Americans who travel abroad for the first time are often shocked to discover that, despite all the progress that has been made in the last 30 years, many foreign people still speak in foreign languages.
- Dave Barry
Notable Quotables
A word of encouragement from a teacher to a child can change a life. A word of encouragement from a spouse can save a marriage. A word of encouragement from a leader can inspire a person to reach her potential.
- John C. Maxwell
Be ready for problems–you’ll have them every day. Keep open to new ideas–that’s where innovation begins.
- Donald Trump
I would like to die on Mars. Just not on impact.
- Elon Musk
Gain alignment every step of the way. Again, no involvement means no committment. Skip a layer and you will ultimately pay the price.
- David Novak
Many of our best opportunities were created out of necessity. The things that we were forced to learn and do, because we started out underfinanced and undercapitalized in these remote small communities, contributed mightily to the way we’ve grown as a company. Had we been capitalized, or had we been the offshoot of a large corporation the way I wanted to be, we might not ever have tried…
- Sam Walton
It’s ironic that no matter where I go, I meet people from Brooklyn. I’m proud of that heritage. It’s where I’m from, who I am.
- Howard Schultz
One day President Roosevelt told me that he was asking publicly for suggestions about what the war should be called. I said at once ‘The Unnecessary War’.
- Winston Churchill
Do not assume anything Obi-Wan. Clear your mind must be if you are to discover the real villains behind this plot.
- Yoda
Encouragement and hope are the two most powerful qualities any person can provide to others.
- Zig Ziglar
If you investigate companies that have failed, you will find that many employees knew about the fatal issues long before those issues killed the company. If the employees knew about the deadly problems, why didn’t they say something? Too often the answer is that the company culture discouraged the spread of bad news, so the knowledge lay dormant until it was too late to act. A healthy company culture encourages people to share bad news. A company that discusses its problems freely and openly can quickly solve them. A company that covers up its problems frustrates everyone involved. The resulting action item for CEOs: Build a culture that rewards—not punishes—people for getting problems into the open where they can be solved.
- Ben Horowitz
We are not even close to finishing the basic dream of what the PC can be.
- Bill Gates
Dig your well before you’re thirsty.
- Seth Godin
Most people think the future of the world will be defined by globalization, but the truth is that technology matters more.
- Peter Thiel
At 25, I was in the audience of my first professional speaker, Bob Bales. His presentation got my attention. I had never seen anyone having so much fun ‘at work’ and getting paid for it!
- Zig Ziglar
I’ve always been interested in science – one of my favourite books is James Watson’s ‘Molecular Biology of the Gene.
- Bill Gates
Remember, a Jedi’s strength flows from the Force. But beware. Anger, fear, aggression. The dark side are they. Once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny. Luke… Luke… do not… do not underestimate the powers of the Emperor or suffer your father’s fate you will. Luke, when gone am I… the last of the Jedi will you be. Luke, the Force runs strong in your family. Pass on what you have learned, Luke. There is… another… Sky… walker.
- Yoda
A squirrel dying in front of your house may be more relevant to your interests right now than people dying in Africa.
- Mark Zuckerberg
The CIA will only hire people with impeccable credentials to be a translator. ‘Impeccable credentials’ means you’ve never lived outside the United States.
- Michael Bloomberg
Economic recovery in the United States has been taking place at a slow pace at a time of uncertainty in the Middle East. However, Mainland China was able to show steady sustained growth. Hong Kong, being right at the southern gateway of Mainland China, is able to benefit from its growth.
- Lee Shau Kee
A leader has the vision and conviction that a dream can be achieved. He inspires the power and energy to get it done.
- Ralph Lauren
For me, my father was, and still is, a symbol of qualified persons in the Ministry of Foreign Trade under Soviet conditions.
- Vladimir Potanin
Leadership is influence, nothing more, nothing less.
