The growth of an enterprise is no different from the self-improvement of human beings. It is a step-by-step procedure and an ever-lasting course of improvement, which requires staying in line with the era and taking up social responsibility.
- Cheng Yu-tung
Notable Quotables
Ask yourself, what’s the one thing that I can do right now so I’m on track to achieve my someday goals?
- Gary Keller
Sales is a simple conversation where I ask you questions and I relate to your answers.
- Bryan Smith
Most discussions of decision making assume that only senior executives make decisions or that only senior executives’ decisions matter. This is a dangerous mistake.
- Peter Drucker
You shouldn’t focus on why you can’t do something, which is what most people do. You should focus on why perhaps you can, and be one of the exceptions.
- Steve Case
There are only two ways to influence human behavior: you can manipulate it or you can inspire it.
- Simon Sinek
They need to avoid coming at us head-on, and do their own thing better than we do ours. It doesn’t make any sense to try to underprice Walmart on something like toothpaste. That’s not what they customer is looking to a small store for anyway. Most independents are best off, I think, doing what I prided myself on doing for many years as a storekeeper, getting out front on the door and meeting everyone of the customers. Let them know how much you appreciate them, and that register yourself. That little personal touch is so important for an independent merchant because no matter how hard Walmart tries to duplicate, ad we try awfully hard, we can’t really do it.
- Sam Walton
I believe God is managing affairs and that He doesn’t need any advice from me. With God in charge, I believe everything will work out for the best in the end. So what is there to worry about.
- Henry Ford
If failure is not an option, then neither is success.
- Seth Godin
My mother was determined to make us independent. When I was four years old, she stopped the car a few miles from our house and made me find my own way home across the fields. I got hopelessly lost.
- Richard Branson
The customer reaction to Dell going private has been a lot more positive than I would have ever imagined. Customers see it as – ‘You don’t have to be distracted. Now you can totally focus on your business.’ So they see it as a positive.
- Michael Dell
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
Means we use must be as pure as the ends we seek.
- Martin Luther King Jr.
Startups operate on the principle that you need to work with other people to get stuff done, but you also need to stay small enough so that you actually can. Positively defined, a startup is the largest group of people you can convince of a plan to build a different future.
- Peter Thiel
Yes, it’s absolutely true that anything worth doing is worth doing poorly – until you can learn to do it well.
- Zig Ziglar
The uncertainty and importance of the present reduce the past and future to comparative insignificance, and clear the mind of minor worries. And when all is over, memories remain which few men do not hold precious.
- Winston Churchill
The world is facing a new networked, digital lifestyle, and we will ensure that Canon remains ahead of the game.
- Fujio Mitarai
Few startup advisers and venture capitalists have any experience.
- Ben Horowitz
Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor, it must be demanded by the oppressed.
- Martin Luther King Jr.
I could either watch it happen or be a part of it.
- Elon Musk
If you cannot read all your books, at any rate handle, or as it were, fondle them…let them be your friends.
- Winston Churchill
The most efficient way to produce anything is to bring together under one management as many as possible of the activities needed to turn out the product.
- Peter Drucker
I really do encourage other manufacturers to bring electric cars to market. It’s a good thing, and they need to bring it to market and keep iterating and improving and make better and better electric cars, and that’s what going to result in humanity achieving a sustainable transport future. I wish it was growing faster than it is.
- Elon Musk
Any idea, plan, or purpose may be placed in the mind through repetition of thought.
- Napoleon Hill
I read the paper every day and the Bible every day, that way I know what both sides are up to.
- Zig Ziglar
There are two kinds of companies, those that work to try to charge more and those that work to charge less. We will be the second.
- Jeff Bezos
No one has any idea what’s next… the uncertainty of the business climate in America is frightening, frightening to everybody, and it’s delaying the recovery.
- Stephen Wynn
The strange history of the Baby Boom produced a generation of indefinite optimists so used to effortless progress that they feel entitled to it. Whether you were born in 1945 or 1950 or 1955, things got better every year for the first 18 years of your life, and it had nothing to do with you.
- Peter Thiel
I look at every business and ask, How long can this last? How can I identify the status quo and change it?
- Sheldon Adelson
Competition is a sin.
- John D. Rockefeller
Our goal is very simply to become the desktop for e-businesses.
- Larry Ellison
I am easily satisfied with the very best.
- Winston Churchill
Hold on to that new, enlarge vision of victory that God has given you. Start expecting things to change in your favor. Dare to boldly declare that you are standing strong against the forces of darkness.
- Joel Olsteen
As one’s fortunes are reduced, one spirit must expand to fill the void.
- Winston Churchill
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
There’s always a wine bully. The one person who did read the ‘Wine Spectator,’ who tells you what to drink and why the ’97 is better than the ’98. I want to punch the wine bully in the face. I want to make sure this generation of wine drinkers isn’t elitist and snotty. I want it to be about family and bringing people together.
