Notable Quotables

To me, the idea and expectation that the day is slowly and surely coming when we will be able to honestly say we are our brother’s keeper and not his oppressor is very beautiful .

- Thomas Edison

McDonald’s is a people business, and that smile on that counter girl’s face when she takes your order is a vital part of our image.

- Ray Kroc

Those who are blessed with the most talent don’t necessarily outperform everyone else. It’s the people with follow-through who excel.

- Mary Kay Ash

The conquest was not achieved without one frightful convulsion of revolt. “In this year A.D. 61”, according to Tacitus, “a severe disaster was sustained in Britain.” Suetonius, the new governor, had engaged himself deeply in the West. He transferred the operational base of the Roman army to Chester. Because it was the centre of Druid resistance he prepared to attack “the populous island of Mona [Anglesey], which had become a refuge for fugitives, and he built a fleet of flat-bottomed vessels suitable for those shallow and shifting seas. The infantry crossed in the boats, the cavalry went over by fords: where the water was too deep the men swam alongside of their horses. The enemy lined the shore, a dense host of armed men, interspersed with women clad in black like the Furies, with their hair hanging down and holding torches in their hands. Round this were Druids.

- Winston Churchill

I’ll mix a lot of things. I’ll wear a Temperley dress with flip flops, or I might be in head-to-toe Gucci and have on a ring that I got from a gumball machine for 50 cents.

- Sara Blakely

Out that expending emotional labor, working without a map, and driving in the dark involve confronting fear and living with the pain of vulnerability. The artist comes to a détente with these emotions and, instead of fighting with them, dances with them. The linchpin connects as a result of the indispensable nature of her contribution. The artist, on the other hand, connects because that’s what art is. The artist touches part of what it means to be truly human and does that work again and again.

- Seth Godin

When you go in for a job interview, I think a good thing to ask is if they ever press charges.

- Jack Handee

The moment you feel the need to tightly manage someone, you’ve made a hiring mistake.

- James C. Collins

The killer app that got the world ready for appliances was the light bulb. So the light bulb is what wired the world. And they weren’t thinking about appliances when they wired the world. They were really thinking about – they weren’t putting electricity into the home. They were putting lighting into the home.

- Jeff Bezos

We decided that instead of avoiding our competitors, or waiting for them to come to us, we would meet them head-on. It was one of the smartest strategic decisions we ever made. In fact, if our story doesn’t prove anything else about the free market system, it erases any doubt that spirited competition is good for business – not just for customers, but the companies which have to compete with one another too. Our competitors have honed and sharpened us to an edge we wouldn’t have with out them. We wouldn’t be nearly as good as we are today without Kmart, and I think they would admit we’ve made them a better retailer. One reason Sears fell so far off the pace is that they wouldn’t admit for the longest time that Wal-Mart and Kmart were their real competition. They ignored both of us, and we both blew right by them.

- Sam Walton

We’ve had three big ideas at Amazon that we’ve stuck with for 18 years, and they’re the reason we’re successful: Put the customer first. Invent. And be patient.

- Jeff Bezos

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

But innovation and change make inordinate time demands on the executive. All one can think and do in a short time is to think what one already knows and to do as one has always done.

- Peter Drucker

What makes the meaning of life is people, so you try to be good to people immediately around you and in your broader community. So a lot of my projects are about how I can affect the world in the hundreds of millions.

- Reid Hoffman

Personal discipline, when it becomes a way of life in our personal, family, and career lives, will enable us to do some incredible things.

- Zig Ziglar

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

- John C. Maxwell

London, a city where creativity and innovation have always flourished, provides a significant home for Starbucks and a significant gateway into Europe.

- Howard Schultz

Canon is basically a very aggressive company. Our company works on competitive principles. It does not treat people equally, but it does treat them fairly.

- Fujio Mitarai

Many people die at twenty five and aren’t buried until they are seventy five.

- Benjamin Franklin

“Appreciate everything your associates do for the business. Nothing else can quite substitute for a few well-chosen, well-timed, sincere words of praise. They’re absolutely free and worth a fortune.”

- Sam Walton

You have to be pretty driven to make it happen. Otherwise, you will just make yourself miserable.

- Elon Musk

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

- Steve Wozniak

To model yourself after Steve Jobs is like, ‘I’d like to paint like Picasso, what should I do? Should I use more red?’

- Larry Ellison

The person who knows one thing and does it better than anyone else, even if it only be the art of raising lentils, receives the crown he merits. If he raises all his energy to that end, he is a benefactor of mankind and its rewarded as such.

- Og Mandino

I get calls from everybody asking if I know of any drivers, anybody they can hire.

- Jack Taylor

I will tell you how to become rich. Close the doors. Be fearful when others are greedy. Be greedy when others are fearful.

