The most successful companies make the core progression—to first dominate a specific niche and then scale to adjacent markets—a part of their founding narrative.
- Peter Thiel
Notable Quotables
The more you are grateful for what you have the more you will have to be grateful for.
- Zig Ziglar
Yes, I think it’s okay to abandon the big, established, stuck tribe. It’s okay to say to them, “You’re not going where I need to go, and there’s no way I’m going to persuade all of you to follow me. So rather than standing here watching the opportunities fade away, I’m heading off. I’m betting some of you, the best of you, will follow me.
- Seth Godin
Here was a place where real things were going on. Here was a scene of vital action. Here was a place where anything might happen. Here was a place where something would certainly happen.
- Winston Churchill
Consumers are spontaneous and if you can catch their attention, that’s going to increase the chance that they will look at your product.
- Jack Taylor
Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.
- Steve Jobs
Los mitos y los sueños proceden del mismo lugar… Un mito es el sueño de una sociedad.
- Joseph Campbell
Nuclear energy, in terms of an overall safety record, is better than other energy.
- Bill Gates
An attributable HK$9,892 million worth of properties in Hong Kong was sold, an increase of 25% as compared with HK$7,895 million for the year before.
- Lee Shau Kee
This is like the Six Sigma approach to quality. Six Sigma refers to the quest for continuous improvement, ultimately leading to 3.4 defects per million units. The problem is that once you’re heading down this road, there’s no room left for amazing improvements and remarkable innovations. Either you rolled ten strikes or you didn’t. Organizations that earn dramatic success always do it in markets where asymptotes don’t exist, or where they can be shattered. If you could figure out how to bowl 320, that would be amazing. Until that happens, pick a different sport if you want to be a linchpin.
- Seth Godin
Talking about music is like dancing about architecture.
- Steve Martin
If you run a corporation, your job is to maximize the return on investment for your investors. Good for you. But by the same token, we have to remember that corporations have no compassion. That’s why legislation and regulations are necessary.
- Russell Simmons
Lost time is never found again.
- Benjamin Franklin
All a bliss state like California does is spoil you.
- Phil Knight
I want to do transformational work to actually fix the world.
- Patrick Soon-Shiong
Think like a queen. A queen is not afraid to fail. Failure is another steppingstone to greatness.
- Oprah Winfrey
We’re running the most dangerous experiment in history right now, which is to see how much carbon dioxide the atmosphere… can handle before there is an environmental catastrophe.
- Elon Musk
Inflation is taking up the poverty line, and poverty is not just economic but defined by way of health and education.
- Azim Premji
After you become a millionaire, you can give all of your money away because what’s important is not the million dollars; what’s important is the person you have become in the process of becoming a millionaire.
- Jim Rohn
My best friend is the one who brings out the best in me.
- Henry Ford
People don’t want to embrace culture shifts because it’s not going to happen in the next 20 minutes.
- Gary Vaynerchuk
Mickey Mouse is, to me, a symbol of independence. He was a means to an end.
- Walt Disney
Creative monopolists give customers more choices by adding entirely new categories of abundance to the world. Creative monopolies aren’t just good for the rest of society, they’re powerful engines for making it better.
- Peter Thiel
Freedom does not come automatically, it is achieved. And it is not gained in a single bound
- Rollo May
There’s always been a lot of information about your activities. Every phone number you dial, every credit-card charge you make. It’s long since passed that a typical person doesn’t leave footprints.
- Bill Gates
There’s no magic line between an application and an operating system that some bureaucrat in Washington should draw.
- Bill Gates
In K-12, almost everybody goes to local schools. Universities are a bit different because kids actually do pick the university. The bizarre thing, though, is that the merit of university is actually how good the students going in are: the SAT scores of the kids going in.
- Bill Gates
Modern society is based on a modern idea: get the work done by replaceable cogs, by individuals programmed to do what they’re told, follow instructions and work cheap. The attraction of this system is evident by how easily ordinary organizations replace ordinary employees, and how eagerly schools indoctrinate their students.
- Seth Godin
Nothing would be more fatal than for the Government of States to get in the hands of experts. Expert knowledge is limited knowledge, and the unlimited ignorance of the plain man who knows where it hurts is a safer guide than any rigorous direction of a specialized character.
- Winston Churchill
Life is bigger than processes and overflows and dwarfs them.
- Dale Carnegie
Profit and growth are stimulated primarily by customer loyalty. Loyalty is a direct result of customer satisfaction. Satisfaction is largely influenced by the value of services provided to customers. Value is created by satisfied, loyal, and productive employees.
- Putting the Service-Profit Chain To Work - Ja
Leadership is influence, nothing more, nothing less.
- John Maxwell
We remain confident about the market opportunity ahead of us over the next three to five years.
- John Chambers
Every breakthrough business idea begins with solving a common problem. The bigger the problem, the bigger the opportunity. I discovered a big one when I took apart an IBM PC. I made two interesting discoveries: The components were all manufactured by other companies, and the system that retailed for $3,000 cost about $600 in parts.
