Notable Quotables

As Indian companies strive to be globally competitive, they have realized the importance of investing in information technology and networking to adapt quickly to rapidly shifting market transitions.

- John Chambers

The secret of your success is found in your daily routine

- John Maxwell

Customers won’t care about any particular technology unless it solves a particular problem in a superior way. And if you can’t monopolize a unique solution for a small market, you’ll be stuck with vicious competition.

- Peter Thiel

The most fundamental reason that even businesspeople underestimate the importance of sales is the systematic effort to hide it at every level of every field in a world secretly driven by it.

- Peter Thiel

These are all commodity-focused issues. The old conceit of a retailer was that if you offered the right products at a fair price in a convenient location, you’d do fine if you watched your expenses. Today, the issues are totally different.

- Seth Godin

I feel there’s an existential angst among young people. I didn’t have that. They see enormous mountains, where I only saw one little hill to climb.

- Sergey Brin

How much of what you know about business is shaped by mistaken reactions to past mistakes?

- Peter Thiel

Mr. Ford’s most rapid strides became noticable from the time he became a personal friend of Thomas A. Edison, and you will begin to understand what the influence of one mind upon another can accomplish.

- Napoleon Hill

If Vancouver did not succeed as Starbucks from ’87 on, our entire international business, which is now thousands of stores and a significant amount of growth and profit, may not have existed.

- Howard Schultz

The factory of the future will have only two employees, a man and a dog. The man will be there to feed the dog. The dog will be there to keep the man from touching the equipment.

- Warren G. Bennis

Failure will never overtake me if my determination to succeed is strong enough.

- Og Mandino

I am upset with the effect that both of these issues have had on the public,

- Michael Gerber

You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years of trying to get other people interested in you.

- Dale Carnegie

For 20-plus years I looked at thousands of storyboard for corporate and product ads, and I never allowed one advertisement on the air that I didn’t like.

- Jack Welch

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

You don’t ever want to sell, you want customers to sell.

- Clay Clark

If Jesus were here today, he wouldn’t be riding around on a donkey. He’d be taking a plane, he’d be using the media.

- Joel Olsteen

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

- Harvey Mackay

Mike suggested that we might want to turn our stockholders’ meetings into an event, and we went along with him.

- Sam Walton

On balance, I am a supporter of the minimum wage going up. We’ve got to be very careful what we wish for because some employers – and there could be a lot of them – will be scared away from hiring new people or creating incremental hours for part-time people as a result of that wage going up.

- Howard Schultz

While there were a number of highlights, it was probably the U.S. that topped the highlight list with strong order growth of approximately 20 percent year over year. This is better order growth than we’ve experienced in the last six quarters in the U.S..

- John Chambers

When you do things the right way, you have nothing to lose because you have nothing to fear.

- Zig Ziglar

The entrepreneur always searches for change, responds to it, and exploits it as an opportunity.

- Peter Drucker

Leadership is not about titles, positions or flowcharts. It is about one life influencing another.

- John C. Maxwell

You will have everything in life you want, if you will just help other people get what they want.

- Zig Ziglar

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

Embrace what you don’t know, especially in the beginning because what you don’t know can become your greatest asset. It ensures that you will be doing things absolutely differently from everybody else.

- Sara Blakely

Of all the small nations of this earth, perhaps only the ancient Greeks surpass the Scots in their contribution to mankind.

- Winston Churchill

Don’t criticize them, they are just what we would be under similar circumstances.

- Dale Carnegie

In the States, there’s ESPN3, and each country has different options, and other than premiere league football, there tends to be very little global content. And movie and TV rights are pretty broad content.

- Reed Hastings

We are in the process of creating a group that has a broader business mix, better quality income streams and a stronger balance sheet. In doing so, our risk profile is spread out and we can better explore the growth potential across our five core businesses – property, hotels, infrastructure, services and telecommunications.

- Cheng Yu-tung

Our belief was that if we kept putting great products in front of customers, they would continue to open their wallets

- Steve Jobs

Vision without execution is just hallucination.

- Henry Ford

To me, this is about preserving history and making it available to everyone.

- Sergey Brin

Nobody believes in completely unadulterated capitalism.

- Bill Gates

With the addition of these volumes, our Gulf Coast region is off to a good start for 2006 in its effort to grow its production. Combined, all regions are now showing growth in both production and reserves which is very attractive, especially considering the organic strategy on which we have predominately focused.

- Dan Dinges

Repetition is the mother of learning, the father of action, which makes it the architect of accomplishment.

- Zig Ziglar

Being productive gives people a sense of satisfaction and fulfillment that loafing never can.

- Zig Ziglar

If GE’s strategy of investment in China is wrong, it represents a loss of a billion dollars, perhaps a couple of billion dollars. If it is right, it is the future of this company for the next century.

