Rivalry causes us to overemphasize old opportunities and slavishly copy what has worked in the past.
- Peter Thiel
Notable Quotables
We’re on our way to Greece, in the hands of a confused, foolish government. It’s got to stop. It’s got to stop.
- Stephen Wynn
My father died during open-heart surgery on March 29 of my senior year in college. I was getting set to go to law school. I remember sitting in the waiting room when the doctor walked in. I said to myself, The worst possible thing just happened. What will you do?
- Stephen Wynn
Mike suggested that we might want to turn our stockholders’ meetings into an event, and we went along with him.
- Sam Walton
We occasionally stumble over the truth but most of us pick ourselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened.
- Winston Churchill
Employees were invited to send complaints or suggestions directly to him and he always took an interest in their affairs. He was the best employer of his time, instituting hospitalization and retirement pensions. He was a fine boss if workers abided by the rules, but if they did something foolish, like show interest in a union, they promptly forfeited his sympathy. Rockefeller never acknowledged the legitamacy of organized labor, nor did he tolerate union organizers on his premises.
- Ron Chernow
I pay about a third in taxes, I give away about a third, and I follow the law.
- Ray Dalio
Certainly I’ll never be able to put myself in the situation that people growing up in the less developed countries are in. I’ve gotten a bit of a sense of it by being out there and meeting people and talking with them.
- Bill Gates
Be humble.
- Jack Dorsey
Really, the only thing that makes sense is to strive for greater collective enlightenment.
- Elon Musk
Anyone would fight for things that matter, true heroes take their personal honor so seriously they will fight for things that don’t matter
- Peter Thiel
There are people who don’t like capitalism, and people who don’t like PCs. But there’s no-one who likes the PC who doesn’t like Microsoft.
- Bill Gates
So to hype up PolyGram we placed fake orders for the record into their system by telling retailers and wholesalers to order the 12 inch through PolyGram. PolyGram didn’t own it yet, but we created an appetite for Christmas Rappin that led them to buy it…So in the fall of 1979 Kurtis Blow signed with Mercury Records a division of Polygram Records, making him the first rapper on a major label…Christmas eve 1979 was the first time that I heard Christmas Rappin’ on the radio; I was upstairs at my family’s house. Frankie Crocker the biggest radio DJ in New York played it on WBLS.
- Russell Simmons
Breathe. Let go. And remind yourself that this very moment is the only one you know you have for sure.
- Oprah Winfrey
I don’t believe that government is good at picking technology, particularly technology that is changing. By the time you get it done and go through democracy, it’s so outdated.
- Michael Bloomberg
The debt limits have to come down. The whole world of debt has to be changed as far as this country is concerned. We have to create jobs and we have to create them rapidly because if we don’t things are just going to head in a direction that’s going to be almost impossible to recover from.
- Donald Trump
I have to be ever vigilant to remain open to other people’s points of view. Just because I’m enthusiastic doesn’t necessarily mean I’m right. I have to always keep the doors open for honest communication or I could enthusiastically lead everyone right over the cliff.
- David Novak
The way to work with a bully is to take the ball and go home. First time, every time. When there’s no ball, there’s no game. Bullies hate that. So they’ll either behave so they can play with you or they’ll go bully someone else.
- Seth Godin
The two most important requirements for major success are: first, being in the right place at the right time, and second, doing something about it.
- Ray Kroc
Every obnoxious act is a cry for help.
- Zig Ziglar
The legendary French aviation pioneer and author Antoine de Saint-Exupéry wrote: I have no right to say or do anything that diminishes a man in his own eyes. What matters is not what I think of him, but what he thinks of himself. Hurting a man in his dignity is a crime.
- Dale Carnegie
When you face adversity, you need to remind yourself that whatever is trying to defeat you could very well be what God will use to promote you.
- Joel Olsteen
Kites rise highest against the wind, not with it.
- Winston Churchill
Every time you state what you want or believe, you’re the first to hear it. It’s a message to both you and others about what you think is possible. Don’t put a ceiling on yourself.
- Oprah Winfrey
Until you have learned to be tolerant with those who do not always agree with you, you will be neither successful nor happy.
- Napoleon Hill
God never said that we wouldn’t have unfair situations, that we wouldn’t experience loss. But He promised if we would stay in faith, He would restore everything that was stolen.
- Joel Olsteen
Optimism is the most important human trait, because it allows us to evolve our ideas, to improve our situation, and to hope for a better tomorrow.
- Seth Godin
Share your profits with all your associates, and treat them as partners. In turn, they will treat you as a partner, and together you will all perform beyond your wildest expectations.
- Sam Walton
Most comedies are really hard to write, or to watch, because you kind of generally know what’s coming.
- Steve Martin
What one does easily, one does well.
- Andrew Carnegie
Think of social media as the Internet. I can’t think of anyone betting against the Internet in 2012.
