Politeness and civility are the best capital ever invested in business. Large stores, gilt signs, flaming advertisements, will all prove unavailing if you or your employees treat your patrons abruptly. The truth is, the more kind and liberal a man is, the more generous will be the patronage bestowed upon him.
- P.T. Barnum
Notable Quotables
You have not lived today until you have done something for someone who cannot pay you back. Make a decision that you will live to give. Be on the lookout each day for somebody you can bless. Don’t’ live for yourself; learn to give yourself away, and your life will make a difference.
- John Bunyan
The act of creation is singular, as is the moment of creation, and the result is something fresh and strange.
- Peter Thiel
Occasionally he stumbled over the truth, but hastily picked himself up and hurried on as if nothing had happened.
- Winston Churchill
Outside of your relationship with God, the most important relationship you can have is with yourself. I don’t mean that we are to spend all our time focused on me, me, me to the exclusion of others. Instead, I mean that we must be healthy internally—emotionally and spiritually—in order to create healthy relationships with others. Motivational pep talks and techniques for achieving success are useless if a person is weighed down by guilt, shame, depression, rejection, bitterness, or crushed self-esteem. Countless marriages land on the rocks of divorce because unhealthy people marry thinking that marriage, or their spouse, will make them whole. Wrong. If you’re not a healthy single person you won’t be a healthy married person. Part of God’s purpose for every human life is wholeness and health. I love the words of Jesus in John 10:10: “I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.” God knows we are the walking wounded in this world and He wants the opportunity to remove everything that limits us and heal every wound from which we suffer. Some wonder why God doesn’t just “fix” us automatically so we can get on with life. It’s because He wants our wounds to be our tutors to lead us to Him. Pain is a wonderful motivator and teacher! When the great Russian intellectual Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn was released from the horrible Siberian work camp to which he was sent by Joseph Stalin, he said, “Thank you, prison!” It was the pain and suffering he endured that caused his eyes to be opened to the reality of the God of his childhood, to embrace his God anew in a personal way. When we are able to say thank you to the pain we have endured, we know we are ready to fulfill our purpose in life. When we resist the pain life brings us, all of our energy goes into resistance and we have none left for the pursuit of our purpose. It is the better part of wisdom to let pain do its work and shape us as it will. We will be wiser, deeper, and more productive in the long run. There is a great promise in the New Testament that says God comes to us to comfort us so we can turn around and comfort those who are hurting with the comfort we have received from Him (see 2 Corinthians 1:3–4). Make yourself available to God and to those who suffer. A large part of our own healing comes when we reach out with compassion to others.
- Zig Ziglar
He had all the attributes of a perfect man, and, in my opinion, no finer personality ever existed.
- Thomas Edison
As you stumble and learn, stumble and learn again, resolve to talk to yourself as if you were your best friend. So no What a #?%$@ idiot! when your BFF smashes an egg on the floor, m’kay? Be cool, like the Fonz.
- Timothy Ferriss
The past is prophetic in that it asserts loudly that wars are poor chisels for carving out peaceful tomorrows.
- Martin Luther King Jr.
The moral arc of the universe bends at the elbow of justice.
- Martin Luther King Jr.
Marc: “Do you know the best thing about startups?” Ben: “What?” Marc: “You only ever experience two emotions: euphoria and terror. And I find that lack of sleep enhances them both.”
- Ben Horowitz
The pessimist complains about the wind. The optimist expects it to change. The leader adjusts the sails.
- John C. Maxwell
The Mastermind principle consists of an alliance of two or more minds working in perfect harmony for the attainment of a common definite objective. Success does not come without the cooperation of others.
- Napoleon Hill
The era of procrastination, of half-measures, of soothing and baffling expedients, of delays is coming to its close. In its place we are entering a period of consequences.
- Winston Churchill
I forgive all personal weaknesses except egomania and pretension.
- Herb Kelleher
Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it.
- Steve Jobs
Legacy is a stupid thing! I don’t want a legacy.
- 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
The hottest place in Hell is reserved for those who remain neutral in times of great moral conflict.
- Martin Luther King Jr.
Americans believe cotton is best, but we’ve invented new fabrics that will change your lifestyle.
- Tadashi Yanai
I don’t want to use my creative energy on somebody else’s user interface.
- Jeff Bezos
The evidence is inarguable that Australia is becoming too expensive and too uncompetitive to do export-oriented business. Africans want to work, and its workers are willing to work for less than $2 per day. Such statistics make me worry for this country’s future. We are becoming a high-cost and high-risk nation for investment.
- Gina Rinehart
Never allow anyone to get between you and your customers and suppliers.
- Jack Welch
You will either look back in life and say, I wish I had, or, I’m glad I did.
- Zig Ziglar
There may be times when you just have to love people from a distance.
- Joel Olsteen
When men are fighting for their lives they are not often disposed to be complimentary to those who are trying to kill them.
- Winston Churchill
This is a learning in the business life that first of all you need to have commitment, dedication and passion for what you are doing.
- Lakshmi Mittal
Strength and growth come only through continuous effort and struggle…
- Napoleon Hill
have a place where everyone matters
- Lee Cockerell
I try to use my voice. I know that celebrity is valuable, and people do listen.
