Notable Quotables

Let’s never try to get even with our enemies, because if we do we will hurt ourselves far more than we hurt them. Let’s do as General Eisenhower does: let’s never waste a minute thinking about people we don’t like.

- Dale Carnegie

The final relationship that cannot be ignored is with disrupters: They are individuals who cause trouble for sport – inciting opposition to management for a variety of reasons, most of them petty. Usually these people have good performance – that’s their cover – and so they are endured or appeased. A company that manages people well takes disrupters head-on. First they give them very tough evaluations, naming their bad behaviour and demanding it change. Usually it won’t. Disrupters are a personality type. If that’s the case, get them out of the way of people trying to do their jobs. They’re poison.

- Jack Welch

This office is smaller than the last one I had. I’m not trying to impress people. I want to be close to them.

- Stephen Wynn

Once I did bad and that I heard ever. Twice I did good, but that I heard never.

- Dale Carnegie

We fully intend to capitalise on our strengths as this dynamic market continues to flourish.

- Cheng Yu-tung

The problem with New Year’s resolutions – and resolutions to ‘get in better shape’ in general, which are very amorphous – is that people try to adopt too many behavioral changes at once. It doesn’t work. I don’t care if you’re a world-class CEO – you’ll quit.

- Timothy Ferriss

When you start a company, it’s a singular focus. You have the wind at your back.

- Howard Schultz

Look, I’m a passionate entrepreneur. I’m like fire and brimstone sometimes. And so there are times when I’ll go—I’ll get too into the weeds and too into the debate, because I’m so passionate about it.

- Travis Kalanick

It’s different when you’re trying to turn something around, especially something that you built, at a time when so many constituents – the media, Wall Street, competitors, ex-employees – are all saying that Starbucks’s best days are behind it, and that Schultz is never going to be able to bring it back.

- Howard Schultz

What information consumes is rather obvious: it consumes the attention of its recipients. Hence, a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention and a need to allocate that attention efficiently among the overabundance of information sources that might consume it.

- Herbert Simon

In a vacuum of feedback, there is almost no chance that your company will perform optimally.

- Ben Horowitz

Sound managerial decisions are at the very root of their impending fall from industry leadership.

- Clayton M. Christensen

Google’s done a super good job on search. Apple’s done a great job on the iPod.

- Bill Gates

I’m not in competition with anybody but myself. My goal is to beat my last performance.

- Celine Dion

If people like you they’ll listen to you, but if they trust you they’ll do business with you.

- Zig Ziglar

[On the Swoosh] It was 1971 and Ford had spent $2 million getting a trademark. We didn’t have $2 million. So I went by the graphic arts department at Portland State

- Phil Knight

Tomorrow becomes never. No matter how small the task, take the first step now!

- Timothy Ferriss

That’s why I can tell you with confidence that you are coming into greater victories. Enlarge your vision. Take the limits off God. You have not seen your best days. God has victories in your future that will amaze you. He will show up and show out in unusual ways. You may be in a tough time right now, but remember this: The enemy always fights you the hardest when he knows God has something great in store for you.

- Joel Olsteen

Competition is an ideology—the ideology—that pervades our society and distorts our thinking.

- Peter Thiel

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

- Ray Dalio

If you have a strong informed opinion, don’t keep it to yourself. Try to help people and make the world a better place. If you strive to do anything remotely interesting, just expect a small percentage of the population to always find a way to take it personally. F*ck ’em. There are no statues erected to critics.

- Timothy Ferriss

This isn’t stealing this is standing on the shoulders of giants.

- David Novak

Abe Lincoln once remarked that most folks are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.

- Dale Carnegie

India has been and continues to be a strategic market for Cisco both in terms of business opportunities and as a base for outstanding engineering talent, … With the launch of our new campus in Bangalore today, Cisco will be well placed to continue building our presence in India as a critical part of our R&D efforts and as the domestic market for networking products and solutions continues to expand.

- John Chambers

People who do not succeed have one distinguishing trait in common. They know all the reasons for failure, and have what they believe to be air-tight alibis to explain their lack of achievement: 1) If I had the money… 2) If I could get the job… 3) If I had been given a chance… 4) If I were younger… 5) If I were older… 6) If I only had a better education… 7) If I could just save some money… 8) If I lived in a big city… 9) If I were not so fat… 10) If my talents were better known… 11) If I didn’t have a past… 12) If I had my own business… 13) If I had the courage…

- Napoleon Hill

The interview process takes twelve to fifteen hoursof your team’s time. This process is expensive for your team, so you should vet people in advance. A technique I use is to email the references and say, Rate this person one to ten. No one’s going to reply a five or a three by email; that means they hate the candidate. Call me is usually the response for a sub-seven rating. At the same time, nobody is going to reply with a ten. What you’re really looking for is a bunch of eights and nines. This is an exceptionally quick referencing system when you’re trying to triage a list.

