Ultimately, the goal of any public relations campaign is to either reorient or solidify the perception of a product, client, policy or event. From there nature takes its course. If the public perceives the product as good, the movie stars as sexy, the pet rock as indispensable, then the public will fork over its money. One will succeed in a P.R. campaign only if the perception fostered truly resonates with the public. People respect wisdom but obey pain.
- Michael Levine
Notable Quotables
G.P.A.’s are worthless as a criteria for hiring, and test scores are worthless. … We found that they don’t predict anything.
- Laszlo Bock
The problem with pity parties is very few people come, and those who do don’t bring presents.
- Zig Ziglar
People who sell advertising are called “account executives.” People who sell customers work in “business development.” People who sell companies are “investment bankers.” And people who sell themselves are called “politicians.” There’s a reason for these redescriptions: none of us wants to be reminded when we’re being sold.
- Peter Thiel
Self-control – the man who cannot control himself can never control others. Self-control sets a mighty example for one’s followers, which the more intelligent will emulate.
- Napoleon Hill
As you craft a plan to expand to adjacent markets, don’t disrupt: avoid competition as much as possible.
- Peter Thiel
Broadly speaking, the short words are the best, and the old words best of all.
- Winston Churchill
The path to the CEO’s office should not be through the CFO’s office, and it should not be through the marketing department. It needs to be through engineering and design.
- Elon Musk
Everyone has an idea. But it’s really about executing the idea and attracting other people to help you work on the idea.
- Jack Dorsey
[On only having 4-6 hours for sleep in guiding two companies in June 2011.] Most people have major positions at companies and they’re also raising families. They have two year olds. I have it easy.
- Jack Dorsey
We have to realize that our lives could be gone in a moment. There are no guarantees that we will be here at this time next year. Learn to live each day to the fullest. Don’t complain. Don’t focus on what’s wrong. Be grateful for the opportunity to experience each day.
- Joel Olsteen
The social network is the paradigm of the modern service application.
- Larry Ellison
The first time you say something, it’s heard. The second time, it’s recognized, and the third time it’s learned.
- John C. Maxwell
Brands mature over time, like a marriage. The bond you feel with your spouse is different than when you first met each other. Excitement and discovery are replaced by comfort and depth.
- Gary Vaynerchuk
If you must speak ill of another, do not speak it, write it in the sand near the water’s edge.
- Napoleon Hill
Someone is sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago.
- Warren Buffett
If you don’t know where you’re going, you’ll probably end up somewhere else.
- Zig Ziglar
Leaders lead when they take positions, when they connect with their tribes, and when they help the tribe connect to itself.
- Seth Godin
Things get much easier if one jumps on the bandwagon of existing trends.
- Lei Jun
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
Always seek out the seed of triumph in every adversity.
- Og Mandino
I believe that the biggest problem that humanity faces is an ego sensitivity to finding out whether one is right or wrong and identifying what one’s strengths and weaknesses are.
- Ray Dalio
I think any statement about stock prices is always suspect unless it’s made by Warren Buffett.
- Bill Gates
Startups operate on the principle that you need to work with other people to get stuff done, but you also need to stay small enough so that you actually can. Positively defined, a startup is the largest group of people you can convince of a plan to build a different future.
- Peter Thiel
My son likes to go see mines and electric plants, or the Large Hadron Collider, and we’ve had a chance to see a lot of interesting stuff.
- Bill Gates
Start where you stand and with what you have
- George Washington Carver
If you really believe that you’re making a difference and that you can leave a legacy of better schools and jobs and safer streets, why would you not spend the money? The objective is to improve the schools, bring down crime, build affordable housing, clean the streets – not to have a fair fight.
- Michael Bloomberg
Leaders who are kind of insecure or egocentric, they basically sabotage themselves.
- John C. Maxwell
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
Set high goals, encourage competition, and then keep score.”
- Sam Walton
Today people who hold cash equivalents feel comfortable. They shouldn’t. They have opted for a terrible long-term asset, one that pays virtually nothing and is certain to depreciate in value.
- Warren Buffett
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
Smith never wavered. Twenty-five years later, Kimberly-Clark owned Scott Paper outright and beat Procter & Gamble in six of eight product categories.12 In retirement, Smith reflected on his exceptional performance, saying simply, I never stopped trying to become qualified for the job.
- James C. Collins
As long as people are clear on what they need to do and what’s going on, you’re very likely to succeed. When nobody is clear, then you’re guaranteed to fail.
