Notable Quotables

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

- Zig Ziglar

I do limit my exposure to the public. You only have so much time.

- Donald Bren

An extreme representative of this view is Ted Kaczynski, infamously known as the Unabomber. Kaczynski was a child prodigy who enrolled at Harvard at 16. He went on to get a PhD in math and become a professor at UC Berkeley. But you’ve only ever heard of him because of the 17-year terror campaign he waged with pipe bombs against professors, technologists, and businesspeople. In late 1995, the authorities didn’t know who or where the Unabomber was. The biggest clue was a 35,000-word manifesto that Kaczynski had written and anonymously mailed to the press. The FBI asked some prominent newspapers to publish it, hoping for a break in the case. It worked: Kaczynski’s brother recognized his writing style and turned him in. You might expect that writing style to have shown obvious signs of insanity, but the manifesto is eerily cogent. Kaczynski claimed that in order to be happy, every individual “needs to have goals whose attainment requires effort, and needs to succeed in attaining at least some of his goals.” He divided human goals into three groups: 1. Goals that can be satisfied with minimal effort; 2. Goals that can be satisfied with serious effort; and 3. Goals that cannot be satisfied, no matter how much effort one makes. This is the classic trichotomy of the easy, the hard, and the impossible. Kaczynski argued that modern people are depressed because all the world’s hard problems have already been solved. What’s left to do is either easy or impossible, and pursuing those tasks is deeply unsatisfying. What you can do, even a child can do; what you can’t do, even Einstein couldn’t have done. So Kaczynski’s idea was to destroy existing institutions, get rid of all technology, and let people start over and work on hard problems anew. Kaczynski’s methods were crazy, but his loss of faith in the technological frontier is all around us. Consider the trivial but revealing hallmarks of urban hipsterdom: faux vintage photography, the handlebar mustache, and vinyl record players all hark back to an earlier time when people were still optimistic about the future. If everything worth doing has already been done, you may as well feign an allergy to achievement and become a barista.

- Peter Thiel

Constantly probe the people who report to you, and encourage them to probe you.

- Ray Dalio

Look, winning and losing can’t be quantified. They are states of mind, and losing happens only when you give up. Seen that way, then, the world can be filled with winners, and there is room for them all.

- Jack Welch

The two most important requirements for major success are: first, being in the right place at the right time, and second, doing something about it.

- Ray Kroc

I just think people have a lot of fiction. But, you know, I mean, the real story of Facebook is just that we’ve worked so hard for all this time. I mean, the real story is actually probably pretty boring, right? I mean, we just sat at our computers for six years and coded.

- Mark Zuckerberg

the ability to deal with people is as purchasable a commodity as sugar or coffee. And I will pay more for that ability,” said John D., than for any other under the sun.

- Dale Carnegie

I just believe that the interesting time in a career is pre-success, what shaped things, how did you get to this point.

- Steve Martin

I always want to listen to people and receive good criticism, but I just don’t have to answer to them; I have to answer to God.

- Joel Olsteen

Man must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love.

- Martin Luther King Jr.

That’s just $30 for two tickets. Racing is a family sport and we strive to make our tickets affordable for any families that want to come watch a race.

- Ed Clark

I founded Netflix. I’ve built it steadily over 12 years now, first with DVD becoming profitable in 2002, a head-to-head ferocious battle with Blockbuster and evolving the company toward streaming.

- Reed Hastings

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

- Zig Ziglar

Facing a market which awaited exploration and development, the Group decided to become a pioneer in its economic reform by taking up the responsibility to engage in the development of the Mainland.

- Cheng Yu-tung

It’s the poorer people in tropical zones who will get really hit by climate change – as well as some ecosystems, which nobody wants to see disappear.

- Bill Gates

I’m surprised at the extent of the bigotry. But it really plays out when companies or schools take a side and prohibit the other platform at all. We Mac users should be good even when the other side is bad. We should do what we can to accept the other platforms.

- Steve Wozniak

Our goal here in New York is to ensure that every child who graduates high school is ready to start a career or start college and to dramatically increase the number of students that graduate from college.

- Michael Bloomberg

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

THE HABIT OF DOING MORE THAN PAID FOR – One of the penalties of leadership is the necessity of willingness, upon the part of the leader, to do more than he requires of his followers.

- Napoleon Hill

If you take a strong stance and have a clear opinion or statement on any subject online, you’re going to polarize people. And without that polarity, there’s no discussion. Discussion is what I want, which means that I’m fine with the consequences.

- Timothy Ferriss

If you start today to do the right thing, you are already a success even if it doesn’t show yet.

- John C. Maxwell

It’s not enough to do good things. You have to let people know what you’re doing.

- Phil Knight

Science is the pursuit of pure truth, and the systematizing of it.

- P.T. Barnum

The concept of serviced apartments makes economic sense for tenancies of short to medium term duration – a fact many leading Hong Kong and overseas corporations now appreciate.

- Cheng Yu-tung

I actually credit Twitter with fine-tuning some joke-writing skills. I still feel like I’m working at it.