- Gary Vaynerchuk
Danger: if you meet it promptly and without flinching, you will reduce the danger by half. Never run away from anything. Never!
- Winston Churchill
Write your life story as if it has already happened and live it out using your faith in yourself, and in the reality that you are embracing.
- Clay Clark
Being nice to people is just 20% of providing good customer service. The important part is designing systems that allow you to do the job right the first time. All the smiles in the world aren’t going to help you if your product or service is not what the customer wants,
- James L. Heskett
If you give, you will be blessed.
- Joel Olsteen
I think when companies are struggling, they don’t want to talk to the press. The guys who write business books aren’t interested in it because nobody wants to learn what it’s like to be a mess, you want to learn how to be successful. That’s slanted the whole thing quite a bit.
- Ben Horowitz
We remain confident about the market opportunity ahead of us over the next three to five years.
- John Chambers
Quoting from Chapter 2 of the Sayings Of Confucius, ‘At 30, I stood firm; at 40, I had no more doubts.’ Time has its role to play in one’s behavior and how one conducts himself in society. With the passage of time, we master our lives better and become more refined and polished, step by step. At the age of 30, one can overcome difficulties. By the age of 40, one has thorough appreciation of and insights into the world and becomes firmly self-assured without being carried away by all those irregularities in life.
- Cheng Yu-tung
Time is your most precious gift because you only have a set amount of it.
- Rick Warren
If you believe as I do that you were born to win, you’re going to have to find your fears and start facing them.
- Zig Ziglar
I didn’t think I would come to this conclusion — but eventually I came to the conclusion that more information is better, even if it is not as full as we would like to see.
- Sergey Brin
Always render more and better service than is expected of you, no matter what your task may be.
- Og Mandino
It’s better to hang out with people better than you. Pick out associates whose behavior is better than yours and you’ll drift in that direction.
- Warren Buffett
On Sundays when I speak, I hopefully give somebody something that they can use the next day at work or at home.
- Joel Olsteen
We hate bureaucracy and all the nonsense that comes with it.
- Jack Welch
What you sow you reap. What you give.
- Zig Ziglar
My education was interrupted only by my schooling.
- Winston Churchill
The only thing worse than being blind is having sight but no vision.
- Helen Keller
It was always a challenge for me to prove that a Russian financial investor can be as successful in the West as back at home in Russia.
- Alisher Usmanov
If we could do high-speed rail in California just half a notch above what they’ve done on the Shanghai line in China, and if we had a straight path from L.A. to San Francisco, as well as the milk run, at least that would be progress.
- Elon Musk
Those people behind the mosque have to respect, have to appreciate and have to defer to the people of New York. The wound is still there. Just because the wound is healing you can’t say, ‘Let’s just go back to where we were pre-9/11.
- Prince Al Waleed Bin Talal Alsaud
I’ve been to Disneyland, like, 10 times. I’m getting really tired of Disneyland.
- Elon Musk
The local property leasing market generally experienced a slowdown and rental was subject to downward pressure. However, the investment properties of the [Henderson] Group are represented mainly by shopping podiums located in the new towns and these properties were less affected as compared with the retail shopping premises located in the urban areas.
- Lee Shau Kee
I would summarize the quarter as a solid quarter from a revenue and earnings per share perspective and a strong quarter from an orders perspective.
- John Chambers
Of course, it’s easier to copy a model than to make something new. Doing what we already know how to do takes the world from 1 to n, adding more of something familiar. But every time we create something new, we go from 0 to 1. The act of creation is singular, as is the moment of creation, and the result is something fresh and strange.
- Peter Thiel
The goal is to be able to live your life the way Michael Jordan played basketball, or Marvin Gaye sang a song. To be able to feel the way you feel when you laugh at a joke, but to feel that way all the time.
- Russell Simmons
Every adversity, every failure, every heartache carries with it the seed of an equal or greater benefit
- Napoleon Hill
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
Positive thinking will let you use the ability which you have, and that is awesome.
- Zig Ziglar
Discomfort brings engagement and change. Discomfort means you’re doing something that others were unlikely to do, because they’re hiding out in the comfortable zone. When your uncomfortable actions lead to success, the organization rewards you and brings you back for more.
- Seth Godin
The future is already here—it is just unevenly distributed.
- William Gibson
A company should limit its growth based on its ability to attract enough of the right people.
- James C. Collins
Sometimes when you take strong stands, if you’re not called to do it, you’re dividing the audience you’re trying to reach.
- Joel Olsteen
Time is free, but it’s priceless. You can’t own it, but you can use it. You can’t keep it, but you can spend it. Once you’ve lost it you can never get it back.
- Harvey Mackay
Ability may get you to the top, but it takes character to keep you there.
- John Wooden
You never know what events are going to transpire to get you home.
- Og Mandino
I think the most productive thing to do during times of change is to be your best self, not the best version of someone else.
