In order for the United States to do the right things for the long term, it appears to be helpful for us to have the prospect of humiliation. Sputnik helped us fund good science – really good science: the semiconductor came out of it.
- Bill Gates
Notable Quotables
Bill Milliken is a big hero of mine.
- Anne Cox Chambers
Great leaders are almost always great simplifiers, who can cut through argument, debate and doubt to offer a solution everybody can understand.
- Colin Powell
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
It’s amazing that the amount of news that happens in the world every day always just exactly fits the newspaper.
- Jerry Seinfeld
“What would you do if capital were free?” is a dangerous question to ask an entrepreneur. It’s kind of like asking a fat person, “What would you do if ice cream had the exact same nutritional value as broccoli?”
- Ben Horowitz
Q1 was a solid quarter for Cisco, with balanced execution across most of our geographies, market segments and product categories, … We are especially pleased with the improving business momentum in the U.S. and Asia Pacific, the strength of our product families and the accelerated growth of the commercial marketplace, which has become our fastest growing customer segment.
- John Chambers
Imagination is more important that knowledge
- Albert Einstein
It is not necessary to do extraordinary things to get extraordinary results.
- Warren Buffett
The PC has improved the world in just about every area you can think of. Amazing developments in communications, collaboration and efficiencies. New kinds of entertainment and social media. Access to information and the ability to give a voice people who would never have been heard.
- Bill Gates
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
As soon as we associate reading with a test, we’ve missed the point.
- Seth Godin
Would you believe that in 2011 and 2012, Nigeria paid $30 billion in subsidy, money which would have been used to build at least 20 refineries?
- Aliko Dangote
Strive to be the very best you can be. Run the race against yourself and not the guy in the other lane. The reason I say that is, as long as you give it 110% you are going to succeed. But as long as you’re trying to beat the guy over there, you are worried about him; you’re not worrying about how you’ve got to perform
- Herschel Walker
All the mental energy you use to elaborate your misery would be far better used trying to find the one seemingly impossible way out of your current.
- Ben Horowitz
Procrastination is one of the most common and deadliest of diseases and its toll on success and happiness is heavy.
- Wayne Gretzky
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
Often we don’t even realize who we’re meant to be because we’re so busy trying to live out someone else’s ideas. But other people and their opinions hold no power in defining our destiny.
- Oprah Winfrey
[Retail] seemed more interesting than what I was doing.
- Michael Balmuth
Make failure your teacher, not your undertaker.
- Zig Ziglar
Look – this is the terror of being a founder & CEO. It is all your fault. Every decision, every person you hire, every dumb thing you buy or do – ultimately, you’re at the end.
- Ben Horowitz
I’ve built a lot of my success off finding these truly gifted people and not settling for B and C players, but really going for the A players…I found that when you get enough A players together, when you go through the incredible work to find five of these A players, they really like working with each other. Because they’ve never had a chance to do that before. And they don’t want to work with B and C players and so it becomes self-policing and they only want to hire more A players. And so you build up these pockets of A players, and it propagates.
- Steve Jobs
You are looking at an economy that most CEOs are going to believe will be a good economy for 2006. Most CEOs are saying they are going to spend both on hiring of people and on technology.
- John Chambers
It occurs to me,Jim,that you spend too much time trying to be interesting. Why don’t you invest more time being interested? Collin’s advice from John Gardner that he took to heart.
- James C. Collins
Thomas Edison had only three months of schooling during his entire life. He did not lack education, neither did he die poor. Henry Ford had less than a sixth grade schooling but he has managed to do pretty well for himself financially.
- Napoleon Hill
I don’t want people in China to have deep pockets but shallow minds.
- Jack Ma
The criminalization of marijuana did not prevent marijuana from becoming the most widely used illegal substance in the United States and many other countries. But it did result in extensive costs and negative consequences.
- George Soros
I would like to be remembered, if I am remembered at all, as being a catalyst for change in the world, change for good.
- Rupert Murdoch
As I grow older, I pay less attention to what men say. I just watch what they do.
- Andrew Carnegie
Nobody kicks a dead dog.
- Dale Carnegie
Change almost never fails because it’s too early. It almost always fails because it’s too late.
- Seth Godin
When I hung in, he saw character, and that was the end of it. Later, it was funny to watch him hazing other guys the same way – funny after you’d been through the cycle.
