An artist is someone who uses bravery, insight, creativity, and boldness to challenge the status quo. And an artist takes it personally.
- Seth Godin
Notable Quotables
You may not realize initially how many other opportunities are wrapped up inside the first one. After you go through the first door, you’ll then discover more doors automatically opening behind that one. One door leads you to another door, which leads to another door, and so one. It’s like ten other boxes packed inside one box. The initial door that God opens is your access to more opportunities. But you must be willing to walk through the first one to get to the other good things God has for you.
- George Foreman
One way to become creative is to discipline yourself to generate bad ideas. The worse the better. Do it a lot and magically you’ll discover that good ones slip through.
- Seth Godin
Marketing knits the whole organization together.
- Phil Knight
The belief that the world is getting worse, that we can’t solve extreme poverty and disease, isn’t just mistaken. It is harmful.
- Bill Gates
Concentrate your energies, your thoughts and your capital. The wise man puts all his eggs in one basket and watches the basket.
- Andrew Carnegie
Extraordinary benefits also accrue to the tiny majority with the guts to quit early and refocus their efforts on something new.
- Seth Godin
This describes Americans today. In middle school, we’re encouraged to start hoarding “extracurricular activities.” In high school, ambitious students compete even harder to appear omnicompetent. By the time a student gets to college, he’s spent a decade curating a bewilderingly diverse résumé to prepare for a completely unknowable future. Come what may, he’s ready—for nothing in particular.
- Peter Thiel
Disruption is like an earthquake. Disruption has no purpose. It has not values. It has no organizing principle. It has no direction and it has no leadership… This is not what we want to bring into the world. What we want to bring into the world is revolution.
- Jack Dorsey
Don’t fight change; embrace it, and you will step into the fullness of what God has in store.
- Joel Olsteen
There is always plenty of capital for those who can create practical plans for using it.
- Napoleon Hill
While we remain cautious about the implications of a brief pause in the current 10-year expansion of the U.S. economy, we believe that Cisco has never been better positioned to help our customers solve their two most important business issues: Increasing productivity and creating new sources of revenue.
- John Chambers
There’s no mystery in business success. If you do each day’s task successfully and stay faithfully within these natural operations of commercial laws which I talk so much about and keep your head clear, you will come out all right.
- John D. Rockefeller
Teaching Fire a LessonFire is hot. That’s what it does. If you get burned by fire, you can be annoyed at yourself, but being angry at fire doesn’t do you much good. And trying to teach the fire a lesson so it won’t be hot next time is certainly not time well spent.Our inclination is to give fire a pass, because it’s not human. But human beings are similar, in that they’re not going to change any time soon either.
- Seth Godin
If you treat your wife like a thoroughbred, you’ll never end up with a nag.
- Zig Ziglar
We certainly employ a lot of immigrants at Fox… and we do not take any consistent anti-immigrant line.
- Rupert Murdoch
I fell in love with flora of all types, especially ferns. Loved the sparse structure and repetition of shape – almost fractal.
- Jack Dorsey
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
I had been trained by him. I knew him. I loved him. I simply never took it personally. If I had anything to say about it, he was not going to leave.
- Phil Knight
She said, ‘My family is OK, John, but we lost everything.
- John Chambers
In order to sell a product or a service, a company must establish a relationship with the consumer. It must build trust and rapport. It must understand the customer’s needs, and it must provide a product that delivers the promised benefits.
- Jay Conrad Levinson
Two things about Sam Walton distinguish him from almost everyone else I know. First he gets up everyday bound and determined to improve something. Second, he is less afraid of being wrong than anyone I’ve ever know. And once he sees he’s wrong, he just shakes it off and heads in another direction. (qualities of great leaders)
- David Glass
It’s the little things that are vital. Little things make big things happen.
- John Wooden
I don’t create companies for the sake of creating companies, but to get things done.