- Seth Godin
The first real thought that I had of something that I might do was to write for car magazines, because I always had a car thing.
- Jerry Seinfeld
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
There are a terrible lot of lies going around the world, and the worst of it is half of them are true.
- Winston Churchill
In those days he was wiser than he is now, he used to frequently take my advice.
- Winston Churchill
Only knowledge that is used sticks in your mind.
- Dale Carnegie
Steve Jobs’ ability to focus in on a few things that count, get people who get user interface right, and market things as revolutionary are amazing things.
- Bill Gates
A goal without real consequences is wishful thinking. Good follow-through doesn’t depend on the right intentions. It depends on the right incentives.
- Timothy Ferriss
In a vacuum of feedback, there is almost no chance that your company will perform optimally.
- Ben Horowitz
If he actually looks like a salesman, he’s probably bad at sales and worse at tech.
- Peter Thiel
If you always think about your dreams or goals, work steadfastly towards them and continue to challenge yourself, you will definitely be able to realise those dreams or goals.
- Tadashi Yanai
I love to learn but I do not want to be taught.
- Winston Churchill
I’m not a tech guy. I’m looking at the technology with the eyes of my customers, normal people’s eyes.
- Jack Ma
People often say that motivation doesn’t last. Well, neither does bathing – that’s why we recommend it daily.
- Zig Ziglar
For example, a world without secrets would enjoy a perfect understanding of justice. Every injustice necessarily involves a moral truth that very few people recognize early on: in a democratic society, a wrongful practice persists only when most people don’t perceive it to be unjust. At first, only a small minority of abolitionists knew that slavery was evil; that view has rightly become conventional, but it was still a secret in the early 19th century. To say that there are no secrets left today would mean that we live in a society with no hidden injustices.
- Peter Thiel
All was there—the programme of German resurrection, the technique of party propaganda; the plan for combating Marxism; the concept of a National-Socialist State; the rightful position of Germany at the summit ofthe world. Here was the new Koran of faith and war: turgid, verbose, shapeless, but pregnant with its message.
- Winston Churchill
If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss.
- Bill Gates
Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.’ You won’t believe what you can accomplish by attempting the impossible with the courage to repeatedly fail better.
- Timothy Ferriss
Younglings, younglings gather ’round.
- Yoda
Twitter was around communication and visualizing what was happening in the world in real-time. Square was allowing everyone to accept the form of payment people have in their pocket today, which is a credit card.
- Jack Dorsey
If you want the people in the stores to take care of the customers, you have to make sure you’re taking care of the people in the stores. That’s the most important single ingredient of Wal-Mart’s success.
- Sam Walton
I don’t think anyone is ever writing so that you can throw it away. You’re always writing it to be something. Later, you decide whether it’ll ever see the light of day. But at the moment of its writing, it’s always meant to be something. So, to me, there’s no practicing; there’s only editing and publishing or not publishing.
- Steve Martin
Money was never a big motivation for me, except as a way to keep score. The real excitement is playing the game.
- Donald Trump
You didn’t grow up driving…you figured it out.
- Gary Vaynerchuk
I’ve built a lot of my success off finding these truly gifted people and not settling for B and C players, but really going for the A players…I found that when you get enough A players together, when you go through the incredible work to find five of these A players, they really like working with each other. Because they’ve never had a chance to do that before. And they don’t want to work with B and C players and so it becomes self-policing and they only want to hire more A players. And so you build up these pockets of A players, and it propagates.
- Steve Jobs
Today is life – the only life you are sure of. Make the most of today. Get interested in something. Shake yourself awake. Develop a hobby. Let the winds of enthusiasm sweep through you. Live today with gusto.
- Dale Carnegie
Napoleon was criticized for giving toys” to war-hardened veterans, and Napoleon replied, Men are ruled by toys.
- Dale Carnegie
I wish I could do a lot of things different. I’m not going to tell you what they are, but if I had a list of all my films right now, I’d go, ‘Okay, I’ll cross that one out and cross that one out and cross that one out and cross that one out.’ Really. But I’ve made over 40 films. How can I not have some losers in there?
- Steve Martin
In fact, stories only magnify the need to have something remarkable (and honest) to say.
- Seth Godin
Chase the vision, not the money; the money will end up following you.
- Tony Hsieh
There is no middle ground: either don’t throw any punches, or strike hard and end it quickly.
- Peter Thiel
if you want to achieve consistent performance, you need both parts of a 20 Mile March: a lower bound and an upper bound, a hurdle that you jump over and a ceiling that you will not rise above, the ambition to achieve and the self-control to hold back.
- James C. Collins
In a dark place we find ourselves, and a little more knowledge lights our way.
- Yoda
We are more fascinated today by statistical predictions of what the country will be thinking in a few weeks’ time than by visionary predictions of what the country will look like 10 or 20 years from now.
- Peter Thiel
