Notable Quotables

My strength is programming. I also think my biggest strength is simplification. That’s what I love doing.

- Jack Dorsey

Reduce your plan to writing. The moment you complete this, you will have definitely given concrete form to the intangible desire.

- Napoleon Hill

He had realized something while arcing in slow circles toward the earth—risks weren’t that scary once you took them. His.

- Timothy Ferriss

A strategy is something like, an innovative new product; globalization, taking your products around the world; be the low-cost producer. A strategy is something you can touch; you can motivate people with; be number one and number two in every business. You can energize people around the message.

- Jack Welch

I am excited for the opportunity to pursue new interests, including my work with a few public company boards, several universities in the U.S. and the UK and ophthalmic charities whose goals are to improve eye health in emerging markets.

- David Pyott

Our economy now rewards artists far more than any other economy in history ever has.

- Seth Godin

I actually thought that it would be a little confusing during the same period of your life to be in one meeting when you’re trying to make money, and then go to another meeting where you’re giving it away. I mean is it gonna erode your ability, you know, to make money? Are you gonna somehow get confused about what you’re trying to do?

- Bill Gates

When two partners always agree, one of them is not necessary. If there is some point you haven’t thought about, be thankful if it is brought to your attention.

- Dale Carnegie

I think God gives every one of us our own will, and unfortunately, some people choose to do evil things with it.

- Joel Olsteen

It is always important that we have transparency, that we have shareholder protection. Then again, I think it is important that there are not so many regulations that management can’t make a decision without asking a lawyer whether he can do it.

- Michael Otto

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

The United States invariably does the right thing, after having exhausted every other alternative.

- Winston Churchill

WHATEVER YOU DO, DO IT WITH ALL YOUR MIGHT Work at it, if necessary, early and late, in season and out of season, not leaving a stone unturned, and never deferring for a single hour that which can be done just as well now. The old proverb is full of truth and meaning, “Whatever is worth doing at all, is worth doing well.” Many a man acquires a fortune by doing his business thoroughly, while his neighbor remains poor for life, because he only half does it. Ambition, energy, industry, perseverance, are indispensable requisites for success in business. Fortune always favors the brave, and never helps a man who does not help himself.

- P.T. Barnum

Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful.

- Albert Schweitzer

People are chasing cash, not happiness. When you chase money, you’re going to lose. You’re just going to. Even if you get the money, you’re not going to be happy.

- Gary Vaynerchuk

Seeing his education soley in utilitarian terms, he studied hard, but showed no intellectual playfulness.

- Ron Chernow

You can sing only what you are. You can paint only what you are. You must be what your experiences, your environment, and your heredity have made you. For better or for worse, you must play your own little instrument in the orchestra of life.

- Dale Carnegie

A brand is something that has a clear-cut identity among consumers, which a company creates by sending out a clear, consistent message over a period of years until it achieves a critical mass of marketing.

- Phil Knight

God’s got you in the palm of His hand. You won’t leave one second before your time. If God wants you to be here, then you’re going to be here.

- Joel Olsteen

Team Together / Team Apart means you respect the final decision even if you would do something diffently, and make it happen with positive energy.

- David Novak

Ohhh. Great warrior.Wars not make one great.

- Yoda

The three most charismatic leaders in this century inflicted more suffering on the human race than almost any trio in history: Hitler, Stalin, and Mao. What matters is not the leader’s charisma. What matters is the leader’s mission.

- Peter Drucker

Gays are some of the nicest, kindest, most loving people in the world.

- Joel Olsteen

Why does a 67-year-old guy who got his start running an athletic shoe company think he can enter a field famous for gobbling up fortunes.

- Phil Knight

Letting the other person feel that the idea is his or hers not only works in business and politics, it works in family life as well.

- Dale Carnegie

The more seriously you take your growth, the more seriously your people will take you.

- John C. Maxwell

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

Have we not come to such an impasse in the modern world that we must love our enemies – or else? The chain reaction of evil – hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars – must be broken, or else we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation.

- Martin Luther King Jr.

Here’s a statistician joke for your next hot date: Person A: What happens when Bill Gates walks into a bar of 55 people? Person B: I don’t know. What? Person A: The average net worth jumps to more than a billion dollars!

- Timothy Ferriss

We have two turbines in our company: One is engineering, and the other is operations. And so our business people are on equal footing with our engineering and technology culture. Cars are moving because of what we do, so there’s an imperative to go beyond just the technology.