- John Maxwell
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
Most companies that go through layoffs are never the same. They don’t recover because trust is broken. And if you’re not honest at the point where you’re breaking trust anyway, you will never recover.
- Ben Horowitz
A great leader’s courage to fulfill his vision comes from passion, not position.
- John C. Maxwell
We know that if you just were to take the drugs that you were supposed to take for diabetes or hypertension, just take it, as opposed to not take it, we could save $7,000, $3,000 per patient per year.
- Patrick Soon-Shiong
How has being realistic” or responsible” kept you from the life you want? How has doing what you should” resulted in subpar experiences or regret for not having done something else?
- Timothy Ferriss
The people currently in charge have forgotten the first principle of an open society, namely that we may be wrong and that there has to be free discussion. That it’s possible to be opposed to the policies without being unpatriotic.
- George Soros
Measure, coach and reward the right things. Measure the vitally important. Reward the doers.
- David Novak
In 1984, the Sino-British talks on the future of Hong Kong triggered a confidence crisis. Daunted by the uncertainties over the colony’s future, most developers shied away from construction projects that took considerable time to complete. In that year the Group recognized what the community needed and actively responded to the government’s call for a landmark convention and exhibition venue of international standard to be built in Hong Kong. The Group turned out to be the only developer willing to take financial and operating risks on a long-term basis, thereby laying a solid foundation for Hong Kong to host international conventions and exhibitions. Coupled with its excellent services, Hong Kong soon secured world-wide recognition as an ideal spot of conferences and exhibitions.
- Cheng Yu-tung
Profit and cash flow are not the same thing.
- Robert Kiyosaki
When an employee asks why the company does things a certain way, and you can explain the logical reason, then the employee knows what she’s doing is valid.
- Harvey Mackay
Culture is one of the most precious things a company has…So you must work harder on it than anything else.
- Herb Kelleher
Being too humble can cost you. Not talking about your accomplishments can hit you in the pocketbook. It’s those who visibly take credit for accomplishments who are rewarded with promotions and gem assignments, writes Klaus. As our economy has resulted in less job stability, self-promotion has become more important. Even if you aren’t an entrepreneur, says Klaus, you need to think like one and start talking up your most valuable product: you.
- Peggy Klaus
The thorough man of business knows that only by years of patient, unremitting attention to affairs can he earn his reward, which is the result, not of chance, but of well-devised means for the attainment to ends.
- Andrew Carnegie
Did you know that nearly one in three children live apart from their biological dads? Those kids are two to three times more likely to grow up in poverty, to suffer in school, and to have health and behavioral problems.
- Tony Dungy
Great leaders are almost always great simplifiers, who can cut through argument, debate and doubt to offer a solution everybody can understand.
- Colin Powell
Over the course of your career, your Detroit will surely call you at one point or another. If you can go, that’s great. If you can’t, make peace with the reasons why.
- Jack Welch
To me, business isn’t about wearing suits or pleasing stockholders. It’s about being true to yourself, your ideas, and focusing on the essentials.
- Richard Branson
Pay attention to those employees who respectfully ask why. They are demonstrating an interest in their jobs and exhibiting a curiosity that could eventually translate into leadership ability.
- Harvey Mackay
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
I am so disturbed by kids who spend all day playing videogames.
- Larry Ellison
Whether you’re 9 or 90, stop trying to fix the things you’re bad at, and focus on the things you’re good at.
- Gary Vaynerchuk
I wanted to be a sailor, I wanted to sail the world, to navigate it.
- Jack Dorsey
In the most dysfunctional organizations, signaling that work is being done becomes a better strategy for career advancement than actually doing work (if this describes your company, you should quit now). At the other extreme, a lone genius might create a classic work of art or literature, but he could never create an entire industry. Startups operate on the principle that you need to work with other people to get stuff done, but you also need to stay small enough so that you actually can.
- Peter Thiel
Problem-solving becomes a very important part of our makeup as we grow into maturity or move up the corporate ladder.
