To all of us comes that moment in life when we are literally tapped on the shoulder to do a very special thing unique to ourselves and our talents. What a pity if that moment finds us unprepared.
- Winston Churchill
Notable Quotables
You don’t want to negotiate the price of simple things you buy every day.
- Jeff Bezos
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. If you can’t count durable relationships among the fruits of your time at work, you haven’t invested your time well—even in purely financial terms.
- Peter Thiel
If we don’t end war, war will end us.
- Winston Churchill
Differentiation (rating and evaluating people) Develops Great Organizations. Differentiation is hard, anybody who finds it easy doesn’t belong in the organization, and anyone who can’t do it falls in the same category…It is important for companies to continually remove the bottom 10 percent of their employees anually.
- Jack Welch
What I know for sure is that if you want success, you can’t make success your goal. The key is not to worry about being successful, but to instead work toward being significant, and the success will naturally follow.”
- Oprah Winfrey
You have to come up with what the consumer wants, and you need a vehicle to understand it.
- Phil Knight
Dreams are extremely important. You can’t do it unless you can imagine it.
- George Lucas
Half of College Grads Are Working Jobs That Don’t Require A Degree, Forbes 2013 college graduates have are an average of $32,500 in debt.
- CNNMoney
Part-time employees don’t work. Even working remotely should be avoided, because misalignment can creep in whenever colleagues aren’t together full-time, in the same place, every day. If you’re deciding whether to bring someone on board, the decision is binary. Ken Kesey was right: you’re either on the bus or off the bus.
- Peter Thiel
We are not 100 percent there, but we are finding consensus.
- Jon Fredrik Baksaas
Small groups of people bound together by a sense of mission have changed the world for the better. The easiest explanation for this is negative: it’s hard to develop new things in big organizations, and it’s even harder to do it by yourself. Bureaucratic hierarchies move slowly, and entrenched interests shy away from risk. In the most dysfunctional organizations, signaling that work is being done becomes a better strategy for career advancement than actually doing work (if this describes your company, you should quit now).
- Peter Thiel
Make it just like a Mac.
- Bill Gates
We’re seeing an explosion in new approaches, new models and new forms of interaction. This growth comes from change, insight and exploration, not obedience.
- Seth Godin
A great man shows his greatness by the way he treats little men.
- Thomas Carlyle
With residential property prices having dropped by around two-thirds from their peak in 1997 and local interest rates dropping to their historic lows, mortgage payments currently falls below rental payment. This positive carry has led to property purchases by both home purchasers as well as investors. Further, with the local stock market becoming active again and reaching its highest level in the past 17 months, this has resulted in an increase in the number of transactions and a price for the luxury properties.
- Lee Shau Kee
You should focus relentlessly on something you’re good at doing, but before that you must think hard about whether it will be valuable in the future.
- Peter Thiel
In his rigidgly compartmentalized life, each hour was tightly budgeted, whether for business, religion, family or exercise. Perhaps those daily rituals helped him deal with the underlying tensions that might otherwise have become ungovernable, for although he tried to project to an air of unhurried calm, he was under terrific strain the surface, was constantly on edge. In one of his few admissions of weakness he recalled, for years on end I never had a solid night’s sleep, worrying about how it was to come out…I tossed about in bed night after night worrying over the outcome…All the fortune that I have made has not served to compensate for the anxiety of that period.
- Ron Chernow
A definite person determines the one best thing to do and then does it. Instead of working tirelessly to make herself indistinguishable, she strives to be great at something substantive—to be a monopoly of one.
- Peter Thiel
In this business, by the time you realize you’re in trouble, it’s too late to save yourself. Unless you’re running scared all the time, you’re gone.
- Bill Gates
God puts people in our lives on purpose so we can help them succeed and help them become all He created them to be. Most people will not reach their full potential without somebody else believing in them.
- Joel Olsteen
Look after the customers and the business will take care of itself.
- Ray Kroc
When you are unbalanced you can launch things
- Rachel Faucett
Nobody roots for a product.
- Phil Knight
The first question which the priest and the Levite asked was: ‘If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?’ But… the good Samaritan reversed the question: ‘If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?’
- Martin Luther King Jr.
The U.S. couldn’t even get rid of Saddam Hussein. And we all know that the EU is just a passing fad. They’ll be killing each other again in less than a year. I’m sick to death of all these fascist lawsuits.
- Bill Gates
The IRS! They’re like the Mafia, they can take anything they want!
- Jerry Seinfeld
There is plenty capital available, just a shortage of good ideas
- Napoleon Hill
I don’t know of any Internet service that opens on a regional basis.