- Jack Welch

To be a superstar, you must do something exceptional. Not just survive the Dip, but use the Dip as an opportunity to create something so extraordinary that people can’t help but talk about it, recommend it, and, yes, choose it.

- Seth Godin

Innovation is the specific instrument of entrepreneurship…the act that endows resources with a new capacity to create wealth.

- Peter Drucker

MARCH 1 Envision Your Dreams I counsel you to buy from me . . . salve to put on your eyes, so you can see. REVELATION 3:18 DO YOU LOOK UPON your life with eyes of faith? Think of it this way: when we close our eyes, we should see more than we do when we have our eyes open. See your whole family serving God. See yourself rising to new levels of effectiveness. See yourself stronger, healthier, and living a more abundant life. See God using you in.

- Joel Olsteen

If you can see the invisible, God will do the impossible.

- Joel Olsteen

the expression one wears on one’s face is far more important than the clothes one wears on one’s back

- Dale Carnegie

The other buzzword that epitomizes a bias toward substitution is “big data.” Today’s companies have an insatiable appetite for data, mistakenly believing that more data always creates more value. But big data is usually dumb data. Computers can find patterns that elude humans, but they don’t know how to compare patterns from different sources or how to interpret complex behaviors. Actionable insights can only come from a human analyst (or the kind of generalized artificial intelligence that exists only in science fiction).

- Peter Thiel

But there seems to be little correlation between a man’s effectiveness and his intelligence, his imagination or his knowledge.

- Peter Drucker

When I hear a man say that his childhood was the happiest time of his life, I think (puff) my friend, you have had a pretty poor life.

- Winston Churchill

I just think people have a lot of fiction. But, you know, I mean, 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

Q1 was a solid quarter for Cisco, with balanced execution across most of our geographies, market segments and product categories, … We are especially pleased with the improving business momentum in the U.S. and Asia Pacific, the strength of our product families and the accelerated growth of the commercial marketplace, which has become our fastest growing customer segment.

- John Chambers

It is alarming and also nauseating to see Mr. Gandhi, an Inner Temple lawyer, now become a seditious fakir of a type well known in the East, striding half-naked up the steps of the Viceregal Palace, while he is still organizing and conducting a defiant campaign of civil disobedience, to parley on equal terms with the representative of the King-Emperor.

- Winston Churchill

MAY 13 Guard Against Pessimism For the Kingdom of God is not a matter of what we eat or drink, but of living a life of goodness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. ROMANS 14:17 NLT I HEARD A STORY ABOUT TWO FARMERS. When the rain fell, one farmer said, Thank You, Lord, for watering our crops.” But the other farmer said, Yeah, but if the rain keeps up, it’s going to rot the roots.” When the sun came out, the positive farmer said, Thank You, Lord, that our crops are getting the vitamins and minerals they need. We’ll have a wonderful harvest this year.” But the negative farmer said, Yeah, but if it keeps up, it’s going to scorch those plants. We’re never going to make a living.” Don’t you know people who are always focused on the negative? Be sure to guard against their negative attitudes infecting your thinking! Stay focused on the positive things in life.

- Joel Olsteen

I like all kinds of music. I listen to Abigail Washburn, the Punch Brothers, and Marc Johnson, the great clawhammer player. I also listen a lot to Sirius Radio, there’s a lot of bluegrass there.

- Steve Martin

We intend to focus all our attentions in the coming years on three core growth forces. These are: 1. The massive expansion of our considerable software expertise. After all, in our eyes, software is the “new wheel” of mankind and our industry. Processes with regard to mobility are becoming increasingly complex and more strongly interconnected. These processes need to be controlled and managed reliably, requiring ever greater amounts of software. In the future, practically nothing will move without software. 2. In the fields of technology relevant for us, we want to be regarded as a pioneering and leading technology partner – especially by our customers. 3. Finally, and above all, with our pioneering corporate culture we want to be the preferred employer for people who want to fully develop and expand their skills and abilities with us and make rapid progress.” “Continental has had a good start into 2015, thus confirming our expectations for the entire year.

- Elmar Degenhart

The revolutionary breakthrough will come with rockets that are fully and rapidly reusable. We will never conquer Mars unless we do that. It’ll be too expensive. The American colonies would never have been pioneered if the ships that crossed the ocean hadn’t been reusable.

- Elon Musk

Every company must deal decisively with people who don’t perform satisfactorily….Great people, not great strategies are what made it all work (GE).

- Jack Welch

Darwinism may be a fine theory in other contexts, but in startups, intelligent design works best.

- Peter Thiel

I tell people that we must have the courage to share what we feel, but no one follows me.

- Tadashi Yanai

I was a great student at a great school, Wharton School of Finance.

- Donald Trump

Confidence is a habit that can be developed by acting as if you already had the confidence you desire to have.

