Sooner or later, many idealists transform themselves into disheartened realists who mistakenly believe that giving up is the same thing as being realistic.
- Seth Godin
Notable Quotables
Capitalism does not permit an even flow of economic resources. With this system, a small privileged few are rich beyond conscience, and almost all others are doomed to be poor at some level. That’s the way the system works. And since we know that the system will not change the rules, we are going to have to change the system.
- Martin Luther King Jr.
I want to get involved in things that makes a difference in peoples lives and lifts them up. I don’t want to be a part of anything that’s not inspiring or helpful to the community that I’m serving.
- Russell Simmons
Skills are cheap. Passion is priceless.
- Gary Vaynerchuk
The Law of the Garbage Truck,” was this: Many people are like garbage trucks. They run around full of garbage, full of frustration, full of anger, and full of disappointment. As their garbage piles up, they look for a place to dump it. And if you let them, they’ll dump it on you. So when someone wants to dump on you, don’t take it personally. It doesn’t have anything to do with you. Just smile, wave, wish them well, and move on. Believe me, you’ll be happier.
- Joel Olsteen
The level of analysis that is done when you see laws created, whether it’s the city or state or federal level – it’s much more horse-trading than analysis.
- Michael Bloomberg
I can think of nothing less pleasurable than a life devoted to pleasure.
- John D. Rockefeller
How has being realistic” or responsible” kept you from the life you want? How has doing what you should” resulted in subpar experiences or regret for not having done something else?
- Timothy Ferriss
We are set in our ways, bound by our perspectives and stuck in our thinking.
- Joel Olsteen
With the addition of these volumes, our Gulf Coast region is off to a good start for 2006 in its effort to grow its production. Combined, all regions are now showing growth in both production and reserves which is very attractive, especially considering the organic strategy on which we have predominately focused.
- Dan Dinges
Time is your most precious gift because you only have a set amount of it.
- Rick Warren
Keep in mind, just because you don’t know the answer doesn’t mean that one does not exist. You simply haven’t discovered it yet.
- Joel Olsteen
The most serious mistakes are not being made as a result of wrong answers. The true dangerous thing is asking the wrong questionl
- Peter Drucker
Profitability comes from loyalty, productivity, and having a character base from which to work.
- Zig Ziglar
If you are a parent, you have probably already realized that your children are always watching what you do. And just as children watch their parents and emulate their behavior, so do employees who are watching their bosses.
- John C. Maxwell
Slow Dance: Have you ever watched kids, On a merry-go-round? Or listened to the rain, Slapping on the ground? Ever followed a butterfly’s erratic flight? Or gazed at the sun into the fading night? You better slow down. Don’t dance too fast. Time is short. The music won’t last. Do you run through each day, On the fly? When you ask: How are you? Do you hear the reply? When the day is done, do you lie in your bed, With the next hundred chores, Running through your head? You’d better slow down, Don’t dance too fast. Time is short, The music won’t last. Ever told your child we’ll do it tomorrow? And in your haste, Not see his sorrow? Ever lost touch, Let a good friendship die, Cause you never had time, To call and say Hi? You’d better slow down. Don’t dance so fast. Time is short. The music won’t last. When you run so fast to get somewhere, You miss half the fun of getting there. When you worry and hurry through your day, It is like an unopened gift thrown away. Life is not a race. Do take it slower. Hear the music, Before the song is over.
- Timothy Ferriss
When you stop planning and preparing . . . you stop winning.
- Zig Ziglar
When you are committed to doing what’s right, you are sowing seeds for God’s blessings. You will never go wrong by taking the high road and doing more that is required.
- Joel Olsteen
Wherever smart people work, doors are unlocked.
- Steve Wozniak
Most discussions of decision making assume that only senior executives make decisions or that only senior executives’ decisions matter. This is a dangerous mistake.
- Peter Drucker
Happiness is not a tangible thing, it’s a byproduct – a byproduct of achievement.
- Ray Kroc
Inability to make decisions is one of the principal reasons executives fail. Deficiency in decision-making ranks much higher than lack of specific knowledge or technical know-how as an indicator of leadership failure.
- John C. Maxwell
Nothing is more costly, nothing is more sterile, than vengeance.
- Winston Churchill
We are all worms. But I believe that I am a glow-worm.
- Winston Churchill
When we don’t forgive, we’re not hurting the other person. We’re not hurting the company that did us wrong. We’re not hurting God. We’re only hurting ourselves.
- Joel Olsteen
All your ideas may be solid or even good .. But you have to Actually EXECUTE on them for them to matter.
- Gary Vaynerchuk
People often say motivation doesn’t last. Neither does bathing—that’s why we recommend it daily.
- Zig Ziglar
My home is in Moscow and I have no plans to change this.
- Alisher Usmanov
Every sale has 5 basic obstacles: need, money, hurry, desire, trust.
- Zig Ziglar
Investing for the poor requires participation from the entire community.
- Bill Gates
Twenty years and $40 billion. They seem like good round numbers.