- Reed Hastings
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
An economy is not a complicated thing, it just has a lot of moving parts.
- Ray Dalio
People naturally follow those stronger than themselves.
- John Maxwell
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
That’s why encouragement is a much more effective teaching device than punishment.
- Dale Carnegie
It is always important that we have transparency, that we have shareholder protection. Then again, I think it is important that there are not so many regulations that management can’t make a decision without asking a lawyer whether he can do it.
- Michael Otto
I think people instinctively know that their job is to give service and that they are part of a community. It had a great impact on me when my father walked the picket lines and I walked with him during the civil rights movement.
- Russell Simmons
But if you expect an indefinite future ruled by randomness, you’ll give up on trying to master it.
- Peter Thiel
Here in the West, people often don’t like listening to their leaders, even if they are right.
- Elon Musk
I would rather entertain and hope that people learned something than educate people and hope they were entertained.
- Walt Disney
They have done great things within what you would call established American sports. Freddy has the potential to bring soccer almost for the first time into the public’s consciousness. Soccer in the United States isn’t really part of the culture. What it needs, I think, is a superhero, and he clearly could be it. Now, that’s putting a lot of pressure on him, but the kid’s got all the potential to do that.
- Phil Knight
By altering our attitudes we can alter our lives.
- Zig Ziglar
Never allow anyone to get between you and your customers and suppliers.
- Jack Welch
Surround yourself with only people who are going to lift you higher.
- Oprah Winfrey
Diligence is the mother of good luck.
- Benjamin Franklin
Creating content that allows us to share our experiences, thoughts, and ideas in real time is becoming an intrinsic part of life in the twenty-first century.
- Gary Vaynerchuk
People are more comfortable learning about wine because now they can just Google, you know, ‘Soave,’ and say, ‘Oh, O.K., cool.’
- Gary Vaynerchuk
I’ve always had that gratitude that I had the opportunity to pursue my potential. So I think my story says that, when women are given the chance and the opportunity, that we can achieve a lot. We deliver. We can make the world a better place, one butt at a time.
- Sara Blakely
I want to help people to help themselves, which is much more valuable for both sides than just making a donation. By training the child of a farmer you compound the value of that dollar spent on training since that child will now help their parents. This is the multiplier effect. There’s no point in just feeding them or just giving them money.
- Lee Shau Kee
An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity.
- Martin Luther King Jr.
Experience is something you don’t get until just after you need it.
- Steven Wright
Social entrepreneurs aim to combine the best of both worlds and “do well by doing good.” Usually they end up doing neither.
- Peter Thiel
A lot of people feel very good about Mitt Romney and I think he’s going to do a great job.
- Donald Trump
When you have got a thing where you want, it is a good thing to leave it where it is.
- Winston Churchill
The most “successful” companies seemed to embrace a sort of anti-business model where they lost money as they grew.
- Peter Thiel
God, Family, Country.
- Zig Ziglar
Your net worth to the world is usually determined by what remains after your bad habits are subtracted from your good ones.
- Benjamin Franklin
Do the thing you fear most and the death of fear is certain.
- Mark Twain
Maybe I was accepted to Harvard only because of my tennis skills, since I definitively had no great academic achievements. I was 17 and only thought about surfing and playing tennis. I had almost never left Rio de Janeiro and had never been to the United States.
- Jorge Paulo Lemann
It’s not what happens to you that matters, it’s how you respond to what happens to you that makes a difference.
- Zig Ziglar
[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
Your time is limited, don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma, which is living the result of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of other opinions drown your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition, they somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.
- Steve Jobs
When you catch a glimpse of your potential, that’s when passion is born.
- Zig Ziglar
Always treat your employees exactly as you want them to treat your best customers.
- Stephen R. Covey
Spare the conquered and confront the proud.
- Winston Churchill
If something’s important enough, you should try. Even if you – the probable outcome is failure.
- Elon Musk
Hold on to that new, enlarge vision of victory that God has given you. Start expecting things to change in your favor. Dare to boldly declare that you are standing strong against the forces of darkness.
- Joel Olsteen
When you own your choices, you own their consequences.
- Jack Welch
I read a lot of history, biographies, science, and novels ushering a reporter out the door with a hint of relief. I do not read management or economics.
- Peter Drucker
Do extremely difficult work.That seems obvious, right? If you do something that’s valued but scarce because it’s difficult, you’re more likely to be in demand and to be compensated fairly for what you do.The implication is stunning, though: When designing a project or developing a skill, seek out the most difficult parts to master and contribute. If it’s easy, it’s not for you.
- Seth Godin
A man must be big enough to admit his mistakes, smart enough to profit from them, and strong enough to correct them.
