Notable Quotables

Smart people instinctively understand the dangers of entrusting our future to self-serving leaders who use our institutions, whether in the corporate or social sectors, to advance their own interests.

- James C. Collins

The most obvious clue was sartorial: cleantech executives were running around wearing suits and ties. This was a huge red flag, because real technologists wear T-shirts and jeans. So we instituted a blanket rule: pass on any company whose founders dressed up for pitch meetings.

- Peter Thiel

End-user buyers re-emerged in the market at a time when local commercial banks were keen to offer preferential terms for home mortgage loan business.

- Lee Shau Kee

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

A Jedi must have the deepest commitment, the most serious mind. This one a long time have I watched. All his life has he looked away… to the future, to the horizon. Never his mind on where he was. Hmm? What he was doing. Hmph. Adventure. Heh. Excitement. Heh. A Jedi craves not these things.

- Yoda

Startup CEOs should not play the odds. When you are building a company, you must believe there is an answer and you cannot pay attention to your odds of finding it. You just have to find it. It matters not whether your chances are nine in ten or one in a thousand; your task is the same.

- Ben Horowitz

If you know you have to wait anyway, why not make a decision to enjoy your life while you’re waiting? Why not be happy while God is in the process of changing things? After all, there’s nothing we can really do to make it happen any faster. We might as well relax and enjoy our lives, knowing that at the appointed time God is going to bring his plan to pass.

- Joel Olsteen

You need to follow your own heart in light of God’s word and do what you feel is right and good for you.

- Joel Olsteen

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

What a great thrill it will be for fans of all generations to see these NASCAR superheroes together again at Atlanta Motor Speedway. With 405 victories between them, each and every one played an integral role in making NASCAR the tremendous success it is today.

- Ed Clark

Being excellent is hard. So when you have something hard to do, remember you are being excellent. Do you want to be remembered for being good or great?

- Lee Cockerell

The men who have succeeded are men who have chosen one line and stuck to it.

- Andrew Carnegie

Apply the blacksmith’s homely principle when you are speaking. If you feel deeply about your subject you will be able to think of little else. Concentration is a process of distraction from less important matters. It is too late to think about the cut of your coat when once you are upon the platform, so centre your interest on what you are about to say—fill your mind with your speech-material and, like the infilling water in the glass, it will drive out your unsubstantial fears.

- Dale Carnegie

I made a conscious decision not to tell anyone in my life. Now I tell people–don’t tell anyone your idea until you have invested enough of yourself in it that you are not going to turn back. When a person has an idea at that conception moment, it is the most vulnerable–one negative comment could knock you off course.

- Sara Blakely

The world has the habit of making room for the man whose actions show that he knows where he is going.

- Napoleon Hill

There is a strong tendency to get used to and accept very bad things that would be shocking if seen with fresh eyes.

- Ray Dalio

Keep the big picture in mind. There are always opportunities and possibilities, and thinking too small can negate a lot of them.

- Donald Trump

I think it’s fair to say that personal computers have become the most empowering tool we’ve ever created. They’re tools of communication, they’re tools of creativity, and they can be shaped by their user.

- Bill Gates

It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried.

- Winston Churchill

Now they show you how detergents take out bloodstains, a pretty violent image there. I think if you’ve got a T-shirt with a bloodstain all over it, maybe laundry isn’t your biggest problem. Maybe you should get rid of the body before you do the wash.

- Jerry Seinfeld

The service leaders hire one out of 50 applicants, sometimes one out of 100, but they’re very, very careful. You can’t afford not to be extremely choosy when you hire.

- Harvey Mackay

For a rich and reasonably successful guy, it is impossible not to enjoy your job; otherwise, why would you spend so much time and effort doing it? I am a great fan of Norilsk, and I like this kind of challenge.

- Vladimir Potanin

I used to have this debate with Steve Jobs, and he would always say, ‘You guys are doing too much stuff.’ He did a good job of doing one or two things really well. We’d like to have a bigger impact on the world by doing more things.

- Larry Page

In periods of stress and grief, not only does your mind do funny things, you say things that surprise you.

- Phil Knight

Much to learn you still have…my old padawan… This is just the beginning!

- Yoda

I am fond of pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us. Pigs treat us as equals.

- Winston Churchill

When you make a TV show, they always say you’re a guest in someone’s home. Online, you’re a guest in someone’s face. So that’s why I try to make it sound and look and feel very inviting and attractive, because I know that I’m in your face.