- Elon Musk
In view of the good progress made in respect of negotiations relating to Mainland China’s entry to the World Trade Organisation and the boost in local economic activities deriving from the emergence of the new economy, a great number of technology-related and international institutions have established and expanded their businesses in Hong Kong, bringing about substantial increases both in rentals as well as capital values for prime office properties and luxury residential properties.
- Lee Shau Kee
The thing that we are trying to do at facebook, is just help people connect and communicate more efficiently.
- Mark Zuckerberg
One of the great things about Lanai is that the weather is always fabulous. Always 82 degrees and sunny. The problem is that, like California now, Lanai needs more water.
- Larry Ellison
As I grow older, I pay less attention to what men say. I just watch what they do.
- Andrew Carnegie
If the human race wishes to have a prolonged and indefinite period of material prosperity, they have only got to behave in a peaceful and helpful way toward one another.
- Winston Churchill
Steve really took over the project when I had a plane crash and wasn’t there. He took over the project, and it was really my own opinion — only my opinion — that he wanted to compete with the Lisa group that had kicked him out.
- Steve Wozniak
It’s not an experiment if you know it’s going to work.
- Jeff Bezos
Any time is a good time to start a company.
- Ron Conway
Every adversity has the seed of an equivalent or greater benefit
- Napoleon Hill
Winners never quit and quitters never win.
- Vince Lombardi
The Benefits are about the Buyer’s stuff – what your products or services do for Buyers. Do the Benefits make them feel better about life – give them power; make them sexier, prettier, richer, more comfortable or secure, smarter, more competitive? Do they save time, money, fear or hassle?
- Jerry Vass
The job is what you do when you are told what to do. The job is showing up at the factory, following instructions, meeting spec, and being managed.Someone can always do your job a little better or faster or cheaper than you can.The job might be difficult, it might require skill, but it’s a job.Your art is what you do when no one can tell you exactly how to do it. Your art is the act of taking personal responsibility, challenging the status quo, and changing people.I call the process of doing your art ‘the work.’ It’s possible to have a job and do the work, too. In fact, that’s how you become a linchpin.The job is not the work.
- Seth Godin
One of the great things about building a tech company is the amazing people that you can hire.
- Ben Horowitz
When you allow what someone says or does to upset you, you’re allowing that person to control you.
- Joel Olsteen
-Gardens, not buildings–Great projects start out feeling like buildings. There are architects, materials, staff, rigid timelines, permits, engineers, a structure.It works or it doesn’t.Build something that doesn’t fall down. On time.But in fact, great projects, like great careers and relationships that last, are gardens. They are tended, they shift, they grow. They endure over time, gaining a personality and reflecting their environment. When something dies or fades away, we prune, replant and grow again.Perfection and polish aren’t nearly as important as good light, good drainage and a passionate gardener.By all means, build. But don’t finish. Don’t walk away.Here we grow.
- Seth Godin
In the next decade, I see Spanx going worldwide. Everywhere. No butt left behind. It’s going to be all over the world and it’s going to be an aspirational brand that transcends categories. There’s so many things we can improve upon and make better.
- Sara Blakely
We all must recognize that homeland security funds should be allocated by threat and no other reason.
- Michael Bloomberg
Market the change; be bold. Remember don’t be a bad ad, be a good one.
- David Novak
If you spend your time, worth $20-25 per hour, doing something that someone else will do for $10 per hour, it’s simply a poor use of resources.
- Timothy Ferriss
Don’t Walter Cronkite me!
- Jack Welch
Don’t simply settle for what your parents had. You can go further than that. You can do more, have more, be more.
- Joel Olsteen
How much has it been your experience that Americans follow what happens in the world?
- Reed Hastings
General and undifferentiated pitches don’t say anything about why a recruit should join your company instead of many others.
- Peter Thiel
A remarkable and definite victory. The bright gleam has caught the helmets of our soldiers and warmed and cheered all our hearts.
