We all prospect, and don’t even know we’re doing it. When you start the dating process, you are actually prospecting for the person you want to marry. When you’re interviewing employees, you are prospecting for someone who will best fit your needs.
- Zig Ziglar
Notable Quotables
For Starbucks, there will be no shortage of the highest-quality arabica beans. I suspect that for some others there could potentially be a problem, not in the near term, but over time.
- Howard Schultz
Before I left China, I was educated that China was the richest, happiest country in the world. So when I arrived Australia, I thought, ‘Oh my God, everything is different from what I was told.’ Since then, I started to think differently.
- Jack Ma
In day-to-day life, you have stimulus to behave unethically, but in the long term, it always pays off to be ethical.
- Jorge Paulo Lemann
Every company starts only once.
- Peter Thiel
It’s always darkest before the dawn.
- Anonymous
Only the Dark Lord of the Sith knows of our weakness. If informed the senate is, multiply our adversaries will.
- Yoda
There are certain things I will automate, but when it comes to quality control, I want to keep a very close eye.
- Timothy Ferriss
It isn’t what you have or who you are or where you are or what you are doing that makes you happy or unhappy. It is what you think about it.
- Dale Carnegie
If you think about computing, there isn’t just one way to compute, just like there’s not just one way to move around. You can have shoes, you can have a car, you can have a bicycle, submarine, rocket, plane, train, glider, whatever. Because you have one doesn’t mean you get rid of another one… But PCs continue to be important.
- Michael Dell
I wish to God that Apple and Google were partners in the future.
- Steve Wozniak
How we respond to the opportunities and challenges of the outside world now determines how much the outside world values us.
- Seth Godin
One can get anything if he is willing to help enough others get what they want.
- Zig Ziglar
Some people regard private enterprise as a predatory tiger to be shot. Others look on it as a cow they can milk. Not enough people see it as a healthy horse, pulling a sturdy wagon.
- Winston Churchill
You can also make a 10x improvement through superior integrated design.
- Peter Thiel
Practice, practice, PRACTICE in speaking before an audience will tend to remove all fear of audiences, just as practice in swimming will lead to confidence and facility in the water. You must learn to speak by speaking.
- Dale Carnegie
Because we publicists are hired guns, reported don’t often put much stock in our pleas and arguments, at least not a first. I was told by one entertainment reporter from a large metropolitan paper, Publicists don’t believe in what they are selling. They’re just paid pitchmen.
- Michael Levine
I don’t think there’s a… boundary between digital media and print media. Every magazine is doing an online version.
- Bill Gates
In some parts of life, like mathematics and science, yeah, I was a genius. I would top all the top scores you could ever measure it by.
- Steve Wozniak
Fear is the Fatal killer of Desire.
- Zig Ziglar
You spend so much time in the world of virtual that the actual – which nothing is more actual than stand-up – it’s a painful experience for the audience, and the comedian a lot of time – we miss that.
- Jerry Seinfeld
I mean, we’ve built a lot of products that we think are good, and will help people share photos and share videos and write messages to each other. But it’s really all about how people are spreading Facebook around the world in all these different countries. And that’s what’s so amazing about the scale that it’s at today.
- Mark Zuckerberg
The best thinking has been done in solitude. The worst has been done in turmoil.
- Thomas Edison
This notion that it is up to each person to innovate in some way flies in the face of the industrial age, but you know what, the industrial age is over.
- Seth Godin
If you think the people you attract could be better, then it’s time for you to improve yourself.
- Napoleon Hill
I heard about this man who fell into a pit, and while he was down there several people came by and offered their opinions. The Pharisee said, You deserve to be in the pit.” The Catholic said, You need to suffer while you’re in the pit.” The Baptist said, If you’d been saved, you wouldn’t have fallen into the pit.” The charismatic said, Just confess I’m not in the pit.” The mathematician said, Let me calculate how you fell into the pit.” The IRS agent said, Have you paid taxes on that pit?” The optimist said, Things could be worse.” The pessimist said, Things will get worse.
- Joel Olsteen
To change somebody’s behavior, change the level of respect she receives by giving her a fine reputation to live up to. Act as though the trait you are trying to influence is already one of the person’s outstanding characteristics.
