Every great man, every successful man, no matter what the field of endeavor, has known the magic that lies in these words: every adversity has the seed of an equivalent or greater benefit.
- W. Clement Stone
Notable Quotables
If you’re going to build a lean enterprise, you can test and measure how often the company ships iterations, how often it fails, how often it is putting things in front of people that don’t work.
- Seth Godin
Think and Thank. Think of all we have to be grateful for, and thank God for all our boons and bounties.
- Dale Carnegie
We remain confident about the market opportunity ahead of us over the next three to five years.
- John Chambers
America’s leaders need to put their feet in the shoes of working Americans.
- Howard Schultz
The first thing I would do for anyone who’s trying to lose body fat, for instance, would be to remove foods from the house that he or she would consume during lapses of self-control.
- Timothy Ferriss
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
Action seems to follow feeling, but really action and feeling go together; and by regulating the action, which is under the more direct control of the will, we can indirectly regulate the feeling, which is not. Thus the sovereign voluntary path to cheerfulness, if our cheerfulness be lost, is to sit up cheerfully and to act and speak as if cheerfulness were already there. …
- Dale Carnegie
Follow the GOLDEN RULE. Do unto others as you would have them do onto you.
- David Robinson
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
Know your numbers’ is a fundamental precept of business.
- Bill Gates
‘You have to come to your closed doors before you get to your open doors… What if you knew you had to go through 32 closed doors before you got to your open door? Well, then you’d come to closed door number eight and you’d think, ‘Great, I got another one out of the way’… Keep moving forward.’
- Joel Olsteen
St Patrick was a Roman Briton of good family dwelling probably in the Severn valley.
- Winston Churchill
When you find an idea that you just can’t stop thinking about, that’s probably a good one to pursue.
- Josh James
People are more likely to accept an order if they have had a part in the decision that caused the order to be issued.
- Dale Carnegie
With the inherent value in Cabot’s capital program, we recommenced buying shares in late November and early December with the market pull back. We still see a lot of merit and long-term value for the shareholders in looking at COG stock as an investment alternative.
- Dan Dinges
If you don’t have ambition, you should not be alive.
- Aliko Dangote
Plans are nothing. Planning is everything.
- Dwight D. Eisenhower
Never forget, the real secret of giving advice is this: Once you’ve given it, don’t concern yourself with whether it is followed or not, and refrain from saying ‘I told you so.’
- Harvey Mackay
An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last.
- Winston Churchill
Call it the emergence of a “world’s bank” – a system built by and for the people, delivering credit in America and across the globe in a radically decentralized, highly scalable, and crucially equitable way. The World Bank funds institutions.The world’s bank funds people.
- Reid Hoffman
You’re dead if you aim only for kids. Adults are only kids grown up, anyway.
- Walt Disney
Every morning brings new potential, but if you dwell on the misfortunes of the day before, you tend to overlook tremendous opportunities.
- Harvey Mackay
With every experience, you alone are painting your own canvas, thought by thought, choice by choice.
- Oprah Winfrey
I had a will to win that come from being raised poor.
- Sam Huff
A riot is the language of the unheard.
- Martin Luther King Jr.
I had this very rich sense of how the metropolis was living and breathing.
- Jack Dorsey
With a decrease in the number of pirates, there has been an increase in global warming over the same period. Therefore, global warming is caused by a lack of pirates. Even more compelling: Somalia has the highest number of Pirates AND the lowest Carbon emissions of any country. Coincidence?
- Timothy Ferriss
You have a real chance to make an impact, but you have to do it in the first 90 days. Otherwise they’ll think it’s going to be business as usual.
- David Novak
Never fear to negotiate, but never negotiate out of fear.
- Jack Nadel
We have a number of difficulties facing our nation, but I believe fatherlessness is right at the top of the list.
- Tony Dungy
I think our leadership team is a highly accountable leadership team.
- Steve Ballmer
If you’re less sensitive to social cues, you’re less likely to do the same things as everyone else around you.
- Peter Thiel
You have to get all agreements in writing.
- Jack Nadel
I try to use my voice. I know that celebrity is valuable, and people do listen.
- Russell Simmons
The greatest of all mistakes is to do nothing because you think you can only do a little.
- Zig Ziglar
We have a mantra: don’t be evil, which is to do the best things we know how for our users, for our customers, for everyone. So I think if we were known for that, it would be a wonderful thing.