- Michael Dell
I started, actually, to make my first animated cartoon in 1920. Of course, they were very crude things then and I used sort of little puppet things.
- Walt Disney
Choose wise and Godly people to advise you.
- George Foreman
As technology continues to virtualize money, brick ‘n mortar banks have become as superfluous as traditional bookstores.
- Reid Hoffman
To grow your company explosively you must have leaders, not just efficient managers.
- John Maxwell
Selling is the highest paid profession in the world. Our leaders in business, politics, research and the arts are all great sales people or they have great sales people on their payrolls.
- Jerry Vass
The most important quality for an investor is temperament, not intellect. You need a temperament that neither derives great pleasure from being with the crowd or against the crowd.
- Warren Buffett
We can consider 140 characters to be the full story, but it’s not. It’s just a caption. A headline for something broader.
- Jack Dorsey
All progress is precarious, and the solution of one problem brings us face to face with another problem.
- Martin Luther King Jr.
The secret to 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.
- Seth Godin
If you love your work, you’ll be out there every day trying to do it the best you possibly can, and pretty soon everybody around will catch the passion from you—like a fever.
- Sam Walton
People suck at following advice. Even the most effective people in the world are terrible at it. There are two reasons: 1. Most people have an insufficient reason for action. The pain isn’t painful enough. It’s a nice-to-have, not a must-have. There has been no Harajuku Moment. 2. There are no reminders. No consistent tracking = no awareness = no behavioral change. Consistent tracking, even if you have no knowledge of fat-loss or exercise, will often beat advice from world-class trainers.
- Timothy Ferriss
Moving first is a tactic, not a goal.
- Peter Thiel
My foundations support people in the country who care about an open society. It’s their work that I’m supporting. So it’s not me doing it. But I can empower them. I can support them, and I can help them.
- George Soros
We have not journeyed all this way because we are made of sugar candy.
- Winston Churchill
There is a kind of intolerant spirit now abroad which arises out of the growing power of party and other machinery — a spirit which resents individual opinion, which clamours for uniformity and political Test Acts.
- Winston Churchill
Ideas are commodity. Execution of them is not.
- Michael Dell
It is not enough that we do our best, sometimes we must do what is required.
- Winston Churchill
I notice a difference from the moment I meditate.
- Ray Dalio
In business, equilibrium means stasis, and stasis means death.
- Peter Thiel
Surplus wealth is a sacred trust which its possessor is bound to administer in his lifetime for the good of the community.
- Andrew Carnegie
There’s no such thing as going to a soapbox and saying, ‘The government’s corrupt,’ and not having the intelligence service see your face. In the digital world, that can be done.
- Bill Gates
The thing that motivates me is a very common form of motivation. And that is, with other folks counting on me, it’s so easy to be motivated.
- Jeff Bezos
Positive thinking will let you use the ability which you have, and that is awesome.
- Zig Ziglar
When we face with a steady eye the difficulties which lie before us, we may derive new confidence from remembering those we have already overcome.
- Winston Churchill
In China anything less than 6% growth is a recession meaning that it also causes financial problems and it’s disruptive and it’s a problem.
- Ray Dalio
It’s absolutely true we set out to expose Microsoft’s covert activities, I feel very good about what we did … Maybe our investigation organization may have done things unsavory, but it’s not illegal. We got the truth out.
- Larry Ellison
To do the most good requires saying no to pressures to stray, and the discipline to stop doing what does not fit.
- Peter Drucker
Never, never, never believe any war will be smooth and easy, or that anyone who embarks on the strange voyage can measure the tides and hurricanes he will encounter. The statesman who yields to war fever must realize that once the signal is given, he is no longer the master of policy but the slave of unforeseeable and uncontrollable events.
- Winston Churchill
Every day is a gift from God. There’s no guarantee of tomorrow, so that tells me to see the good in this day to make the most of it.
- Joel Olsteen
Nobody wants to buy a $60,000 electric Civic. But people will pay $90,000 for an electric sports car.
- Elon Musk
China has many successful entrepreneurs and business people. I hope that more people of insight will put their talents to work to improve the lives of poor people in China and around the world, and seek solutions for them.
- Bill Gates
you are insecure, guess what? The rest of the world is, too. Do not overestimate the competition and underestimate yourself. You are better than you think.
- Timothy Ferriss
Dreams are extremely important. You can’t do it unless you can imagine it.
- George Lucas
…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
Oracle’s got 100+ enterprise applications live in the #cloud; today, SAP’s got nothin’ but SuccessFactors until 2020.
- Larry Ellison
Wal-Mart became Wal-Mart by ordinary people joined together to accomplish extraordinary things.
- Sam Walton
Find something that you enjoy doing
- Jack Nadel
I think Steve Jobs is my idol.
- Ma Huateng
All salesmen are actors: their priority is persuasion, not sincerity. That’s why the word “salesman” can be a slur and the used car dealer is our archetype of shadiness. But we only react negatively to awkward, obvious salesmen—that is, the bad ones.
