Notable Quotables

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

To all of us comes that moment in life when we are literally tapped on the shoulder to do a very special thing unique to ourselves and our talents. What a pity if that moment finds us unprepared.

- Winston Churchill

Darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that

- Martin Luther King Jr.

I think like a Silicon Valley entrepreneur. Failure is a great teacher. At the same time, you must remember, success will never last… Whether it’s tech or fashion, it must be for the customer.

- Tadashi Yanai

Barring serious accidents, if you are not preoccupied with worry and you work hard, you can look forward to a reasonably lengthy existence…. Its not the hard work that kills, its the worrying that kills.

- Thomas Edison

Most people want to avoid pain, and discipline is usually painful.

- John C. Maxwell

In many places where coffee is grown, deforestation is a major issue. With Starbucks’ position in the marketplace and the respect and relationships we have, we can – and have, in some cases – been able to educate and influence people.

- Howard Schultz

CEOs can talk and blab each day about culture, but the employees all know who the jerks are. They could name the jerks for you. It’s just cultural. People just don’t want to do it.

- Jack Welch

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

I’ve been an entrepreneur since I was 18. I started a company with a bunch of buddies that got funded in my senior year, and that’s when I finished school. It was called Scour, a peer-to-peer service, file-sharing.

- Travis Kalanick

In the face of challenging economic and market conditions of the past 12 months, our diversified portfolio of multiple earnings streams has served us well.

- Cheng Yu-tung

I don’t think culture is something you can describe.

- Bill Gates

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

From the economic slowdown after the financial crisis in 1997 through the economic boom in 2007, the motherland has been supporting Hong Kong in recovering from adversity; on the other hand, Hong Kong has been actively cooperating with the motherland in going international.

- Cheng Yu-tung

Stepping back from almost any situation with an underperformer, it’s always easy to see the solution. They need to move on—sooner rather than later. Up close, however, organizations tend to draw out departures, as people fret about the employee’s emotional reaction to being let go. Oftentimes, managers feel guilty about putting a friend out of work, or remorseful they didn’t give candid enough feedback along the way, or both.

- Jack Welch

We sold ‘Seinfeld’ all over the world but it was a very specific kind of show. In some countries it went down really well, in others they hated it.

- Jerry Seinfeld

You have to come up with what the consumer wants, and you need a vehicle to understand it.

- Phil Knight

We are currently not planning on conquering the world.

- Sergey Brin

Extraordinary benefits accrue to the tiny minority of people who are able to push just a tiny bit longer than most.

- Seth Godin

Continuous effort – not strength or intelligence – is the key to unlocking our potential.

- Winston Churchill

Think about what people are doing on Facebook today. They’re keeping up with their friends and family, but they’re also building an image and identity for themselves, which in a sense is their brand. They’re connecting with the audience that they want to connect to. It’s almost a disadvantage if you’re not on it now.

- Mark Zuckerberg

The problem with pity parties is very few people come, and those who do don’t bring presents.

- Zig Ziglar

Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.

- Samuel Beckett

We teach every young person the same subjects in mostly the same ways, irrespective.

- Peter Thiel

Since Henry Ford. It is changing the way every idea is handled, every product is created, every person interacts. It’s not going to be willing to make a detour around your gig, it’s not going to be interested in giving you a permanent sinecure. No, the revolution doesn’t care.

- Seth Godin

Remember that failure is an event, not a person.

- Zig Ziglar

Even today few businessmen understand that research, to be productive, has to be the “disorganizer,” the creator of a different future and the enemy of today. In most industrial laboratories, “defensive research” aimed at perpetuating today, predominates.

- Peter Drucker

I’ve found that luck is quite predictable. If you want more luck, take more chances. Be more active. Show up more often.

- Brian Tracy

[In February 2011 on Square.] Starting a startup after twitter is so much easier than before.

- Jack Dorsey

Did you eat half an Oreo cookie? No problem. If you’re a 220-pound male, you just need to climb 27 flights of stairs to burn it off.

- Timothy Ferriss

What I love about New York is just the electricity I feel right away.

- Jack Dorsey

The smartest business decision you can make is to hire qualified people. Bringing the right people on board saves you thousands, and your business will run smoothly and efficiently.

- Brian Tracy

Don’t be afraid to give your best to what seemingly are small jobs. Every time you conquer one it makes you that much stronger. If you do the little jobs well, the big ones will tend to take care of themselves.

- Dale Carnegie

If GM had kept up with technology like the computer industry has, we would all be driving $25 cars that got 1,000 MPG.

- Bill Gates

If your business is not a brand, it is just a commodity.

- Donald Trump

The man who does more than he is paid for will soon be paid for more than he does.

- Napoleon Hill

Rockefeller never clarified why he dropped out of high school around May 1855, just 2 months shy of commencement, excercises on July 16…

- Ron Chernow

That’s the hard thing about hard things—there is no formula for dealing with them.

- Ben Horowitz

What I mean is that none of my talents had a – what’s that great word – rubric. A singer, an actor, a dancer – there was nothing I could really say I was. The writing came much later. And, actually, thank God, because if I had said I’m a singer, I would really have just had one thing to do.

- Steve Martin

Without promotion, something terrible happens… nothing!

