Notable Quotables

I like to play cards. I’m not very good, because I don’t want to calculate, I just play by instinct. But I’ve learned a lot of business philosophy by playing poker.

- Jack Ma

As long as you’re green, you’re growing. As soon as you’re ripe, you start to rot.

- Ray Kroc

I am optimistic that we can achieve a better future. It’s not true that the Philippines is a hopeless case.

- Henry Sy

It’s better to have a hundred people that love you, than a million people that sort of like you.

- Paul Graham

Only in a definite future is money a means to an end, not the end itself.

- Peter Thiel

Confidence in our own independence of mind. But advertising doesn’t exist to make you buy a product right away, it exists to embed subtle impressions that will drive sales later. Anyone who can’t acknowledge its likely effect on himself is doubly deceived.

- Peter Thiel

Above all, you want to create something you’re proud of. This has always been my philosophy of business. I can honestly say that I have never gone into any business purely to make money. If that is the sole motive, then I believe you are better off not doing it.

- Richard Branson

I’m glad to see that BMW is bringing an electric car to market. That’s cool.

- Elon Musk

My wealth is reflected in the price of Severstal, and the number of shares I have in my possession doesn’t have any impact on the company.

- Alexei Mordashov

A startup is a team of people on a mission, and a good culture is just what that looks like on the inside.

- Peter Thiel

Nine times out of ten, an argument ends with each of the contestants more firmly convinced than ever that he is absolutely right.

- Dale Carnegie

Today knowledge has power. It controls access to opportunity and advancement.

- Peter Drucker

God never promised that we wouldn’t have challenges. In fact, He said just the opposite. His word says, ‘Be truly glad!…these trials are only to test your faith, to see whether or not it is strong and pure…’ so if your faith remains strong after being tried in the test tube of fiery trials, it will bring you much praise and glory and honor on the day of His return.

- Joel Olsteen

The only antidote is simplicity. The simplicity of leading through truth and trust. Ceaselessly seeking the former, relentlessly building the latter. In every decision, in every action. Truth is a determined pursuit, a personal and unquenchable fire, burning to know what is really happening inside the company and out.

- Jack Welch

Unemployment rates among Americans who never went to college are about double that of those who have a postsecondary education.

- Bill Gates

Konosuke Matsushita was a visionary entrepreneur. He started working very young as a teenager, and he eventually created Panasonic to become a truly global company.

- Tadashi Yanai

I was never the smartest guy in the room. From the first person I hired, I was never the smartest guy in the room. And that’s a big deal. And if you’re going to be a leader – if you’re a leader and you’re the smartest guy in the world – in the room, you’ve got real problems.

- Jack Welch

One who knows God is going to bless them, despite the fact that they have no idea how to actually raise capital or solve a real problem that people have in exchange for monetary compensation. They love the idea of business ownership, yet fear working, as though doing any actual work or rendering any tangible service or product might ruin their lives on this planet and for eternity.

- Clay Clark

We’re living in what I like to call the ‘Thank You Economy,’ because only the companies that can figure out how to mind their manners in a very old-fashioned way – and do it authentically – are going to have a prayer of competing.

- Gary Vaynerchuk

Even though I get older, what I do never gets old, and that’s what I think keeps me hungry.

- Warren Buffett

[On Square in July 2011] We’re going to make it amazing.

- Jack Dorsey

The reason a lot of people do not recognize opportunity is because it usually goes around wearing overalls looking like hard work.

- Thomas Edison

To make an embarrassing admission, I like video games. That’s what got me into software engineering when I was a kid. I wanted to make money so I could buy a better computer to play better video games – nothing like saving the world.

- Elon Musk

Success doesn’t make you and failure doesn’t break you.

- Zig Ziglar

We’re responsible for the creation of the PC industry. The whole idea of compatible machines and lots of software.. that’s something we brought to computing. And so it’s a responsibility for us to make sure that things like security don’t get in the way of that dream.

- Bill Gates

I see tremendous imbalance in the world. A very uneven playing field, which has gotten tilted very badly. I consider it unstable. At the same time, I don’t exactly see what is going to reverse it.

- George Soros

I still get up fairly early around six, but I work out for an hour every morning, I read often while excercising and give myself some private team. I’ll speak with administrative my administrative assistant, Donna Hughes, who is an organizational genus on the way into the office and go through the day, so by the time I get to the office around 8:30 or 9:00 I can hit the ground running…In both my workday and my life, what I try to achieve is balance.

- David Novak

Google is a small fish in a big pond. We could be swallowed whole at any time. We are not the monopoly that the government is looking for.

- Peter Thiel

Frequently I’ll be interviewing with somebody or talking and in about 15 minutes they’ll interrupt me mid-stream and say, ‘Oh my God, you’re nothing like I’d thought you’d be.’

- Larry Ellison

We have an ideal location for a couple of organic wineries on the island. But the reintroduction of commercial agriculture to Lanai is 100% dependent upon increasing the available water on the island. So we’re going to use solar energy to convert seawater to fresh water.

