Notable Quotables

I believe in innovation and that the way you get innovation is you fund research and you learn the basic facts.

- Bill Gates

I think they are fine. I don’t think you have a choice between iPad models so that’s just saying that the iPad is good … that’s a very different statement (and contrary to the implication) that, if I chose not to upgrade now, less than a year after my last upgrade, then I, Woz, am saying that the new Apple iPad is bad.

- Steve Wozniak

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

I went to Princeton specifically to study physics.

- Jeff Bezos

Measure, coach and reward the right things. Measure the vitally important. Reward the doers.

- David Novak

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

You know capitalism is this wonderful thing that motivates people, it causes wonderful inventions to be done. But in this area of diseases of the world at large, it’s really let us down.

- Bill Gates

If you ask me what I worry about every morning when I wake up, it’s that I don’t understand future mainstream Internet users’ habits.

- Ma Huateng

Many people who I respected were disappointed when I started ‘Wine Library TV.’ They thought I was dumbing down wine, but I always knew I was one of the biggest producers of new wine drinkers in the world, and people are realizing it now.

- Gary Vaynerchuk

I think that, ah, I’m a very goofy sort of person in many ways.

- Jeff Bezos

Sam hired me in 1970 as a district manager in charge of new store openings. He had eighteen Wal-Marts and some variety stores doing about $31 million a year. I moved my family and as the van was unloading furniture into our rented house, they called from the office and said, Can you set up this new store in Missouri? My wife, who had three babies and a moving van to deal with, helped me find some clothes and I left. I didn’t see her again for two weeks. Then there was a managers’ meeting so I didn’t see her again for two more weeks. It would be safe to say that in those days we all worked a minimum of 16 hours a day.

- Jack Shewmaker

There is only one way… to get anybody to do anything. And that is by making the other person want to do it.

- Dale Carnegie

You want to have a future where you’re expecting things to be better, not one where you’re expecting things to be worse.

- Elon Musk

Anyone who prefers owning a part of your company to being paid in cash reveals a preference for the long term and a commitment to increasing your company’s value in the future. Equity can’t create perfect incentives, but it’s the best way for a founder to keep everyone in the company broadly aligned.

- Peter Thiel

Courage is on display every day, and only the courageous wring the most out of life.

- Zig Ziglar

Hope is the power that gives a person the confidence to step out and try.

- Zig Ziglar

When enough people care about autism or diabetes or global warming, it helps everyone, even if only a tiny fraction actively participate.

- Seth Godin

Profit in business comes from repeat customers; customers that boast about your product and service, and that bring friends with them.

- W. Clement Stone

To me, it’s OK to have differences. But we don’t have to be mad about it. You know? And I think that’s where sometimes we get so passionate that we – you know, it turns into anger.

- Joel Olsteen

Land on Mars, a round-trip ticket – half a million dollars. It can be done.

- Elon Musk

The biggest risk is not taking any risk… In a world that changing really quickly, the only strategy that is guaranteed to fail is not taking risks.

- Mark Zuckerberg

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

The key thing about a book is that you lose yourself in the author’s world.

- Jeff Bezos

On this basis, we intend to increase the dividend for the third time in a row. We are proposing a distribution of €3.25 per share, corresponding to a dividend payout ratio of 27.4 percent, which is again up slightly on the previous year’s level.

- Elmar Degenhart

Boy, those French: they have a different word for everything!

- Steve Martin

I made a decision when my father passed away that I was going to be who God made me to be and not try to preach like my father.

- Joel Olsteen

I don’t believe in failure. It is not failure if you enjoyed the process.

- Oprah Winfrey

Every breakthrough business idea begins with solving a common problem. The bigger the problem, the bigger the opportunity. I discovered a big one when I took apart an IBM PC. I made two interesting discoveries: The components were all manufactured by other companies, and the system that retailed for $3,000 cost about $600 in parts.

- Michael Dell

Habits like blogging often and regularly, writing down the way you think, being clear about what you think are effective tactics, ignoring the burbling crowd and not eating bacon. All of these are useful habits.

- Seth Godin

The decent method you follow is better than the perfect method you quit.

- Timothy Ferriss

Strategic quitting is the secret of successful organizations.

- Seth Godin

It was character that got us out of bed, commitment that moved us into action, and discipline that enabled us to follow through.

- Zig Ziglar

I’m not the judge. You know, God didn’t tell me to go around judging everybody.

