Those who keep the peace of their inner selves in the midst of the tumult of the modern city are immune from nervous diseases.
- Dale Carnegie
Notable Quotables
We don’t live in a normal world, we live under a power law.
- Peter Thiel
The thorough man of business knows that only by years of patient, unremitting attention to affairs can he earn his reward, which is the result, not of chance, but of well-devised means for the attainment to ends.
- Andrew Carnegie
You can have agency not just over your own life, but over a small and important part of the world. It begins by rejecting the unjust tyranny of Chance.
- Peter Thiel
It used to be the case, like you’d switch jobs, and then maybe you wouldn’t keep in touch with all the people that you knew from that old job, just because it was too hard. But one of the things that Facebook does is it makes it really easy to just stay in touch with all these people.
- Mark Zuckerberg
In this sense, if nothing about our society changes for the next 100 years, then the future is over 100 years away.
- Peter Thiel
Long ago, Ben Graham taught me that ‘Price is what you pay; value is what you get.’ Whether we’re talking about socks or stocks, I like buying quality merchandise when it is marked down.
- Warren Buffett
There comes a precious moment in all of our lives when we are tapped on the shoulder and offered the opportunity to do something very special that is unique to us and our abilities, what a tragedy it would be if we are not ready or willing.
- Winston Churchill
People have been indoctrinated so completely by their jobs that they don’t want to know how something works, they’re willing to accept that perhaps the laws of nature don’t work as they expect, and by the way, can I have the remote?
- Seth Godin
Mitt – what I speak to Mitt Romney about is jobs. What I speak to Mitt Romney about is China, because he’s got a great view on China and how they’re trying to destroy our country by taking our jobs and making our product and manipulating their currency, so that it makes it almost impossible for our companies to compete.
- Donald Trump
For any business to grow, individuals must be accountable for each of the systems, and a general overall director must be in charge of making sure all the systems operate at the highest capacity.
- Robert Kiyosaki
You have to take away some of tax breaks for the wealthy, and you have to cut back on some entitlements. Because, unless we do all of these things, it just doesn’t work. And what’s good theater and what’s good politics isn’t necessarily good economic policy.
- Michael Bloomberg
As we advance in life we learn the limits of our abilities.
- Henry Ford
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
China is the new horizon.
- Cheng Yu-tung
People want to watch whatever video they want to watch whenever they want to watch. If you provision your Internet infrastructure adequately, you can do that.
- Bill Gates
When one person yells the other should listen. When two people yell, there’s no communication.
- Dale Carnegie
I was never much of a reader when I was a boy. Books bored me. I liked action. But I spent a lot of time thinking about things. I’d imagine all kinds of situations and how I would handle them.
- Ray Kroc
Don’t save it all for the end. There is every reason not to.
- Timothy Ferriss
Being a stand-up is my mission in life; it’s my passion. My ongoing goal is to simply be funny, on my own, in front of a roomful of strangers.
- Jerry Seinfeld
Your first projects aren’t the greatest things in the world, and they may have no money value, they may go nowhere, but that is how you learn – you put so much effort into making something right if it is for yourself.
- Steve Wozniak
[On signing up Michael Jordan in 1984 when he was just 21 years old] We could see that he was a charismatic guy who jumps over the moon and is very competitive, but nobody could have predicted what he would become to our culture.
- Phil Knight
Hong Kong is uniquely positioned as the best place to integrate with the fast-growing Pearl River Delta Region and to capitalize on the opening up of China’s economy and markets.
- Cheng Yu-tung
Ebooks had to happen.
- Jeff Bezos
College students can become extremely skilled at a few specialties, but many never learn what to do with those skills in the wider world.
- Peter Thiel
Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn’t really do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while.
- Steve Jobs
The Cul-de-Sac ( French for “dead end” ) … is a situation where you work and work and work and nothing much changes.
- Seth Godin
Here lies one who knew how to get around him men who were cleverer than himself.
- Dale Carnegie
The entrepreneur always searches for change, responds to it, and exploits it as an opportunity.
- Peter Drucker
Really, truly, try to figure out what your palate is all about. If you’ve determined that you don’t like dirty old stinky wine – old-world flavors – you probably like new-world fruit bombs. Stick to Shirazes and California Cabernets or Zinfandels.
- Gary Vaynerchuk
I’m skeptical of a lot of what falls under the rubric of education…. People are on these tracks. They are getting these credentials and it’s very unclear how viable they are in many cases.
- Peter Thiel
Anyone with a Purpose Can Make a Difference.
- Zig Ziglar
People are more comfortable learning about wine because now they can just Google, you know, ‘Soave,’ and say, ‘Oh, O.K., cool.’