- Zig Ziglar
There is a difference between what technology enables and what historical business practices enable.
- Bill Gates
I am looking to buy companies that are run by painters. Most great artists have a hard time letting go of their paintings. That’s because the joy is not in the finished work, the joys is in the painting. They are constantly adding a dab of color here, a little more texture there. I’m looking for the boss who is always tweaking his company, constantly trying to make it better. No matter how successful he may have already been, what he still sees is a master-piece-in-progress.
- Warren Buffett
The perfect target market for a startup is a small group of particular people concentrated together and served by few or no competitors. Any big market is a bad choice, and a big market already served by competing companies is even worse. This is why it’s always a red flag when entrepreneurs talk about getting 1% of a $100 billion market. In practice, a large market will either lack a good starting point or it will be open to competition, so it’s hard to ever reach that 1%. And even if you do succeed in gaining a small foothold, you’ll have to be satisfied with keeping the lights on: cutthroat competition means your profits will be zero.
- Peter Thiel
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
If they really don’t want to buy the flats, I’ll take their deposits.
- Lee Shau Kee
Let your motto then always be ‘Excelsior’, for by living up to it there is no such word as fail.
- P.T. Barnum
The most stable companies have strong leaders at every level of the organization. The only way to develop such widespread leadership is to make developing leaders a part of your culture. That is a strong part of Coca-Cola’s legacy.
- John Maxwell
The most terrifying phrase in the English language is ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help’
- Ronald Reagan
One of the things I say to people is: Imagine if we succeeded.
- Ben Horowitz
This is one of the innovator’s dilemmas: Blindly following the maxim that good managers should keep close to their customers can sometimes be a fatal mistake.
- Clayton M. Christensen
When we began Starbucks, what I wanted to try to do was to create a set of values, guiding principles, and culture.
- Howard Schultz
Only knowledge that is used sticks in your mind.
- Dale Carnegie
The way to achieve happiness is to try for perfection that is impossible to achieve, and spend the rest of your life trying to achieve it.
- Winston Churchill
I look to a day when people will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.
- Martin Luther King Jr.
The minute there’s a map, there is no art. Paint by numbers is not art. Paint by numbers is a mechanical activity.
- Seth Godin
[On becoming in 1969 a full-time employee of his five year old company] There were nervous moments. Every time I brought a fresh letter of credit home and it said, ‘Mr. And Mrs. Knight guarantee liabilities to the tune of $300,000,’ Penny’d say, ‘We don’t have $300,000.’ I’d say, ‘I don’t care. Just sign the thing.’
- Phil Knight
You embrace the top 20, deal with the middle 70, and you face into the bottom 10, and you do what’s right for them and for you.
- Jack Welch
Churchill was in the lavatory in the House of Commons and his secretary knocked on the door and said: Excuse me Prime Minister, but the Lord Privy Seal wishes to speak to you. After a pause Churchill replied: Tell His Lordship: I’m sealed on The Privy and can only deal with one shit at a time.
- Winston Churchill
Thus far then have we travelled along the terrible road we chose at the call of duty. The mood of Britain is wisely and rightly averse from every form of shallow or premature exultation. This is no time for boasts or glowing prophecies, but there is this: A year ago our position looked forlorn, and well nigh desperate to all eyes but our own. To-day we may say aloud before an awe-struck world: ‘We are still masters of our fate. We are still captain of our souls.
- Winston Churchill
What I mean is that none of my talents had a – what’s that great word – rubric. A singer, an actor, a dancer – there was nothing I could really say I was. The writing came much later. And, actually, thank God, because if I had said I’m a singer, I would really have just had one thing to do.
- Steve Martin
If you give people tools, [and they use] their natural abilities and their curiosity, they will develop things in ways that will surprise you very much beyond what you might have expected.
- Bill Gates
Everything about my journey to get Spanx off the ground entailed me having to be a salesperson – from going to the hosiery mills to get a prototype made to calling Saks Fifth Avenue and Neiman Marcus. I had to position myself to get five minutes in the door with buyers.