- Brian Tracy

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

- David Novak

Really, the only thing that makes sense is to strive for greater collective enlightenment.

- Elon Musk

One thing I’ve always loved about the culture at Microsoft is there is nobody who is tougher on us, in terms of what we need to learn and do better, than the people in the company itself. You can walk down these halls, and they’ll tell you, ‘We need to do usability better, push this or that frontier.

- Bill Gates

I emphasize to C.E.O.s, you have to have a story in the minds of the employees. It’s hard to memorize objectives, but it’s easy to remember a story.

- Ben Horowitz

Those who can win a war well can rarely make a good peace and those who could make a good peace would never have won the war.

- Winston Churchill

A lot of people feel very good about Mitt Romney and I think he’s going to do a great job.

- Donald Trump

Social media requires that business leaders start thinking like small-town shop owners. This means taking the long view and avoiding short-term benchmarks to gauge progress. It means allowing the personality, heart and soul of the people who run all levels of the business to show.

- Gary Vaynerchuk

There are always three speeches, for every one you actually gave. The one you practiced, the one you gave, and the one you wish you gave.

- Dale Carnegie

My dad encouraged us to fail. Growing up, he would ask us what we failed at that week. If we didn’t have something, he would be disappointed. It changed my mindset at an early age that failure is not the outcome, failure is not trying. Don’t be afraid to fail.

- Sara Blakely

Writing a book is an adventure. To begin with it is a toy and an amusement. Then it becomes a mistress, then it becomes a master, then it becomes a tyrant. The last phase is that just as you are about to be reconciled to your servitude, you kill the monster and fling him to the public.

- Winston Churchill

I have never heard anything about the resolutions of the apostles, but a good deal about their acts.

- Og Mandino

I knew that if I failed I wouldn’t regret that, but I knew the one thing I might regret is not trying.

- Jeff Bezos

It is the people who control the Government, not the Government the people.

- Winston Churchill

At Uniqlo, we’re thinking ahead. We’re thinking about how to create new, innovative products… and sell that to everyone.

- Tadashi Yanai

Who’s your Jedi master? WHO’S your Jedi Master?

- Yoda

When a person says No” and really means it, he or she is doing far more than saying a word of two letters. The entire organism—glandular, nervous, muscular—gathers itself together into a condition of rejection.

- Dale Carnegie

If we don’t allow ourselves to make mistakes, we will never invest in things that are radical.

- Jeff Clavier

I mostly eat healthy. I just do. I’m not a vegan for health reasons – although obviously I’m 20 pounds lighter than when I started. I stayed 20 pounds lighter. I feel better. My friends say I look better. All that’s true. But I’m a vegan for compassionate reasons

- Russell Simmons

At the same time, we invested more than €4 billion, in property, plant and equipment, software, and research and development. The capital expenditure ratio is again expected to be around 6 percent in the current fiscal year.

- Elmar Degenhart

God can take what was meant for my harm and turn it around and use it to my advantage.

- Joel Olsteen

Great companies have high cultures of accountability, it comes with this culture of criticism I was talking about before, and I think our culture is strong on that.

- Steve Ballmer

When you have no one to answer to, vendetta as investment strategy is as legitimate as anything.

- Carl Icahn

I believe the government of the United States should re-examine its policies in the Middle East and adopt a more balanced stance toward the Palestinian cause.

- Prince Al Waleed Bin Talal Alsaud

I actually credit Twitter with fine-tuning some joke-writing skills. I still feel like I’m working at it.

- Steve Martin

An organization’s capabilities reside in two places. The first is in its processes—the methods by which people have learned to transform inputs of labor, energy, materials, information, cash, and technology into outputs of higher value. The second is in the organization’s values, which are the criteria that managers and employees in the organization use when making prioritization decisions. People are quite flexible, in that they can be trained to succeed at quite different things. An employee of IBM, for example, can quite readily change the way he or she works, in order to work successfully in a small start-up company. But processes and values are not flexible. A process that is effective at managing the design of a minicomputer, for example, would be ineffective at managing the design of a desktop personal computer. Similarly, values that cause employees to prioritize projects to develop high-margin products, cannot simultaneously accord priority to low-margin products. The very processes and values that constitute an organization’s capabilities in one context, define its disabilities in another context.

- Clayton M. Christensen

My own view is that every company requires a long-term view.

- Jeff Bezos

Every time you resist temptation you are winning for your children.

- Joel Olsteen

Always seek out the seed of triumph in every adversity.

- Og Mandino

Our task today is to find singular ways to create the new things that will make the future not just different, but better—to go from 0 to 1. The essential first step is to think for yourself. Only by seeing our world anew, as fresh and strange as it was to the ancients who saw it first, can we both re-create it and preserve it for the future.

- Peter Thiel

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