- Larry Page
What’s your vision for the future of your follicles?
- Clay Clark
I am a tightwad. That’s one of the main reasons I completed a long questionnaire for a crispy $1 bill. Why else would I spend two or three hours being personally interviewed by these authors? They paid me $100, $200, or $250. Oh, they made me another offer–to donate in my name the money I earned for my interview to my favorite charity. But I told them, I am my favorite charity.
- Thomas J Stanley
Our history is based on extending the brand to categories within the guardrails of Starbucks.
- Howard Schultz
A lie cannot live.
- Martin Luther King Jr.
The Hindus are some of the nicest people you’ll ever meet.
- Joel Olsteen
Optimists are those who go after Moby dick in a row boat with a bucket of tarter sauce.
- Zig Ziglar
I trust that everything happens for a reason, even when we’re not wise enough to see it.
- Oprah Winfrey
When you live for others’ opinions, you are dead. I don’t want to live thinking about how I’ll be remembered.
- Carlos Slim Helu
With the addition of these volumes, our Gulf Coast region is off to a good start for 2006 in its effort to grow its production. Combined, all regions are now showing growth in both production and reserves which is very attractive, especially considering the organic strategy on which we have predominately focused.
- Dan Dinges
It’s not the situation, but whether we react negative or respond positive to the situation that is important.
- Zig Ziglar
Answer me this: would you work harder to earn $100 or avoid losing $100? The smiley optimist says the former, but if research from the Center for Experimental Social Science at New York University is any indication, fear of loss is the home-run winner. Experimental groups given $15 and then told the $15 would be rescinded if they lost a subsequent auction routinely overbid the most. Groups offered $15 if they won weren’t nearly as committed.
- Timothy Ferriss
Much of what passes for quality on British television is no more than a reflection of the narrow elite which controls it and has always thought that its tastes were synonymous with quality.
- Rupert Murdoch
I don’t know what can be so dangerous about giving people hope. Causing people to have better relationships. I’m not leading them to some false God or something like that.
- Joel Olsteen
I always say, ‘To have a big dream requires the same effort as having a small dream. Dream big!’
- Jorge Paulo Lemann
Getting fired, despite sometimes coming as a surprise and leaving you scrambling to recover, is often a godsend. Most people aren’t lucky enough to get fired and die a slow spiritual death over 30-40 years of tolerating the mediocre.
- Timothy Ferriss
Anyone who lives within their means suffers from a lack of imagination.
- Oscar Wilde
There are only two ways to influence human behavior: you can manipulate it or you can inspire it.
- Simon Sinek
Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.
- Steve Jobs
If you’re a surfer, you just want to surf. You don’t know if anyone’s going to see you, and you don’t really care if they see you. You just live for that feeling.
- Jerry Seinfeld
Most answers to the contrarian question are different ways of seeing the present, good answers are as close as we can come to looking into the future.
- Peter Thiel
Great and good are seldom the same man.
- Winston Churchill
innovation without discipline leads to disaster.
- James C. Collins
The lizard brain is hungry, scared, angry, and horny.The lizard brain only wants to eat and be safe.The lizard brain will fight (to the death) if it has to, but would rather run away. It likes a vendetta and has no trouble getting angry.The lizard brain cares what everyone else thinks, because status in the tribe is essential to its survival.A squirrel runs around looking for nuts, hiding from foxes, listening for predators, and watching for other squirrels. The squirrel does this because that’s all it can do. All the squirrel has is a lizard brain.The only correct answer to ‘Why did the chicken cross the road?’ is ‘Because it’s lizard brain told it to.’ Wild animals are wild because the only brain they posses is a lizard brain.The lizard brain is not merely a concept. It’s real, and it’s living on the top of your spine, fighting for your survival. But, of course, survival and success are not the same thing.The lizard brain is the reason you’re afraid, the reason you don’t do all the art you can, the reason you don’t ship when you can. The lizard brain is the source of the resistance.
- Seth Godin
If we open a quarrel between past and present, we shall find that we have lost the future.
- Winston Churchill
Stones of judgment, discouragement or doubt may be thrown at you. You can’t stop them, but you can make the choice to keep your walls up and not let them affect you.
- Joel Olsteen
Make it just like a Mac.
- Bill Gates
I’m a physician. I’ve been blessed with ideas and resources to use technology to make the world a better place. That’s what I would like to leave behind.
