Notable Quotables

Everything tends towards catastrophe and collapse. I am interested, geared up and happy. Is it not horrible to be built like that?

- Winston Churchill

Your workforce is your most valuable asset. The knowledge and skills they have represent the fuel that drives the engine of business – and you can leverage that knowledge.

- Harvey Mackay

God wants to use you in spite of your weaknesses. Of God chose to use perfect people only, He’d have no one to use.

- Joel Olsteen

The lesson of the Ford story is that managers and management are the specific need of the business enterprise, its specific organ, and its basic structure. We can say dogmatically that enterprise cannot do without managers. One cannot argue that management does the owner’s job by delegation. Management is needed not only because the job is too big for any one man to do himself, but because managing an enterprise is something essentially different from managing one’s own property.

- Peter Drucker

The resentment that criticism engenders can demoralize employees, family members and friends, and still not correct the situation that has been condemned.

- Dale Carnegie

Pure hell forces action, but anything less can be endured with enough clever rationalization.

- Timothy Ferriss

Measuring and establishing facts at every step of the process. Without facts, assumptions and misperceptions will defeat whatever reason and good judgment can be brought to effort

- Service Profit Chain

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

A valuable business must start by finding a niche and dominating a small market.

- Peter Thiel

Technology can be our best friend, and technology can also be the biggest party pooper of our lives. It interrupts our own story, interrupts our ability to have a thought or a daydream, to imagine something wonderful, because we’re too busy bridging the walk from the cafeteria back to the office on the cell phone.

- Steven Spielberg

Maybe you once were excited about that person God supernaturally brought into your life as a marriage partner, but now all the excitement has worn off. Don’t’ allow that sense of a miracle to slip away. Don’t get so familiar with each other that you take one another for granted.

- Joel Olsteen

The market … demands a signal from you that you’re serious, powerful, accepted, and safe.

- Seth Godin

On many long journeys have I gone. And waited, too, for others to return from journeys of their own. Some return; some are broken; some come back so different only their names remain.

- Yoda

I’m not an actor who appears on the stage and gives people advice on how to live or what to do and entertains them. It is not my specialty.

- Vagit Alekperov

A lot of advertising has gotten worse. I think it’s kind of lost its nerve, to be honest with you. I feel like the advertising of the ’60s, they were nervier. You know why? Because there was less at stake.

- Jerry Seinfeld

Whatever the trend in exchange rates or whatever the external factors, a manufacturing company is always faced with the mission of transforming itself into a company that can produce higher value-added to absorb the increase in the cost of living in the country it’s operating in.

- Fujio Mitarai

I first thought maybe I’d do a banjo presentation record, where I’d play a couple of songs and get a bunch of other players to do the rest. Then I realized I had enough of my own songs to do an album of them.

- Steve Martin

People suck at following advice. Even the most effective people in the world are terrible at it. There are two reasons: 1. Most people have an insufficient reason for action. The pain isn’t painful enough. It’s a nice-to-have, not a must-have. There has been no Harajuku Moment. 2. There are no reminders. No consistent tracking = no awareness = no behavioral change. Consistent tracking, even if you have no knowledge of fat-loss or exercise, will often beat advice from world-class trainers.

- Timothy Ferriss

We have secured the rigs necessary to complete our program, a program that focuses on more development activity and less risk. The current forecasted activity level calls for 391 wells, with increased activity in each region including expanded drilling on each of the acquisition plays purchased in 2005.

- Dan Dinges

Juggling is about throwing, not catching That’s why it’s so difficult to learn how to juggle. We’re conditioned to make the catch, to hurdle whatever is in our way to save the day, to—no matter what—not drop the ball. If you spend your time and energy and focus on catching, it’s inevitable that your throws will suffer. You’ll get plenty of positive feedback for the catches you make, but you’ll always be behind, because the throws you manage to make will be ever less useful. Paradoxically, if you get better at throwing, the catches take care of themselves. The only way to get better at throwing, though, is to throw.