- Joel Olsteen

Unless commitment is made, there are only promises and hopes… but no plans.

- Peter Drucker

Every man should make his son or daughter learn some useful trade or profession, so that in these days of changing fortunes of being rich today and poor tomorrow they may have something tangible to fall back upon. This provision might save many persons from misery, who by some unexpected turn of fortune have lost all their means.

- P.T. Barnum

The lesson for business is that we need founders. If anything, we should be more tolerant of founders who seem strange or extreme; we need unusual individuals to lead companies beyond mere incrementalism.

- Peter Thiel

Until you are happy with who you are, you will never be happy because of what you have.

- Zig Ziglar

I’ve got some good days, I’ve got some bad. (But my) game has definitely improved.

- Ed Clark

The way management treats associates is exactly how the associates will treat the customers

- Sam Walton

It is important that all of us, however old or young, have a mindset that enables us to capture all the opportunities that changes in the world are bringing to us. A mindset that is characterized by creativity and initiative, harnessed by focus and discipline. In our company, this mindset is requisite and indelible.

- Cheng Yu-tung

A lack of realism in the vision today costs credibility tomorrow.

- John C. Maxwell

Regardless of who you are or what you have been, you can be what you want to be.

- W. Clement Stone

My opinion is it’s a bridge too far to go to fully autonomous cars.

- Elon Musk

we can not prepare for defeat and expect to live a life in Victory.

- Joel Olsteen

Strive to make every person feel special. After all, every person you meet is made in the image of God.

- Joel Olsteen

The War was decided in the first twenty days of fighting, and all that happened afterwards consisted in battles which, however formidable and devastating, were but desperate and vain appeals against the decision of Fate.

- Winston Churchill

Just as ships are built to sail the seas and planes to fly the heavens, so is man created for a purpose.

- Zig Ziglar

Starting isn’t like that. Starting something is not an event; it’s a series of events. You decide to walk to Cleveland. So you take a first step in the right direction. That’s starting. You spend the rest of the day walking toward Cleveland, one step at a time, picking your feet up and putting them down. At the end of the day, twenty miles later, you stop at a hotel. And what happens the next morning? Either you quit the project or you start again, walking to Cleveland. In fact, every step is a new beginning. Sure, you’re closer than you were yesterday or last week, but you’re still…

- Seth Godin

[On Square in July 2011] We’re going to make it amazing.

- Jack Dorsey

If you know the enemy and know yourself you need not fear the results of a hundred battles.

- Sun Tzu

Every entrepreneur should plan to be the last mover in her particular market. That starts with asking yourself: what will the world look like 10 and 20 years from now, and how will my business fit in?

- Peter Thiel

Only when we are brave enough to explore the darkness will we discover the infinite power of our light.

- Brene Brown

Present my story and the difficulties that I have faced. As an entrepreneur, a CEO.

- Ben Horowitz

No lover ever studied every whim of his mistress as I did those of President Roosevelt.

- Winston Churchill

Tact is the ability to tell someone to go to hell in such a way that they look forward to the trip.

- Winston Churchill

Pity may represent little more than the impersonal concern which prompts the mailing of a check, but true sympathy is the personal concern which demands the giving of one’s soul.

- Martin Luther King Jr.

Who’s your Jedi master? WHO’S your Jedi Master?

- Yoda

I think most of the important stuff on the Internet has been built. There will be continued innovation, for sure, but the great problems of the Internet have essentially been solved.

- Elon Musk

Appreciate everything your associates do for the business.

- Sam Walton

Look at the way celebrities and politicians are using Facebook already. When Ashton Kutcher posts a video, he gets hundreds of pieces of feedback. Maybe he doesn’t have time to read them all or respond to them all, but he’s getting good feedback and getting a good sense of how people are thinking about that and maybe can respond to some of it.

- Mark Zuckerberg

If you can’t be a pine on the top of the hill.Be a scrub in the valley-but beThe best little scrub by the side of the rill;Be a bush, if you can’t be a tree.If you can’t be a bush, be a bit of the grass.If you can’t be a muskie, then just be a bass-But the liveliest bass in the lake!We can’t all be captains, we’ve got to be crew.There’s something for all of us here.There’s big work to do and there’s lesser to doAnd the task we must do is the near.If you can’t be a highway, then just be a trail,If you can’t be the sun, be a star;It isn’t by the size that you win or you fail-Be the best of whatever you are!

