Notable Quotables

If you cannot do great things, do small things in a great way.

- Napoleon Hill

We’ve been trained to prefer being right to learning something, to prefer passing the test to making a difference, and most of all, to prefer fitting in with the right people, the people with economic power. Now it’s your turn to stand up and stand out.

- Seth Godin

By definition, it is not possible to everyone to be above the average.

- James C. Collins

When you’re curious, you find lots of interesting things to do.

- Walt Disney

Organizations that achieve both market and operating focus are nearly unbeatable Customers don’t buy products or services. They buy results. They were designed to break what Schlesinger and his colleagues called the cycle of failure practiced by many of Au Bon Pain’s competitors who paid their employees and managers low wages, offered them little training and other support, and suffered high turnover of employees and limited customer loyalty as a result.

- James L. Heskett, W. Earl Sasser and Leonard

When you are the first person whose beliefs are different from what everyone else believes, you are basically saying, ‘I’m right and everyone else is wrong.’ That’s a very unpleasant position to be in. It’s at once exhilaration and the same time an invitation to be attacked.

- Larry Ellison

Competitiveness is really what it costs you per man-hour to get you what you want. In other words, there’s an education level that plays into the mix and so if it’s inexpensive to buy an hour of real good education in places like China versus the U.S., that factors in.

- Ray Dalio

Make a point to continually search for a better way of doing things, even when things are going well, to ensure that a better alternative has not been overlooked and to keep your creative talents in practice.

- John C. Maxwell

When my sister and I came along, my father’s political life was completely over. He ran for president the year I was born. So that was the end of it. He had been congressman first, then governor, before all that. So when we came along, he was running the Dayton newspaper.

- Anne Cox Chambers

Anything worth doing is worth doing poorly–until you can learn to do it well.

- Zig Ziglar

You can be in the storm, but don’t let the storm get in you.

- Joel Olsteen

Life isn’t fair. It’s true, and you still have to deal with it. Whining about it rarely levels the playing field, but learning to rise above it is the ultimate reward.

- Harvey Mackay

It may look like the difficulty is going to defeat you. But you need to keep telling yourself, This sickness can’t take my life.” This cancer can’t defeat me.” No bad break, no disappointment, no accident can shorten one second of my divine destiny.

- Joel Olsteen

Disneyland is the star, everything else is in the supporting role.

- Walt Disney

People ask the difference between a leader and a boss. The leader leads, and the boss drives.

- Theodore Roosevelt

Success in its highest and noblest form calls for peace of mind and enjoyment and happiness which come only to the man who has found the work that he likes best.

- Napoleon Hill

Look back in forgiveness, forward in hope, down in compassion, and up with gratitude.

- Zig Ziglar

Developing a customer who loves the business so much that they become an unpaid and passionate marketer for the company.

- Clay Clark

We would betray our values and play into our enemies’ hands if we were to treat Muslims differently than anyone else. In fact, to cave to popular sentiment would be to hand a victory to the terrorists, and we should not stand for that.

- Michael Bloomberg

The greatest decision of all time, as far as any American citizen is concerned was reached in Philadelphia, July 4th 1776, when 56 men signed their names to a document, which they well knew would bring freedom to all Americans, or leave every one of the fifty-six hanging from the gallows. On July 4th 1776 Thomas Jefferson stood before the Assembly and fearlessly read the most momentus Decision ever placed upon paper.

- Napoleon Hill

Often the best way to develop workers – when you are sure they have the character and think they have the ability – is to take them to a deep place, throw them in and make them sink or swim.

- John D. Rockefeller

Like fire across the galaxy the Clone Wars spread. In league with the wicked Count Dooku, more and more planets slip. Against this threat, upon the Jedi Knights falls the duty to lead the newly formed army of the Republic. And as the heat of war grows, so, to, grows the prowess of one most gifted student of the Force.

- Yoda

Doing the right thing is more important than doing the thing right.

- Peter Drucker

Politics and government are certainly among the most important of practical human interests.

- P.T. Barnum

It is not enough that we do our best, sometimes we must do what is required.

- Winston Churchill

Don’t simply settle for what your parents had. You can go further than that. You can do more, have more, be more.