- Steve Martin

-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

Manufacture, don’t just trade. There’s money in manufacturing even though it is capital intensive.

- Aliko Dangote

No place epitomizes the American experience and the American spirit more than New York City.

- Michael Bloomberg

There is nothing else that so kills the ambitions of a person as criticisms from superiors. I never criticize any-one. I believe in giving a person incentive to work. So I am anxious to praise but loath to find fault. If I like anything, I am hearty in my approbation and lavish in my praise.

- Dale Carnegie

The power of the Executive to cast a man into prison without formulating any charge known to the law and particularly to deny him the judgement of his peers is in the highest degree odious and is the foundation of all totalitarian government whether Nazi or Communist.

- Winston Churchill

People don’t believe what you tell them.They rarely believe what you show them.They often believe what their friends tell them.They always believe what they tell themselves.

- Seth Godin

You may think you’ve got a long way to go, but you need to look back at how far you’ve already come. You may not be everything you want to be but atleast you can thank God that you’re not what you used to be.

- Joel Olsteen

Even if we are right and the other person is definitely wrong, we only destroy ego by causing someone to lose face. The legendary French aviation pioneer and author Antoine de Saint-Exupéry wrote: I have no right to say or do anything that diminishes a man in his own eyes. What matters is not what I think of him, but what he thinks of himself. Hurting a man in his dignity is a crime.

- Dale Carnegie

You should focus relentlessly on something you’re good at doing, but before that you must think hard about whether it will be valuable in the future.

- Peter Thiel

Basically, our goal is to organize the world’s information and to make it universally accessible and useful.

- Larry Page

To build a successful business, you must start small and dream big.

- Aliko Dangote

Always seek out the seed of triumph in every adversity.

- Og Mandino

Do the one thing you think you cannot do. Fail at it. Try again. Do better the second time. The only people who never tumble are those who never mount the high wire. This is your moment. Own it.

- Oprah Winfrey

It turns out that all Netflix streaming peak on Saturday night can fit inside a single fiber optic, which is the size of one human hair.

- Reed Hastings

Those who can win a war well can rarely make a good peace and those who could make a good peace would never have won the war.

- Winston Churchill

The PC has improved the world in just about every area you can think of. Amazing developments in communications, collaboration and efficiencies. New kinds of entertainment and social media. Access to information and the ability to give a voice people who would never have been heard.

- Bill Gates

In the game of life, before you get anything out, you must put something in!

- Zig Ziglar

What destroys more self-confidence than any other educational thing in America is being assigned to some remedial math when you get into some college, and then it’s not taught very well and you end up with this sense of, ‘Hey, I can’t really figure those things out.’

- Bill Gates

Only the Dark Lord of the Sith knows of our weakness. If informed the senate is, multiply our adversaries will.

- Yoda

I think when I was young, let’s call it high school, and even before that, I just loved comedy, and I loved comedians. I grew up watching Laurel and Hardy. That’s really a long time ago. I loved Jerry Lewis. I just loved comedians.

- Steve Martin

They say that nobody is perfect. Then they tell you practice makes perfect. I wish they’d make up their minds.

- Winston Churchill

I don’t know where we should take this company, but I do know that if I start with the right people, ask them the right questions, and engage them in vigorous debate, we will find a way to make this company great.

- James C. Collins

Take time to be kind and to say ‘thank you.’

- Zig Ziglar

Our minds become magnetized with the dominating thoughts we hold in our minds and these magnets attract to us the forces, the people, the circumstances of life which harmonize with the nature of our dominating thoughts.

- Napoleon Hill

Baldwin thought Europe was a bore, and Chamberlain thought it was only a greater Birmingham.

- Winston Churchill

I felt as if I were walking with destiny, and that all my past life had been but a preparation for this hour and for this trial… I thought I knew a good deal about it all, I was sure I should not fail.

- Winston Churchill

You are the only person on earth who can use your ability. It’s an awesome responsibility.

- Zig Ziglar

An open society is a society which allows its members the greatest possible degree of freedom in pursuing their interests compatible with the interests of others.

- George Soros

The only purpose of starting is to finish, and while the projects we do are never really finished, they must ship.

- Seth Godin

Google’s motto—“Don’t be evil”—is in part a branding ploy, but it’s also characteristic of a kind of business that’s successful enough to take ethics seriously without jeopardizing its own existence.

- Peter Thiel

If you are only big in China, you are only a local Chinese company.

- Wang Jianlin

Network effects businesses must start with especially small markets.

- Peter Thiel

I have this system where if I buy three or four new things, I give away three or four things. Sometimes, it’s a very painful system, but shopping is even better when you know that someone else who needs it will be getting. Keep the clothing karma going, I say.

- Sara Blakely

Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.

- Winston Churchill

Criticism is dangerous, because it wounds a person’s precious pride, hurt his sense of importance and arouses resentment.

- Dale Carnegie

Unless they invest in the difficult task of creating new things, American companies will fail in the future no matter how big their profits remain today.