- Michael Dell
At Microsoft there are lots of brilliant ideas, but the image is that they all come from the top. I’m afraid that’s not quite right.
- Bill Gates
I see this as my humanitarian legacy. We’re prepared to pay billions.
- Sheldon Adelson
I think the word rich is all relative.
- Joel Olsteen
Just like Mark Snider told the Board of Elections within a couple hours of when he first became aware of it… first of all, Mike and I didn’t even know anything about this till March 16, … Second of all, nobody benefited from this in any way, shape or form whatsoever.
- Michael Ward
Named must your fear be before banish it you can.
- Yoda
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
The greatest thing about being a comedian is knowing other comedians. And you get to talk to them. Its the most fun.
- Jerry Seinfeld
Investors should remember that excitement and expenses are their enemies. And if they insist on trying to time their participation in equities, they should try to be fearful when others are greedy and greedy only when others are fearful.
- Warren Buffett
When one door closes, another opens; but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us.
- Alexander Graham Bell
Once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny, consume you it will.
- Yoda
Every company starts only once.
- Peter Thiel
Like acting, sales works best when hidden. This explains why almost everyone whose job involves distribution—whether they’re in sales, marketing, or advertising—has a job title that has nothing to do with those things. 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.
- Peter Thiel
Twitter has been my life’s work in many senses. It started with a fascination with cities and how they work, and what’s going on in them right now.
- Jack Dorsey
Many of the truths that we cling to depend on our point of view.
- Yoda
Actually, King Abdullah, under his supervision and guidance, has established a dialogue in Saudi Arabia whereby all the population, whether Shiite or Sunnis from north, south, west or east, they can get together and exchange their views.
- Prince Al Waleed Bin Talal Alsaud
I already told you that it is 100% outside buyers.
- Lee Shau Kee
Courage is rightly esteemed the first of human qualities… because it is the quality which guarantees all others.
- Winston Churchill
I think a newspaper should be provocative, stir ’em up, but you can’t do that on television. It’s just not on.
- Rupert Murdoch
The thing that we are trying to do at facebook, is just help people connect and communicate more efficiently.
- Mark Zuckerberg
A company only has so much money. Winning leaders invest where the payback is the highest… Companies win when their managers make a clear and meaningful distinction between top- and bottom-performing businesses and people, when they cultivate the strong and cull the weak. Companies suffer when every business and person is treated equally and bets are sprinkled all around like rain on the ocean.
- Jack Welch
Boy, those French: they have a different word for everything!
- Steve Martin
Should surveillance be usable for petty crimes like jaywalking or minor drug possession? Or is there a higher threshold for certain information? Those aren’t easy questions.
- Bill Gates
My ultimate dream is for the Irvine Ranch to be known and celebrated as much for the outstanding communities we’ve planned and built as it is for what is not developed. The beneficiary being the 50,000 acres of undeveloped land that is now permanently preserved and conserved as Open Space and parklands.
- Donald Bren
There is a time to provide advice and offer an opinion, and there is a time not to. Don’t be too quick to offer unsolicited advice. It certainly will not endear you to people.
- Harvey Mackay
I am a better investor because I am a businessman, and a better businessman because I am an investor.
- Warren Buffett
The killer app that got the world ready for appliances was the light bulb. So the light bulb is what wired the world. And they weren’t thinking about appliances when they wired the world. They were really thinking about – they weren’t putting electricity into the home. They were putting lighting into the home.
- Jeff Bezos
Still, if you will not fight for the right when you can easily win without bloodshed; if you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly; you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance of survival. There may even be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves.
- Winston Churchill
I don’t generally read a lot of fiction.
- Bill Gates
Never let a good crisis go to waste.
- Winston Churchill
Actually, if American business is going to succeed, we are going to need hundreds, or even thousands, of miracles.
- Peter Thiel
It’s true that I run a multi-national group but I have no interests in India. So please tell me, what should my identity be?
- Lakshmi Mittal
I think part of the reason we’re successful so far is that originally we didn’t really want to start a business.
- Larry Page
We think that athletes are human beings and have foibles just like human beings do…
- Phil Knight
My mother taught me something at a young age – she said ‘you are the company you keep’. To define yourself by some label or some level of resources – that’s pretty shallow.
- Howard Schultz
I’m a voracious reader.
- Howard Schultz
Historians will record 1998 as a time when the impossible happened in Asia
- Cheng Yu-tung
(after listening to people gripe and complain just smile and remember) Crows can’t hang with eagles.
- Joel Olsteen
Shaw once remarked: If you teach a man anything, he will never learn.
- Dale Carnegie
I spent a disproportionate amount of my time in a car in L.A. I’m 35 years old. If you add up the hours spent in cars, it would be years.
- Travis Kalanick
I should be only paying for things that matter. I shouldn’t be paying for things that don’t matter. And, if Walgreen wants a premium, and they’re not doing anything different, why should I pay them more?
- George Paz
Children astound me with their inquisitive minds. The world is wide and mysterious to them, and as they piece together the puzzle of life, they ask ‘Why?’ ceaselessly.