- Winston Churchill
Only engage in mutually beneficial relationships.
- Clay Clark
China’s movie industry is growing a lot faster than that of the U.S.
- Wang Jianlin
You have to come to your closed doors before you get to your open doors… What if you knew you had to go through 32 closed doors before you got to your open door? Well, then you’d come to closed door number eight and you’d think, ‘Great, I got another one out of the way’… Keep moving forward.
- Joel Olsteen
You cannot consistently perform in a manner which is inconsistent with the way you see yourself.
- Zig Ziglar
You need editors, not brand managers,who will push the envelope to make [a brand media property] go forward.
- Seth Godin
A great business is seldom if ever built up, except on lines of the strictest integrity. A reputation for cuteness and sharp dealing is fatal in great affairs. Not the letter of the law, but the spirit, must be the rule. The standard of commercial morality is now very high. A mistake made by any one in favor of the firm is corrected as promptly as if the error were in favor of the other party. It is essential to permanent success that a house should obtain a reputation for being governed by what is fair rather that what is merely legal. A rule which is adpoted and adhered to has given greater returns than one would believe possible, namely; always give the other party the benefit of the doubt. This course does not apply to the speculative class (the stock market). An entirely different atmosphere pervades that world. Men are only gamblers there. Stock gambling and honorable business are incompatible. In recent years it must be admitted that the old fashioned banker, like Julius S. Morgan of London has become rare.
- Andrew Carnegie
Every sale has 5 basic obstacles: need, money, hurry, desire, trust.
- Zig Ziglar
Ill Health (though not taking care of one’s body).
- Napoleon Hill
The only thing we know about the future is that it will be different.
- Peter Drucker
Wonder what your customer really wants? Ask. Don’t tell.
- Lisa Stone
It’s not the situation, but whether we react negative or respond positive to the situation that is important.
- Zig Ziglar
The secret of being wrong isn’t to avoid being wrong! The secret is being willing to be wrong. The secret is realizing that wrong isn’t fatal. The only thing that makes people and organizations great is their willingness to be not great along the way. The desire to fail on the way to reaching a bigger goal is the untold secret of success.
- Seth Godin
Some great people are leaders and others are more lucky, in the right place at the right time. I’d put myself in the latter category. But I’d never call myself a normal designer of anything.
- Steve Wozniak
Great business is defined by its ability to generate cash flows in the future.
- Peter Thiel
You need to ask yourself, “If our company isn’t good enough to win, then do we need to exist at all?
- Ben Horowitz
Connectors understand the necessity of creating value for others. If you want to be in the middle of the action, you must seek ways to enhance the lives of those surrounding you. The best connectors I know are extremely generous with introductions where they make sense. One of my favorite questions is, What are you most excited about right now? From that answer, I know who I can hook that person up with.
- Forbes
Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will.
- Mahatma Gandhi
At the end of the day, the Irvine Co. is slowly being transformed. Our long-term goal is to transform what was once an agricultural company to a development company, and to that, the next, final step is to create a large real estate investment company.
- Donald Bren
When you try to do something big its hard to fail completely.
- Timothy Ferriss
We must not let our standards be determined by the gentlemen of the oposition.
- Winston Churchill
We always live in an uncertain world. What is certain is that the United States will go forward over time.
- Warren Buffett
Gas consumption is growing everywhere.
- Vagit Alekperov
No one lives long enough to learn everything they need to learn starting from scratch. To be successful, we absolutely, positively have to find people who have already paid the price to learn the things that we need to learn to achieve our goals.
- Brian Tracy
Faith is taking the first step even when you don’t see the whole staircase.
- Martin Luther King Jr.
So if you aspire to be a good conversationalist, be an attentive listener. To be interesting, be interested.
- Dale Carnegie
If you say you want to automate cars and save people’s lives, the skills you need for that aren’t taught in any particular discipline. I know – I was interested in working on automating cars when I was a Ph.D. student in 1995.