- Ben Horowitz
The man who does more than he is paid for will soon be paid for more than he does.
- Napoleon Hill
I really like using my Samsung (005930:KS) tablet. I previously used the Motorola Xoom for a while and liked that.
- Larry Page
General and undifferentiated pitches don’t say anything about why a recruit should join your company instead of many others.
- Peter Thiel
Pouring espresso is an art, one that requires the barista to care about the quality of the beverage.
- Howard Schultz
We also now believe that this slowdown in capital spending could extend beyond two quarters.
- John Chambers
The future of the world’s film industry is in China because we have 1.3 billion people.
- Wang Jianlin
Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will.
- Martin Luther King Jr.
I discourage passive skepticism, which is the armchair variety where people sit back and criticize without ever subjecting their theories or themselves to real field testing.
- Timothy Ferriss
We may not always agree with every one of our neighbors. That’s life. And it’s part of living in such a diverse and dense city. But we also recognize that part of being a New Yorker is living with your neighbors in mutual respect and tolerance. It was exactly that spirit of openness and acceptance that was attacked on 9/11, 2001.
- Michael Bloomberg
You’re not better than anybody else, but you’re not less than anybody else. You’re a child of the Most High God.
- Joel Olsteen
As a company it is always better for us to work with more customers than fewer customers. The more people that we serve, the more money that we will make.
- Napoleon Hill
Think and grow rich.
- Napoleon Hill
The industrialist (your boss, perhaps) demands that everything be proven, efficient, and risk free. The artist seeks none of these. The value of art is in your willingness to stare down the risk and to embrace the void of possible failure.
- Seth Godin
Life is a self-fulfilling prophecy
- Chris Humphrey
I don’t think anyone is ever writing so that you can throw it away. You’re always writing it to be something. Later, you decide whether it’ll ever see the light of day. But at the moment of its writing, it’s always meant to be something. So, to me, there’s no practicing; there’s only editing and publishing or not publishing.
- Steve Martin
Watching how customers actually use a product provides much more reliable information than can be gleaned from a verbal interview or a focus group.
- Clayton M. Christensen
I notice a difference from the moment I meditate.
- Ray Dalio
The only purpose of starting is to finish, and while the projects we do are never really finished, they must ship.
- Seth Godin
It’s easier for our software to compete with Linux when there’s piracy than when there’s not.
- Bill Gates
The difference between successful people and really successful people is that really successful people say no to almost everything.
- Warren Buffett
We all need a daily checkup from the neck up to avoid stinkin’ thinkin’ which ultimately leads to hardening of the attitudes.
- Zig Ziglar
When we try to drill and practice someone into subservient obedience, we’re stamping out the artist that lives within.
- Seth Godin
Innovation is a good thing. The human condition – put aside bioterrorism and a few footnotes – is improving because of innovation.
- Bill Gates
Failing is an event, not a person. Yesterday ended last night.
- Zig Ziglar
Anyone who prefers owning a part of your company to being paid in cash reveals a preference for the long term and a commitment to increasing your company’s value in the future. Equity can’t create perfect incentives, but it’s the best way for a founder to keep everyone in the company broadly aligned.
- Peter Thiel
Resposibility is the price of greatness.
- Winston Churchill
Help young people. Help small guys. Because small guys will be big. Young people will have the seeds you bury in their minds, and when they grow up, they will change the world.
- Jack Ma
The Struggle is when you wonder why you started the company in the first place. The Struggle is when people ask you why you don’t quit and you don’t know the answer. The Struggle is when your employees think you are lying and you think they may be right. The Struggle is when food loses its taste. The Struggle is when you don’t believe you should be CEO of your company. The Struggle is when you know that you are in over your head and you know that you cannot be replaced. The Struggle is when everybody thinks you are an idiot, but nobody will fire you. The Struggle is where self-doubt becomes self-hatred. The Struggle is when you are having a conversation with someone and you can’t hear a word that they are saying because all you can hear is the Struggle. The Struggle is when you want the pain to stop. The Struggle is unhappiness. The Struggle is when you go on vacation to feel better and you feel worse. The Struggle is when you are surrounded by people and you are all alone. The Struggle has no mercy. The Struggle is the land of broken promises and crushed dreams. The Struggle is a cold sweat. The Struggle is where your guts boil so much that you feel like you are going to spit blood. The Struggle is not failure, but it causes failure. Especially if you are weak. Always if you are weak. Most people are not strong enough. Every great entrepreneur from Steve Jobs to Mark Zuckerberg went through the Struggle and struggle they did, so you are not alone. But that does not mean that you will make it. You may not make it. That is why it is the Struggle. The Struggle is where greatness comes from.