- Dale Carnegie
Rockefeller succeeded because he believed in the long –term prospects of the business and never treated it as a mirage that would soon fade.
- Ron Chernow
True genius resides in the capacity for evaluation of uncertain, hazardous, and conflicting information.
- Winston Churchill
The trouble in America is not that we are making too many mistakes, but that we are making too few.
- Phil Knight
Definite planning even went beyond the surface of this planet: NASA’s Apollo Program began in 1961 and put 12 men on the moon before it finished in 1972.
- Peter Thiel
There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it.
- Zig Ziglar
Before spending time on a stress-inducing question or problem, consider this: If you can’t define it or act upon it, forget it.
- Timothy Ferriss
Taxes are not good things, but if you want services, somebody’s got to pay for them so they’re a necessary evil.
- Michael Bloomberg
I very much believe that creating a sense of fun and keeping up everyone’s energy level is part of my job description. – David Novak CEO OF Yum! Brands
- David Novak
In order to become rich, you need to learn to build systems that can work without you. .
- Robert Kiyosaki
Life is a series of experiences, each one of which makes us bigger, even though sometimes it is hard to realize this. For the world was built to develop character, and we must learn that the setbacks and grieves which we endure help us in our marching onward.
- Henry Ford
We are stripped bare by the curse of plenty.
- Winston Churchill
The secret of your success is determined by your daily agenda.
- John C. Maxwell
Study, along the lines which the theologies have mapped, will never lead us to discovery of the fundamental facts of our existence. That goal must be attained by means of exact science and can only be achieved by such means. The fact that man, for ages, has superstitiously believed in what he calls a God does not prove at all that his theory has been right. There have been many gods – all makeshifts, born of inability to fathom the deep fundamental truth. There must be something at the bottom of existence, and man, in ignorance, being unable to discover what it is through reason, because his reason has been so imperfect, undeveloped, has used, instead, imagination, and created figments, of one kind or another, which, according to the country he was born in, the suggestions of his environment, satisfied him for the time being. Not one of all the gods of all the various theologies has ever really been proved. We accept no ordinary scientific fact without the final proof; why should we, then, be satisfied in this most mighty of all matters, with a mere theory?Destruction of false theories will not decrease the sum of human happiness in future, any more than it has in the past… The days of miracles have passed. I do not believe, of course, that there was ever any day of actual miracles. I cannot understand that there were ever any miracles at all. My guide must be my reason, and at thought of miracles my reason is rebellious. Personally, I do not believe that Christ laid claim to doing miracles, or asserted that he had miraculous power…Our intelligence is the aggregate intelligence of the cells which make us up. There is no soul, distinct from mind, and what we speak of as the mind is just the aggregate intelligence of cells. It is fallacious to declare that we have souls apart from animal intelligence, apart from brains. It is the brain that keeps us going. There is nothing beyond that.Life goes on endlessly, but no more in human beings than in other animals, or, for that matter, than in vegetables. Life, collectively, must be immortal, human beings, individually, cannot be, as I see it, for they are not the individuals – they are mere aggregates of cells.There is no supernatural. We are continually learning new things. There are powers within us which have not yet been developed and they will develop. We shall learn things of ourselves, which will be full of wonders, but none of them will be beyond the natural.
- Thomas Edison
Creativity dies in an indisciplined environment.
- James C. Collins
Money isn’t everything , but it’s right up there with oxygen.
- Zig Ziglar
I don’t care about revenues.
- Jack Ma
Frankly speaking, I decided to become a businessman at the moment when I understood that it is possible, because I grew up in a country where it was not possible. There existed even a special article in the penal code of the Soviet Union which punished entrepreneurial activity.
- Vladimir Potanin
I don’t consider myself enigmatic, but I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about my public persona.
- Phil Knight
My goal is to simplify complexity. I just want to build stuff that really simplifies our base human interaction.
- Jack Dorsey
When you’re building a business or joining a company, you have to be transparent; you can’t have two sets of information for two sets of people.
- Howard Schultz
Some employees make products, some make sales; the CEO makes decisions. Therefore, a CEO can most accurately be measured by the speed and quality of those decisions.