- Douglas Malloch

Always remember, a cat looks down on man, a dog looks up to man, but a pig will look man right in the eye and see his equal.

- Winston Churchill

For me, privacy and security are really important. We think about it in terms of both: You can’t have privacy without security.

- Larry Page

I could either watch it happen or be a part of it.

- Elon Musk

I worry about losing a real talent. I hate losing a great leader more than anything. I also hate it when I have to manager out a good person for poor performance or for simply doing something that is not in sync with our values. One of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do in my life and I’ve had to do it more than once, is fire a friend.

- David Novak

I think the most important factor in getting out of the recession actually is just the regenerative capacity of – of American capitalism.

- Warren Buffett

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

- Peter Thiel

I actually thought that it would be a little confusing during the same period of your life to be in one meeting when you’re trying to make money, and then go to another meeting where you’re giving it away. I mean is it gonna erode your ability, you know, to make money? Are you gonna somehow get confused about what you’re trying to do?

- Bill Gates

Wanamaker learned this lesson early, but I personally had to blunder through this old world for a third of a century before it even began to dawn upon me that ninety-nine times out of a hundred, people don’t criticise themselves for anything no matter how wrong it may be.

- Dale Carnegie

Don’t solicit feedback on your product, your idea, or your business just for validation purposes. Be really careful about that. You want to tell the people that can help move your idea forward. But if you’re just looking to your friend, coworker, husband, wife, for validation, be careful. Because out of love… a lot of people will express some concerns, and it can stop a lot of multi-million dollar ideas right in their tracks.

- Sara Blakely

If you ask me whether the future is better than today, I would say yes; but the people must be ready to pay for services and pay their taxes.

- Aliko Dangote

Cisco Systems Capital will be investing in companies working on networking technology.

- John Chambers

No man is ever whipped, until he quits in his own mind…A winner never quits and quitter never wins. No follower of this philosphy can reasonably expect accumulate a fortune without experience temporary defeat.

- Napoleon Hill

I DECLARE I will experience God’s faithfulness. I will not worry. I will not doubt. I will keep my trust in Him, knowing that He will not fail me. I will give birth to every promise God put in my heart and I will become everything God created me to be. This is my declaration.

- Joel Olsteen

We need to show mercy. I mean, because as much mercy as you show people, that’s the mercy you’re going to be receiving.

- Joel Olsteen

Everybody is going to have their critics. It’s easy to get discouraged in life.

- Joel Olsteen

We’re running the most dangerous experiment in history right now, which is to see how much carbon dioxide the atmosphere… can handle before there is an environmental catastrophe.

- Elon Musk

Every day is a gift from God. There’s no guarantee of tomorrow, so that tells me to see the good in this day to make the most of it.

- Joel Olsteen

Spreading old ways to create wealth around the world will result in devastation, not riches. In a world of scarce resources, globalization without new technology is unsustainable

- Peter Thiel

And so I believe that God plays this enormous role in my life. And I believe that it’s my obligation to give back and to follow the rules that were set. And it also gives me an enormous sense of my own place and an enormous sense of stability.

- Ronald Perelman

Another noteworthy aspect is the strong free cash flow of more than €2 billion. This enabled us to reduce net indebtedness to its lowest level since 2006.

- Elmar Degenhart

I will not lose, for even in defeat, there’s a valuable lesson learned so it evens up for me.

- Jay-Z

Leadership involves finding a parade and getting in front of it.

- John Naisbitt

The greatest business people I’ve met are determined to get it right no matter what the cost.

- Michael Gerber

You can turn painful situations around through laughter. If you can find humor in anything, even poverty, you can survive it.

- Bill Cosby

I want to own the New York Jets, that’s what I want. And I absolutely believe I am going to own the Jets.

- Gary Vaynerchuk

When I first joined the Irvine Company, I realized that less than 11,000 acres were designated as open space in the original master plan, and that just didn’t seem adequate to me. So, I began the lengthy process working with public and community organizations to add more open space.

- Donald Bren

With the attention I got on my wealth, I thought I would have become a source of resentment, but it is just the other way around – it just generates that much more ambition in many people.

- Azim Premji

The abundance mindset makes it easier to be graceful.

- Seth Godin

Feedback

Let us know what's going on.

Get Started

Your first month is ONLY $1!

You will be redirected to your dashboard in a moment.

Fill out the information below to cancel your subscription