- Reid Hoffman

swept over me. Guiltily I came to your bedside. There are the things I was thinking, son: I had been cross to you. I scolded you as you were dressing for school because you gave your face merely a dab with a towel. I took you to task for not cleaning your shoes. I called out angrily when you threw some of your things on the floor. At breakfast I found fault, too. You spilled things. You gulped down your food. You put your elbows on the table.

- Dale Carnegie

It’s hard to tell with these Internet startups if they’re really interested in building companies or if they’re just interested in the money. I can tell you, though: If they don’t really want to build a company, they won’t luck into it. That’s because it’s so hard that if you don’t have a passion, you’ll give up.

- Steve Jobs

Your customers are only satisfied because their expectations are so low and because no one else is doing better. Just having satisfied customers isn’t good enough anymore. If you really want a booming business, you have to create Raving Fans.

- Ken Blanchard and Sheldon Bowles

To invent, you need a good imagination and a pile of junk.

- Thomas Edison

I try to keep in touch with the details… I also look at the product daily. That doesn’t mean you interfere, but it’s important occasionally to show the ability to be involved. It shows you understand what’s happening.

- Rupert Murdoch

If you do not conquer self, you will be conquered by self.

- Napoleon Hill

If you’re using first-class land for biofuels, then you’re competing with the growing of food. And so you’re actually spiking food prices by moving energy production into agriculture.

- Bill Gates

Opportunity is walking through your life every day in the form of people you meet.

- Zig Ziglar

Being busy does not always mean real work. The object of all work is production or accomplishment and to either of these ends there must be forethought, system, planning, intelligent and honest purpose as well as perspiration. Seeming to do is not doing.

- Thomas Edison

It’s OK to have your eggs in one basket as long as you control what happens to that basket.

- Elon Musk

I have lots of sources of information about what’s going on at the company. I think I have a pretty good pulse on where we are and what people are thinking.

- Steve Ballmer

Game-playing is more fun when it’s virtual because you’re more successful. … in reality, only one person gets to be LeBron

- Larry Ellison

I feel like money makes you more of who you already are.

- Sara Blakely

The Internet offers opportunities that are more unique than ever before. With TV, I know I’m making 22 minutes; I know there’s a commercial in the middle. With the Internet, no one knows anything. No rules.

- Jerry Seinfeld

There is one rule for the industrialist and that is: Make the best quality of goods possible at the lowest cost possible, paying the highest wages possible.

- Henry Ford

The librarian is the interface between reams of data and the untrained but motivated user.

- Seth Godin

Look at what caused people to make a lot of money and you will see that usually it is in proportion to their production of what the society wanted.

- Ray Dalio

Henceforth, I will consider each day’s effort as but one blow of my blade against a mighty oak. The first blow may cause not a tremor in the wood, nor the second, nor the third. Each blow, of itself, may be trifling, and seem of no consequence. Yet from childish swipes the oak will eventually tumble. So it will be with my efforts of today. I will be likened to the raindrop, which washes away the mountain; the ant who devours a tiger; the star which brightens the earth; the slave who builds a pyramid. I will build my castle one brick at a time for I know that small attempts, repeated, will complete any undertaking. I will persist until I succeed.

- Og Mandino

Brands mature over time, like a marriage. The bond you feel with your spouse is different than when you first met each other. Excitement and discovery are replaced by comfort and depth.

- Gary Vaynerchuk

The quality of a person’s life is in direct proportion to their commitment to excellence, regardless of their chosen field of endeavor.

- Vince Lombardi

One of the key problems today is that politics is such a disgrace, good people don’t go into government.

- Donald Trump

So if you aspire to be a good conversationalist, be an attentive listener. To be interesting, be interested.

- Dale Carnegie

Everyone is in favor of free speech. Hardly a day passes without its being extolled, but some people’s idea of it is that they are free to say what they like, but if anyone else says anything back, that is an outrage.

- Winston Churchill

I updated my grilling app, iGrill, today and it now has Facebook integration that lets you see what other people are grilling right now around the world. Awesome.

- Mark Zuckerberg

IM is interesting because you look at your buddy list and, at a glance, see what your friends are listening to, what they’re working on, what they’re doing. The problem was that you were bound to the computer keyboard.

- Jack Dorsey

The big question is: When will the term structure of interest rates change? That’s the question to be worried about.

- Ray Dalio

The best customer service is if the customer doesn’t need to call you, doesn’t need to talk to you. It just works.