- Sara Blakely
If you don’t believe in yourself, no one else will.
- Donald Trump
You cannot underestimate people’s ability to spot a soulless, bureaucratic tactic a million miles away. It’s a big reason why so many companies that have dipped a toe in social media waters have failed miserably.
- Gary Vaynerchuk
Nothing remains permanent in the world, change is just the eternal fact.
- Cheng Yu-tung
Lost a planet Master Obi-Wan has. How embarrassing …
- Yoda
If we’re going to have any chance of sending stuff to other star systems, we need to be laser-focused on becoming a multi-planet civilisation.
- Elon Musk
Job security lasts only as long as the customer is satisfied. Nobody owes anybody else a living.
- Sam Walton
By working only when you are most effective, life is both more productive and more enjoyable. It’s the perfect example of having your cake and eating it, too.
- Timothy Ferriss
When plans appear into your mind, they will probably flash into your mind through the sixth sense, in the form of an inspiration. This inspiration may be considered a direct telegram, or message from infinite intelligence. Treat it with respect, and act upon it as soon as you receive it. Failure to do this is fatal to your succeess.
- Napoleon Hill
Good business leaders create a vision, articulate the vision, passionately own the vision, and relentlessly drive it to completion.
- Jack Welch
You know the funny thing, I don’t get along with rich people. I get along with the middle class and the poor people better than I get along with the rich people.
- Donald Trump
Art is the unique work of a human being, work that touches another.
- Seth Godin
My God, these guys don’t even know what the return-on-investment will be on this thing.
- James C. Collins
Investing in Chicago property is just Wanda’s first move into the U.S. real estate market.
- Wang Jianlin
It is a mistake to try to look too far ahead. The chain of destiny can only be grasped one link at a time.
- Winston Churchill
The quality of your life is determined by the quality of your relationships. The quality of your business is no different.
- Harvey Mackay
Social entrepreneurs aim to combine the best of both worlds and “do well by doing good.” Usually they end up doing neither.
- Peter Thiel
The startup uniform encapsulates a simple but essential principle: everyone at your company should be different in the same way—a tribe of like-minded people fiercely devoted to the company’s mission.
- Peter Thiel
MONOPOLY. Tesla started with a tiny submarket that it could dominate: the market for high-end electric sports cars. Since the first Roadster rolled off the production line in 2008, Tesla’s sold only about 3,000 of them, but at $109,000 apiece that’s not trivial. Starting small allowed Tesla to undertake the necessary R&D to build the slightly less expensive Model S, and now Tesla owns the luxury electric sedan market, too. They sold more than 20,000 sedans in 2013 and now Tesla is in prime position to expand to broader markets in the future.
- Peter Thiel
The fear of loss is greater than the desire for gain.
- Zig Ziglar
Always go to the expert.
- Jack Nadel
If you don’t have a competitive advantage, don’t compete.
- Jack Welch
Humans, particularly those who build things, only listen to leading indicators of good news.
- Ben Horowitz
Lack of Capital.
- Napoleon Hill
The most practical, beautiful, workable philosophy in the world won’t work if you won’t.
- Zig Ziglar
Being able to quit things that don’t work is integral to being a winner.
- Timothy Ferriss
A road that leads to nowhere is hard to build.
- David Novak
The successful leader must plan his work, and work his plan. A leader who moves by guesswork, without practical, definite plans, is comparable to a ship without a rudder. Sooner or later he will land on the rocks.
- Napoleon Hill
If you can see the invisible, God will do the impossible.
- Joel Olsteen
If you’re going to buy a real book, a paper book, there better be a good reason. Perhaps scarcity is one of those reasons.
- Seth Godin
I’m never fully satisfied with any Microsoft product.
- Bill Gates
You have to be constantly reinventing yourself and investing in the future.
- Reid Hoffman