- Russell Simmons
We have to innovate for a specific reason, and that reason comes from the market. Otherwise, we’ll end up making museum pieces.
- Phil Knight
When you marry operating excellence with innovation, you multiply the value of your creativity.
- James C. Collins
Socialism is the philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy.
- Winston Churchill
If you spend money on what you want, you’ll beg for what you need.
- T.D Jakes
Given the uncertainty going into the Y2K quarter, we are very pleased with our quarterly results.
- John Chambers
If you treat the future as something definite, it makes sense to understand it in advance and to work to shape it.
- Peter Thiel
In all the difficult decisions that I made through the course of running Loudcloud and Opsware, I never once felt brave. In fact, I often felt scared to death. I never lost those feelings, but after much practice, I learned to ignore them. That learning process might also be called the courage development process.
- Ben Horowitz
The most important rule of raising money privately: Look for a market of one. You only need one investor to say yes, so it’s best to ignore the other thirty who say “no.”
- Ben Horowitz
When it call comes down to it, nothing trumps execution.
- Gary Vaynerchuk
Good product managers crisply define the target, the “what” (as opposed to the “how”), and manage the delivery of the “what.” Bad product managers feel best about themselves when they figure out “how.” Good product managers communicate crisply to engineering in writing as well as verbally. Good product managers don’t give direction informally. Good product managers gather information informally.
- Ben Horowitz
Gratitude is the healthiest of all human emotions. The more you express gratitude for what you have, the more likely you will have even more to express gratitude for.
- Zig Ziglar
We decided that instead of avoiding our competitors, or waiting for them to come to us, we would meet them head-on. It was one of the smartest strategic decisions we ever made. In fact, if our story doesn’t prove anything else about the free market system, it erases any doubt that spirited competition is good for business – not just for customers, but the companies which have to compete with one another too. Our competitors have honed and sharpened us to an edge we wouldn’t have with out them. We wouldn’t be nearly as good as we are today without Kmart, and I think they would admit we’ve made them a better retailer. One reason Sears fell so far off the pace is that they wouldn’t admit for the longest time that Wal-Mart and Kmart were their real competition. They ignored both of us, and we both blew right by them.
- Sam Walton
Personal discipline, when it becomes a way of life in our personal, family, and career lives, will enable us to do some incredible things.
- Zig Ziglar
We were trading things before we were using language to communicate.
- Jack Dorsey
Economic recovery in the United States has been taking place at a slow pace at a time of uncertainty in the Middle East. However, Mainland China was able to show steady sustained growth. Hong Kong, being right at the southern gateway of Mainland China, is able to benefit from its growth.
- Lee Shau Kee
The average occupancy rate of the core investment properties of the group was maintained at a high level of 96%.
- Lee Shau Kee
Without the computer, Sam Walton could not have done what he’s done. HE could not have built it. He’s done a lot of other things right too, but he could have done it without the computer,. It would have been possible.
- Abe Marks
Lack of Controlled Sexual Urge.
- Napoleon Hill
Everyone has his day and some days last longer than others.
- Winston Churchill
These are not dark days: these are great days – the greatest days our country has ever lived.
- Winston Churchill
Your first projects aren’t the greatest things in the world, and they may have no money value, they may go nowhere, but that is how you learn – you put so much effort into making something right if it is for yourself.
- Steve Wozniak
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.
Most entrepreneurs are merely technicians with an entrepreneurial seizure. Most entrepreneurs fail because you are working IN your business rather than ON your business.
- Michael Gerber
If you don’t believe in your product, or if you’re not consistent and regular in the way you promote it, the odds of succeeding go way down. The primary function of the marketing plan is to ensure that you have the resources and the where withal to do what it takes to make your product work.
- Jay Conrad Levinson
I believe that the biggest problem that humanity faces is an ego sensitivity to finding out whether one is right or wrong and identifying what one’s strengths and weaknesses are.
- Ray Dalio
Humans are distinguished from other species by our ability to work miracles. We call these miracles technology.
- Peter Thiel
Kids instinctively know – although they will argue to the contrary – that they really are not mature enough to make good decisions on some important issues.
- Zig Ziglar
I DECLARE Ephesians 3:20 over my life. God will do exceedingly, abundantly above all that I ask or think. Because I honor Him, His blessings will chase me down and overtake me. I will be in the right place at the right time. People will go out of their way to be good to me. I am surrounded by God’s favor. This is my declaration.
- Joel Olsteen
If you do not see yourself as a winner, you cannot perform as a winner.
- Zig Ziglar
In life, everybody faces choices between doing what’s popular, easy, and wrong vs. doing what’s lonely, difficult, and right. These decisions intensify when you run a company, because the consequences get magnified 1,000 fold. As in life, the excuses for CEOs making the wrong choice are always plentiful.
- Ben Horowitz
There’s this great quote…which says ‘The future has already arrived. It’s just not evenly distributed yet.’
- Jack Dorsey
Life is fraught with opportunities to keep your mouth shut.
- Winston Churchill
The better at communicating you are, and the more people you communicate to, the better your cash flow will be.