- Ben Horowitz
Without the computer, Sam Walton could not have done what he’s done. HE could not have built it. He’s done a lot of other things right too, but he could have done it without the computer,. It would have been possible.
- Abe Marks
In terms of mathematics textbooks, why can’t you have the scale of a national market? Right now, we have a Texas textbook that’s different from a California textbook that’s different from a Massachusetts textbook. That’s very expensive.
- Bill Gates
I would rather entertain and hope that people learned something than educate people and hope they were entertained.
- Walt Disney
Life is a self-fulfilling prophecy
- Chris Humphrey
The industry growth is there, and it’s there probably for the next decade. So how well we execute will determine what role we play.
- John Chambers
NO PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT OR EMPLOYEE FEEDBACK PROCESS Your company now employs twenty-five people and you know that you should formalize the performance management process, but you don’t want to pay the price. You worry that doing so will make it feel like a “big company.” Moreover, you do not want your employees to be offended by the feedback, because you can’t afford to lose anyone right now. And people are happy, so why rock the boat? Why not take on a little management debt? The first noticeable payments will be due when somebody performs below expectations: CEO: “He was good when we hired him; what happened?” Manager: “He’s not doing the things that we need him to do.” CEO: “Did we clearly tell him that?” Manager: “Maybe not clearly . . .” However, the larger payment will be a silent tax. Companies execute well when everybody is on the same page and everybody is constantly improving. In a vacuum of feedback, there is almost no chance that your company will perform optimally across either dimension. Directions with no corrections will seem fuzzy and obtuse. People rarely improve weakness they are unaware of. The ultimate price you will pay for not giving feedback: systematically crappy company performance.
- Ben Horowitz
Without tradition, art is a flock of sheep without a shepherd. Without innovation, it is a corpse.
- Winston Churchill
If you pay people peanuts, you will get monkeys.
- Andy Pearson
You can dramatize your ideas in business or in any other aspect of your life. It’s easy.
- Dale Carnegie
Cherish your visions and your dreams as they are the children of your soul, the blueprints of your ultimate achievements.
- Napoleon Hill
The librarian is the interface between reams of data and the untrained but motivated user.
- Seth Godin
Science investigates religion interprets. Science gives man knowledge which is power religion gives man wisdom which is control.
- Martin Luther King Jr.
I think everyone’s against abortion.
- Rupert Murdoch
Who you are, is who you attract.
- John Maxwell
When someone expresses some feeling, attitude or belief, our tendency is almost immediately to feel that’s right,” or that’s stupid,” that’s abnormal,” that’s unreasonable,” that’s incorrect,” that’s not nice.” Very rarely do we permit ourselves to understand precisely what the meaning of the statement is to the other person.
- Dale Carnegie
We’ve used up a lot of bullets. And we talk about stimulus. But the truth is, we’re running a federal deficit that’s 9 percent of GDP. That is stimulative as all get out. It’s more stimulative than any policy we’ve followed since World War II.
- Warren Buffett
God, Family, Country.
- Zig Ziglar
When launching something new, you have to go for it—“playing not to lose” can never be an option.
- Jack Welch
Life is actually far better than it is in the movies. And it takes longer.
- Seth Godin
The first complaint we hear from everyone is: ‘Why would I want to join this stupid useless thing and know what my brother’s eating for lunch?’ But that really misses the point because Twitter is fundamentally recipient-controlled – you choose to listen and you choose to leave. But you also choose what to put down and what to share.
- Jack Dorsey
You can start right where you stand and apply the habit of going the extra mile by rendering more service and better service than you are now being paid for.
- Napoleon Hill
It is a mistake to hire huge numbers of people to get a complicated job done. Numbers will never compensate for talent in getting the right answer (two people who don’t know something are no better than one), will tend to slow down progress, and will make the task incredibly expensive.
- Elon Musk
If you can’t state your position in eight words, you don’t have a position.
- Seth Godin
You can be passionate about anything.