- Larry Ellison

If you are a leader, you should never forget that everyone needs encouragement. And everyone who receives it – young or old, successful or less-than-successful, unknown or famous – is changed by it.

- John C. Maxwell

They that soar too high, often fall hard, making a low and level Dwelling preferable. The tallest Trees are most in the Power of the Winds, and Ambitious Men of the Blasts of Fortune. Buildings have need of a good Foundation, that lie so much exposed to the Weather.

- Dale Carnegie

If people like you they’ll listen to you, but if they trust you they’ll do business with you.

- Zig Ziglar

Decided only to be undecided, resolved to be irresolute, adamant for drift, solid for fluidity, all-powerful to be impotent.

- Winston Churchill

A false transaction using my own people to buy the flat? I’ll make a bet with you. For every $10,000 you put down, I’ll wager $1 million.

- Lee Shau Kee

The key to success is to get out into the store and listen to what the associates have to say.

- Sam Walton

When evaluating the results, we should not overlook the fact that there was, in some cases, very weak growth in Europe, Russia, and South America. There were also significant exchange rate fluctuations. In addition, the mild winter at the end of 2014 had a negative impact on the winter tire business in Europe. The driving force behind the sales development once again came from China and North America. In light of this, it is remarkable that profit after taxes of just under €2.4 billion or €11.88 per share could be achieved.

- Elmar Degenhart

The big value of the founder running the company is really two things: the knowledge and the commitment.

- Ben Horowitz

If everything seems under control, you’re just not going fast enough.

- Mario Andretti

By faith you need to walk like a king, talk like a king, think like a king, dress like a king, smile like a king. Don’t go by what you see. Go by what you know. There is royalty in your DNA. You have the blood of a winner. You were created to reign in life.

- Joel Olsteen

I wish to God that Apple and Google were partners in the future.

- Steve Wozniak

The world has changed – through technology, through wine-making techniques, the quality of wine is greater than it’s ever been. Whereas ten, fifteen years ago it was very easy to find lots of bad wine, it’s kind of hard now. The technology, the science – it’s like, are you kidding? We’re in the golden years of wine!

- Gary Vaynerchuk

It’s a mystery to me the way that contemporary art galleries function.

- Steve Martin

Sam phoned to tell me he was going to start a wholesale club. It was no surprise. He is notorious for looking at what everybody else does, taking the best of it, and then making it better.

- Sol Price

The biggest cowards are managers who don’t let people know where they stand.

- Jack Welch

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

Bloodshed, gentlemen, no doubt is lamentable. I have seen some of it–more perhaps than many of those who talk about it with such levity. But there are worse things than bloodshed, even on an extreme scale. . . . The trampling down of law and order which, under the conditions of a civilised state, assure life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness–all this would be worse than bloodshed.

- Winston Churchill

In bad times and good, I have never lost my sense zest for life

- Walt Disney

SPAM is taking e-mail, which is a wonderful tool, and exploiting the idea that it’s very inexpensive to send mail.

- Bill Gates

Projects undreamed of by past generations will absorb our immediate descendants, comforts, activities, amenities, pleasures will crowd upon them, but their hearts will ache and their lives will be barren, if they have not a vision above material things.

- Winston Churchill

Out-innovating them is the way to beat China. And to do everything that we do in this country to support innovative policy, that drives innovation and new products and more jobs and creates jobs. You can’t – you can’t put a wall up around here. We tried that in the ’30s. It didn’t work.

- Jack Welch

Un cambio de actitud Lo que diferencia a los individuos exitosos de aquellos que languidecen es exactamente lo mismo que separa a las organizaciones innovadoras y en crecimiento de aquellas que se estancan y mueren. Los ganadores han convertido la iniciativa en una pasión y en una práctica. Adelante, prepara una lista de las personas y organizaciones a las que admiras. Apuesto a que el séptimo imperativo es lo que las hace destacar. Como ves, el reto no consiste en perfeccionar tu capacidad de saber cuándo empezar o cuándo mantenerte al margen, sino en adoptar la costumbre de empezar.

- Seth Godin

Young people in China and Hong Kong are the future of the motherland.

- Cheng Yu-tung

Be happy with who God made you to be, and quit wishing you were something different.

- Joel Olsteen

I think that business book reporting, it’s all Jim Collins, it’s the story of victory; it’s success bias over and over again.

- Ben Horowitz

The focus on contribution by itself supplies the four basic requirements of effective human relations: communications, teamwork, self-development, and development of others.

- Peter Drucker

The customer reaction to Dell going private has been a lot more positive than I would have ever imagined. Customers see it as – ‘You don’t have to be distracted. Now you can totally focus on your business.’ So they see it as a positive.

- Michael Dell

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

It’s hard to improve public education – that’s clear.