- Jerry Seinfeld

Money was never a big motivation for me, except as a way to keep score. The real excitement is playing the game.

- Donald Trump

We all need a check up from the neck up to avoid stinkin’ thinkin’ which ultimately leads to hardening of the attitude.

- Zig Ziglar

It’s true that every great entrepreneur is first and foremost a designer.

- Peter Thiel

The golden years become lower-middle-class life revisited. That’s a bittersweet ending.

- Timothy Ferriss

It’s not how far you fall. But how high you bounce that counts.

- Zig Ziglar

I always wanted to find oil. It was always an irresistible calling.

- Harold Hamm

Once I did bad and that I heard ever. Twice I did good, but that I heard never.

- Dale Carnegie

God can cause opportunity to find you. He has unexpected blessings where you suddenly meet the right person, or suddenly your health improves, or suddenly you’re able to pay off your house. That’s God shifting things in your favor.

- Joel Olsteen

The breadth and maturity of our own businesses is allowing us to weather the prevailing storms.

- Cheng Yu-tung

This proves our strategy is working in terms of the convergence of voice, video and data.

- John Chambers

All successful people men and women are big dreamers. They imagine what their future could be, ideal in every respect, and then they work every day toward their distant vision, that goal or purpose.

- Brian Tracy

Anyone who says failure is not an option has also ruled out innovation.

- Seth Godin

I usually have my yellow legal pad with me, with a list of ten or fifteen things we need to be working on as a company. My list drives the executives around here crazy, but it’s probably one of my more important contributions.

- Sam Walton

Rich people have small TVs and big libraries, and poor people have small libraries and big TVs.

- Zig Ziglar

Everyone deserves at least a chance to make things better. And besides people can surprise you.

- David Novak

Long-range planning does not deal with the future decisions, but with the future of present decisions.

- Peter Drucker

We who in engage in nonviolent direct action are not the creators of tension. We merely bring to the surface the hidden tension that is already alive.

- Martin Luther King Jr.

Employers only handle the money – it is the customer who pays the wages.

- Henry Ford

[On Twitter] We believe that fundamentally we are building a utility.

- Jack Dorsey

We think of Starbucks not as a coffee company but a media company.

- Howard Schultz

The difficult task is to marry relentless discipline with creativity, neither letting discipline inhibit creativity nor letting creativity erode discipline.

- James C. Collins

Broadly speaking, the short words are the best, and the old words best of all.

- Winston Churchill

We are asking the nations of Europe between whom rivers of blood have flowed to forget the feuds of a thousand years.

- Winston Churchill

Giving should be entered into in just the same way as investing. Giving is investing.

- John D. Rockefeller

If you’re interested in ‘balancing’ work and pleasure, stop trying to balance them. Instead make your work more pleasurable.

- Donald Trump

I’m not big on to-do lists. Instead, I use e-mail and desktop folders and my online calendar. So when I walk up to my desk, I can focus on the e-mails I’ve flagged and check the folders that are monitoring particular projects and particular blogs.

- Bill Gates

All of the women on The Apprentice flirted with me – consciously or unconsciously. That’s to be expected.

- Donald Trump

Be nice to nerds. Chances are you’ll end up working for one.

- Bill Gates

Most of us don’t invent ideas. We take the best ideas from someone else.

- Sam Walton

Risk, to some, is a bad thing, because risk brings with it the possibility of failure. It might be only a temporary failure, but that doesn’t matter so much if the very thought of it shuts you down. So, for some, risk comes to equal failure (take enough risks and sooner or later, you will fail). Risk is avoided because we’ve been trained to avoid failure.

- Seth Godin

It’s insane to me to ask anybody to be what they’re not. Know what you know the best, love the most. That’s always going to be the answer to the thing that you have the best shot at winning at.

- Gary Vaynerchuk

Size matters not. Look at me. Judge me by my size, do you? Hmm? Hmm. And well you should not. For my ally is the Force, and a powerful ally it is. Life creates it, makes it grow. Its energy surrounds us and binds us. Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter. You must feel the Force around you; here, between you, me, the tree, the rock, everywhere, yes. Even between the land and the ship.

- Yoda

What most people want in a leader is something that’s very difficult to find: we want someone who listens…The secret, Reagan’s secret, is to listen, to value what you hear, and then to make a decision even if it contradicts the very people you are listening to. Reagan impressed his advisers, his adversaries, and his voters by actively listening. People want to be sure you hear what they said – they’re less focused on whether or not you do what they said.

