The tragedy is that society (your school, your boss, your government, your family) keeps drumming the genius part out. The problem is that our culture has engaged in a Faustian bargain, in which we trade our genius and artistry for apparent stability.
- Seth Godin
Notable Quotables
God wants you to succeed. He created you to live abundantly.
- Joel Olsteen
When I was 17 or 18 I wanted to become a wine expert, and my parents wouldn’t let me drink. So I was devastated. All I could do was read, and I read and I read. And I’d read something like, you know, ‘Subtle hints of cassis.’
- Gary Vaynerchuk
A lot of people have gone further than they thought they could because someone else thought they could.
- Zig Ziglar
I think we are living in a time where the consumer has lots of choices, whether it’s coffee, newspapers or whatever it is. And there is parity in the market place, and as a result of that, the consumer is beginning to make decisions, not just on what things cost and the convenience of it.
- Howard Schultz
If you can be sure of being right only 55 percent of the time, you can go down to Wall Street and make a million dollars a day. If you can’t be sure of being right even 55 percent of the time, why should you tell other people they are wrong?
- Dale Carnegie
There is no decision that we can make that doesn’t come with some sort of balance or sacrifice
- Simon Sinek
Regardless of what position people originally took, once the decision is made, everyone supports it. That’s why it is critical that no one hold anything back during the discussion.
- Patrick M. Lencioni
Oppressed people cannot remain oppressed forever. The yearning for freedom eventually manifests itself.
- Martin Luther King Jr.
It’s hard to do a really good job on anything you don’t think about in the shower.
- Paul Graham
While evaluating his future professional opportunities, Gary has chosen to spend some time with his family.
- John Chambers
The world has the habit of making room for the man whose actions show that he knows where he is going.
- Napoleon Hill
VaynerMedia filters the world how humans interact. This is how people are going to make buying decisions.
- Gary Vaynerchuk
Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened.
- Winston Churchill
Never fear to negotiate, but never negotiate out of fear.
- Jack Nadel
We all know that there are these exemplars who can take the toughest students, and they’ll teach them two-and-a-half years of math in a single year.
- Bill Gates
So here we are.
- Seth Godin
What we know about the destination resort business is clearly established. But it’s all about one thing, and one thing only. All of the razzmatazz and jazz we hear about facilities and everything else doesn’t amount to a hill of beans. It’s customer experience that determines the longevity and endurance of these enterprises.
- Stephen Wynn
I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear.
- Martin Luther King Jr.
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
I shopped for body shapers for the first time in my life and I was horrified. They were thick – it was like wearing workout clothes and they all had a leg band on one side that showed through the pants.
- Sara Blakely
I have had problems when I have had money, and I have had problems when I haven’t had money. I have learned that if you are going to have problems, it’s better to have money.
- Zig Ziglar
Keep Calm and Carry On.
- Winston Churchill
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
EVERY MOMENT IN BUSINESS happens only once. The next Bill Gates will not build an operating system. The next Larry Page or Sergey Brin won’t make a search engine. And the next Mark Zuckerberg won’t create a social network. If you are copying these guys, you aren’t learning from them.
- Peter Thiel
Obstacles are necessary for success because in selling, as in all careers of importance, victory comes only after many struggles and countless defeats.
- Og Mandino
We are beginning to see the benefits of global consolidation.
- Lakshmi Mittal
The most valuable thing you can make is a mistake- you can’t learn anything from being perfect.
- Adam Osborne
All the adversity I’ve had in my life, all my troubles and obstacles, have strengthened me… You may not realize it when it happens, but a kick in the teeth may be the best thing in the world for you.
- Walt Disney
I’m certainly well taken care of in terms of food and clothes.
- Bill Gates
Jeremy Stoppelman started Yelp. Max Levchin started Slide. I started LinkedIn. It was a mininova explosion of folks jumping out to doing other entrepreneurial activities.
- Reid Hoffman
You create your own universe as you go along.
- Winston Churchill
A Jedi must have the deepest commitment, the most serious mind. This one a long time have I watched. All his life has he looked away… to the future, to the horizon. Never his mind on where he was. Hmm? What he was doing. Hmph. Adventure. Heh. Excitement. Heh. A Jedi craves not these things.
- Yoda
The best way to sell yourself to others is first to sell the others to yourself.
- Napoleon Hill
I consider myself a “social ecologist,” concerned with man’s man-made environment the way the natural ecologist studies the biological environment…..the discipline itself boasts an old and distinguished lineage. Its greatest document is Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America. But no one is as close to me in temperament, concepts, and approach as the mid-Victorian Englishman Walter Bagehot. Living (as I have) in an age of great social change, Bagehot first saw the emergence of new institutions: civil service and cabinet government, as cores of a functioning democracy, and banking as the center of a functioning economy. A hundred years after Bagehot, I was first to identify management as the new social institution of the emerging society of organizations and, a little later, to spot the emergence of knowledge as the new central resource, and knowledge workers as the new ruling class of a society that is not only “postindustrial” but postsocialist and, increasingly, post-capitalist. As it had been for Bagehot, for me too the tension between the need for continuity and the need for innovation and change was central to society and civilization.