- Joel Olsteen

EVERYBODY SELLS Nerds might wish that distribution could be ignored and salesmen banished to another planet. All of us want to believe that we make up our own minds, that sales doesn’t work on us. But it’s not true. Everybody has a product to sell—no matter whether you’re an employee, a founder, or an investor. It’s true even if your company consists of just you and your computer. Look around. If you don’t see any salespeople, you’re the salesperson.

- Peter Thiel

Anyone who has held an iDevice or a smoothly machined MacBook has felt the result of Steve Jobs’s obsession with visual and experiential perfection. But the most important lesson to learn from Jobs has nothing to do with aesthetics. The greatest thing Jobs designed was his business. Apple imagined and executed definite multi-year plans to create new products and distribute them effectively.

- Peter Thiel

Put time limits on each item. Set an agenda for your meeting and your trips to Disney World.

- David Robinson

Being a great leader means sometimes pissing people off.

- Colin Powell

It was character that got us out of bed, commitment that moved us into action, and discipline that enabled us to follow through.

- Zig Ziglar

Today the financial market is no good, but the money is there.

- Jack Ma

We are continuing to see a number of signs that could be interpreted with the appropriate caveats as optimistic.

- John Chambers

‘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

[That was the case Wednesday night, when Cisco executives talked about results for the fiscal second quarter (which closed on Jan. 26). Chambers and chief financial officer Larry Carter spoke only about the next quarter, when revenue growth from the second fiscal quarter is expected to be nil or in the low single digits.] Our visibility is still very limited, … If there’s one lesson we’ve learned over the past year, it’s how quickly things can change.

- John Chambers

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

- Zig Ziglar

To succeed in this world, you have to change all the time.

- Sam Walton

CNN is pretty consistently on the left, if you look at their choice of stories, what they play up. It’s not what they say. It’s what they highlight.

- Rupert Murdoch

I’m a positive person, so I don’t get bogged down with it. If you’re expecting that, if you wall in that, if you practice that, then you’ll attract what you fear.

- Denzel Washington

We are in control of the one asset that we all give the most f#%ks about, and that is time.

- Gary Vaynerchuk

Law of Credibility – Don’t say anything you can’t prove. Be able to prove anything you say.

- Jerry Vass

The part of uranium that’s fissile – when you hit it with a neutron, it splits in two – is about 0.7%. The reactors we have today are burning that 0.7%.

- Bill Gates

Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.

- Antoine de Saint-Exup

I don’t like to beat people down. They need to be lifted up.

- Joel Olsteen

I do know this… I seem to reach a lot of previously unchurched people. So many people have told me they never went to church until they heard our message of hope that God is a good God who desires to bless those who are faithful and obedient to Him through Jesus Christ.

- Joel Olsteen

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

God didn’t make a mistake when He made you. You need to see yourself as God sees you.

- Joel Olsteen

Any jerk can have short-term earnings. You squeeze, squeeze, squeeze, and the company sinks five years later.

- Jack Welch

Singleness of purpose is one of the chief essentials for success in life, no matter what may be one’s aim.

- John D. Rockefeller

We’ve got to lift our game tremendously. We’ll sell our business news and information in print, we’ll sell it to anyone who’s got a cable system, and we’ll sell it on the Web.

- Rupert Murdoch

Most great people have attained their greatest success just one step beyond their greatest failure.

- Napoleon Hill

Another challenge is a phenomenon that I call the Law of Crappy People. The Law of Crappy People states: For any title level in a large organization, the talent on that level will eventually converge to the crappiest person with the title.

- Ben Horowitz

I read the paper every day and the Bible every day, that way I know what both sides are up to.

- Zig Ziglar

Husbands and wives, have fun with each other. I’m convinced it makes all the difference in the world.

- Zig Ziglar

Statistics suggest that when customers complain, business owners and managers ought to get excited about it. The complaining customer represents a huge opportunity for more business.

- Zig Ziglar

Husbands and wives, first be faithful to each other. Second, keep the romance going all of your life by courting each other every day.

- Zig Ziglar

I will love the light for it shows me the way, yet I will endure the darkness for it shows me the stars.