- Bill Gates

We are pleased to report the 33rd consecutive quarter of revenue and earnings growth. We are especially pleased with the balanced growth rate across almost all countries in both Europe and the Americas.

- John Chambers

There are ways of fighting for your interests. I never do something in business that I wouldn’t do in life.

- Vladimir Potanin

Right now I’m just delighted to be alive and to have had a nice long bath.

- Richard Branson

We are not trying to entertain the critics. I’ll take my chances with the public.

- Walt Disney

Research indicates that employees have three prime needs: Interesting work, recognition for doing a good job, and being let in on things that are going on in the company.

- Zig Ziglar

When Baby Boomers grow up and write books to explain why one or another individual is successful, they point to the power of a particular individual’s context as determined by chance. But they miss the even bigger social context for their own preferred explanations: a whole generation learned from childhood to overrate the power of chance and underrate the importance of planning. Gladwell at first appears to be making a contrarian critique of the myth of the self-made businessman, but actually his own account encapsulates the conventional view of a generation.

- Peter Thiel

When I think about parallels between myself and an Olympian, I believe that success in the world of business is underpinned by very similar principles of perseverance and hard work.

- Lakshmi Mittal

We need to show mercy. I mean, because as much mercy as you show people, that’s the mercy you’re going to be receiving.

- Joel Olsteen

Options – the ability to choose – is real power. This book is all about how to see and create those options with the least effort and cost. It just so happens, paradoxically, that you can make more money – a lot more money – by doing half of what you are doing now.

- Timothy Ferriss

A lot of people feel very good about Mitt Romney and I think he’s going to do a great job.

- Donald Trump

Growth is the great separator between those who succeed and those who do not. When I see a person beginning to separate themselves from the pack, it’s almost always due to personal growth.

- John C. Maxwell

The world at large is less inequitable today than at any time in history. Number of people in abject poverty, as a percentage, is at all-time low.

- Bill Gates

Many salespeople feel that selling is warfare: the buyer is the enemy and words are ammunition…The seller’s advances are turned aside because they are so predictable, amateurish and easily deflected.

- Jerry Vass

The reason the social-networking phenomenon is something that I invested in early and massively – I led the Series A financing for Friendster; I founded a company called Socialnet in 1997; I founded LinkedIn; and I was part of the first round of financing in Facebook – it sounds trivial, but people matter.

- Reid Hoffman

Me and my dad are the biggest promoters of an estate tax in the US. It’s not a popular position.

- Bill Gates

There’s pros and cons of a big church. Cons is I don’t get to know everybody, I don’t get to go to their ballgame, I don’t get to marry everybody, but the pros are you get all this community, 800 ushers come in to serve, getting there at 7 in the morning on their day off and coming in on Saturday to make all those wafers.

- Joel Olsteen

It’s quite complicated and sounds circular, but we’ve worked out a way of calculate a Web site’s importance.

- Larry Page

The lessons I learned from the dark days at Alibaba are that you’ve got to make your team have value, innovation, and vision. Also, if you don’t give up, you still have a chance. And, when you are small, you have to be very focused and rely on your brain, not your strength.

- Jack Ma

Here’s how I work: It’s 2013, and most marketers are operating like it’s 2009. I’m always trying to market like it’s 2015, but not like it’s 2020. A lot of my contemporaries who understand where the world is going, go too far out, and aren’t practical. I have always prided myself on being visionary, with a heavy practicality.

- Gary Vaynerchuk

If you are nervous about making the jump or simply putting it off out of fear of the unknown, here is your antidote. Write down your answers to these questions, and keep in mind that thinking a lot will not prove as fruitful or as prolific as simply brain vomiting on the page. Write and do not edit – aim for volume. Spend a few minutes on each answer.1. Define your nightmare, the absolute worst that could happen if you did what you are considering.2. What steps could you take to repair the damage or get things back on the upswing, even if temporarily?3. What are the outcomes or benefits, both temporary and permanent, of more probably scenarios?4. If you were fired from your job today, what would you do to get things under financial control?5. What are you putting off out of fear?6. What is it costing you – financially, emotionally, and physically – to postpone action?7. What are you waiting for?

- Timothy Ferriss

Marketing is a contest for people’s attention.

- Seth Godin

Whoever is first to dominate the most important segment of a market with viral potential will be the last mover in the whole market.

- Peter Thiel

If you don’t have a voice that forces you back to basics, you’re a dangerous person. Or to put it another way: You’re at risk, and the people with you are at risk. I’m not a daredevil. I don’t fly without a safety net.

- Stephen Wynn

the only way on earth to influence other people is to talk about what they want and show them how to get it.

- Dale Carnegie

You can have it all. You just can’t have it all at once.

- Oprah Winfrey

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

- Thomas Jefferson

Build a culture that rewards—not punishes—people for getting problems into the open where they can be solved.

- Ben Horowitz

Although I receive a small salary from Apple, I do virtually no real work at the company.

- Steve Wozniak

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