Notable Quotables

We see no major changes in that model for the next several years. In fact, we are more optimistic about Cisco’s position and opportunities in both the enterprise and service provider markets than at any point in the last several years.

- John Chambers

It’s insane to me to ask anybody to be what they’re not. Know what you know the best, love the most. That’s always going to be the answer to the thing that you have the best shot at winning at.

- Gary Vaynerchuk

If you get up in the morning and think the future is going to be better, it is a bright day. Otherwise, it’s not.

- Elon Musk

Watching how customers actually use a product provides much more reliable information than can be gleaned from a verbal interview or a focus group.

- Clayton M. Christensen

Great companies are built on great products.

- Elon Musk

The failure to strangle Bolshevism at its birth and to bring Russia, then prostrate, by one means or another, into the general democratic system lies heavy upon us today.

- Winston Churchill

It has been my observation that most people get ahead during the time that others waste.

- Henry Ford

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

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.

Yeah, well I think anyone who likes fast cars will love the Tesla. And it has fantastic handling by the way. I mean this car will crush a Porsche on the track, just crush it. So if you like fast cars, you’ll love this car. And then oh, by the way, it happens to be electric and it’s twice the efficiency of a Prius.

- Elon Musk

Outstanding people have one thing in common: an absolute sense of mission.

- Zig Ziglar

When I first discovered in the early 1980s the Italian espresso bars in my trip to Italy, the vision was to re-create that for America – a third place that had not existed before. Starbucks re-created that in America in our own image; a place to go other than home or work. We also created an industry that did not exist: specialty coffee.

- Howard Schultz

I focus on giving specific, real-time coaching so my teammates can benefit immediately. Larry Senn taught me a very effective tool that works in both individual and team settings. Start out by sharing, here’s what you appreciate about a person’s work. By showing appreciation, you are setting the stage for acceptance of constructive suggestions. Then offer suggestions by saying, and you can be even more effective if you do such and such. And is a much better word than but because it’s additive by buillyng on a positive versus the usually negative but everyone is expecting to hear.

- David Novak

An expert is a person who has made all the mistakes that can be made in a very narrow field.

- Niels Bohr

Hard things are hard because there are no easy answers or recipes. They are hard because your emotions are at odds with your logic. They are hard because you don’t know the answer and you cannot ask for help without showing weakness.

- Ben Horowitz

The show business has all phases and grades of dignity, from the exhibition of a monkey to the exposition of that highest art in music or the drama which secures for the gifted artists a world-wide fame princes well might envy.

- P.T. Barnum

I want the entire smartphone, the entire Internet, on my wrist.

- Steve Wozniak

Projections are just bullshit. They’re just guesses.

- Jason Fried

Today knowledge has power. It controls access to opportunity and advancement.

- Peter Drucker

Many of the people that you lay off will have closer relationships with the people who stay than you do, so treat them with an appropriate level of respect.

- Ben Horowitz

I never took classic business classes in college, so I don’t have the background that any of the people running large companies have.

- Howard Schultz

You can abuse me, you can strike me, so long as you let me have my own.

- Ron Chernow

The older I get, the better I understand that every day is a gift.

- Joel Olsteen

A movement is thrilling. It’s the work of many people, all connected, all seeking something better.

- Seth Godin

Patience, persistence and perspiration make an unbeatable combination for success.

- Napoleon Hill

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

Some libertarians say, ‘Well, if people work harder, they can make more money.’ But, you know, my mother is a nurse and I am a venture capitalist. I think no matter how great a nurse she is, she wouldn’t earn a one-thousandth of what I can make, if that.

- Ben Horowitz

In my experience as CEO, I found that the most important decisions tested my courage far more than my intelligence.

- Ben Horowitz

Success means doing the best we can with what we have. Success is the doing, not the getting; in the trying, not the triumph. Success is a personal standard, reaching for the highest that is in us, becoming all that we can be.

- Zig Ziglar

Here lies the body of William Jay, Who died maintaining his right of way – He was right, dead right, as he sped along, But he’s just as dead as if he were wrong.

- Dale Carnegie

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 spend any time thinking about my place in history, ever. If people say I changed things, it’s nice, and I take it – but if I could give it to a charity it would be useful. I really believe now that my only job in life is to achieve a state of comfort and happiness.

- Russell Simmons

You think Yoda stops teaching, just because his student does not want to hear? A teacher Yoda is. Yoda teaches like drunkards drink, like killers kill.