- Travis Kalanick

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

It has always been my belief that a man should do his best, regardless of how much he receives for his services, or the number of people he may be serving or the class of people served.

- Napoleon Hill

Celebrate your successes. Find some humor in your failures

- Sam Walton

The question you should be asking isn’t, What do I want? or What are my goals? but What would excite me?

- Timothy Ferriss

Just like Mark Snider told the Board of Elections within a couple hours of when he first became aware of it… first of all, Mike and I didn’t even know anything about this till March 16, … Second of all, nobody benefited from this in any way, shape or form whatsoever.

- Michael Ward

People should pursue what they’re passionate about. That will make them happier than pretty much anything else.

- Elon Musk

A definite person determines the one best thing to do and then does it. Instead of working tirelessly to make herself indistinguishable, she strives to be great at something substantive—to be a monopoly of one.

- Peter Thiel

Pity may represent little more than the impersonal concern which prompts the mailing of a check, but true sympathy is the personal concern which demands the giving of one’s soul.

- Martin Luther King Jr.

I got a flue shot and now my chimney works perfectly.

- Steve Martin

Tom Paine has almost no influence on present-day thinking in the United States because he is unknown to the average citizen. Perhaps I might say right here that this is a national loss and a deplorable lack of understanding concerning the man who first proposed and first wrote those impressive words, ‘the United States of America.’But it is hardly strange.Paine’s teachings have been debarred from schools everywhere and his views of life misrepresented until his memory is hidden in shadows, or he is looked upon as of unsound mind.We never had a sounder intelligence in this Republic. He was the equal of Washington in making American liberty possible. Where Washington performed Paine devised and wrote. The deeds of one in the Weld were matched by the deeds of the other with his pen.Washington himself appreciated Paine at his true worth. Franklin knew him for a great patriot and clear thinker. He was a friend and confidant of Jefferson, and the two must often have debated the academic and practical phases of liberty.I consider Paine our greatest political thinker. As we have not advanced, and perhaps never shall advance, beyond the Declaration and Constitution, so Paine has had no successors who extended his principles. Although the present generation knows little of Paine’s writings, and although he has almost no influence upon contemporary thought, Americans of the future will justly appraise his work. I am certain of it.Truth is governed by natural laws and cannot be denied. Paine spoke truth with a peculiarly clear and forceful ring. Therefore time must balance the scales. The Declaration and the Constitution expressed in form Paine’s theory of political rights. He worked in Philadelphia at the time that the first document was written, and occupied a position of intimate contact with the nation’s leaders when they framed the Constitution.Certainly we may believe that Washington had a considerable voice in the Constitution. We know that Jefferson had much to do with the document. Franklin also had a hand and probably was responsible in even larger measure for the Declaration. But all of these men had communed with Paine. Their views were intimately understood and closely correlated. There is no doubt whatever that the two great documents of American liberty reflect the philosophy of Paine….Then Paine wrote ‘Common Sense,’ an anonymous tract which immediately stirred the fires of liberty. It flashed from hand to hand throughout the Colonies. One copy reached the New York Assembly, in session at Albany, and a night meeting was voted to answer this unknown writer with his clarion call to liberty. The Assembly met, but could find no suitable answer. Tom Paine had inscribed a document which never has been answered adversely, and never can be, so long as man esteems his priceless possession.In ‘Common Sense’ Paine flared forth with a document so powerful that the Revolution became inevitable. Washington recognized the difference, and in his calm way said that matters never could be the same again. It must be remembered that ‘Common Sense’ preceded the declaration and affirmed the very principles that went into the national doctrine of liberty. But that affirmation was made with more vigor, more of the fire of the patriot and was exactly suited to the hour… Certainly [the Revolution] could not be forestalled, once he had spoken.

- Thomas Edison

When you have exhausted all possibilities, remember this – you haven’t.

- Thomas Edison

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

I used to believe that a good product sold itself.

- Phil Knight

As Google CEO Larry Page put it in his 2014 TED talk: “The main thing that has caused companies to fail, in my view, is that they missed the future.

- Jack Welch

I was born in a family with a strong military background, so I chose to be a soldier.

- Wang Jianlin

Personally, I think the failure to really kind of get his arms around this company and this industry led to confusion on behalf of the management team. And I didn’t see that getting any better.