- Patrick Soon-Shiong
Next to doing the right thing, the most important thing is to let people know you are doing the right thing.
- John D. Rockefeller
You don’t have to start from scratch to have a massive impact on the world.
- Jack Dorsey
I don’t like to beat people down. They need to be lifted up.
- Joel Olsteen
Too often the strong, silent man is silent only because he does not know what to say, and is reputed strong only because he has remained silent.
- Winston Churchill
Over the years, Hong Kong has been confronted with various challenges. On every occasion, we were able to rely on our unique qualities – resourcefulness, perseverance, diligence and passion for excellence – to rise above our difficulties.
- Cheng Yu-tung
The sad truth is, if you push hard enough, and if you’re so stubborn that you must have things your way, God will sometimes allow you to undertake a project without His blessing or at the wrong time. The problem with that, of course, is when you start something in your own strength and in your own timing, you’re going to have to finish it and maintain it in your own strength.
- Joel Olsteen
I do not suppose that at any moment of history has the agony of the world been so great or widespread. Tonight the sun goes down on more suffering than ever before in the world.
- Winston Churchill
Work hard and persevere.
- Lee Shau Kee
Never, never, never give up.
- Winston Churchill
I don’t have all the answers.
- Joel Olsteen
We’ve fallen into a trap of ever-widening orbits of contact, and there is a total disregard for the present moment.
- Jerry Seinfeld
Art allows people a way to dream their way out of their struggle.
- Russell Simmons
It is impossible to divide the interest of a country and a company that works on its soil.
- Vagit Alekperov
We have secured the rigs necessary to complete our program, a program that focuses on more development activity and less risk. The current forecasted activity level calls for 391 wells, with increased activity in each region including expanded drilling on each of the acquisition plays purchased in 2005.
- Dan Dinges
Love your family, work super hard, live your passion.
- Gary Vaynerchuk
I believe that visualization is one of the most powerful means of achieving personal goals.
- Harvey Mackay
People are always coming up to me and saying, ‘I heard your dad’s speech, and it’s really great.’ And they’ll mention some place I didn’t even know my dad was going to.
- Bill Gates
One clear-cut result is worth a dozen wise precautions.
- Winston Churchill
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.
Intemperance.
- Napoleon Hill
If you aren’t willing to own a stock for ten years, don’t even think about owning it for ten minutes. Put together a portfolio of companies whose aggregate earnings march upward over the years, and so also will the portfolio’s market value
- Warren Buffett
We are the masters of our fate.
- Winston Churchill
If a job doesn’t excite you on some level—just because of the stuff of it—don’t settle.
- Jack Welch
The new information technology… Internet and e-mail… have practically eliminated the physical costs of communications.
- Peter Drucker
If people talk about you, being jealous, critical, and trying to make you look bad, don’t let that change you. You don’t need their approval when you have God’s approval.
- Joel Olsteen
Work is a process, and any process needs to be controlled. To make work productive, therefore, requires building the appropriate controls into the process of work.
- Peter Drucker
If you look at coffee, tea, food and juice, we think there are inherent opportunities. If you look at health bars or grab-and-go products that are in our stores, we think we can significantly enhance them and make them more widely available.
- Howard Schultz
What kind of business world are we living in?
- Jack Ma
But there seems to be little correlation between a man’s effectiveness and his intelligence, his imagination or his knowledge.
- Peter Drucker
Emerson said: Every man I meet is my superior in some way, In that, I learn of him.
- Dale Carnegie
Your weapons, you will not need them.
- Yoda
When eagles are silent, parrots begin to chatter.
- Winston Churchill
In my weekly staff meeting, I inserted an agenda item titled “What Are We Not Doing?
- Ben Horowitz
Don’t be afraid of enemies who attack you. Be afraid of the friends who flatter you.
- Dale Carnegie
If you find yourself plagued by a recurrent worry, train yourself to think of something else. Your conscious mind can concentrate on only one thought at a time, and driving the negativity away will free you up to move forward again.
- Harvey Mackay
This describes Americans today. In middle school, we’re encouraged to start hoarding “extracurricular activities.” In high school, ambitious students compete even harder to appear omnicompetent. By the time a student gets to college, he’s spent a decade curating a bewilderingly diverse résumé to prepare for a completely unknowable future. Come what may, he’s ready—for nothing in particular.
- Peter Thiel