- Yoda

The guerrilla is a cheapskate. She knows that every dollar allocated to marketing is essential, and she doesn’t plan to waste a penny. But she’s not foolish. When necessary, she hires the best designers, media planners, and experts in the business—she realizes that the best is often the cheapest in the end.

- Jay Conrad Levinson

Experience has proven that the best educated people are often those who are known as self-made, or self-educated. It takes more than a college degree to make one a person of education. Any person who is educated is one who has learned to get whatever he wants in life without violating the rights of others. Education consists no so much of knowledge, but of knowledge effectively and peristently applied. Men are paid nor merely for tha they know, but more particulary for what they do with that which they know.

- Napoleon Hill

I had this very rich sense of how the metropolis was living and breathing.

- Jack Dorsey

If you think you are leading and turn around to see no one following, then you are just taking a walk.

- Benjamin Hooks

I can’t afford to be indifferent to politics, but I don’t have personal ambitions.

- Vagit Alekperov

I DECLARE God’s dream for my life is coming to pass. It will not be stopped by people, disappointments, or adversities. God has solutions to every problem I will ever face already lined up. The right people and the right breaks are in my future. I will fulfill my destiny. This is my declaration.

- Joel Olsteen

So you need two professions: the one you have studied all this time, and your other profession the profession of persuasion that allows you to make good use of all those years of education, practice and dues-paying.

- Jerry Vass

I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.

- Thomas Edison

The legacy of Steve Jobs and the strength of Steve Jobs is that he established a company that’s clearly firing on all cylinders and clicking very well.

- Prince Al Waleed Bin Talal Alsaud

Churchill: “Madam, would you sleep with me for five million pounds?” Socialite: “My goodness, Mr. Churchill… Well, I suppose… we would have to discuss terms, of course… “Churchill: “Would you sleep with me for five pounds?”Socialite: “Mr. Churchill, what kind of woman do you think I am?!” Churchill: “Madam, we’ve already established that. Now we are haggling about the price

- Winston Churchill

Every day brings a chance for you to draw in a breath, kick off your shoes, and dance.

- Oprah Winfrey

Where did your art go while you were tweeting?

- Seth Godin

I just think that it’s strong and it’s important that we recognize what the Christmas season is about; it’s about the birth of our Savior, and there’s a lot of pressure today to be politically correct, but people are realizing, too, that you have to be open to express your faith what you want believe.

- Joel Olsteen

Opportunity does not knock, it presents itself when you beat down the door.

- Kyle Chandler

One who works the same reactive 40 hours per week and takes the same amount of sick days and holidays off as his or her employees, yet expects to make significantly more than everyone else simply because they have the title of owner and are thus making the loan payments and the lease payments.

- Clay Clark

Today a grand plan coming from a schoolteacher would be dismissed as crankery, and a long-range vision coming from anyone more powerful would be derided as hubris.

- Peter Thiel

If you can’t be a pine on the top of the hill.Be a scrub in the valley-but beThe best little scrub by the side of the rill;Be a bush, if you can’t be a tree.If you can’t be a bush, be a bit of the grass.If you can’t be a muskie, then just be a bass-But the liveliest bass in the lake!We can’t all be captains, we’ve got to be crew.There’s something for all of us here.There’s big work to do and there’s lesser to doAnd the task we must do is the near.If you can’t be a highway, then just be a trail,If you can’t be the sun, be a star;It isn’t by the size that you win or you fail-Be the best of whatever you are!

- Douglas Malloch

About 80% of our locations are second-generation. In other words, the building used to be, say, a Wal-Mart that moved out to become a Super Wal-Mart, or a Kmart that closed. It seems that such a site becomes available almost every year in every city.

- David Green

Knowledge will not attract money, unless it is organized, and intelligently directed through practical plans of action…Knowledge is only potential power. It becomes power only when and if it is organized into definite plans of action, and directed to a definite end.

- Napoleon Hill

When you come in to court as a plaintiff or as a defendant, it is terribly important that you look up at the bench and feel that that person represents you and will understand you, that that person is reflective of our community and of our society.

- Michael Bloomberg

You will never change your life until you change something you do daily.

- John Maxwell

Instead of choosing to focus in the liability column, I chose to focus in the asset column.

- Robert Kiyosaki

Fortunately for India, it has got a growing economy. If it is doing the right things with taxation and focusing on the right areas for human development, it is going to have no problem, over a period of time, taking care of its own needs.

- Bill Gates

The librarian isn’t a clerk who happens to work in a library. A librarian is a data hound, a guide, a sherpa and a teacher. The librarian is the interface between reams of data and the untrained but motivated user.