- Jerry Seinfeld
Trump has been very influential in helping me expand by vision. Sometimes I talk to Donald two or three times a day, and he’s taught me many things. The best thing was a story he tells me about buying a building. When he built Trump Tower he also bought the rights to use the Tiffany name on the building. It was gonna be Tiffany Tower. He late father said, Yeah right. When you change your name to Tiffany, you call it Tiffany Tower. But for now, you call it Trump. Over a period of years whenever he was in trouble, his name and his promotion of himself as a brand are what saved him. I keep that lesson in mind. I remember how connecting Def Comedy Jam to Def Jam records helped both entities – associating HBO with an established hip-hop brand helped get the show on the air, while linking the label to a hot TV show helped the label survive a cold period.
- Russell Simmons
I don’t know what would have happened if we hadn’t won that AOL deal
- Sergey Brin
If we do not have time to do it right the first time when will we have time to come back and do it right again later?
- Lee Cockerell
The chief function of the body is to carry the brain around.
- Thomas Edison
We’ve shown the world that New York can never be defeated, because of its dynamic and diverse population and because it embodies the spirit of enterprise and the love of liberty. And because no matter who you are, if you believe in yourself and your dream, New York will always be the place for you.
- Michael Bloomberg
So far as the religion of the day is concerned, it is a damned fake … Religion is all bunk.
- Thomas Edison
Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise.
- Benjamin Franklin
No matter what happens, always be yourself.
- Dale Carnegie
The great thing about a computer notebook is that no matter how much you stuff into it, it doesn’t get bigger or heavier.
- Bill Gates
If you don’t have a competitive advantage, don’t compete.
- Jack Welch
As long as you’re going to be thinking anyway, think big.
- Donald Trump
I’m not looking for a legacy, and you’ll never shut up the critics. I’ve been around 50 years. When you’re a catalyst for change, you make enemies – and I’m proud of the ones I’ve got.
- Rupert Murdoch
Getting over the war was biggest adversity I have ever faced.
- Jack Nadel
I’m less interested in how people are following each other and more interested in how they are following topics and tweets themselves. People are following more key words and concepts and more ideas and acting on those rather than individuals or organizations.
- Jack Dorsey
We do lots of Stuff. The only way you are going to have success is to have lots of failures first.
- Sergey Brin
Don’t worry that you can’t seem to come up with sure billion dollar winners at first. Just do projects for yourself for fun. You’ll get better and better.
- Steve Wozniak
You are here today because of a decision you made yesterday.
- Bryan Smith
In Hong Kong, the property business has always been very competitive, so we have to think of ways to get an edge over our competitors.
- Raymond Kwok
There is no expedient to which a man will not resort to avoid the labour ofthinking-if we bother with facts at all, we hunt like bird dogs after the facts thatbolster up what we already think-and ignore all the others! We want only the facts thatjustify our acts-the facts that fit in conveniently with our wishful thinking and justifyour preconceived prejudices!As Andre Maurois put it: Everything that is in agreement with our personal desiresseems true. Everything that is not puts us into a rage.Is it any wonder, then, that we find it so hard to get at the answers to our problems?Wouldn’t we have the same trouble trying to solve a second-grade arithmetic problem, ifwe went ahead on the assumption that two plus two equals five? Yet there are a lot ofpeople in this world who make life a hell for themselves and others by insisting that twoplus two equals five-or maybe five hundred!
- Thomas Edison
Do it. Try it. Fix it.
- Sam Walton
We have a number of difficulties facing our nation, but I believe fatherlessness is right at the top of the list.
- Tony Dungy
I’m a greater believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it.
- Thomas Jefferson
Successful storytelling builds brand equity, and businesses with high brand equity don’t need to draw as much attention to themselves and their achievements as those that are still establishing their value to the customer.
- Gary Vaynerchuk
Speak the truth. Transparency breeds legitimacy.
- John C. Maxwell
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
Inspiration can be found in a pile of junk. Sometimes, you can put it together with a good imagination and invent something.
- Thomas Edison
When you deal with change, you have a couple choices: you can lead it and make the rules, or you can be a fast follower, or you can be a slow follower.
- Charles Ergen
And wherever men are fighting against barbarism, tyranny, and massacre, for freedom, law, and honour, let them remember that the fame of their deeds, even though they themselves be exterminated, may perhaps be celebrated as long as the world rolls round.
- Winston Churchill





