premium, and they’re not doing anything different, why should I pay them more?

- George Paz

God would not have put a dream in your heart if He had not already given you everything you need to fulfill it.

- Joel Olsteen

In philosophy, politics, and business, too, arguing over process has become a way to endlessly defer making concrete plans for a better future.

- Peter Thiel

Art allows people a way to dream their way out of their struggle.

- Russell Simmons

The question is not whether we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we will be… The nation and the world are in dire need of creative extremists.

- Martin Luther King Jr.

I came from a Hindi medium school… the principal felt that I would not fit into an English medium college. Though I was top in my class in school, and I got admission in other colleges, but I really wanted to study in St. Xavier’s.

- Lakshmi Mittal

Sometimes when you innovate, you make mistakes. It is best to admit them quickly, and get on with improving your other innovations.

- Steve Jobs

I try to look on all the great things God’s done, and not focus on the negative. It’s a perspective.

- Joel Olsteen

We must concentrate not merely on the negative expulsion of war but the postive affirmation of peace.

- Martin Luther King Jr.

You can’t fault government for seizing that opportunity. But it has an impact on Barbados’ current account deficit and it does bring with it attended risks. And, therefore, you have to ask whether or not the tourism business that is going to be generated from the publicity around the cricket matches will be sustained after the cricket matches are over.

- John Chambers

Checklists seem able to defend anyone, even the experienced, against failure in many more tasks than we realized.

- Atul Gawande

In order to deal with all the medical cost demands and other challenges in the U.S., as we look to raise that revenue, the rich will have to pay slightly more. That’s quite clear.

- Bill Gates

Learning to be a CEO through classroom training would be like learning to be an NFL quarterback through classroom training.

- Ben Horowitz

If you’re changing the world, you’re working on important things. You’re excited to get up in the morning.

- Larry Page

It’s amazing how people will give when you don’t ask. Many of them send money because they believe in the message.

- Joel Olsteen

No company has a culture, every company is a culture.

- Peter Thiel

I will say that walking down the street, getting on the subway, taking the elevator, if there’s one or two people and they say, ‘Great job, Mayor,’ that is a real turn-on. I mean, anybody that wouldn’t find that satisfying, rewarding, exciting, thrilling – I think they should see the doctor.

- Michael Bloomberg

The reality is that I surround myself with very smart, very strong people – including my ex-wives.

- Ronald Perelman

The three Rs in educationare reading, writing and arithmetic. Without these basic skills, learning becomes almost impossible. In a similar way, business starts with a relationship. You are then judged by the results. Rewards spring from the results.

- Jack Nadel

In 1928, Scottish scientist Alexander Fleming found that a mysterious antibacterial fungus had grown on a petri dish he’d forgotten to cover in his laboratory: he discovered penicillin by accident. Scientists have sought to harness the power of chance ever since. Modern drug discovery aims to amplify Fleming’s serendipitous circumstances a millionfold: pharmaceutical companies search through combinations of molecular compounds at random, hoping to find a hit.

- Peter Thiel

All great truths are simple in final analysis, and easily understood; if they are not, they are not great truths.

- Napoleon Hill

The person who knows one thing and does it better than anyone else, even if it only be the art of raising lentils, receives the crown he merits. If he raises all his energy to that end, he is a benefactor of mankind and its rewarded as such.

- Og Mandino

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

Proclaim this among the nations: Prepare war. Stir up the mighty men. Let all the warriors draw near. Let them come up. Beat your plowshares into swords, And your pruning hooks into spears. Let the weak say, I am strong.

- Joel 3:9

All your ideas may be solid or even good .. But you have to Actually EXECUTE on them for them to matter.

- Gary Vaynerchuk

Unless a man enters upon the vocation intended for him by nature, and best suited to his peculiar genius, he cannot succeed. I am glad to believe that the majority of persons do find their right vocation.

- P.T. Barnum

Leadership is the ability to get someone to follow you even if only out of curiosity.

- Ben Horowitz

The best way to be missed when you’re gone,Is to stand for something when you’re here.

- Seth Godin

Whoever is first to dominate the most important segment of a market with viral potential will be the last mover in the whole market.

- Peter Thiel

I’m going to save my public voice largely for the issues where I have some depth.

- Bill Gates

Three classes of factors affect what an organization can and cannot do: its resources, its processes, and its values.

- Clayton M. Christensen

George W. Bush stated, I do not need to explain why I say things. That’s the interesting thing about being the president. Maybe somebody needs to explain to me why they say something, but I don’t feel like I owe anybody an explanation. That’s when I knew Bush was headed for trouble. With all due respect for the office, I completely disagree with him. In my view, it’s the leader’s responsibility to explain his or her actions every step of the way. And the higher up you are, the more important it is.

- David Novak

We are pleased to look back at another extremely successful financial year 2014 during which we achieved our targets.

- Elmar Degenhart

Life isn’t fair. It’s true, and you still have to deal with it. Whining about it rarely levels the playing field, but learning to rise above it is the ultimate reward.

- Harvey Mackay

So now, having learned from machines, organizations are applying the same logic to people. Letting people in the organization use their best judgment turns out to be faster and cheaper—but only if you hire the right people and reward them for having the right attitude.

- Seth Godin

Not every Apple product makes a big enough difference to me to get instantly, although many do.

- Steve Wozniak

I would rather entertain and hope that people learned something than educate people and hope they were entertained.

- Walt Disney

the only way on earth to influence other people is to talk about what they want and show them how to get it.

- Dale Carnegie

I just believe that the way that young people’s minds develop is fascinating. If you are doing something for a grade or salary or a reward, it doesn’t have as much meaning as creating something for yourself and your own life.

- Steve Wozniak

At the macro level, the single word for horizontal progress is globalization—taking things that work somewhere and making them work everywhere.

- Peter Thiel

Many people spend more time in planning the wedding than they do in planning the marriage.

- Zig Ziglar

It is not the employer who pays the wages. Employers only handle the money. It is the customer who pays the wages.

- Henry Ford

Differentiation (rating and evaluating people) Develops Great Organizations. Differentiation is hard, anybody who finds it easy doesn’t belong in the organization, and anyone who can’t do it falls in the same category…It is important for companies to continually remove the bottom 10 percent of their employees anually.

- Jack Welch

when praise is specific, it comes across as sincere—not something the other person may be saying just to make one feel good.

- Dale Carnegie

God accepts you. God approves you. And He has something better in store.

- Joel Olsteen

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