- Phil Knight
Market leadership can translate directly to higher revenue, higher profitability, greater capital velocity, and correspondingly stronger returns on invested capital.
- Jeff Bezos
An economy is not a complicated thing, it just has a lot of moving parts.
- Ray Dalio
In order to deal with all the medical cost demands and other challenges in the U.S., as we look to raise that revenue, the rich will have to pay slightly more. That’s quite clear.
- Bill Gates
How about we agree upon what our common American values are, which is let’s make this a true land of opportunity.
- Laurene Powell Jobs
You have to be pretty driven to make it happen. Otherwise, you will just make yourself miserable.
- Elon Musk
Kids instinctively know – although they will argue to the contrary – that they really are not mature enough to make good decisions on some important issues.
- Zig Ziglar
When I first started doing my comedy act, I just desperately needed material. So I took literally everything I knew how to do on stage with me, which was juggling, magic and banjo and my little comedy routines. I always felt the audience sorta tolerated the serious musical parts while I was doing my comedy.
- Steve Martin
When the leader has done the work to connect with his people, you can see it in the way the organization functions. The vision of the leader becomes the aspiration of the people. The impact is incredible
- John Maxwell
Sports is like rock ‘n’ roll. Both are dominant cultural forces, both speak an international language, and both are all about emotions.
- Phil Knight
Of this I am quite sure. If we open up a quarrel between the past and the present, we shall find that we have lost the future.
- Winston Churchill
In the End, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.
- Martin Luther King Jr.
I know of nothing more despicable and pathetic than a man who devotes all the hours of the waking day to the making of money for money’s sake.
- John D. Rockefeller
People will always blame the poets for society’s ills. But these are the true artists.
- Russell Simmons
Make no mistake about why these babies are here – they are here to replace us.
- Jerry Seinfeld
Rockets are cool. There’s no getting around that.
- Elon Musk
Selling is essentially a transfer of feelings.
- Zig Ziglar
I will study and prepare myself, and someday the opportunity will come.
- Abraham Lincoln
Most people think companies are basically evil. They get a bad rap. And I think that’s somewhat correct.
- Larry Page
That’s why encouragement is a much more effective teaching device than punishment.
- Dale Carnegie
The challenge is to focus on the work, not on the fear that comes from doing the work.
- Seth Godin
Most of my job and most of what I do is to mentor people. There are a lot of people I work with that I don’t have investments in.
- Ben Horowitz
The [Henderson] Group continuously strives to upgrade the quality of its development properties by applying new technologies and building materials to improve the efficiency and lower the cost of construction.
- Lee Shau Kee
The words Think and Thank are inscribed in many of the Cromwellian churches of England. These words ought to be inscribed in our hearts, too: Think and Thank. Think of all we have to be grateful for, and thank God for all our boons and bounties.
- Dale Carnegie
I’ve learned that people will seldom let you down if they understand that your destiny is in their hands, and vice versa.
- Harvey Mackay
Bad psychoanalysis would say I enjoyed pleasing people, working really hard and pleasing people, which is probably related to my father in some way. But I really liked working hard. When I worked at Disneyland, I’d do 12 hours straight and go home thrilled.
- Steve Martin
They did not die because of sickness or anything but because of hunger. I remember that and how people suffered.
- Lui Che Woo
Play the game for more than you can afford to lose . . . only then will you learn the game.
- Zig Ziglar
The pancreas is by far the most complex organ in the body.
- Patrick Soon-Shiong
It is wrong to assume that men of immense wealth are always happy.
- John D. Rockefeller
Perfect target market for a startup is a small group of particular.
- Peter Thiel
Success is not measured by what you do compared to what others do, it is measured by what you do with the ability God gave you.
- Zig Ziglar
The real problem when working with a consultant, a therapist or a coach isn’t that we don’t know what to do. The real problem is that we don’t want to change our mind.
- Seth Godin
For me, my father was, and still is, a symbol of qualified persons in the Ministry of Foreign Trade under Soviet conditions.
- Vladimir Potanin
To find the right things, we’ll need to go to the garden.
- Timothy Ferriss
You cannot hang out with negative people and expect to live a positive life.
- Joel Olsteen
Politics and government are certainly among the most important of practical human interests.
- P.T. Barnum
Being educated in the United States gave me a good understanding of American culture. I think I got a lot of influence from the entrepreneurial mind in the United States.