- John C. Maxwell
Law of Credibility – Don’t say anything you can’t prove. Be able to prove anything you say.
- Jerry Vass
I like to get people fired up, fill them with zeal for McDonald’s, and watch the results in their work.
- Ray Kroc
Consider the idea that charisma can be as much a liability as an asset. Your strength of personality can sow the seeds of problems, when people filter the brutal facts from you.
- James C. Collins
Youths of today aspire to be like me but they want to achieve it overnight. It’s not going to work.
- Aliko Dangote
The most interesting biofuel efforts avoid using land that’s expensive and has high opportunity costs. They do this by getting onto other types of land, or taking advantage of byproducts that aren’t used in the food chain today, or by intercropping.
- Bill Gates
The person who seeks all their applause from outside has their happiness in another’s keeping.
- Dale Carnegie
I wish to God that Apple and Google were partners in the future.
- Steve Wozniak
I own a home in Kyoto, Japan actually on the temple on grounds in Nanzenji that is going to become a Japanese art museum.
- Larry Ellison
Don’t equate activity with efficiency. You are paying your key people to see the big picture. Don’t let them get bogged down in a lot of meaningless meetings and paper shuffling. Announce a Friday afternoon off once in a while. Cancel a Monday morning meeting or two. Tell the cast of characters you’d like them to spend the amount of time normally spent preparing for attending the meeting at their desks, simply thinking about an original idea.
- Harvey Mackay
A lot of times, you could play me just the laughs from my set, and I could tell you, from the laugh, what the joke was. Because they match.
- Jerry Seinfeld
I can’t afford this land either, but my business can.
- Robert Kiyosaki
Similar to all of you, we would like to see higher growth.
- John Chambers
People buy titles, and not contents of books. By merely changing the name of one book that was not moving his sales on that book jumped upward more a million copies. The inside of the book was no changed in any way. He merely ripped off the cover bearing the title that did not sell, and put on new cover with a title that had box-office value.
- Napoleon Hill
People were expecting Rouge to go bankrupt, so there was a lot of anxiety. The corporate culture problem was even worse than in Russia. And at the same time, the work rules were more difficult.
- Alexei Mordashov
My goal wasn’t to make a ton of money. It was to build good computers. I only started the company when I realized I could be an engineer forever.
- Steve Wozniak
Today, Andy Quinn pitched a great game finally, and that’s what he’s capable of. He fell behind a few hitters, but he got stronger as he went on.
- Jack Taylor
My model for business is The Beatles. They were four guys who kept each other’s kind of negative tendencies in check. They balanced each other and the total was greater than the sum of the parts. That’s how I see business: great things in business are never done by one person, they’re done by a team of people.
- Steve Jobs
You may think there is a lot wrong with you, but there is also a lot right with you.
- Joel Olsteen
I’ve found that luck is quite predictable. If you want more luck, take more chances. Be more active. Show up more often.
- Brian Tracy
Proposition 19 already is a winner no matter what happens on election day. The mere fact of its being on the ballot has elevated and legitimized public discourse about marijuana and marijuana policy in ways I could not have imagined a year ago.
- George Soros
When I have spare time, I catch up on things I’ve had to postpone due to lack of time.
- Steve Wozniak
We know that if you just were to take the drugs that you were supposed to take for diabetes or hypertension, just take it, as opposed to not take it, we could save $7,000, $3,000 per patient per year.
- Patrick Soon-Shiong
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
I won’t do something unless I can get at least two or three good laughs out of it. If I can’t, it’s not gonna make the team.
- Jerry Seinfeld
We should remember it wasn’t so long ago that confidence in New York was in short supply.
- Michael Bloomberg
I’ve always been fascinated by cities and how they work.
- Jack Dorsey
I have always regarded Paine as one of the greatest of all Americans. Never have we had a sounder intelligence in this republic … It was my good fortune to encounter Thomas Paine’s works in my boyhood … it was, indeed, a revelation to me to read that great thinker’s views on political and theological subjects. Paine educated me, then, about many matters of which I had never before thought. I remember, very vividly, the flash of enlightenment that shone from Paine’s writings, and I recall thinking, at that time, ‘What a pity these works are not today the schoolbooks for all children!’ My interest in Paine was not satisfied by my first reading of his works. I went back to them time and again, just as I have done since my boyhood days.
- Thomas Edison
Freedom does not come automatically, it is achieved. And it is not gained in a single bound
- Rollo May
If you learn late, you pass it on to people so they can learn early. It’s a step process.
- Russell Simmons
Success is due to our stretching to the challenges of life. Failure comes when we shrink from them.
- John C. Maxwell