- Robert Kiyosaki
Plant a seed of greatness in your children. Speak a word of encourgement to someone who needs to hear it. Inspire someone to be a better person. One day you’ll reap a harvest, and your world will become a better place to live.
- George Foreman
Benjamin Franklin, tactless in his youth, became so diplomatic, so adroit at handling people, that he was made American Ambassador to France. The secret of his success? I will speak ill of no man,” he said, … and speak all the good I know of everybody.
- Dale Carnegie
by breakthrough, broken into three broad stages: disciplined people, disciplined thought, and disciplined.
- James C. Collins
I would like to die on Mars. Just not on impact.
- Elon Musk
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been.
- Wayne Gretzky
When you give up yourself, that’s when you will feel the true spirit of Christmas. And that’s giving that’s serving others and that’s when you feel fulfilled.
- Joel Olsteen
In war, you can only be killed once, but in politics, many times.
- Winston Churchill
Superstition of Prejudice.
- Napoleon Hill
Litigation is the basic legal right which guarantees every corporation its decade in court.
- David Porter
I like definitive things.
- Jerry Seinfeld
Discrimination has a lot of layers that make it tough for minorities to get a leg up.
- Bill Gates
Make no mistake about why these babies are here – they are here to replace us.
- Jerry Seinfeld
I think my greatest moment in business was when the first Southwest airplane arrived after four years of litigation, and I walked up to it and I kissed that baby on the lips and I cried.
- Herb Kelleher
Wartime CEO is too busy fighting the enemy to read management books written by consultants who have never managed a fruit stand.
- Ben Horowitz
Happens to every guy sometimes this does.
- Yoda
The ideal thing would be to have a 100 percent effective AIDS vaccine. And to have broad usage of that vaccine. That would literally break the epidemic.
- Bill Gates
Failures are life’s way of nudging you and letting you know you are off course. Trying new things and not being afraid to fail along the way are more important than what you learn in school.
- Sara Blakely
We’ve been trained to prefer being right to learning something, to prefer passing the test to making a difference, and most of all, to prefer fitting in with the right people, the people with economic power. Now it’s your turn to stand up and stand out.
- Seth Godin
I’m personally a moderate and a registered independent, so I’m not strongly Democratic or strongly Republican.
- Elon Musk
I’d always try to remind managers at every level that they had to share my passion for developing people.
- Jack Welch
Blue Ribbon Sports of Portland, Oregon. Sorry I’m all out of cards. Boy, does your country ever eat up business cards.
- Phil Knight
I have no sense of nostalgia. Tomorrow is what interests me.
- Francois Pinault
Make a point to continually search for a better way of doing things, even when things are going well, to ensure that a better alternative has not been overlooked and to keep your creative talents in practice.
- John C. Maxwell
Who you are, is who you attract.
- John Maxwell
Rockefeller’s supreme insight was that he could solve the oil industry’s problems by solving the railroad’s problems at the same time, creating a double cartel in oil and rails. One of Rockefeller’s strength in bargaining situations was that he figured out what he wanted and what the other party wanted and then crafted mutually advanteous terms. Instead of ruining the railroads, Rockefeller tried to help them prosper, albeit in away that fortified his own position.
- Ron Chernow
Entrepreneurs are always biased to understate the scale of competition, but that is the biggest mistake a startup can make.
- Peter Thiel
The secret of his success? I will speak ill of no man, and speak all the good I know of everybody.
- Dale Carnegie
Great bosses and world-class organizations hire motivated people, set high expectations, and give their people room to become remarkable.
- Seth Godin
I think Twitter is best when it sparks conversations elsewhere. To use YouTube and Facebook and all the tools we have available to us today to respond and also promote and answer and engage is awesome.
- Jack Dorsey
Don’t try to create a new market prematurely. The only way to know you have a real business is to start with an already existing customer, so you should build your company by improving on recognizable products already offered by successful competitors.
- Peter Thiel
It is alarming and also nauseating to see Mr. Gandhi, an Inner Temple lawyer, now become a seditious fakir of a type well known in the East, striding half-naked up the steps of the Viceregal Palace, while he is still organizing and conducting a defiant campaign of civil disobedience, to parley on equal terms with the representative of the King-Emperor.
- Winston Churchill
Always do your best. What you plant now, you will harvest later.
- Og Mandino
As we advance in life we learn the limits of our abilities.
- Henry Ford
That’s why encouragement is a much more effective teaching device than punishment.
- Dale Carnegie
I cut the feet off of a pair of panty hose and it allowed me to wear a pair of great strappy sandals. I didn’t see lines but the hose rolled up at my feet – and that’s how Spanx born.
- Sara Blakely
Self-centered leaders manipulate when they move people for personal benefit. Mature leaders motivate by moving people for mutual benefit.
- John C. Maxwell
Most people want to avoid pain, and discipline is usually painful.
- John C. Maxwell
How to walk to Cleveland Shipping is an event. There’s life before you ship and then there’s the moment you ship. And then there’s life after you ship. 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 heading toward Cleveland. Keep starting until you finish.
- Seth Godin