- Gary Vaynerchuk
My revenue was $4 million my first year in business, off of one $20 item.
- Sara Blakely
Going public today is fraught with peril on many levels. One is earnings guidance. If you miss guidance, the stock price becomes very volatile. Short sellers can put a tremendous downward pressure on the stock.
- Ben Horowitz
Market fundamentalists recognize that the role of the state in the economy is always disruptive, inefficient, and generally has negative connotations. This leads them to believe that the market mechanism can take care of all the problems.
- George Soros
Good relations with the Wookiees, I have.
- Yoda
MAY 31 The Power of Your Words Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruit. PROVERBS 18:21 NASB OUR WORDS have tremendous power and are similar to seeds. By speaking them aloud, they are planted in our subconscious minds, take root, grow, and produce fruit of the same kind. Whether we speak positive or negative words, we will reap exactly what we sow. That’s why we need to be extremely careful what we think and say. The Bible compares the tongue to the small rudder of a huge ship, which controls the ship’s direction (see James 3:4). Similarly, your tongue will control the direction of your life. You create an environment for either good or evil with your words, and if you’re always murmuring, complaining, and talking about how bad life is treating you, you’re going to live in a pretty miserable world. Use your words to change your negative situations and fill them with life.
- Joel Olsteen
A product needs to be sufficiently innovative to distinguish itself from the pack, but not so forward thinking as to alienate the user.
- Reid Hoffman
Shaw once remarked: If you teach a man anything, he will never learn.
- Dale Carnegie
We understand the most important thing we do is market the product…
- Phil Knight
I knew there was a way out. I knew there was another kind of life because I had read about it. I knew there were other places, and there was another way of being.
- Oprah Winfrey
The few who knew what might be learned, Foolish enough to put their whole heart on show, And reveal their feelings to the crowd below, Mankind has always crucified and burned.
- Peter Thiel
The great thing is we’re going to have a lot of new facilities, where the others were 10 years old or older. That’s a plus for the fans. The new State Road 20 is going to open. That’s a huge addition for us, probably one of the biggest things that’s happened since we bought the track in 1990.
- Ed Clark
We cannot continue. Our pension costs and health care costs for our employees are going to bankrupt this city.
- Michael Bloomberg
Art is original. Marcel Duchamp was an artist when he pioneered Dadaism and installed a urinal in a museum. The second person to install a urinal wasn’t an artist, he was a plumber.
- Seth Godin
My father encouraged me to study something I was interested in, not necessarily the basis for a career.
- Michael Balmuth
Do the hard jobs first. The easy jobs will take care of themselves.
- Dale Carnegie
There are two paths people can take. They can either play now and pay later, or pay now and play later. Regardless of the choice, one thing is certain. Life will demand a payment.
- John C. Maxwell
Keep the right perspective Some people would love to have your problems. They would gladly trade places with you. They would love to have the job that frustrates you. They would love to sit in traffic in that car you don’t like. They would love to have your husband, who gets on your nerves. They would love to live in the house you think is too small.
- Joel Olsteen
Confidence is a habit that can be developed by acting as if you already had the confidence you desire to have.
- Brian Tracy
I think there will be 20 years of evolution from linear broadcast to internet television.
- Reed Hastings
Policosanol: 20–25 mg Alpha-lipoic acid: 100–300 mg (I take 300 mg with each meal, but some people experience acid reflux symptoms with more than 100 mg) Green tea flavanols (decaffeinated with at least 325 mg EGCG): 325 mg Garlic extract: 200 mg
- Timothy Ferriss
People in tough times – it doesn’t mean they don’t have a great attitude.
- Joel Olsteen
Nobody is so miserable as he who longs to be somebody and something other than the person he is in body and mind.
- Dale Carnegie
In the Next Society’s corporation, top management will be the company. Everything else can be outsourced.
- Peter Drucker
How you get up in the morning will play a big part in how high you go up in life.
- Zig Ziglar
Chance can allow you to accomplish a goal every once in a while, but consistent achievement happens only if you love what you are doing.
- Bart Conner
Victory is always possible for the person who refuses to stop fighting.
- Napoleon Hill
When marketing put yourself in the shoes of the customer.
- David Novak
It is simply service that measures success.
- George Washington Carver
I always say that the real success of Wine Library wasn’t due to the videos I posted, but to the hours I spent talking to people online afterward, making connections and building relationships.
- Gary Vaynerchuk
Life is 10% of what happens to me and 90% of how I react to it.
- John C. Maxwell
Accept the fact that we have to treat almost anybody as a volunteer.
- Peter Drucker
We found that for leaders to make something great, their ambition has to be for the greatness of the work and the company, rather than for themselves.