- Seth Godin

Great companies have secrets: specific reasons for success that other people don’t see.

- Peter Thiel

Peter Drucker once observed that the drive for mergers and acquisitions comes less from sound reasoning and more from the fact that doing deals is a much more exciting way to spend your day than doing actual work.

- James C. Collins

I believe you have to be willing to be misunderstood if you’re going to innovate.

- Jeff Bezos

The seed of a bamboo tree is planted, fertilized and watered. Nothing happens for the first year. There´s no sign of growth. Not even a hint. The same thing happens – or doesn´t happen – the second year. And then the third year. The tree is carefully watered and fertilized each year, but nothing shows. No growth. No anything. For eight years it can continue. Eight years! Then – after the eight years of fertilizing and watering have passed, with nothing to show for it – the bamboo tree suddently sprouts and grows thirty feet in three months!

- Zig Ziglar

Know what your people are like, and make sure they do their jobs excellently.

- Ray Dalio

In war as in life, it is often necessary when some cherished scheme has failed, to take up the best alternative open, and if so, it is folly not to work for it with all your might.

- Winston Churchill

He who is without a newspaper is cut off from his species.

- P.T. Barnum

No one learns as much about a subject as one who is forced to teach it.

- Peter Drucker

The jet stream is a very strong force and pushing a balloon into it is like pushing up against a brick wall, but once we got into it, we found that, remarkably, the balloon went whatever speed the wind went.

- Richard Branson

My big advantage was to have my father accept me as first-generation.

- Mukesh Ambani

We decided that instead of avoiding our competitors, or waiting for them to come to us, we would meet them head-on. It was one of the smartest strategic decisions we ever made. In fact, if our story doesn’t prove anything else about the free market system, it erases any doubt that spirited competition is good for business – not just for customers, but the companies which have to compete with one another too. Our competitors have honed and sharpened us to an edge we wouldn’t have with out them. We wouldn’t be nearly as good as we are today without Kmart, and I think they would admit we’ve made them a better retailer. One reason Sears fell so far off the pace is that they wouldn’t admit for the longest time that Wal-Mart and Kmart were their real competition. They ignored both of us, and we both blew right by them.

- Sam Walton

Since most people have not been taught how to make mistakes and learn from them, they either avoid making mistakes altogether, which is a bigger mistake, or they make a mistake but fail to find the lesson from the mistakes.

- Robert Kiyosaki

Learning to be a CEO through classroom training would be like learning to be an NFL quarterback through classroom training.

- Ben Horowitz

Although I receive a small salary from Apple, I do virtually no real work at the company.

- Steve Wozniak

I’m sorry that we have to have a Washington presence. We thrived during our first 16 years without any of this. I never made a political visit to Washington and we had no people here. It wasn’t on our radar screen. We were just making great software.

- Bill Gates

I said a long time ago that Foursquare can make cities better. You have these augmented realities like Foursquare and Twitter and Facebook that provide these virtual nodes and instant feedback from anywhere, adding annotation around a physical places.

- Jack Dorsey

If the United States wants access to Chinese, Indian or Vietnamese markets, we must get access to theirs. U.S. protectionism is very subtle but it is very much there.

- Azim Premji

Every worthwhile accomplishment, big or little, has its stages of drudgery and triumph: a beginning, a struggle and a victory.

- Mahatma Gandhi

A brilliant author or businesswoman or senator or software engineer is brilliant only in tiny bursts. The rest of the time, they’re doing work that most any trained person could do.

- Seth Godin

Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.

- Yoda

Keep it simple. Tell the truth. People can smell the truth.

- Stephen Wynn

A market is never saturated with a good product, but it is very quickly saturated with a bad one.

- Henry Ford

When I feel particularly tired at the end of the day, or when irritability proves that my nerves are tired, I know beyond question that it has been an inefficient day both as to quantity and quality.

- Dale Carnegie

Unrestrained competition can drive people into actions that they would otherwise regret.

- George Soros

Employee loyalty begins with employer loyalty. Your employees should know that if they do the job they were hired to do with a reasonable amount of competence and efficiency, you will support them.

- Harvey Mackay

Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently.

- Henry Ford

We don’t get a chance to do that many things, and every one should be really excellent. Because this is our life. Life is brief, and then you die, you know? And we’ve all chosen to do this with our lives. So it better be damn good. It better be worth it.

- Steve Jobs

Post-9/11, we saw an immediate uptick in the amount of people in our stores, all over the country. People wanted that human connection. We are not going to fracture the Starbucks experience.

- Howard Schultz

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