- P.T. Barnum

In terms of mathematics textbooks, why can’t you have the scale of a national market? Right now, we have a Texas textbook that’s different from a California textbook that’s different from a Massachusetts textbook. That’s very expensive.

- Bill Gates

Exercise is better than any medicine I can take, exercise and sleep.

- Aliko Dangote

The key to realizing a dream is to focus not on success but significance – and then even the small steps and little victories along your path will take on greater meaning.

- Oprah Winfrey

We want to build technology that everybody loves using, and that affects everyone. We want to create beautiful, intuitive services and technologies that are so incredibly useful that people use them twice a day. Like they use a toothbrush. There aren’t that many things people use twice a day.

- Larry Page

What we learn from history is that people don’t learn from history.

- Warren Buffett

Good habits are as addictive as bad habits, and a lot more rewarding.

- Harvey Mackay

So much of what we call management consists of making it difficult for people to work.

- Peter Drucker

So if you aspire to be a good conversationalist, be an attentive listener. To be interesting, be interested.

- Dale Carnegie

My favorite writers are all Jews – David, Solomon, Matthew, Mark – well, you get the picture.

- Zig Ziglar

In absorbing companies, Rockefeller was secretive and asked them to continue operating under their original names and not divulge their Standard Oil Ownership. They were instructed to retain their original stationary, keep secret accounts, and not allude on paper to their Cleveland connection.

- Ron Chernow

Don’t worry about failure, you only have to be right once.

- Drew Houston

Men of genius are admired, men of wealth are envied, men of power are feared, but only men of character are trusted.

- Zig Ziglar

The challenge is to focus on the work, not on the fear that comes from doing the work.

- Seth Godin

My best friend is the one who brings out the best in me.

- Henry Ford

I don’t know what a monopoly is until somebody tells me.

- Steve Ballmer

It was really an easy decision for me to be a part of the Lakers. It’s priceless. It is one of the few places where I truly get lost in the joy of the moment of that game. All of the stresses and all the responsibilities are gone.

- Patrick Soon-Shiong

Our people, our shareholders, me, Bill Gates, we expect to change the world in every way, to succeed wildly at everything we touch, to have the broadest impact of any company in the world.

- Steve Ballmer

American democracy is spoiled by people buying everything in sight and then selling and buying everything in sight, including our politicians.

- Russell Simmons

Momentum is a little fragile, and when people got excited before, they were disappointed, … But this is the most positive guidance we’ve given in eight quarters, going into a seasonally challenging quarter.

- John Chambers

No man ever achieved worthwhile success who did not, at one time or other, find himself with at least one foot hanging well over the brink of failure.

- Napoleon Hill

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

- Donald Bren

This Sunday School has been of help to me, greater perhaps than any other force in my Christian life, and I can ask no better things for you than that you, and all that shall come after you in this great band of workers for Christ, shall receive the same measure of blessedness which I have been permitted to have.

- John D. Rockefeller

When it comes to Starbucks, I take every threat very personally.

- Howard Schultz

The kind of environment that we developed Google in, the reason that we were able to develop a search engine, is the web was so open. Once you get too many rules, that will stifle innovation.

- Sergey Brin

There is only one thing worse than fighting with allies, and that is fighting without them.

- Winston Churchill

With a population of more than 600 million people, an emerging middle class that is driving strong consumption, and a robust and resilient economy, Southeast Asia presents a compelling growth opportunity for Starbucks.

- Howard Schultz

Leading, not following We’ve been trained to follow. In fact, the very nature of training has following built right into it. We follow instructions. We follow the rules. We follow the leader. The challenge in a six-billion person world is that we don’t have a shortage of followers. Followers are easy to find, and the tools for compliance are more powerful (but less useful) than ever. Now the economy is demanding leaders. Human beings who can engage in what it really means to be a person—to forge connections, to see a path and to make a difference.

- Seth Godin

Post-9/11, we saw an immediate uptick in the amount of people in our stores, all over the country. People wanted that human connection. We are not going to fracture the Starbucks experience.

- Howard Schultz

Strange as it sounds, great leaders gain authority by giving it away.

- Napoleon Hill

But entrepreneurs should take cultures of extreme dedication seriously.

- Peter Thiel

…People have lived before you. You’re not the first person to dream big, so you’d be wise to study what others have learned first and then build you actions on the backs of their lessons.

- Gary Keller

I’d learned enough about circuitry in high school electronics to know how to drive a TV and get it to draw – shapes of characters and things.

- Steve Wozniak

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

As we said, even the best venture investors have a portfolio, but investors who understand the power law make as few investments as possible.

- Peter Thiel

[In June 2011] We’re focused on building a product and a business. Going public is an instrument and tool to help sustain the company. In the future, there may be an IPO, but I don’t know what the timing is.

- Jack Dorsey

The problem in my life and other people’s lives is not the absence of knowing what to do but the absence of doing it.

- Peter Drucker

The trouble with the rat race is that even if you win — you’re still a rat.

- Lily Tomlin

My wife and I tried two or three times in the last 40 years to have breakfast together, but it was so disagreeable we had to stop.

- Winston Churchill

Discrimination has a lot of layers that make it tough for minorities to get a leg up.

- Bill Gates

The thing about hip-hop is that it’s from the underground, ideas from the underbelly, from people who have mostly been locked out, who have not been recognized.

- Russell Simmons

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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