- Seth Godin

The stark differences between man and machine mean that gains from working with computers are much higher than gains from trade with other people. We don’t trade with computers any more than we trade with livestock or lamps. And that’s the point: computers are tools, not rivals.

- Peter Thiel

The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property, either as a child, a wife, or a concubine, must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men.

- Winston Churchill

It’s fine to celebrate success, but it is more important to heed the lessons of failure.

- Bill Gates

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

- Yoda

Man was designed for accomplishment, engineered for success, and endowed with the seeds of greatness.

- Zig Ziglar

You’re not really free until you’re free from trying to please everybody.

- Joel Olsteen

The government used to be able to coordinate complex solutions to problems like atomic weaponry and lunar exploration. But today, after 40 years of indefinite creep, the government mainly just provides insurance; our solutions to big problems are Medicare, Social Security, and a dizzying array of other transfer payment programs. It’s no surprise that entitlement spending has eclipsed discretionary spending every year since 1975. To increase discretionary spending we’d need definite plans to solve specific problems. But according to the indefinite logic of entitlement spending, we can make things better just by sending out more checks.

- Peter Thiel

I think I will always have a connection to young people, to try to bring their voices to the polls, bring their voices wherever they can make a difference.

- Russell Simmons

Customers are the reason we open our doors every day, and keep the machines humming all night long. Customers determine what we eat, where we live, whether we stay in business.

- Harvey Mackay

Venture-backed companies create 11% of all private sector jobs. They generate annual revenues equivalent to an astounding 21% of GDP.

- Peter Thiel

Being a CEO is the nuts! A whole jumble of thoughts come to mind: Over the top. Wild. Fun. Outrageous. Crazy. Passion. Perpetual Motion. The give and take. Meetings into the night. Incredible friendships. Fine wine. Celebrations. Great golf courses. Big decisions in the real game. Crises and pressure. Lots of swings. A few home runs. The thrill of winning and the pain of losing. It’s as good as it gets. You get paid a lot, but the real payoff is the fun…

- Jack Welch

Nigeria has moved into low-middle-income, but their north is very poor, and the health care systems there have broken down.

- Bill Gates

Software innovation, like almost every other kind of innovation, requires the ability to collaborate and share ideas with other people, and to sit down and talk with customers and get their feedback and understand their needs.

- Bill Gates

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

Perhaps your challenge isn’t finding a better project or a better boss. Perhaps you need to get in touch with what it means to feel passionate. People with passion look for ways to make things happen.

- Seth Godin

[B]y being so long in the lowest form I gained an immense advantage over the cleverer boys. They all went on to learn Latin and Greek and splendid things like that. But I was taught English. We were considered such dunces that we could learn only English. Mr. Somervell — a most delightful man, to whom my debt is great — was charged with the duty of teaching the stupidest boys the most disregarded thing — namely, to write mere English. He knew how to do it. He taught it as no one else has ever taught it. Not only did we learn English parsing thoroughly, but we also practised continually English analysis. . . Thus I got into my bones the essential structure of the ordinary British sentence — which is a noble thing. And when in after years my schoolfellows who had won prizes and distinction for writing such beautiful Latin poetry and pithy Greek epigrams had to come down again to common English, to earn their living or make their way, I did not feel myself at any disadvantage. Naturally I am biased in favour of boys learning English. I would make them all learn English: and then I would let the clever ones learn Latin as an honour, and Greek as a treat. But the only thing I would whip them for would be not knowing English. I would whip them hard for that.

- Winston Churchill

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

I don’t want people in China to have deep pockets but shallow minds.

- Jack Ma

The tool that’s most associated with the recent progress against malaria is the long-lasting bed net. Bed nets are a fantastic innovation. But we can do even better. We can invent new ways to control the mosquitoes that carry the malaria parasite.

- Bill Gates

Americans believe cotton is best, but we’ve invented new fabrics that will change your lifestyle.

- Tadashi Yanai

No, I’m not settling here. I’m going to keep pressing forward.

- Joel Olsteen

A lady came up to me one day and said ‘Sir! You are drunk’, to which I replied ‘I am drunk today madam, and tomorrow I shall be sober but you will still be ugly.

- Winston Churchill

I am surprised by how not-adopted the video reply has been. What keeps other people from doing it, I think, is that they think a video comes across as ‘I’m cool, look at how many e-mails I get.’ That perception doesn’t scare me, because I know who I am.

- Gary Vaynerchuk

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