- Phil Knight

You may think using Google’s great, but I still think it’s terrible.

- Larry Page

Anything you’re interested in the world – whether it be Charlie Rose or JetBlue or a public figure or your local coffee shop – they’re on Twitter and broadcasting what is interesting to them.

- Jack Dorsey

The Dip creates scarcity, scarcity creates value.

- Seth Godin

You must capture and keep the heart of the original and supremely able man before his brain can do its best.

- Andrew Carnegie

Sheepwalking I define “sheepwalking” as the outcome of hiring people who have been raised to be obedient and giving them a brain-dead job and enough fear to keep them in line. You’ve probably encountered someone who is sheepwalking. The TSA “screener” who forces a mom to drink from a bottle of breast milk because any other action is not in the manual. A “customer service” rep who will happily reread a company policy six or seven times but never stop to actually consider what the policy means. A marketing executive who buys millions of dollars’ worth of TV time even though she knows it’s not working—she does it because her boss told her to. It’s ironic but not surprising that in our age of increased reliance on new ideas, rapid change, and innovation, sheepwalking is actually on the rise. That’s because we can no longer rely on machines to do the brain-dead stuff. We’ve mechanized what we could mechanize. What’s left is to cost-reduce the manual labor that must be done by a human. So we write manuals and race to the bottom in our search for the cheapest possible labor. And it’s not surprising that when we go to hire that labor, we search for people who have already been trained to be sheepish. Training a student to be sheepish is a lot easier than the alternative. Teaching to the test, ensuring compliant behavior, and using fear as a motivator are the easiest and fastest ways to get a kid through school. So why does it surprise us that we graduate so many sheep? And graduate school? Since the stakes are higher (opportunity cost, tuition, and the job market), students fall back on what they’ve been taught. To be sheep. Well-educated, of course, but compliant nonetheless. And many organizations go out of their way to hire people that color inside the lines, that demonstrate consistency and compliance. And then they give these people jobs where they are managed via fear. Which leads to sheepwalking. (“I might get fired!”) The fault doesn’t lie with the employee, at least not at first. And of course, the pain is often shouldered by both the employee and the customer. Is it less efficient to pursue the alternative? What happens when you build an organization like W. L. Gore and Associates (makers of Gore-Tex) or the Acumen Fund? At first, it seems crazy. There’s too much overhead, there are too many cats to herd, there is too little predictability, and there is way too much noise. Then, over and over, we see something happen. When you hire amazing people and give them freedom, they do amazing stuff. And the sheepwalkers and their bosses just watch and shake their heads, certain that this is just an exception, and that it is way too risky for their industry or their customer base. I was at a Google conference last month, and I spent some time in a room filled with (pretty newly minted) Google sales reps. I talked to a few of them for a while about the state of the industry. And it broke my heart to discover that they were sheepwalking. Just like the receptionist at a company I visited a week later. She acknowledged that the front office is very slow, and that she just sits there, reading romance novels and waiting. And she’s been doing it for two years. Just like the MBA student I met yesterday who is taking a job at a major packaged-goods company…because they offered her a great salary and promised her a well-known brand. She’s going to stay “for just ten years, then have a baby and leave and start my own gig.…” She’ll get really good at running coupons in the Sunday paper, but not particularly good at solving new problems. What a waste. Step one is to give the problem a name. Done. Step two is for anyone who sees themselves in this mirror to realize that you can always stop. You can always claim the career you deserve merely by refusing to walk down the same path as everyone else just because everyone else is already doing it.

- Seth Godin

A pay increase of 5 percent is more than justified. It would compensate for losses we’ve had in the past and I’d like to be able to buy the everyday things I’ve put off for years, like a new TV.

- Michael Gerber

The great thing is we’re going to have a lot of new facilities, where the others were 10 years old or older. That’s a plus for the fans. The new State Road 20 is going to open. That’s a huge addition for us, probably one of the biggest things that’s happened since we bought the track in 1990.

- Ed Clark

Sound managerial decisions are at the very root of their impending fall from industry leadership.

- Clayton M. Christensen

The past is prophetic in that it asserts loudly that wars are poor chisels for carving out peaceful tomorrows.

- Martin Luther King Jr.

The more you praise and celebrate your life, the more there is in life to celebrate.