- Seth Godin

Each close you use should be an educational process by which you are able to raise the value in the prospect’s mind.

- Zig Ziglar

Talent is God-given, be humble. Fame is man-given, be thankful. Conceit is self-given, be careful.

- Harvey Mackay

Improvement is to invent something completely new.

- Peter Thiel

The conquest was not achieved without one frightful convulsion of revolt. “In this year A.D. 61”, according to Tacitus, “a severe disaster was sustained in Britain.” Suetonius, the new governor, had engaged himself deeply in the West. He transferred the operational base of the Roman army to Chester. Because it was the centre of Druid resistance he prepared to attack “the populous island of Mona [Anglesey], which had become a refuge for fugitives, and he built a fleet of flat-bottomed vessels suitable for those shallow and shifting seas. The infantry crossed in the boats, the cavalry went over by fords: where the water was too deep the men swam alongside of their horses. The enemy lined the shore, a dense host of armed men, interspersed with women clad in black like the Furies, with their hair hanging down and holding torches in their hands. Round this were Druids.

- Winston Churchill

One of the greatest discoveries a man makes, one of his great surprises, is to find he can do what he was afraid he couldn’t do.

- Henry Ford

People development should be a daily event, integrated into every aspect of your regular goings-on.

- Jack Welch

Effective leadership is not about making speeches or being liked, leadership is defined by results not attributes.

- Peter Drucker

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

In the end, Mockler and the board were proved right, stunningly so. If a shareflipper had accepted the 44 percent price premium offered by Ronald Perelman on October 31, 1986, and then invested the full amount in the general market for ten years, through the end of 1996, he would have come out three times worse off than a shareholder who had stayed with Mockler and Gillette.20 Indeed, the company, its customers, and the shareholders would have been ill served had Mockler capitulated to the raiders, pocketed his millions, and retired to a life of leisure.

- James C. Collins

You can take from every experience what it has to offer you. And you cannot be defeated if you just keep taking one breath followed by another.

- Oprah Winfrey

I do probably 60 concerts a year in the States. And I go out to clubs in the week. I’m doing new stuff all the time.

- Jerry Seinfeld

You don’t build a business –you build people– and then people build the business.

- Zig Ziglar

Some regard private enterprise as if it were a predatory tiger to be shot. Others look upon it as a cow that they can milk. Only a handful see it for what it really is–the strong horse that pulls the whole cart.

- Winston Churchill

TV is a great big megaphone,” and when you can only afford to spend dozens of dollars acquiring a new customer, you need the biggest megaphone you can find.

- Peter Thiel

There is no accountability today… no willingness to focus on big ideas.

- Michael Bloomberg

The Internet is the easiest thing to get into. To be an Internet retailer, you just get that URL.

- Bill Gates

I may be drunk, Miss, but in the morning I will be sober and you will still be ugly.

- Winston Churchill

I will study and prepare myself, and someday the opportunity will come.

- Abraham Lincoln

You want supply to always be full, and you use price to basically either bring more supply on or get more supply off, or get more demand in the system or get some demand out. It’s classic Econ 101.

- Travis Kalanick

The tool that’s most associated with the recent progress against malaria is the long-lasting bed net. Bed nets are a fantastic innovation. But we can do even better. We can invent new ways to control the mosquitoes that carry the malaria parasite.

- Bill Gates

The Secret Make up your mind that no matter what comes your way, no matter how difficult, no matter how unfair, you will do more than simply survive. You will thrive in spite of it.

- Joel Olsteen

I read a lot of obscure books and it is nice to open a book.

- Bill Gates

We can complain because rose bushes have thorns, or rejoice because thorn bushes have roses.

- Abraham Lincoln

Education is what remains after one has forgotten what one has learned in school.

- Albert Einstein

As I get, I give. Giving as you get is critical. It has everything to do with being happy for yourself, and making others happy is the cause of making yourself happy, and it’s the cycle of giving and getting.