- Larry Page
I believe God gives you the grace to do what you need to do.
- Joel Olsteen
Poisonous people do not deserve your time. To think otherwise is masochistic. The best way to approach a potential break is simple: Confide in them honestly but tactfully and explain your concerns. If they bite back, your conclusions have been confirmed. Drop them like any other bad habit. If they promise to change, first spend at least two weeks apart to develop other positive influences in your life and diminish psychological dependency. The next trial period should have a set duration and consist of pass-or-fail criteria. If this approach is too confrontational for you, just politely refuse to interact with them. Be in the middle of something when the call comes, and have a prior commitment when the invitation to hang out comes. Once you see the benefits of decreased time with these people, it will be easier to stop communication altogether.
- Timothy Ferriss
Be happy with who God made you to be, and quit wishing you were something different.
- Joel Olsteen
Art isn’t only a painting; it’s anything that changes someone for the better, any nonanonymous interaction that leads to a human (not simply a commercial) conclusion.
- Seth Godin
I always wanted to find oil. It was always an irresistible calling.
- Harold Hamm
When your head of sales interviews for her next job, she won’t want to say that despite the fact that she ran a global sales force with hundreds of employees, her title was “Dude.”
- Ben Horowitz
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
I am concerned about any attrition in customer traffic at Starbucks, but I don’t want to use the economy, commodity prices or consumer confidence as an excuse. We must maintain a value proposition to our customers as well as differentiate the Starbucks Experience. That is the key.
- Howard Schultz
When you were made a leader you weren’t given a crown, you were given the responsibility to bring out the best in others.
- Jack Welch
It’s not enough to use information for something”—it needs to be immediate and important.
- Timothy Ferriss
Put all of your eggs in one basket, watch that basket.
- Andrew Carnegie
Never be bothered by what people say, as long as you know in your heart you are right.
- Dale Carnegie
Then he fell on his knees and cried out, Lord do not hold this sin against them. When he said this, he fell asleep (he died).
- Acts 7:60
We’ll see how that evolves. Obviously, it doesn’t mean we’ll just be willing to do anything that’s requested of us.
- Sergey Brin
Every twenty-four hours God has a fresh new supply of grace, of favor, of wisdom, of forgiveness.
- Joel Olsteen
It’s a lot cheaper to be a pirate than a pioneer.
- Tim Redmond
The first thing the secretary types is the boss.
- Donald Trump
Humor is the great thing, the saving thing. The minute it crops up, all our irritations and resentments slip away, and a sunny spirit takes their place.
- Mark Twain
We have a big opportunity in China. We think the number of stores here can rival the number in North America.
- Howard Schultz
People everywhere love Windows.
- Bill Gates
Pretty much everything will come to him who hustles while he waits. I believe that restlessness is discontent, and discontent is merely the first necessity of progress. Show me a thoroughly satisfied man and I will show you a failure.
- Thomas Edison
Art has no right answer. The best we can hope for is an interesting answer.
- Seth Godin
If you are a prospective entrepreneur with the desire to start and build a visionary company but have not yet taken the plunge because you don’t have a great idea,” we encourage you to lift from your shoulders the burden of the great-idea myth. Indeed, the evidence suggests that it might be better to not obsess on finding a great idea before launching a company. Why? Because the great-idea approach shifts your attention away from seeing the company as your ultimate creation.
- James C. Collins
Now at this very moment I knew that the United States was in the war, up to the neck and in to the death. So we had won after all! … How long the war would last or in what fashion it would end no man could tell, nor did I at this moment care … We should not be wiped out. Our history would not come to an end … Hitler’s fate was sealed. Mussolini’s fate was sealed. As for the Japanese, they would be ground to a powder. All the rest was merely the proper application of overwhelming force.
- Winston Churchill
K to 12 is partly about babysitting the kids so the parents can do other things.
- Bill Gates
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
