An early lesson I learned in my career was that whenever a large organization attempts to do anything, it always comes down to a single person who can delay the entire project.
- Ben Horowitz
Notable Quotables
Do or do not. There is no try.
- Yoda
Cutting prices or putting things on sale is not sustainable business strategy. The other side of it is that you can’t cut enough costs to save your way to prosperity.
- Howard Schultz
Always render more and better service than is expected of you, no matter what your task may be.
- Og Mandino
Nations that went down fighting rose again, but those who surrendered tamely were finished.
- Winston Churchill
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
Cultural industries will be the next engine for growth after real estate, and Wanda will make cultural industries our long-term focus.
- Wang Jianlin
Who decides what’s in Windows? The customers who buy it.
- Bill Gates
A full and fair discussion is essential to democracy.
- George Soros
Humor is the great thing, the saving thing. The minute it crops up, all our irritations and resentments slip away, and a sunny spirit takes their place.
- Mark Twain
Money isn’t the most important thing in life, but it’s reasonably close to oxygen on the ‘gotta have it’ scale.
- Zig Ziglar
Create a definite plan for carrying out your desire and begin at once, whether you are ready or not to put this plan into action.
- Napoleon Hill
I try to make my life about service, and hope that one day we can all ‘see’ a little better because God is with everyone and everywhere.
- Russell Simmons
You’ve got to listen to what God’s telling you and not to what other people may tell you. People will try to talk you out of the dream in your heart.
- Joel Olsteen
People have no confidence that Washington, both sides of aisle, are coming together to try and do what’s right for the economy.
- Michael Bloomberg
Save them [Luke and Leia], we must. They are our last hope.
- Yoda
Now, we put out a lot of carbon dioxide every year, over 26 billion tons. For each American, it’s about 20 tons. For people in poor countries, it’s less than one ton. It’s an average of about five tons for everyone on the planet. And, somehow, we have to make changes that will bring that down to zero.
- Bill Gates
Adults are always asking kids what they want to be when they grow up because they are looking for ideas.
- Paula Poundstone
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
What’s also missing is a sense of relationship. People suffer in isolation from one another. In a world without purpose, without meaningful values, what have we to share but our emptiness, the needy fragments of our superficial selves? As a result, most of us scramble about hungrily seeking distraction, in music, in television, in people, in drugs. And most of all we seek things. Things to wear and things to do. Things to fill the emptiness. Things to shore up our eroding sense of self. Things to which we can attach meaning, significance, life. We’ve fast become a world of things. And most people are being buried in the profusion. What most people need, then, is a place of community that has purpose, order, and meaning. A place in which being human is a prerequisite, but acting human is essential. A place where the generally disorganized thinking that pervades our culture becomes organized and clearly focused on a specific worthwhile result. A place where discipline and will become prized for what they are: the backbone of enterprise and action, of being what you are intentionally instead of accidentally. A place that replaces the home most of us have lost. That’s what a business can do; it can create a Game Worth Playing.
- Michael Gerber
That’s why it is important to enjoy the journey not just the destination. In this world, we will never arrive at a place where everything is perfect and we have no more challenges. As admirable as setting goals and reaching them maybe, you can’t get so focused on accomplishing your goals that you make the mistake of not enjoying where you are right now.
- Joel Olsteen
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.
Ever since Justin Timberlake portrayed him in The Social Network, Sean has been perceived as one of the coolest people in America. JT is still more famous, but when he visits Silicon Valley, people ask if he’s Sean Parker.
- Peter Thiel
We are stripped bare by the curse of plenty.
- Winston Churchill
A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual doom.
- Martin Luther King Jr.
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
Those who are blessed with the most talent don’t necessarily outperform everyone else. It’s the people with follow-through who excel.
- Mary Kay Ash
Think of the transformation as a process of buildup followed by breakthrough, broken into three broad stages: disciplined people, disciplined thought, and disciplined action. Within each of these three stages, there are two key concepts, shown in the framework and described below. Wrapping around this entire framework is a concept we came to call the flywheel, which captures the gestalt of the entire process of going from good to great.
- James C. Collins
There are two things that are more difficult than making an after-dinner speech: climbing a wall which is leaning toward you and kissing a girl who is leaning away from you.
- Winston Churchill
Sunseeker is well placed to take full advantage of opportunities in China, one of the world’s fastest growing luxury yacht markets.
- Wang Jianlin
Facebook is really about communicating and telling stories… We think that people can really help spread awareness of organ donation and that they want to participate in this to their friends. And that can be a big part of helping solve the crisis that’s out there.