- Masayoshi Son
When I am myself, I am happy and have a good result.
- Jack Ma
Your business has to work when it’s small in order to survive to the point where it gets big.
- Seth Godin
I never worry about action, but only about inaction.
- Winston Churchill
Whatever the trend in exchange rates or whatever the external factors, a manufacturing company is always faced with the mission of transforming itself into a company that can produce higher value-added to absorb the increase in the cost of living in the country it’s operating in.
- Fujio Mitarai
Install the proper systems.
- David Green
The human brain is an incredible pattern-matching machine.
- Jeff Bezos
Men sometimes stumble over the truth, but often pick themselves up and hurry off as though nothing had happened.
- Winston Churchill
Learn to say ‘no’ to the good so you can say ‘yes’ to the best.
- John C. Maxwell
Of course, the challenge of being the initiator is that you’ll be wrong. You’ll pick the wrong thing, you’ll waste time, you’ll be blamed. This is why being an initiator is valuable. Most people shy away from the challenge. They’ve been too abused, they’re too fearful, they hold back, they’re happy to let someone else take the heat. Initiative is scarce. Hence valuable. Ditch digging is not scarce. It’s not hard at all to find manual labor at minimum wage, which is precisely why manual labor gets paid minimum wage. It’s extremely difficult to find smart people willing to start useful projects. Because sometimes what you start doesn’t work. The fact that it doesn’t work every time should give you confidence, because it means you’re doing something that frightens others.
- Seth Godin
Try not to be a man of success, but rather try to become a man of value.
- Albert Einstein
Eroom’s law—that’s Moore’s law backward—observes that the number of new drugs approved per billion dollars spent on R&D has halved every nine years since 1950.
- Peter Thiel
Le Reve’ may be one of the three best pictures Pablo Picasso ever painted.
- Stephen Wynn
When people get at each other’s throat, the rich and the poor and the Left and the Right and so on, and you have a basic breakdown, that becomes very threatening.
- Ray Dalio
There’s an energy and excitement when you’re building a company. You have so much tail wind. You’re planting new seeds. But it’s also scary, because there’s no safety net.
- Howard Schultz
Life’s most persistent and urgent question is, ‘What are you doing for others?’
- Martin Luther King Jr.
The three things that are most essential to achievement are common sense, hard work and stick-to-it-iv-ness…..
- Thomas Edison
People who have good relationships at home are more effective in the marketplace.
- Zig Ziglar
Love to learn—hate to be taught.
- Winston Churchill
The issue of Palestine has been there since more than 60 years. But more important since 1967 when the war was, ended in the defeat of some Arab countries.
- Prince Al Waleed Bin Talal Alsaud
People have come to me over the years and said to me: ‘I admire the culture of Starbucks. Can you come give a speech and help us turn our culture around?’ I wish it were that easy. Turning a culture around is very difficult to do because it’s based on a series of many, many decisions, and the organization is framed by those decisions.
- Howard Schultz
This paper, by its very length, defends itself from ever being read.
- Winston Churchill
Each close you use should be an educational process by which you are able to raise the value in the prospect’s mind.
- Zig Ziglar
Confidence is going after Moby Dick in a rowboat and taking tartar sauce with you.
- Zig Ziglar
Marketing is every bit of contact your company has with anyone in the outside world. Every bit of contact. That means a lot of marketing opportunities. It does not mean investing a lot of money.
- Jay Conrad Levinson
I don’t dislike anybody.
- Joel Olsteen
I’m tired of wasting letters when punctuation will do, period.
- Steve Martin
Change is powerful, but change always comes with the possibility of failure as its partner. “This might not work” isn’t merely something to be tolerated; it’s something you must seek out.
- Seth Godin
Embrace what you don’t know, especially in the beginning because what you don’t know can become your greatest asset. It ensures that you will be doing things absolutely differently from everybody else.
- Sara Blakely
Maturity is often more absurd than youth and very frequently is most unjust to youth.
- Thomas Edison
When you encourage others, you in the process are encouraged because you’re making a commitment and difference in that person’s life. Encouragement really does make a difference.
- Zig Ziglar
I don’t focus on the critics. Everyone who is making any difference in any field has critics. As long as I feel like I’m doing what I’m supposed to be doing, then I don’t worry about it.
- Joel Olsteen