- Russell Simmons

So how does the machine work that you have a financial crisis? How does deleveraging work – what is the nature of that machine? And what is human nature, and how do you raise a community of people to run a business?

- Ray Dalio

There is always plenty of capital for those who can create practical plans for using it.

- Napoleon Hill

The time will never be right to start. Today is your day. Study successful people, do what they do, and you too will be successful.

- Clay Clark

Abundance and scarcity In a society where value is created by the manufacture of goods or the allocation of limited resources, it’s not a surprise that organizations seek scarcity. We hesitate to share, because if I give you this, then I don’t have it any more. We erect barriers and create rules to make it difficult for some people to have access to these limited resources. While we don’t set out to become miserly, it’s an economic instinct, because what’s yours is no long mine. Even though we give lip service to sharing when kids show up for kindergarten classes, most of school is organized around the same ideas. We rank students, we cut players from the roster, we grade on a curve. Success, we teach, is scarce. Our new economy, though, is based on abundance, the abundance that comes from ideas and access. If I benefit when everyone knows my idea, then the more people I give the idea to, the better we all do. If I benefit when I earn a reputation leading, connecting and creating positive change, then I’ll benefit if I can offer these insights to anyone who can benefit from them. With an abundance mindset, we intentionally create goods that can be shared. It’s not based on our traditional factory-based economy, but it works now (in fact, it’s just about all that works)… engaging with the mesh, building communities that benefit from sharing resources instead of destroying them is a strategy that scales. With an abundance mindset, we create ideas and services that do better when people share.

- Seth Godin

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

If something is important enough, even if the odds are against you, you should still do it.

- Elon Musk

We used to think that everything started in the lab. Now we realize that everything spins off the consumer.

- Phil Knight

I actually thought that it would be a little confusing during the same period of your life to be in one meeting when you’re trying to make money, and then go to another meeting where you’re giving it away. I mean is it gonna erode your ability, you know, to make money? Are you gonna somehow get confused about what you’re trying to do?

- Bill Gates

I will not lose, for even in defeat, there’s a valuable lesson learned so it evens up for me.

- Jay-Z

I’m a little unusual: I’m a six-person-or-less extrovert.

- Reid Hoffman

I believe that success can be measured in the number of uncomfortable conversations you’re willing to have.

- Timothy Ferriss

There are abundant business opportunities to bring about the recovery of the local economy.

- Lee Shau Kee

Look after the customers and the business will take care of itself.

- Ray Kroc

For the employee, the goal is to have full access to necessary information and as much independent decision-making ability as possible. For the entrepreneur, the goal is to grant as much information and independent decision-making ability to employees or contractors as possible.

- Timothy Ferriss

Continually get the word out about how you’re handling the situation.

- David Novak

If you can get just one distribution channel to work, you have a great business. If you try for several but don’t nail one, you’re finished.

- Peter Thiel

God has already done everything He’s going to do. The ball is now in your court. If you want success, if you want wisdom, if you want to be prosperous and healthy, you’re going to have to do more than meditate and believe; you must boldly declare words of faith and victory over yourself and your family.

- Joel Olsteen

I think George Will is somebody that said recently that the Republicans will not lose, as a Republican, that the Republicans will not win the election. I think it was a terrible statement.

- Donald Trump

30 MAJOR CAUSES OF FAILURE: – Napoleon Hill (on leadership and management)

- Napoleon Hill

About half my work in education is U.S. political reform around school districts and charter schools, and creating more room for entrepreneurial organizations to develop. And about half on technology, which I look at as a global platform.

- Reed Hastings

One of the most powerful forms of communication that affects a business is one over which you have little control (after the conversation has already begun): The communication from your existing customers to your potential customers. At CASHFLOW Technologies, Inc. we attribute a large part of our success to our customers telling other people about us. The power of this word-of-mouth advertising is immeasurable.

- Robert Kiyosaki

We expect all our businesses to have a positive impact on our top and bottom lines. Profitability is very important to us or we wouldn’t be in this business.