- Peter Thiel

It is hard to realize today that “government” during the American Civil War a hundred years ago meant the merest handful of people. Lincoln’s Secretary of War had fewer than fifty civilian subordinates, most of them not “executives” and policy-makers but telegraph clerks. The entire Washington establishment of the U.S. government in Theodore Roosevelt’s time, around 1900, could be comfortably housed in any one of the government buildings along the Mall today.

- Peter Drucker

When I had made more money than I needed for myself and my family, I set up a foundation to promote the values and principles of a free and open society.

- George Soros

I had this very rich sense of how the metropolis was living and breathing.

- Jack Dorsey

I’ve always wanted to be a businessman. No other ambitions, I just wanted to be in business, even when I was a child in Fujian province, south China.

- Henry Sy

Through the Force, things you will see. Other places. The future…the past. Old friends long gone.

- Yoda

The Roman world, like an aged man, wished to dwell in peace and tranquillity and to enjoy in philosophic detachment the good gifts which life has to bestow upon the more fortunate classes. But new ideas disturbed the internal conservatism, and outside the carefully guarded frontiers vast masses of hungry, savage men surged and schemed. The essence of the Roman peace was toleration of all religions and the acceptance of a universal system of government. Every generation after the middle of the second century saw an increasing weakening of the system and a gathering movement towards a uniform religion. Christianity asked again all the questions which the Roman world deemed answered for ever, and some that it had never thought of.

- Winston Churchill

Whoever renders service to many puts himself in line for greatness – great wealth, great return, great satisfaction, great reputation, and great joy

- Jim Rohn

1. What is our mission?2. Who is our customer?3. What does the customer value?4. What are our results?5. What is our plan?

- Peter Drucker

We want Google to be the third half of your brain.

- Sergey Brin

You’re going to go through tough times – that’s life. But I say, ‘Nothing happens to you, it happens for you.’ See the positive in negative events.

- Joel Olsteen

Often, it is in trying times that the greatest endeavours are realised.

- Cheng Yu-tung

Value and purpose are about understanding the specific benefits you will help people receive if they receive what you have for them.

- Zig Ziglar

The buyer needs to talk at least 70% of the time.

- Clay Clark

SLOW DANCE Have you ever watched kids On a merry-go-round? Or listened to the rain Slapping on the ground? Ever followed a butterfly’s erratic flight? Or gazed at the sun into the fading night? You better slow down. Don’t dance so fast. Time is short. The music won’t last. Do you run through each day On the fly? When you ask: How are you? Do you hear the reply? When the day is done, do you lie in your bed With the next hundred chores Running through your head? You’d better slow down. Don’t dance so fast. Time is short. The music won’t last. Ever told your child, We’ll do it tomorrow? And in your haste, Not see his sorrow? Ever lost touch, Let a good friendship die Cause you never had time To call and say, Hi”? You’d better slow down. Don’t dance so fast. Time is short. The music won’t last. When you run so fast to get somewhere You miss half the fun of getting there. When you worry and hurry through your day, It is like an unopened gift thrown away. Life is not a race. Do take it slower. Hear the music Before the song is over.

- Timothy Ferriss

The husband and wife who open another delicatessen store or another Mexican restaurant in the American suburb surely take a risk. But are they entrepreneurs? All they do is what has been done many times before. They gamble on the increasing popularity of eating out in their area, but create neither a new satisfaction nor new consumer demand. Seen under this perspective they are surely not entrepreneurs even though theirs is a new venture. McDonald’s, however, was entrepreneurship. It did not invent anything, to be sure. Its final product was what any decent American restaurant had produced years ago. But by applying management concepts and management techniques (asking, What is “value” to the customer?), standardizing the “product,” designing process and tools, and by basing training on the analysis of the work to be done and then setting the standards it required, McDonald’s both drastically upgraded the yield from resources, and created a new market and a new customer. This is entrepreneurship.

- Peter Drucker

Climate change is a terrible problem, and it absolutely needs to be solved. It deserves to be a huge priority.

- Bill Gates

There are only two ways for a manager to improve the output of an employee: motivation and training. Therefore, training should be the most basic requirement for all managers in your organization. An effective way to enforce this requirement is by withholding new employee requisitions from managers until they’ve developed a training program.

- Andrew Grove

If you look – look at – I mean, look at what’s going on with your gasoline prices. They’re going to go to $5, $6, $7 and we don’t have anybody in Washington that calls OPEC and says, ‘Fellas, it’s time. It’s over. You’re not going to do it anymore.’

- Donald Trump

A lot of the things that will really improve the world fortunately aren’t dependent on Washington doing something different.

- Bill Gates

God wouldn’t have given you the dream unless He already had a way to bring it to pass.

- Joel Olsteen

An employer has no business with a man’s personality. Employment is a specific contract calling for a specific performance, and nothing else. Any attempt by an employer to go beyond this is usurpation. It is an immoral as well as illegal intrusion of privacy.

- Peter Drucker

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

The lizard isn’t listening and the lizard doesn’t care.

- Seth Godin

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