- Peter Drucker
[On an American taking second place in the Olympics] He didn’t win the silver, he lost the gold
- Phil Knight
Be courageous! Whatever setbacks America has encountered, it has always emerged as a stronger and more prosperous nation…. Be brave as your fathers before you. Have faith and go forward!
- Thomas Edison
I often see teams that maniacally focus on their metrics around customer acquisition and retention. This usually works well for customer acquisition, but not so well for retention. Why? For many products, metrics often describe the customer acquisition goal in enough detail to provide sufficient management guidance. In contrast, the metrics for customer retention do not provide enough color to be a complete management tool. As a result, many young companies overemphasize retention metrics and do not spend enough time going deep enough on the actual user experience. This generally results in a frantic numbers chase that does not end in a great product.
- Ben Horowitz
It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you’ll do things differently.
- Warren Buffett
When I finally retire, I just want to go away so no one has to listen to me.
- Steve Martin
You have to get all agreements in writing.
- Jack Nadel
In times of great stress or adversity, it’s always best to keep busy, to plow your anger and your energy into something positive.
- Lee Iacocca
It’s far better to buy a wonderful company at a fair price than a fair company at a wonderful price.
- Warren Buffett
I’m personally a moderate and a registered independent, so I’m not strongly Democratic or strongly Republican.
- Elon Musk
I’m trying to construct a world that maximises the probability that SpaceX continues its mission without me.
- Elon Musk
We were pretty schizophrenic. We were going to take on the world, but we couldn’t make payroll.
- Phil Knight
The ballplayer who loses his head can’t keep his cool, is worse than no ballplayer at all.
- Lou Gehrig
Now at this very moment I knew that the United States was in the war, up to the neck and in to the death. So we had won after all! … How long the war would last or in what fashion it would end no man could tell, nor did I at this moment care … We should not be wiped out. Our history would not come to an end … Hitler’s fate was sealed. Mussolini’s fate was sealed. As for the Japanese, they would be ground to a powder. All the rest was merely the proper application of overwhelming force.
- Winston Churchill
The more you express gratitude for what you have, the more things you’ll have to express gratitude for.
- Zig Ziglar
I am not a best-writing author. I am a best-selling author.
- Robert Kiyosaki
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
If you are not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you’ve launched too late.
- Reid Hoffman
Sound managerial decisions are at the very root of their impending fall from industry leadership.
- Clayton M. Christensen
I believe God wants you to have money to pay your bills, send your kids to college and do charity work and build orphanages. There’s the teaching that we’re supposed to be poor to show that we’re humble. I don’t buy that. I think we’re supposed to be leaders. We’re supposed to excel.
- Joel Olsteen
Linchpins are the essential building blocks of tomorrow’s high-value organizations. They don’t bring capital or expensive machinery, nor do they blindly follow instructions and merely contribute labor. Linchpins are indispensable, the driving force of our future.
- Seth Godin
Unless commitment is made, there are only promises and hopes… but no plans.
- Peter Drucker
Sound character provides the power with which a person may ride the emergencies of life instead of being overwhelmed by them. Failure is… the highway to success.
- Og Mandino
My own center, my Kingdom Center, which is the highest priced tower in Saudi Arabia, was vacated twice because of terrorist attacks, terrorist threats.
- Prince Al Waleed Bin Talal Alsaud
Good talkers often choose to become sales professionals. Unfortunately, they don’t understand that selling well means listening well.
- Jerry Vass
We are interested in others when they are interested in us.
- Dale Carnegie
A lot of churches have not moved with the times.
- Joel Olsteen
It’s not about how to get started, it’s about how to get noticed.
- Steve Case
Hong Kong has remained a strong financial centre. It has a solid business environment and geographically, it is well located, being next to China. During this time, there is no city that can match it.
- Lee Shau Kee
Life is too short to be small.
- Benjamin Disraeli
For the year ended 31 December 2011, the Group sold 325 residential units in Hong Kong, generating attributable sales revenue of HK$8,308 million, a marked increase when compared with HK$4,842 million for the previous financial year.
- Lee Shau Kee
It is time to restore the American precept that each individual is accountable for his actions.
- Ronald Reagan
Be careful about virtual relationships with artificially intelligent pieces of software.
- Larry Ellison
Dear Sir: My ten years of bank experience should be of interest to a rapidly growing bank like yours. In various capacities in bank operations with the Bankers Trust Company in New York, leading to my present assignment as Branch Manager, I have acquired skills in all phases of banking including depositor relations, credits, loans and administration. I will be relocating to Phoenix in May and I am sure I can contribute to your growth and profit. I will be in Phoenix the week of April 3 and would appreciate the opportunity to show you how I can help your bank meet its goals. Sincerely.