- Og Mandino

The whole history of the world is summed up in the fact that, when nations are strong, they are not always just, and when they wish to be just, they are no longer strong.

- Winston Churchill

Success in the United States is not an entitlement in China. You have to go there and earn it, and earn it the right way.

- Howard Schultz

Not only was the casual shoe effort a failure, but it was diluting our trademark and hurting us in running.

- Phil Knight

Tweeting is really only good for one thing – it’s just good for tweeting… It is rewarding, because it’s just its own reward. It’s sort of like heaven.

- Steve Martin

It is more productive to convert an opportunity into results than to solve a problem – which only restores the equilibrium of yesterday.

- Peter Drucker

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

Art has no right answer. The best we can hope for is an interesting answer.

- Seth Godin

The tool that’s most associated with the recent progress against malaria is the long-lasting bed net. Bed nets are a fantastic innovation. But we can do even better. We can invent new ways to control the mosquitoes that carry the malaria parasite.

- Bill Gates

He felt the Gettysburg Address was one of the greatest documents ever written, mainly because Lincoln had said so much with so few words.

- David Novak

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

Men sometimes stumble over the truth, but often pick themselves up and hurry off as though nothing had happened.

- Winston Churchill

At first, we couldn’t be establishment, because we didn’t have any money. We were guerrilla marketers, and we still are, a little bit. But, as we became No. 1 in our industry, we’ve had to modify our culture and become a bit more planned.

- Phil Knight

There’s a difference between telling people what to do and inciting a movement.

- Seth Godin

Problems cannot be solved by the same level of thinking that created them.

- Albert Einstein

I DECLARE I am special and extraordinary. I am not average! I have been custom-made. I am one of a kind. Of all the things God created, what He is the most proud of is me. I am His masterpiece, his most prized possession. I will keep my head held high, knowing I am a child of the most high God, made in his very image. This is my declaration.

- Joel Olsteen

the world belongs to the man or woman who got up today and did something

- Jim Stovall

Personally I am very fond of strawberries and cream, but I have found that for some strange reason, fish prefer worms. So when I went fishing, I didn’t think about what I wanted. I thought about what they wanted. I didn’t bait the hook with strawberries and cream. Rather, I dangled a worm or grasshopper in front of the fish and said: Wouldn’t you like to have that? Why not use the same common sense when fishing for people?

- Dale Carnegie

Money is like an arm or leg – use it or lose it.

- Henry Ford

Contrary to popular belief, I don’t spend a whole lot of time following soccer. But as I have traveled around the world to better understand global development and health, I’ve learned that soccer is truly universal. No matter where I go, that’s what kids are playing. That’s what people are talking about.

- Bill Gates

An employer has no business with a man’s personality. Employment is a specific contract calling for a specific performance, and nothing else. Any attempt by an employer to go beyond this is usurpation. It is an immoral as well as illegal intrusion of privacy.

- Peter Drucker

You can’t build any kind of organization if you’re not going to surround yourself with people who have experience and skill base beyond your own.

- Howard Schultz

Somebody talked me into writing an autobiography about six or seven years ago. And I said I’d try. We talked into a tape recorder, and after a couple of months, I said, To hell with it. I was so depressed. It was like saying, ‘This is the end.’ I was more interested in what the hell was coming the next day or the next week.

- Rupert Murdoch

It is not necessary to do extraordinary things to get extraordinary results.

- Warren Buffett

Sales were limited by how many shoes we had, shoes were limited by how many dollars we had to order them.

- Phil Knight

I have no use for people who throw their weight around as celebrities, or for those who fawn over you just because you are famous.

- Walt Disney

They want good stories. They aren’t paid to say, no. They’re paid to say yes to the right stories.

- Michael Levine

That was a great day in my life! Your time is too valuable to worry about pleasing everyone else or making them happy. I know people who spend more time worrying about what others think about them than they do focusing on their own dreams and goals. You’ve got to get free from that.

- Joel Olsteen

Game-playing is more fun when it’s virtual because you’re more successful. … in reality, only one person gets to be LeBron

- Larry Ellison

There are some important differences between me and Tony Stark, like I have five kids, so I spend more time going to Disneyland than parties.

- Elon Musk

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