- Gary Vaynerchuk
As you and I march across the decades of time, we are going to meet a lot of unpleasant situations that are so. They cannot be otherwise. We have our choice. We can either accept them as inevitable and adjust ourselves to them, or we can ruin our lives with rebellion and maybe end up with a nervous breakdown.
- Dale Carnegie
Your network is your net worth.
- Porter Gale
I could either watch it happen or be a part of it.
- Elon Musk
Americans are in a cycle of fear which leads to people not wanting to spend and not wanting to make investments, and that leads to more fear. We’ll break out of it. It takes time.
- Warren Buffett
Good communication is a give-and-take proposition. Don’t think of your pitch as a short speech, after which you get a thumbs up or a thumbs down.
- Michael Levine
Don’t confuse selling with art.
- Jack Taylor
HE RICH DON’T WORK FOR MONEY The poor and the middle class work for money. The rich have money work for them.
- Robert Kiyosaki
The three great essentials to achieve anything worthwhile are, first, hard work; second, stick-to-itiveness; third, common sense.
- Thomas Edison
Life is not fair – get used to it!
- Bill Gates
Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do, and they will surprise you with their ingenuity.
- General George S. Patton
Percentage margins don’t matter. What matters always is dollar margins: the actual dollar amount. Companies are valued not on their percentage margins, but on how many dollars they actually make, and a multiple of that.
- Jeff Bezos
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
Remember, happiness doesn’t depend upon who you are or what you have; it depends solely upon what you think. So start each day by thinking of all the things you have to be thankful for. Your future will depend very largely on the thoughts you think today. So think thoughts of hope and confidence and love and success.
- Dale Carnegie
I started, actually, to make my first animated cartoon in 1920. Of course, they were very crude things then and I used sort of little puppet things.
- Walt Disney
If you look at our current technology level, something strange has to happen to civilisations, and I mean strange in a bad way. And it could be that there are a whole lot of dead, one-planet civilisations.
- Elon Musk
The relationships we have with people are extremely important to success on and off the job.
- Zig Ziglar
Having a personality of caring about people is important. You cant be a good leader unless you generally like people. That is how you bring out the best in them.
- Richard Branson
I think faith is incredibly important because you will become overwhelmed with what’s happening and you will have waves of grief, but when you turn to your faith, I believe God will give you waves of grace to get through it.”- Joel Osteen
- Joel Olsteen
War will find us whether we are ready or not.
- Winston Churchill
When the war of the giants is over the wars of the pygmies will begin.
- Winston Churchill
Short cycle business are being impacted by credit, and are being impacted by gasoline prices, food, distribution businesses, chemical business.
- Jack Welch
I’m so optimistic, I’d go after Moby Dick in a rowboat and take the tartar sauce with me.
- Zig Ziglar
I believe in Judaism, I was raised a Jew, I’m happy to be one – or proud to be one.
- Michael Bloomberg
Well, sometimes you just don’t like somebody.
- Henry Ford
I have always believed that if we do well, we must also do something to help others in society.
- Henry Sy
A decision is a judgment. It is a choice between alternatives. It is rarely a choice between right and wrong. It is at best a choice between “almost right” and “probably wrong”—but much more often a choice between two courses of action neither of which is provably more nearly right than the other.
- Peter Drucker
Your purpose is to make your audience see what you saw, hear what you heard, feel what you felt. Relevant detail, couched in concrete, colorful language, is the best way to recreate the incident as it happened and to picture it for the audience.
- Dale Carnegie
It’s really complex to make something simple…
- Jack Dorsey
I think it makes sense to believe in God, but exactly what decision in your life you make differently because of it, I don’t know.
- Bill Gates
We’re at maybe 1% of what is possible. Despite the faster change, we’re still moving slow relative to the opportunities we have. I think a lot of that is because of the negativity… Every story I read is Google vs someone else. That’s boring. We should be focusing on building the things that don’t exist.
- Larry Page
When a subject becomes totally obsolete we make it a required course.
- Peter Drucker
Somebody needs what you have to give. It may not be your money; it may be your time. It may be your listening ear. It may be your arms to encourage. It may be your smile to uplift. Who knows? Maybe just like that little baby, putting your arm around somebody and letting him or her know that you care can help begin to heal that person’s heart. Maybe you can give a rescuing hug.
- Joel Olsteen
Once Microsoft lost its grip on developers, it became only a matter of time before it lost its monopoly on operating systems.
- Ben Horowitz
60% of the bonus was based on financials and 40% on Six Sigma (quality) results.