- Mark Zuckerberg
When launching something new, you have to go for it—“playing not to lose” can never be an option.
- Jack Welch
Not if anything to say about it I have.
- Yoda
They don’t call it the Internet anymore, they call it cloud computing. I’m no longer resisting the name. Call it what you want.
- Larry Ellison
An artist is someone who uses bravery, insight, creativity, and boldness to challenge the status quo. And an artist takes it personally.
- Seth Godin
Adversity is like a strong wind. I don’t mean just that it holds us back from places we might otherwise go. It also tears away from us all but the things that cannot be torn, so that afterward we see ourselves as we really are, and not merely as we might like to be.
- Arthur Golden
I really do encourage other manufacturers to bring electric cars to market. It’s a good thing, and they need to bring it to market and keep iterating and improving and make better and better electric cars, and that’s what going to result in humanity achieving a sustainable transport future. I wish it was growing faster than it is.
- Elon Musk
The arrival of the 21st century precedes the onslaught of turmoil and tsunami. The business environment has become unpredictable and the global economy even harsher…
- Cheng Yu-tung
American democracy is spoiled by people buying everything in sight and then selling and buying everything in sight, including our politicians.
- Russell Simmons
Men don’t care what’s on TV. They only care what else is on TV.
- Jerry Seinfeld
1815 to 1914 was a period of both rapid technological development and rapid globalization.
- Peter Thiel
To a contrarian like me, constant advice not to do something almost always starts me quickly down the risky, unpopular path.
- Michael Bloomberg
I also have in mind that seemingly wealthy, but most terribly impoverished class of all, who have accumulated dross, but know not how to use it, or get rid of it, and thus have forged their own golden or silver fetters. —HENRY DAVID THOREAU (1817–1862)
- Timothy Ferriss
The indefiniteness of finance can be bizarre. Think about what happens when successful entrepreneurs sell their company. What do they do with the money? In a financialized world, it unfolds like this: • The founders don’t know what to do with it, so they give it to a large bank. • The bankers don’t know what to do with it.
- Peter Thiel
The real story of Facebook is just that we’ve worked so hard for all this time. I mean, the real story is actually probably pretty boring, right? I mean, we just sat at our computers for six years and coded.
- Mark Zuckerberg
We are asking the nations of Europe between whom rivers of blood have flowed to forget the feuds of a thousand years.
- Winston Churchill
If the employees come first, then they’re happy….A motivated employee treats the customer well. The customer is happy, so they keep coming back, which pleases the shareholders. It’s not one of the enduring green mysteries of all time, it is just the way it works.
- Herb Kelleher
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
I always tried to turn every disaster into an opportunity.
- John D. Rockefeller
Most answers to the contrarian question are different ways of seeing the present, good answers are as close as we can come to looking into the future.
- Peter Thiel
The challenge of leadership is to be strong, but not rude; be kind, but not weak; be bold, but not bully; be thoughtful, but not lazy; be humble, but not timid; be proud, but not arrogant; have humor, but without folly.
- Jim Rohn
At an end your rule is, and not short enought it was!
- Yoda
Marketing is a contest for people’s attention.
- Seth Godin
Let’s do as General Eisenhower does: let’s never waste a minute thinking about people we don’t like.
- Dale Carnegie
My parents were ordinary people, we lived in a small apartment.
- Viktor Vekselberg
Many people spend more time in planning the wedding than they do in planning the marriage.
- Zig Ziglar
Why don’t you start believing that no matter what you have or haven’t done, that your best days are still out in front of you.
- Joel Olsteen
The more you are grateful for what you have the more you will have to be grateful for.
- Zig Ziglar
We have always found the Irish a bit odd. They refuse to be English.
- Winston Churchill
Revolution has values, revolution has purpose. Revolution has direction. Revolution has leaders. Revolution looks at the intersection ahead and pushes people to do the right thing. And it doesn’t always have to be loud. It doesn’t always have to be violent. It’s just as powerful in it’s stillness.
- Jack Dorsey
Education comes from within, you get it by struggle and effort and thought.
- Napoleon Hill
They say President Wilson has blundered. Perhaps he has, but I notice he usually blunders forward.
- Thomas Edison
In between goals is a thing called life, that has to be lived and enjoyed.
- Sid Caesar
We are witnessing a seismic change in consumer behavior. That change is being brought about by technology and the access people have to information.