- Peter Thiel
We all have possibilities we don’t know about. We can do things we don’t even dream we can do.
- Dale Carnegie
Although Hong Kong continued to be affected by the slowdown of the global economy in the past financial year, most of the retail shopping properties owned by the Group are located in new towns where continual growth of residents are maintained and consumer spending power are segregated, thereby providing a good support to stabilise rental of the retail shopping properties located in such new towns.
- Lee Shau Kee
I decline utterly to be impartial between the fire brigade and the fire.
- Winston Churchill
mejor mamá que usted puede ser. Posiblemente, yo nunca seré el mejor pastor del mundo. Quizá no seré el mejor esposo ni el mejor padre, pero he decidido ser lo mejor que yo puedo ser y no me sentiré mal conmigo. Si otra persona puede hacer lo que hago mejor que yo, que bueno, yo no estoy en una competencia ni me estoy comparando con nadie. A mi manera de pensar, ¡yo soy el mejor! Y sé que estoy haciendo lo mejor que puedo. Eso es lo que nos enseña la Escritura. Dice: Así que, cada uno someta a prueba su propia obra…
- Joel Olsteen
My biggest wish is for government, the private sector and all of us to work together to make the Philippines the best tourism destination in Southeast Asia.
- Henry Sy
Do not listen to those who weep and complain, for their disease is contagious.
- Og Mandino
Without tradition, art is a flock of sheep without a shepherd. Without innovation, it is a corpse.
- Winston Churchill
Nobody cares how much you know, until they know how much you care.
- Theodore Roosevelt
Nothing remains permanent in the world, change is just the eternal fact.
- Cheng Yu-tung
It’s easier for investors and bosses to spend time and money going after a proven market, even though proven markets are the hardest to break into.
- Seth Godin
In the end, Mockler and the board were proved right, stunningly so. If a shareflipper had accepted the 44 percent price premium offered by Ronald Perelman on October 31, 1986, and then invested the full amount in the general market for ten years, through the end of 1996, he would have come out three times worse off than a shareholder who had stayed with Mockler and Gillette.20 Indeed, the company, its customers, and the shareholders would have been ill served had Mockler capitulated to the raiders, pocketed his millions, and retired to a life of leisure.
- James C. Collins
Intolerance.
- Napoleon Hill
This can only be accomplished by people who live, breathe, eat and sleep what they are doing…. [I am] associated with a large group of knowledgeable, dedicated [people] who eat, breathe, and sleep the world of aeronautics…. Man’s objective should be opportunity for greater accomplishment and greater service. The greatest pleasure life has to offer is the satisfaction that flows from… participating in a difficult and constructive undertaking.
- James C. Collins
I do feel, in a sense, the rules of engagement for citizenship has changed, and we must encourage other people to speak up and to take action.
- Howard Schultz
To be awake is to be fully present, no noise, just you and God. Most of us only have seconds of full consciousness. To live in a state of Samadhi – that’s what we’re here for.
- Russell Simmons
If you know the enemy and know yourself you need not fear the results of a hundred battles.
- Sun Tzu
Creating a sense of urgency around change initiatives is especially hard to do. Human nature seems to be hardwired to adhor change, and people will do everything in their power to resist it. I once heard this explained to another Pepsi consultant. His philosophy was that in order to drive change, you need to create what he called, the burning platform. This burning-platform image was an oil rig in the North Sea that has caught fire and the only way to save yourself is to jump into the frigid water and swim to the lifeboat. You know the jump might kill you, but you jump anyway, not because you think it might be a good idea, but because you had no choice. That’s creating a sense of urgency.
- David Novak
To make meetings less boring, leaders must look for legitimate reasons to provoke and uncover relevant, constructive ideological conflict.
- Patrick M. Lencioni
The truth is incontrovertible. Malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it, but in the end, there it is.
- Winston Churchill
Our success has really been based on partnerships from the very beginning.
- Bill Gates
Differentiate yourself! Why are you different? What’s important about you? Why does the customer need you?
- Sara Blakely
With sustained recovery of the local economy, marked improvement in consumer spending and increasing tourist arrivals from Mainland China, these led to the expansion of certain local retail trades including cosmetics, audio-visual products and jewellery which in turn boosted the demand for retail shop spaces.
- Lee Shau Kee
Technology is unlocking the innate compassion we have for our fellow human beings.
- Bill Gates
Looking? Found someone you have, eh?
- Yoda
Strive to be the very best you can be. Run the race against yourself and not the guy in the other lane. The reason I say that is, as long as you give it 110% you are going to succeed. But as long as you’re trying to beat the guy over there, you are worried about him; you’re not worrying about how you’ve got to perform
- Herschel Walker
Most business people today are not going to invest in the uncertainty that exists in America.
- Howard Schultz
I’m not in business to make money for the other guy. I’m in the business to make money for myself.
- Sheldon Adelson