- Jack Welch
The lawyers I worked with ran a valuable business, and they were impressive individuals one by one. But the relationships between them were oddly thin. They spent all day together, but few of them seemed to have much to say to each other outside the office. Why work with a group of people who don’t even like each other? Many seem to think it’s a sacrifice necessary for making money. But taking a merely professional view of the workplace, in which free agents check in and out on a transactional basis, is worse than cold: it’s not even rational. Since time is your most valuable asset, it’s odd to spend it working with people who don’t envision any long-term future together.
- Peter Thiel
And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.
- Anais Nin
E – Edge, ability to make tough yes and no decisions
- Jack Welch
The “non-profit” institution neither supplies goods or services not controls. Its “product” is neither a pair of shoes nor an effective regulation. Its product is a changed human being. The non-profit institutions are human-change agents. Their “product” is a cured patient, a child that learns, a young man or woman grown into a self-respecting adult; a changed human life altogether.
- Peter Drucker
The U.S. has done a great job improving productivity. We’re making a lot more steel in Dearborn with fewer people. The unions have accepted much better work rules.
- Alexei Mordashov
From the start, I wanted PayPal to be tightly knit instead of transactional.
- Peter Thiel
If you can discipline yourself to read, you can free up two years of your life for the good stuff!
- Seth Godin
On the Internet you get continuous innovation, so every year the streams are a little better.
- Reed Hastings
With integrity, you have nothing to fear, since you have nothing to hide. With integrity, you will do the right thing, so you will have no guilt.
- Zig Ziglar
Madness is however an affliction which in war carries with it the advantage of SURPRISE.
- Winston Churchill
When people are around us, they should leave better off than they were previously. Rather than feeling discouraged or defeated, people should feel challenged and inspired after spending any time with you and me.
- Joel Olsteen
Inspiration can be found in a pile of junk. Sometimes, you can put it together with a good imagination and invent something.
- Thomas Edison
Where there is no vision, there is no hope.
- George Washington Carver
There is nothing more exhilarating than to be shot at with no result.
- Winston Churchill
Whatever your life’s work is, do it well. A man should do his job so well that the living, the dead, and the unborn could do it no better.
- Martin Luther King Jr.
Passion is energy. Feel the power that comes from focusing on what excites you.
- Oprah Winfrey
My dream was to set up my own e-commerce company. In 1999, I gathered 18 people in my apartment and spoke to them for two hours about my vision. Everyone put their money on the table, and that got us $60,000 to start Alibaba. I wanted to have a global company, so I chose a global name.
- Jack Ma
We all know now that the 747 became the flagship jumbo jet of the airline industry, but the decision looks much different from the perspective of the late 1960s. Yet—and this is the key point—Boeing was willing to make the bold move in the face of the risks. As in Boeing’s case, the risks do not always come without pain.
- James C. Collins
When you’re green, your growing. When you’re ripe, you rot.
- Ray Kroc
Happiness doesn’t depend on outward conditions. It depends on inner conditions. It isn’t what you have or who you are or where you are or what you are doing that makes you happy or unhappy. It is what you think about it.
- Dale Carnegie
My best friend is the one who brings out the best in me.
- Henry Ford
It is impossible to divide the interest of a country and a company that works on its soil.
- Vagit Alekperov
The best ideas in a company are the ones that people come up with themselves because then they really own their ideas and are committed to making them work. – David Novak CEO of YUM Brands
- David Novak
Life can be boring unless you put some effort into it.
- John C. Maxwell
Follow these five decision steps when hiring someone: Understand the job, consider three to five people, study candidates performance records to find their strengths, talk to the candidates’ colleagues about them, and once hired, explain the assignment to the new employee.
- Peter Drucker
If what others say doesn’t match what God has put in your heart, let it go in one ear and out the other.
- Joel Olsteen
At the margin, they’ll be biased to claim value in the near term, not help you create more in the future. That’s why hiring consultants doesn’t work. Part-time employees don’t work. Even working remotely should be avoided,
- Peter Thiel
Life is bigger than processes and overflows and dwarfs them.
- Dale Carnegie
The internet population is going up and up. I am confident that this will be a huge market.
- Robin Li
If the employees fundamentally trust the C.E.O., then communications will be vastly more efficient than if they don’t. Telling things as they are is a critical part of building this trust.
- Ben Horowitz
A true entrepreneur is someone who seeks to profitably solve a problem that the world has in exchange for enough monetary compensation to achieve their dreams.
- Clay Clark
The best thinking has been done in solitude. The worst has been done in turmoil.
- Thomas Edison
The good-to-great companies displayed two distinctive forms of disciplined thought. The first, and the topic of this chapter, is that they infused the entire process with the brutal facts of reality. (The second, which we will discuss in the next chapter, is that they developed a simple, yet deeply insightful, frame of reference for all decisions.)
- James C. Collins