- Howard Schultz
Thus the sovereign voluntary path to cheerfulness, if our cheerfulness be lost, is to sit up cheerfully and to act and speak as if cheerfulness were already there. …
- Dale Carnegie
Diversification does not mean that we have lost confidence in the long term prospects of the property market. Just the contrary is true.One year after the hand-over of Hong Kong to Chinese sovereignty, the people in Hong Kong and around the world have witnessed the successful implementation of the ‘One Country, Two System.’
- Cheng Yu-tung
There are things money can’t buy and hard work can’t win. One of them is happiness.
- Ray Kroc
They intoxicate themselves with work so they won’t see how they really are.
- Aldous Huxley
If you’re brilliant and undiscovered and underappreciated (in whatever field you choose), then you’re being too generous about your definition of brilliant.
- Seth Godin
The man who is bound in the slavery of debt is just as helpless as the slave who is bound by ignorance, or by actual chains.
- Napoleon Hill
Pay attention, don’t let life go by you. Fall in love with the back of your cereal box.
- Jerry Seinfeld
So at that stage you might as well keep growing, to get the advantages of scale.
- Sergey Brin
Thoughts mixed with definiteness of purpose, persistence, and a burning desire are powerful things.
- Napoleon Hill
[Medco] had a different culture with respect to spending money. I believe health care demands that we be as frugal as possible and pay money for things that matter. We’re pretty frugal. Everybody has the same size offices. Everybody has the same size cube. There are no perks.
- George Paz
Nothing is particularly hard if you divide it into small jobs.
- Henry Ford
Did we not all grow up saying we had to have four glasses of whole milk a day for healthy bones? It’s ridiculous. It’s liquid cholesterol.
- Stephen Wynn
If you’re only willing to do what’s easy, life will be hard. But if you’re willing to do what’s hard, life will be easy.
- T. Harv Eker
China’s movie industry is growing a lot faster than that of the U.S.
- Wang Jianlin
Follow effective action with quiet reflection. From the quiet reflection will come even more effective action.
- Peter Drucker
I like pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us. Pigs treat us as equals.
- Winston Churchill
Just as our eyes need light in order to see, our minds need ideas in order to conceive.
- Napoleon Hill
Even leaders with the best of intentions can have dumb ideas sometimes, and if you have good people around you, then hopefully they’ll stop you before you’ve done too much damage.
- David Novak
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
Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened.
- Winston Churchill
In China anything less than 6% growth is a recession meaning that it also causes financial problems and it’s disruptive and it’s a problem.
- Ray Dalio
There are many different kinds of PCs. You have fixed, virtual, tablets, notebooks, ultrabooks, desktops, workstations. What you find in commercial PCs, business PCs, is that there’s a really long tail of usage on client devices.
- Michael Dell
It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried.
- Winston Churchill
I’m not sure blogs are necessarily the best place to get a pulse on anything. People want to blog for a variety of reasons, and that may or may not be representative.
- Steve Ballmer
Trees will improve property values, take pollutants out of the air, help with water runoff.
- Michael Bloomberg
Remember, when you were made a leader you weren’t given a crown, you were given a responsibility to bring out the best in others. For that, your people need to trust you. And they will, as long as you demonstrate candor, give credit, and stay real.
- Jack Welch
My message is that God is a good God.
- Joel Olsteen
Like fire across the galaxy the Clone Wars spread. In league with the wicked Count Dooku, more and more planets slip. Against this threat, upon the Jedi Knights falls the duty to lead the newly formed army of the Republic. And as the heat of war grows, so, to, grows the prowess of one most gifted student of the Force.
- Yoda
What we do not see, what most of us never suspect of existing, is the silent but irresistible power which comes to the rescue of those who fight on in the face of discouragement.
- Napoleon Hill
My God, these guys don’t even know what the return-on-investment will be on this thing.
- James C. Collins
You can always count on the Americans to do the right thing, after they have exhausted all the other possibilities.
- Winston Churchill
I can’t read a computer screen and never use a calculator. It’s all in my head and by hand.
- Simon Reuben
What has sustained us through these years? Trust. Dedication. Discipline.
- Cheng Yu-tung
Getting over the war was biggest adversity I have ever faced.
- Jack Nadel
The student who elects to risk it all—which is nothing—to establish an online video rental service that delivers $5,000 per month in income from a small niche of Blu-ray aficionados, a two-hour-per-week side project that allows him to work full-time as an animal rights lobbyist.
- Timothy Ferriss
MacDonald has the gift of compressing the largest amount of words into the smallest amount of thought.
- Winston Churchill