- Ben Horowitz
I believe in Judaism, I was raised a Jew, I’m happy to be one – or proud to be one.
- Michael Bloomberg
You don’t have to start from scratch to do something interesting. You don’t have to start from scratch to have a massive impact on the world. You have to have a good idea. You have to convince other people of those good ideas. And you have to push as quickly as possible.
- Jack Dorsey
Doing something unimportant well does not make it important.
- Timothy Ferriss
just like most nightmares, it’s not that big a deal and is reversible.
- Timothy Ferriss
When companies fail, or fail to grow, it’s almost always because they don’t invest in the people, the systems, and the processes they need.
- Howard Schultz
People don’t want to embrace culture shifts because it’s not going to happen in the next 20 minutes.
- Gary Vaynerchuk
Where did your art go while you were tweeting?
- Seth Godin
Who you are, is who you attract.
- John Maxwell
Government isn’t that good at rapid advancement of technology. It tends to be better at funding basic research. To have things take off, you’ve got to have commercial companies do it.
- Elon Musk
I think growth covers up mistakes.
- Howard Schultz
The fact is, everyone is in sales.
- Jay Abraham
The values of life are most important.
- Leonardo Del Vecchio
I believe luck is preparation meeting opportunity. If you hadn’t been prepared when the opportunity came along, you wouldn’t have been lucky
- Oprah Winfrey
Your story is a symphony, not a note.
- Seth Godin
I’d like to dial it back 5% or 10% and try to have a vacation that’s not just e-mail with a view.
- Elon Musk
Remembering you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose.
- Steve Jobs
Unfortunately, the highly curious student is a small percentage of the kids.
- Bill Gates
We were guerilla marketers, and we still are, a little bit.
- Phil Knight
Cuando usted se enfrente a obstáculos de tamaño gigante en su propia vida—desengaños, reveses, cosas que no funcionan—, no se desaliente, pues esa adversidad podría ser precisamente lo que Dios utilizará para ascenderle. Eso podría ser donde usted vea a Dios acelerar el tiempo, y logrará algo que debería haberle tomado toda la vida. Al.
- Joel Olsteen
When I was at Kingsoft, I was under pressure and worked hard, but the results were not satisfactory.
- Lei Jun
We are in turbulent times.
- Lee Shau Kee
The way of success is the way of continuous pursuit of knowledge.
- Napoleon Hill
Entrepreneurs are like visionaries. One of the ways they run forward is by viewing the thing they’re doing as something that’s going to be the whole world.
- Reid Hoffman
John D. Rockefeller said that he found friendships based on business to be far more long lasting and profitable than the reverse. I think there’s something to that. A company can end up being very Confucian, where the good of the individual is subjugated to the good of the whole.
- Ben Horowitz
We shape our dwellings and afterwards our dwellings shape us.
- Winston Churchill
The only question with wealth is, what do you do with it?
- John D. Rockefeller
I try to do things that I think are helpful to the environment, to the animals, and to the planet.
- Russell Simmons
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
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
Your ability to use the principle of autosuggestion will depend, very largely, upon your capacity to concentrate upon a given desire until that desire becomes a burning obsession.
- Napoleon Hill
Good shareholder activists have incredible interest in the company because they own a lot of it.
- Ben Horowitz
Paper money will suffer. I’d be in mortar, not paper (money). We are in a time when paper investments are riskier than in the past. There is also a great amount of sovereign risk.
- Lee Shau Kee
I enjoy myself a lot but I derive my joy from working. I believe in hard work and one of my business success secret is hard work.
- Aliko Dangote
If you can dream it, you can do it. -Walt Disney
- Walt Disney
Before you can be sure of your ability to transmute DESIRE into its equivalent, you will require SPECIALIZED KNOWLEDGE of the service, merchandise or profession which you intend to offer in return for fortune.
- Napoleon Hill
What man actually needs is not a tensionless state but rather the striving and struggling for a worthwhile goal, a freely chosen task.
- Viktor E. Frankl
Theories, for me, are just about freeing your mind. It doesn’t mean the theory is going to work like a scientific theory works. It’s about freeing your mind and making you think a different way.
- Steve Martin
Money isn’t everything… but it ranks right up there with oxygen.
- Zig Ziglar