- John C. Maxwell
The success of the Overseas Chinese is the result of bad times in China itself. The Chinese who left the mother country had to struggle, and that became a culture of its own, passed on from father to son through each generation. Because we have no social security, the Overseas Chinese habit is to save a lot and make a lot of friends.
- Lee Shau Kee
Apart from banking facilities of a relatively small proportion which were raised in Renminbi, the majority of the Group’s funding facilities are obtained in Hong Kong Dollars and the Group’s exposure to foreign exchange fluctuation riks is therefore extremely small.
- Lee Shau Kee
A much better idea would have been to give the problem to the people who could not only fix it, but who would also be personally excited and motivated to do so.
- Ben Horowitz
They that soar too high, often fall hard, making a low and level Dwelling preferable. The tallest Trees are most in the Power of the Winds, and Ambitious Men of the Blasts of Fortune. Buildings have need of a good Foundation, that lie so much exposed to the Weather.
- Dale Carnegie
Creating value is not enough—you also need to capture some of the value you create.
- Peter Thiel
Foreplay, cuddling – a Jedi craves not these things.
- Yoda
Art isn’t only a painting. Art is anything that’s creative, passionate, and personal. And great art resonates with the viewer, not only with the creator.What makes someone an artist? I don’t think is has anything to do with a paintbrush. There are painters who follow the numbers, or paint billboards, or work in a small village in China, painting reproductions. These folks, while swell people, aren’t artists. On the other hand, Charlie Chaplin was an artist, beyond a doubt. So is Jonathan Ive, who designed the iPod. You can be an artists who works with oil paints or marble, sure. But there are artists who work with numbers, business models, and customer conversations. Art is about intent and communication, not substances.An artists is someone who uses bravery, insight, creativity, and boldness to challenge the status quo. And an artists takes it personally.That’s why Bob Dylan is an artist, but an anonymous corporate hack who dreams up Pop 40 hits on the other side of the glass is merely a marketer. That’s why Tony Hsieh, founder of Zappos, is an artists, while a boiler room of telemarketers is simply a scam.Tom Peters, corporate gadfly and writer, is an artists, even though his readers are businesspeople. He’s an artists because he takes a stand, he takes the work personally, and he doesn’t care if someone disagrees. His art is part of him, and he feels compelled to share it with you because it’s important, not because he expects you to pay him for it.Art is a personal gift that changes the recipient. The medium doesn’t matter. The intent does.Art is a personal act of courage, something one human does that creates change in another.
- Seth Godin
If you think something hard is impossible, you’ll never even start trying to achieve it. Belief in secrets is an effective truth.
- Peter Thiel
Things get much easier if one jumps on the bandwagon of existing trends.
- Lei Jun
The Hindus are some of the nicest people you’ll ever meet.
- Joel Olsteen
The ability to get the job done.
- Jack Welch
An idea that can change the course of the company can come from anywhere.
- Jack Dorsey
If Google Books is successful, others will follow.
- Sergey Brin
God himself, sir, does not propose to judge man until the end of his days. Why should you and I?
- Dale Carnegie
I always try to acknowledge what someone’s done well before talking about what could be done better. – David Novak CEO OF Yum! Brands
- David Novak
I believe entertainment can aspire to be art, and can become art, but if you set out to make art you’re an idiot.
- Steve Martin
When defeat comes, accept it as a signal that your plans are not sound, rebuild those plans, and set sail once more toward your coveted goal.
- Napoleon Hill
Computers already have enough power to outperform people in activities we used to think of as distinctively human. In 1997, IBM’s Deep Blue defeated world chess champion Garry Kasparov. Jeopardy!’s best-ever contestant, Ken Jennings, succumbed to IBM’s Watson in 2011. And Google’s self-driving cars are already on California roads today. Dale Earnhardt Jr. needn’t feel threatened by them, but the Guardian worries (on behalf of the millions of chauffeurs and cabbies in the world) that self-driving cars “could drive the next wave of unemployment.
- Peter Thiel
You weren’t created to simply exist, to endure, or to go through the motions; you were created to be really alive.
- Joel Olsteen
Failure to me became not trying versus not succeeding.
- Sara Blakely
Be a yardstick of quality. Some people aren’t used to an environment where excellence is expected.
- Steve Jobs
the expression one wears on one’s face is far more important than the clothes one wears on one’s back
- Dale Carnegie
Accessible design is good design.
- Steve Ballmer
Hell, there are no rules here – we’re trying to accomplish something.
- Thomas Edison
There is no such thing as fun for the whole family.
- Jerry Seinfeld
I can be stressed, or tired, and I can go into a meditation and it all just flows off of me. I’ll come out of it refreshed and centered and that’s how I’ll feel and it’ll carry through the day.
- Ray Dalio
If everybody is doing it one way, there’s a good chance you can find your niche by going exactly in the opposite direction.
- Sam Walton
I find that I have about six bloggable ideas a day. I also find that writing twice as long a post doesn’t increase communication, it usually decreases it. And finally, I found that people get antsy if there are unread posts in their queue.
- Seth Godin