- Jeff Bezos

It is clothes. It is parts. Therefore, you combine the parts differently to create your own unique expression.

- Tadashi Yanai

London, a city where creativity and innovation have always flourished, provides a significant home for Starbucks and a significant gateway into Europe.

- Howard Schultz

IQ is a commodity, data is a commodity. I’m far more interested in watching people interact at a restaurant with their smartphone. We can all read ‘Tech Crunch,’ ‘Ad Age.’ I would rather be living in the trenches. I would rather be going to Whole Foods in Columbus Circle to watch people shop with their smartphones.

- Gary Vaynerchuk

The lizard brain is hungry, scared, angry, and horny.The lizard brain only wants to eat and be safe.The lizard brain will fight (to the death) if it has to, but would rather run away. It likes a vendetta and has no trouble getting angry.The lizard brain cares what everyone else thinks, because status in the tribe is essential to its survival.A squirrel runs around looking for nuts, hiding from foxes, listening for predators, and watching for other squirrels. The squirrel does this because that’s all it can do. All the squirrel has is a lizard brain.The only correct answer to ‘Why did the chicken cross the road?’ is ‘Because it’s lizard brain told it to.’ Wild animals are wild because the only brain they posses is a lizard brain.The lizard brain is not merely a concept. It’s real, and it’s living on the top of your spine, fighting for your survival. But, of course, survival and success are not the same thing.The lizard brain is the reason you’re afraid, the reason you don’t do all the art you can, the reason you don’t ship when you can. The lizard brain is the source of the resistance.

- Seth Godin

Unless you have perfectly conventional beliefs, it’s rarely a good idea to tell everybody everything that you know. So who do you tell? Whoever you need to, and no more. In practice, there’s always a golden mean between telling nobody and telling everybody—and that’s a company. The best entrepreneurs know this: every great business is built around a secret that’s hidden from the outside.

- Peter Thiel

We want Google to be the third half of your brain.

- Sergey Brin

There’s no magic line between an application and an operating system that some bureaucrat in Washington should draw.

- Bill Gates

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

I still get real nervous when I go in front of more than two people.

- Phil Knight

Today, we’ve begun to make the extraordinary historic films of the National Archives available to the world for the first time online. Students and researchers whether in San Francisco or Bangladesh can watch remarkable video such as World War II newsreels and the story of Apollo 11 — the historic first landing on the Moon.

- Sergey Brin

While technology is still important, the consumer has to lead innovation.

- Phil Knight

Outstanding leaders go out of their way to boost the self-esteem of their personnel. If people believe in themselves, it’s amazing what they can accomplish.

- Sam Walton

Decided only to be undecided, resolved to be irresolute, adamant for drift, solid for fluidity, all-powerful to be impotent.

- Winston Churchill

Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower.

- Steve Jobs

It might interest you to know that the 1828 Noah Webster Dictionary identifies the optimist in complimentary terms, but says nothing about the pessimist. The word ‘pessimist’ was not in our vocabulary at that time. It’s a modern ‘invention’ which I believe we should ‘dis-invent.’

- Zig Ziglar

The one thing that offends me the most is when I walk by a bank and see ads trying to convince people to take out second mortgages on their home so they can go on vacation. That’s approaching evil.

- Jeff Bezos

No matter how many times people say it – ‘Oh, I’m just writing this for myself’ ‘Oh, I’m just doing this for myself’ – nobody’s doing it for themselves! You’re doing it for an audience. So whether I’m performing or writing a book or playing music, it’s definitely to be put out there and to be received in some way, definitely.

- Steve Martin

The cost of being wrong is less than the cost of doing nothing.

- Seth Godin

I’ve come to see institutional decline like a staged disease: harder to detect but easier to cure in the early stages, easier to detect but harder to cure in the later stages. An institution can look strong on the outside but already be sick on the inside,”

- James C. Collins

The new information technology… Internet and e-mail… have practically eliminated the physical costs of communications.

- Peter Drucker

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