- Oprah Winfrey

There are really two things that have to occur in order for a new technology to be affordable to the mass market. One is you need economies of scale. The other is you need to iterate on the design. You need to go through a few versions.

- Elon Musk

I love cities, and I love city governments in particular. But in politics it would have taken me 8 years from implementing a policy before I would get to see the feedback. With programming I could model the same policies and see the impact immediately. Technology is a far more efficient way to test.

- Jack Dorsey

The other buzzword that epitomizes a bias toward substitution is “big data.” Today’s companies have an insatiable appetite for data, mistakenly believing that more data always creates more value. But big data is usually dumb data. Computers can find patterns that elude humans, but they don’t know how to compare patterns from different sources or how to interpret complex behaviors. Actionable insights can only come from a human analyst (or the kind of generalized artificial intelligence that exists only in science fiction).

- Peter Thiel

Everything we did we were setting the tone for the world.

- Steve Wozniak

I think our leadership team is a highly accountable leadership team.

- Steve Ballmer

Do you know the only thing that gives me pleasure? It’s to see my dividends coming in.

- John D. Rockefeller

I think my whole life, because of where I came from, I had a fear of failure.

- Howard Schultz

It marks a big step in a man’s development when he comes to realize that other men can be called in to help him do a better job than he can do alone.

- Andrew Carnegie

What I most identify with is effortless fashion, looking as if someone’s not put a lot of effort into their look.

- Sara Blakely

My parents really wanted me to get out of New York, be exposed to other people, other ways of life.

- Howard Schultz

The interview process takes twelve to fifteen hoursof your team’s time. This process is expensive for your team, so you should vet people in advance. A technique I use is to email the references and say, Rate this person one to ten. No one’s going to reply a five or a three by email; that means they hate the candidate. Call me is usually the response for a sub-seven rating. At the same time, nobody is going to reply with a ten. What you’re really looking for is a bunch of eights and nines. This is an exceptionally quick referencing system when you’re trying to triage a list.

- Reid Hoffman

As one’s fortunes are reduced, one spirit must expand to fill the void.

- Winston Churchill

I have a list of the hardest, most challenging problems that our company needs to solve and I start at the top and work my way down. And I have a list of the coolest most fascinating things that we can invent and I start at the top of the list and I work my way down.

- Travis Kalanick

All of us profit from being corrected – if we’re corrected in a positive way.

- Sam Walton

Reckless he is. Matters are worse.

- Yoda

Rewards await you if you stay steadfast in your faith.

- Joel Olsteen

Nobody wanted to believe Jack Ma.

- Jack Ma

I mean, there’s no arguing. There is no anything. There is no beating around the bush. ‘You’re fired’ is a very strong term.

- Donald Trump

I said, ‘I’m not asking your permission, I’m just telling you, I need someone to look up to. You’re my new hero.’

- Phil Knight

That’s your opportunity–to approach your work in a way that generates unique learning and interactions that are worth sharing.

- Seth Godin

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

Look at what caused people to make a lot of money and you will see that usually it is in proportion to their production of what the society wanted.

- Ray Dalio

Execution begins with a vision and your people saying, I understand it. I’m excited about it. I can help make it happen.

- David Novak

Brands mature over time, like a marriage. The bond you feel with your spouse is different than when you first met each other. Excitement and discovery are replaced by comfort and depth.

- Gary Vaynerchuk

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

- Cheng Yu-tung

If you do not conquer self, you will be conquered by self.

- Napoleon Hill

With the right pitch, you’ll get no argument. This is where the salesmanship comes in…It requires of you a substantial degree of self-confidence to pull it off, but your belief in your own project will help you muster that.

- Michael Levine

I would love to do a deal with Walgreen. If they’re willing to come to the table, and offer rates in line with everybody else, then I’m happy to entertain those conversations.

- George Paz

Before you can be sure of your ability to transmute DESIRE into its equivalent, you will require SPECIALIZED KNOWLEDGE of the service, merchandise or profession which you intend to offer in return for fortune.

- Napoleon Hill

My goal was never to just create a company. A lot of people misinterpret that, as if I don’t care about revenue or profit or any of those things. But what not being just a company means to me is not being just that – building something that actually makes a really big change in the world.

- Mark Zuckerberg

Mudhole? Slimy? My home this is!

- Yoda

I want the entire smartphone, the entire Internet, on my wrist.

- Steve Wozniak

I’m a greater believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it.

- Thomas Jefferson

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