- Dale Carnegie
I think Steve Jobs is my idol.
- Ma Huateng
My role has been to pick good people and give them the maximum authority and responsibility.
- Sam Walton
You shouldn’t focus on why you can’t do something, which is what most people do. You should focus on why perhaps you can, and be one of the exceptions.
- Steve Case
Business in Russia was not being done like in the West, with contracts. In Russia, hundreds of millions of dollars were going forward and backward by word of mouth.
- David Reuben
The basis of persistence is the power of will. Men who accumulate, great fortunes are generally known as cold-blooded and sometimes ruthless. Often they are misunderstood. What they have is willpower, which they mix with persistence and place back of their desires to insure that attainment of their objectives. Henry Ford was generally misunderstood to be ruthless and cold-blooded. This misconception grew out of Ford’s habit of following through in all of his plans with PERSISTENCE…few carry on despite all opposition until they attain their goal. Those few are the Fords, Carnegies, Rockefellers and Edisons.
- Napoleon Hill
When the economy does pick up, … so will … spending.
- John Chambers
On Sundays when I speak, I hopefully give somebody something that they can use the next day at work or at home.
- Joel Olsteen
It takes a decade to grow trees but a century to nurture human beings.
- Cheng Yu-tung
Pretty much everything will come to him who hustles while he waits. I believe that restlessness is discontent, and discontent is merely the first necessity of progress. Show me a thoroughly satisfied man and I will show you a failure.
- Thomas Edison
The challenge is this: training creative, independent, and innovative artists is new to us.
- Seth Godin
I have 2 million Twitter followers. Some of those people are also yogis and activists and people who really go out and make a difference. I do as much as I can with my voice. It’s effortless in some cases. I try to remind everybody that they have that kind of voice.
- Russell Simmons
An overburdened, overstretched executive is the best executive, because he or she doesn’t have the time to meddle, to deal in trivia, to bother people.
- Jack Welch
Today, all arrows point toward the biotech, nanotech, and information technology industries, and the convergence among them.
- Jack Welch
There are few words which are used more loosely than the word “Civilization.” What does it mean? It means a society based upon the opinion of civilians. It means that violence, the rule of warriors and despotic chiefs, the conditions of camps and warfare, of riot and tyranny, give place to parliaments where laws are made, and independent courts of justice in which over long periods those laws are maintained. That is Civilization—and in its soil grow continually freedom, comfort, and culture. When Civilization reigns, in any country, a wider and less harassed life is afforded to the masses of the people. The traditions of the past are cherished, and the inheritance bequeathed to us by former wise or valiant men becomes a rich estate to be enjoyed and used by all.
- Winston Churchill
But you are the average of the five people you associate with most, so do not underestimate the effects of your pessimistic, unambitious, or disorganized friends. If someone isn’t making you stronger, they’re making you weaker.
- Timothy Ferriss
Product orders grew year-over-year faster than revenues.
- John Chambers
God, You said Your favor is not for a season but for a lifetime.
- Joel Olsteen
I was taken by the power that savoring a simple cup of coffee can have to connect people and create community.
- Howard Schultz
Hong Kong has gone through many ups and downs in the past. Unavoidably, one needs to go through the lowest point before reaching the peak again.
- Cheng Yu-tung
You can change everything about your business by changing your thinking about your business.
- Zig Ziglar
For people who are readers, reading is important to them.
- Jeff Bezos
Nobody ever accused me of wisdom of any kind, let alone conventional.
- Phil Knight
Just saying you are better than good won’t make it so. But, when you understand what it takes to live the better than good life, and you apply yourself, your life will truly be better than good.
- Zig Ziglar
TAKE CARE OF THE PEOPLE, THE PRODUCTS, AND THE PROFITS—IN THAT ORDER.
- Ben Horowitz
The future of publishing is about having connections to readers and the knowledge of what those readers want.
- Seth Godin
The danger of the Web is that you can go from idea to public announcement in under ten minutes.
- Seth Godin
The Real ReasonNew College Grads Can’t Get Hired shocked many when it reported, The Workforce Solutions Group at St. Louis Community College finds that more than 60% of employers say applicants lack communication and interpersonal skills
- Martha C. White
Americans believe cotton is best, but we’ve invented new fabrics that will change your lifestyle.
- Tadashi Yanai
When I grew up, the Devil was a reason why I had a headache or the Devil was the reason I got mad today. We always blamed the Devil. I think today when I say the Enemy, I like to make it broader. Sometimes the Enemy can be our own thoughts.
- Joel Olsteen
Certainly there’s a phenomenon around open source. You know free software will be a vibrant area. There will be a lot of neat things that get done there.
- Bill Gates
It’s not an experiment if you know it’s going to work.
- Jeff Bezos
The only meat I eat is from animals I’ve killed myself.
- Mark Zuckerberg