- James C. Collins
If you learn from defeat, you haven’t really lost.
- Zig Ziglar
It’s not what you’ve got. It’s what you use that makes a difference.
- Zig Ziglar
What this industry is about is back to the basics in the new Internet economy; and the basics are profitability, cash flow, productivity and market-share gains.
- John Chambers
When two partners always agree, one of them is not necessary. If there is some point you haven’t thought about, be thankful if it is brought to your attention.
- Dale Carnegie
I don’t want people in China to have deep pockets but shallow minds.
- Jack Ma
No matter what you do, your job is to tell your story.
- Gary Vaynerchuk
You will never change what you tolerate.
- Joel Olsteen
t’s better to hang out with people better than you. Pick out associates whose behavior is better than yours and you’ll drift in that direction.
- Warren Buffett
SpaceX has the potential of saving the U.S. government $1 billion a year. We are opposed to creating an entrenched monopoly with no realistic means for anyone to compete.
- Elon Musk
The most common cause of fear of old age is associated with the possibility of poverty.
- Napoleon Hill
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
I have always regarded Paine as one of the greatest of all Americans. Never have we had a sounder intelligence in this republic … It was my good fortune to encounter Thomas Paine’s works in my boyhood … it was, indeed, a revelation to me to read that great thinker’s views on political and theological subjects. Paine educated me, then, about many matters of which I had never before thought. I remember, very vividly, the flash of enlightenment that shone from Paine’s writings, and I recall thinking, at that time, ‘What a pity these works are not today the schoolbooks for all children!’ My interest in Paine was not satisfied by my first reading of his works. I went back to them time and again, just as I have done since my boyhood days.
- Thomas Edison
The austerity policies for the mainland property market will remain intact in 2011.
- Lee Shau Kee
Appreciate everything your associates do for the business.
- Sam Walton
I prefer the old theaters because the audience is… trapped.
- Jerry Seinfeld
If I have seen further it is because I have stood on the shoulders of giants.
- Sir Isaac Newton
When I hung in, he saw character, and that was the end of it. Later, it was funny to watch him hazing other guys the same way – funny after you’d been through the cycle.
- Phil Knight
We must build dikes of courage to hold back the flood of fear.
- Martin Luther King Jr.
Most of my job and most of what I do is to mentor people. There are a lot of people I work with that I don’t have investments in.
- Ben Horowitz
Everything comes to him who hustles while he waits.
- Thomas Edison
After I met my partner, Mr. Protherow, we decided to start a banking project, and at the same time we started to think already about a business on a bigger scale. At the very beginning we thought more about gaining money, to have a normal life with our families, etc.
- Vladimir Potanin
Too often the investment in people stops there.
- Ben Horowitz
The expensive act of planning on late When you’re late, there’s not a lot of room for choice or decision or initiative. When you’re late, the path is well lit, and the choices are clear. Run! Run down the path you’ve run down before. Late is a tool for people unable to find the guts to stand for their acts. Late gives us cover; it permits us to trample forward, without creativity or panache. “Can’t you see I’m late!” we shout, as we do what we have to do, without even pausing to think about what we could do instead. Late might be useful, except that late is incredibly expensive. This strategy, the one we choose so we can avoid the fear of choice, costs us in so many ways. It degrades quality, misses airplanes, charges overtime, and shuts down those around us. It’s also exhausting. The alternative to planning on late is to initiate before it’s required, to ship before deadline, to put the idea out there before the crisis hits. This act of bravery actually gives you influence, leverage, and control in a way that planning on late never can.
- Seth Godin
Top academic institutions are wonderful, but there are unrecognized benefits to not coming out of one. Grads from top schools are funneled into high-income 80-hour-per-week jobs, and 15–30 years of soul-crushing work has been accepted as the default path. How do I know? I’ve been there.
- Timothy Ferriss
[On Twitter] This company is bigger than any individual.
- Jack Dorsey
Too often the strong, silent man is silent only because he does not know what to say, and is reputed strong only because he has remained silent.
- Winston Churchill
The U.S. immigration laws are bad – really, really bad. I’d say treatment of immigrants is one of the greatest injustices done in our government’s name.
- Bill Gates
War grows out of the desire of the individual to gain advantage at the expense of his fellow men.
- Napoleon Hill
Sometimes you may have to trade places with someone who is hurting.
- Joel Olsteen
The ultimate goal for a business owner is to build a company that he or she can one day sell, continue to scale, or even own passively. Most business owners reach for growth by working harder and personally trying to produce more. This is a flawed model that at best will lead to only moderate growth. At worst this strategy can literally put your entire company at risk.
- Jeff Hoffman
To model yourself after Steve Jobs is like, ‘I’d like to paint like Picasso, what should I do? Should I use more red?’
- Larry Ellison
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