- Warren Buffett

Enthusiasm is the yeast that makes your hopes shine to the stars. Enthusiasm is the sparkle in your eyes, the swing in your gait. The grip of your hand, the irresistible surge of will and energy to execute your ideas.

- Henry Ford

Twitter was around communication and visualizing what was happening in the world in real-time. Square was allowing everyone to accept the form of payment people have in their pocket today, which is a credit card.

- Jack Dorsey

I can’t afford to be indifferent to politics, but I don’t have personal ambitions.

- Vagit Alekperov

Let’s realise that criticisms are like homing pigeons. They always return home. Let’s realise that the person we are going to correct and condemn will probably justify himself o herself, and condemn us in return.

- Dale Carnegie

The surest foundation of a manufacturing concern is quality. After that, and a long way after, comes cost.

- Andrew Carnegie

We often hear military experts inculcate the doctrine of giving priority to the decisive theatre. There is a lot in this. But in war this principle, like all others, is governed by facts and circumstances; otherwise strategy would be too easy. It would become a drill-book and not an art; it would depend upon rules and not on an instructed and fortunate judgment of the proportions of an ever-changing scene.

- Winston Churchill

He possessed a sense of calling in both religion and business, with Christianity and capitalism forming the twin pillars of his life.

- Ron Chernow

To be always intending to make a new and better life but never to find time to set about it is as to put off eating and drinking and sleeping from one day to the next until you’re dead.

- Og Mandino

Too many people are living below their privileges. It’s because their vision has been clouded by past mistakes, disappointments, or how they were raised. They don’t feel like royalty. They don’t think they could be successful and really accomplish what God has put in their hearts. But I believe today, as I’m speaking faith into you, something is happening on the inside.

- Joel Olsteen

No man has a right to expect to succeed in life unless he understands his business, and nobody can understand his business thoroughly unless he learns it by personal application and experience.

- P.T. Barnum

Hedgehog Concept—disciplined action, following from disciplined people who exercise disciplined thought.

- James C. Collins

It is becoming increasingly clear that the global economy is improving, … As customers feel more confident to invest, we believe that we are well positioned to provide compelling value as a strategic business adviser and technology partner.

- John Chambers

Well-spent aid money is saving lives for a few thousand dollars per life saved.

- Bill Gates

Successful people find value in unexpected places, and they do this by thinking about business from first principles instead of formulas.

- Peter Thiel

We can’t wait for Washington. Business leaders are going to have to galvanize their own constituencies and do everything they can to demonstrate confidence in the economy, and I think that can be contagious.

- Howard Schultz

A difficult time can be more readily endured if we retain the conviction that our existence holds a purpose, a cause to pursue, a person to love, a goal to achieve.

- John C. Maxwell

To all of us comes that moment in life when we are literally tapped on the shoulder to do a very special thing unique to ourselves and our talents. What a pity if that moment finds us unprepared.

- Winston Churchill

We subpoenaed him for the SAP trial and he was on the lam. The HP board sent him to Bolivia to talk to customers. Then they sent him to Mongolia to talk to customers, just out of reach of the federal subpoenas … the board figured out [later]: we should have left Leo in Mongolia.

- Larry Ellison

My goal wasn’t to make a ton of money. It was to build good computers. I only started the company when I realized I could be an engineer forever.

- Steve Wozniak

Information technology and business are becoming inextricably interwoven. I don’t think anybody can talk meaningfully about one without the talking about the other.

- Bill Gates

Appreciation – Learn to give flowers while people are still living.

- Joel Olsteen

When you are winning a war almost everything that happens can be claimed to be right and wise.

- Winston Churchill

By giving people the power to share, we’re making the world more transparent.

- Mark Zuckerberg

You have to take away some of tax breaks for the wealthy, and you have to cut back on some entitlements. Because, unless we do all of these things, it just doesn’t work. And what’s good theater and what’s good politics isn’t necessarily good economic policy.

- Michael Bloomberg

Ahhh! Yoda’s little friend you seek!

- Yoda

Managers will play every game in the book to avoid identifying their bottom 10. Sometimes they’ll sneak in people who were planning to retire that year or others who already have been told to leave the organization.

- Jack Welch

From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the Continent.

- Winston Churchill

We can schedule for it. Thursday, April 3rd, 3:05…start something. We can train for it, plan for it, announce it, and even hire for it. If initiating is as essential to the modern organization as it appears, we better be doing all of that and more.

- Seth Godin

You don’t have to hold a position in order to be a leader.

- Henry Ford

Bill Gates is the pope of the personal computer industry. He decides who’s going to build.

- Larry Ellison

The first step in solving a problem is to recognize that it does exist.

- Zig Ziglar

You want to have a future where you’re expecting things to be better, not one where you’re expecting things to be worse.