- Jeff Bezos

In the context of body redesign, there are two fundamental MEDs to keep in mind: To remove stored fat → do the least necessary to trigger a fat-loss cascade of specific hormones. To add muscle in small or large quantities → do the least necessary to trigger local (specific muscles) and systemic (hormonal2) growth mechanisms.

- Timothy Ferriss

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

Here’s how I work: It’s 2013, and most marketers are operating like it’s 2009. I’m always trying to market like it’s 2015, but not like it’s 2020. A lot of my contemporaries who understand where the world is going, go too far out, and aren’t practical. I have always prided myself on being visionary, with a heavy practicality.

- Gary Vaynerchuk

[On the Nike logo] I don’t love it, but it will grow on me.

- Phil Knight

I never perfected an invention that I did not think about in terms of the service it might give others… I find out what the world needs, then I proceed to invent….

- Thomas Edison

The Beatles created something that never trailed off. What a gift that was to their fans. If you’re into the Beatles, you loved them from beginning to end.

- Jerry Seinfeld

I think anything that requires real global breakthroughs requires a degree of intensity and sustained effort that cannot be done part time, so it’s something you have to do around the clock, and that doesn’t compute with our existing educational system.

- Peter Thiel

A manager is responsible for the application and performance of knowledge.

- Peter Drucker

In the beginning, I thought mobile search was not much different from Web search. It’s just a smaller screen, a slower speed; it’s all the bad things. When I thought about mobile Internet, it’s all the disadvantages.

- Robin Li

In business, equilibrium means stasis, and stasis means death.

- Peter Thiel

The problem in my life and other people’s lives is not the absence of knowing what to do but the absence of doing it.

- Peter Drucker

After assessing the prospects of the various business segments of Henderson Cyber, the company, Henderson Investment, Hong Kong and China Gas and Henderson Cyber jointly announced in August 2005, the proposed privatisation of Henderson Cyber by Henderson Investment and Hong Kong and China Gas…

- Lee Shau Kee

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

- Thomas Edison

You have to know what sparks the light in you so that you, in your own way, can illuminate the world.

- Oprah Winfrey

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

Man is so made that he can only find relaxation from one kind of labor by taking up another.

- Anatole France

Amazon made its first 10x improvement in a particularly visible way: they offered at least 10 times as many books as any other bookstore.

- Peter Thiel

I think failure is nothing more than life’s way of nudging you that you are off course. My attitude to failure is not attached to outcome, but in not trying. It is liberating. Most people attach failure to something not working out or how people perceive you. This way, it is about answering to yourself.

- Sara Blakely

You have to believe in what you do in order to get what you want.

- Larry Ellison

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

- Peter Drucker

People have come to the erroneous conclusion that if they’re not willing to start something separate, world-changing, and risky, they have no business starting anything. Somehow, we’ve fooled ourselves into believing that the project has to have a name, a building, and a stock ticker symbol to matter.

- Seth Godin

Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.

- Albert Einstein

The McDonald brothers were simply not on my wavelength at all. I was obsessed with the idea of making McDonald’s the biggest and the best. They were content with what they had, they didn’t want to be bothered with more risks and more demands.

- Ray Kroc

The evolving social and digital media platforms and highly innovative and relevant payment capabilities are causing seismic changes in consumer behavior and creating equally disruptive opportunities for business.

- Howard Schultz

We’ve all been guilty at one point or another in our careers of boasting of perfect hindsight. It’s a terrible sin. If you don’t make sure your questions and concerns are acted upon, it doesn’t count.

- Jack Welch

Don’t make excuses, don’t blame the past. The rest of your life can be the best of your life!

- Joel Olsteen

CEOs can talk and blab each day about culture, but the employees all know who the jerks are. They could name the jerks for you. It’s just cultural. People just don’t want to do it.

- Jack Welch

Most of my job and most of what I do is to mentor people. There are a lot of people I work with that I don’t have investments in.

- Ben Horowitz

As long as people are clear on what they need to do and what’s going on, you’re very likely to succeed. When nobody is clear, then you’re guaranteed to fail.

- Ben Horowitz

Underneath, you would surely see that the best care passionately about their people—about their growth and success. And you would see that they themselves are comfortable in their own skins. They’re real, filled with candor and integrity, optimism and humanity.

- Jack Welch

For good or for ill, air mastery is today the supreme expression of military power and fleets and armies, however vital and important, must accept a subordinate rank.

- Winston Churchill

Our main business is not to see what lies dimly at a distance, but to do what lies clearly at hand.

- Dale Carnegie

What this industry is about is back to the basics in the new Internet economy; and the basics are profitability, cash flow, productivity and market-share gains.

- John Chambers

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