- Elon Musk

Hosting the Oscars is much like making love to a woman. It’s something I only get to do when Billy Crystal is out of town.

- Steve Martin

We must not let our standards be determined by the gentlemen of the oposition.

- Winston Churchill

I don’t like to look back, and I’m always worried about the next thing rather than resting on the laurels or the degradations of the last thing.

- Steve Martin

Right now, with social networks and other tools on the Internet, all of these 500 million people have a way to say what they’re thinking and have their voice be heard.

- Mark Zuckerberg

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

- James C. Collins

Young men starting in life should avoid running into debt. There is scarcely anything that drags a person down like debt. It is a slavish position to get ill, yet we find many a young man, hardly out of his “teens,” running in debt. He meets a chum and says, “Look at this: I have got trusted for a new suit of clothes.” He seems to look upon the clothes as so much given to him; well, it frequently is so, but, if he succeeds in paying and then gets trusted again, he is adopting a habit which will keep him in poverty through life. Debt robs a man of his self-respect, and makes him almost despise himself.

- P.T. Barnum

It’s ironic that no matter where I go, I meet people from Brooklyn. I’m proud of that heritage. It’s where I’m from, who I am.

- Howard Schultz

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

What we expect with confidence becomes our own self-fulfilling prophecy.

- Brian Tracy

Money is fun to make, fun to spend and fun to give away.

- Sara Blakely

When you do the things you need to do when you need to do them, the day will come when you can do the things you want to do when you want to do them.

- Zig Ziglar

Social media requires that business leaders start thinking like small-town shop owners. This means taking the long view and avoiding short-term benchmarks to gauge progress. It means allowing the personality, heart and soul of the people who run all levels of the business to show.

- Gary Vaynerchuk

When I’m bored or tired of being blonde, I’ll throw on a wig. It’s a lot less of a permanent way to change your look, and I have about 10 – all different colors, shapes, bobs, long hair, short, feathered.

- Sara Blakely

Psychological despotism, whether enlightened or not, is gross misuse of psychology. The main purpose of psychology is to acquire insight into, and mastery of, oneself. Not for nothing were what we now call the behavioral sciences originally called the moral sciences and “Know thyself” their main precept. To use psychology to control, dominate, and manipulate others is self-destructive abuse of knowledge. It is also a particularly repugnant form of tyranny.

- Peter Drucker

Many people spend more time in planning the wedding than they do in planning the marriage.

- Zig Ziglar

If somebody can do something 80 percent as good as you think you would have done it yourself, then you’ve got to let it go.

- Sara Blakely

It’s okay. Let your ego push you to be the initiator. But tell your ego that the best way to get something shipped is to let other people take the credit. The real win for you (and your ego) is seeing something get shipped, not in getting the credit when it does.

- Seth Godin

Starbucks has changed the rules of engagement for the music industry.

- Howard Schultz

Motivation needs to be a part of your own life for you to be effective in conveying it to other people.

- Zig Ziglar

Maybe I was accepted to Harvard only because of my tennis skills, since I definitively had no great academic achievements. I was 17 and only thought about surfing and playing tennis. I had almost never left Rio de Janeiro and had never been to the United States.

- Jorge Paulo Lemann

The average person puts only 25% of his energy and ability into his work. The world takes off its hat to those who put in more than 50% of their capacity, and stands on its head for those few and far between souls who devote 100%.

- Andrew Carnegie

I know when one door closes God will open up another door. What was meant for my harm God will use to my advantage. I’m not only coming out, I will come out better off than I was before.

- Joel Olsteen

In a world where wealth is growing, you can get away with printing money. Doubling the debt over the next 20 years is not a problem.

- Peter Thiel

The Bible says, See that none of you repays another evil for evil, but always aim to show kindness and seek to do good to one another and to everybody.

- Joel Olsteen

I have plenty of money to do what I want to do, and I have the relationships.

- Timothy Ferriss

One of the jobs of a manager is to instill confidence, pump confidence into your people. And when you’ve got somebody who’s raring to go and you can smell it and feel it, give ’em that shot.

- Jack Welch

Any great founders need to get out of the way of the company.

- Jack Dorsey

Mickey Mouse popped out of my mind onto a drawing pad 20 years ago on a train ride from Manhattan to Hollywood at a time when business fortunes of my brother Roy and myself were at lowest ebb and disaster seemed right around the corner.

- Walt Disney

There’s no substitute for a full-time dad. Dads who are fully engaged with their kids overwhelmingly tend to produce children who believe in themselves and live full lives.

- Tony Dungy

I don’t know what would have happened if we hadn’t won that AOL deal

- Sergey Brin

An apology? Bah! Disgusting! Cowardly! Beneath the dignity of any gentleman, however wrong he might be.

- Steve Martin

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